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Absolute Duo:Volume 4 Chapter 1

2021-03-31T21:50:56Z

SNovah: /* Chapter 1 『Everyone Has Things They Don't Want To Say』 */

==Chapter 1 『Everyone Has Things They Don't Want To Say』==

===Part 1===
The first Saturday after returning from the seaside school has arrived.

Seasonally, the world would normally be in a summer mood but, that’s something unrelated to Kouryou academy.

With a minimum of one general subject lesson added in, Kouryou has taken in consideration the time for ability training—refining the student's battle arts—and thus the summer break here takes the Bon festival as the main holiday, meaning there's not even one full week off.

With that said, even though it’s now the second half of July, they should be heading back to school but-----

“Julie, let’s get going.”

While dozing off in her seat, the silver girl opened her eyes when I called out to her.

“Ja-………..”

“Are you alright? It’s been hot every night recently, and it looks like you haven’t been sleeping much……”

“Nai. I am okay, please don’t mind me.”

Even though Julie said that, the hot days will continue from now on, and there was a forecast that today was going to be ''very'' hot, with a temperature crossing over 35° (C).

(Uuun, it would be nice if there’s something I can do for her………..)

I probably can’t do anything about the heat, but I pondered if there is something I can do when she tries to sleep, and while I was doing so-----

“Okay then, let’s go Tooru.”

“Aah, okay.”

Instead, I was the one getting urged and we left the room with Julie following behind me.

Though it should be unneeded to say this, strong sunshine was shining down when we got outside the dormitory.

“It looks like it’s going to be hot as predicted. It’s probably going to be tough but, let’s work hard, Julie.”

“Ja--♪”

After the girl with {{Furigana|Silver hair|Silver Blonde}} nodded, the ribbon’s bell echoed and made a cooling sound.

On the familiar street to the school from the dorm----

There were students heading to the school in the surroundings and a lot of them wore dark expressions.

It wasn't because they were upset over not having a summer vacation.

They were wondering if they '''''should continue attending Kouryou academy or not.'''''

The day they returned to the main school, the chairman delivered a speech during an emergency assembly. That speech contributed, in no small way, to that worry.

That speech was delivered under the pretext that the attacks on the academy were in revenge, backed by a criminal organization which had fought against the Dawn organization's public order teams in the past. Their assault on the academy itself was the first time it had been attacked directly, but there remained a possibility that it could happen again.

With that warning given, she left the decision on remaining in or leaving Kouryou Academy up to to the students.

As a result, many of those students were left pondering on their futures.

The attack had, after all, not only caused of property damage from gunfire and explosions, but a great many were injured-------and the death count was in the double digits.

That reality was the main reason why many students were worried.

It’s only normal.

They were just normal middle school students, living peaceful lives until they enrolled in Kouryou. For them, a situation that determined if a person lived or died would only be seen through the filter of the Internet and television, or maybe in fictional categories like games and manga.

In the explanation we received before finalizing enrollment, everyone was warned that there would be danger during training and lessons, as well as the missions that would be issued when they were recruited into the public order maintenance teams upon graduation.

However, they only truly understood what that meant when they saw someone close to them lose their life.

No, they were forced to understand.

They were forced to understand that the path they are taking will not be one found in the normal world they knew, but instead will take them into a realm of abnormality.

That's why this incident has become such a crossroads for so many.

They can either return to the normal world and treasure their lives; or they can gather up their determination and will to advance into a world consumed by abnormalities.

Conclusion-----

So far, twelve first-year students that experienced the attack have left the academy. Most likely, more students will probably choose to quit. From what I can see, half of the students remaining are still pondering if they should drop out or continue.

Maybe the senior students have already participated in somewhat dangerous missions during training, as there were less of those that chose to quit. But even so, many of them seemed to be pondering the question too.

Me----and the silver girl walking beside me, have chosen to continue on this abnormal road.

As long as both of us follow the path of the <<Avenger>>, our decision has already been made.

“......It turned out pretty, huh, Tooru?”

“Aah, yeah, it has.”

We were staring at the scars left on the school in front of us from the attack.

Even though the enemy—who goes by the name <<{{Furigana|God’s Destruction Team|Libel}}>>—attacked the school to seize the <<Lucifer>> research facility located beneath it, the most violent part of the battle took place at the school entrance.

The pillars and walls were damaged or destroyed, still sticky with dark red bloodstains from the enemy... or the defenders.

Offerings of flowers had been left beside the pillars. There were some students that stopped to offer prayers, while there were also students that quickly walked by so they wouldn't have to see that.

“………I guess we should pray too.”

I joined my hands while facing the flowering offerings and Julie made a silent prayer.

Within the crying sound of cicadas, we quietly passed the time.

When I entered the classroom, only about 70% of the students were present, excluding the ones that had quit, even though class was about to start.

The people pondering on their course of action probably felt like skipping school.

I looked around at the classmates in the room, and leaked a small sigh when I could not see a close female friend----Miyabi in the class.

Her <<Duo>>--Tachibana was attending class and she was talking with a girl.

Nevertheless, it’s not like Miyabi was not in school because she was pondering if she wanted to quit or continue Kouryou.

She might still be in shock from almost being harmed by the battle suit man, but she still attended class and seriously participated in it and training without rest.

But other than those specific times, she would leave her seat and the classroom.

I didn’t even need to think to find a reason why she took those actions; it was probably the effect of ''that'' incident...

'''''“I love you”'''''

Her whispered feelings reached me, because the waves stopped.

At that moment, she expressed the feelings in her heart, confessing plainly to her affection towards me.

But, I could not reply to her.

That's because I didn't know how to reply to her. I thought of myself as an <<Avenger>>, yet I was happy to receive Miyabi's confession...

Ever since that day, the gears of the normal days I had experienced between the abnormal days at Kouryou Academy, have fallen out of place.

The last time I talked to Miyabi was right after we left the isolated island.

'''''“Tha-thank you for saving me yesterday, Tooru-kun………….and……….sorry………you encountered danger because of me, I am really sorry…………”'''''

Ever since, Miyabi would only apologetically greet me, while avoiding any conversation.

Maybe she wanted to avoid others noticing her clear change of attitude, because she would still appear during mealtimes with everyone else----but no-one noticed that there was no interaction between me and Miaybi.

I can’t talk to her even if I wanted to.

This frustrating situation has been continuing ever since the seaside school.

(I have to do something about this………)

I have no idea if this relationship can ever return to the way it was, but I will continue struggling to make it so.

That’s because I want Miyabi to smile.

Even if that smile was not going to be directed at me.

Soon, Miyabi quickly entered the classroom when the main bell began to ring.

Just like I expected, it looks like I won't get any time to take her out of the class and speak with her.

(I guess I'll try to speak with her during the break...)

The moment I thought that—

“Guess whooooo~~?”

My view suddenly got blocked----and a sweet scent floated across me at the same time.

Someone was hugging me from behind while covering my eyes.

“………Lilith, right?”

Without panicking or creating a scene, I took her hands off my eyes and looked towards the girl with dazzling {{Furigana|blonde hair|Yellow Topaz}}.

---However, I was far from calm in my heart.

That’s because her two soft voluptuous hills were being ''smooshed'' against my back.

“Fufu, as expected of Tooru, huh? It’s definitely because we love each other on a normal basis~”

“If I eliminate all the people that ''wouldn't'' do this, Lilith would be the one one who ''would''.”

I shrug my shoulders in response to the gold girl, who winked at me before showing a smile.

“Me being the only one would mean that I am special in a way right? Fufuu~”

The girl who carried the title of <<Exception>>, Lilith, went ahead and placed herself in my special spot-----

“Uuh!?”

My view was blocked again.

Once again, someone hugged me from behind and covered my eyes.

“Who am I, Tooru?”

“…………Julie.”

“As expected, Tooru, my <<Duo>>.”

“Haha, you’re welcome…….”

Even though I replied with a wry smile, there was no way I would mistake Julie’s voice.

---Besides, the sensation on my back was reinforced my conviction that it's her.

Leaving that aside, the girls who covered my eyes were now glaring at each other.

“………..you want to say something, right?”

“He immediately knew it was me when I covered his eyes, so you aren’t the only special one.”

“Hee, now you've done it...”

Lilith's mouth angled in an interested manner.

Without changing her expression, Julie looked straight back at her.

It was a glowing sun and a magical moon.

Two girls with opposite impressions were as opposed as always.

Julie turned on the gold girl who wants to make me into her <<Duo>>----although, for someone who claims to be unconcerned, but it was rare for her to actually retort to Julie's complaints. Perhaps because her being a "special one" was denied, she couldn't hold back...

(Ya-re Ya-re, these two are the same…….)

I made a small sigh and was about to stop them-----

“Okay okay♪ Good morning everyone☆ HR is going to start so sit down♥”

Contrary to the school’s gloomy atmosphere, a voice that was so cheerful that the owner ''had'' to be in the wrong place, echoed throughout the room.

Having released her real power to take on the <<{{Furigana|God’s Destruction Team|Libel}}>>, our homeroom teacher---Tsukimi was now valued in the class (especially her students) as someone they could count on after they witnessed her mowing down enemies.

[Good morning White Usa-sensei,] [You’re tension is high today too, White Usa-sensei!] [Well it’s White Usa-sensei!]

Replies and prattling could be heard in the classroom in response to Tsukimi's greeting.

The thing different from last time was that she was being called “White Usa<ref group ="4a">"Usa" generally means "rabbit", but in this context, "bunny" is arguably more accurate, given Tsukimi's... fashion choices.</ref>."

The reason for that was-----

“OooRah! Hurry up and sit down you brats!!”

[It’s Black Usa-sensei mode!] [This is bad, it’s Black Usa-sensei; this is bad!] [Black Usa-sensei, scold me more……]

Having had her identity revealed already, she didn't hesitate to reveal her real-self anymore in response to the student's teasing.

“The gold and silver girls fighting over a guy there. HR is going to start so, hurry up and end the Shuraba<ref group="4a">A quick search indicates that this word is used to mean "scene of bloodshed", "carnage", etc; basically, Tsukimi is implying that the contest over Tooru is about to turn violent, and homeroom isn't the time for that</ref> love triangle with the couple and mistress.”

“It’s not a Shuraba or anything!”

“Ja---”

“I agree with that, but I am curious as to why you looked at me when you said 'mistress'!”

“Iyaaan, the Ojou-sama’s senses sure are sharp, huh♪”

“Seriously, I always tell you that I am the legal wife!”

“Nai, I refuse.”

“Why would you be the one doing the refusing?!”

The sights of the two girls with silver and gold hair collided again.

I let out a small sigh, and stood in the middle.

“Come on, let’s end it here. HR is going to start.”

“……….Maa, it can’t be helped if Tooru says so. Okay then, see you later, Tooru~”

Lilith winked at me before returning back to her seat.

“Okay then, now, as I said HR is starting, so first it's announcement time☆ There is going to be joint training with the second year students today, okay♪ Okay, next! People that reached <<III>> will have to undergo special training soon☆ Okay, next! The people I call now----”

Turning back to her White Usa-sensei mode, Tsukimi was in her usual high spirits, and I could sometime hear giggles.

During those announcements, I snuck a peak behind me.

Just within my vision, Miyabi wore a depressed expression.

When break time finally came, I chased and called after Miyabi, who had stood up from her seat and immediately exited to the corridor.

“Miyabi, can I have a bit of your time?”

“So-sorry. I am in a hurry……..”

“Ah……..So-sorry.”

She most likely didn't have anything she actually had to hurry for. Judging by her recent state, I could guess that she was just making an excuse to avoid having a conversation with me.

[[File:Absolute Duo Volume 4 Non-Colour 1.jpg|thumb]]

But even so, I backed down since she told me that she was in a hurry.

When Miyabi quickly turned a corner down the hall and disappeared from sight, I let out a small sigh and felt my shoulders droop. Just as I did that----a dignified voice called out to me from behind.

“Kokonoe, can I have a little of your time?’

When I turned around, I saw a familiar face---my close classmate, Tachibana.

However, she was currently using crutches and it looked painful.

“Aah, what is it?”

“It’s about Miyabi. She looks tired recently so, I am thinking of bring her out for a change of scenery after school. So, err, you……….”

Even though she hesitated to finish her thought, her intentions were clear.

Tachibana was saying that I should not talk to Miyabi now.

Tachibana probably felt that something happened to me and Miyabi during the seaside school.

But even so, I feel happy for Tachibana's thoughtfulness for thinking of Miyabi's heart first, even though that should be something obvious.

“I get it; I’ll leave it to you…..but, be careful.”

“Umu. It's okay, we aren’t going somewhere deserted. But, from what I heard, it seems the enemy’s target is the chairman, <<Lucifer>>, and also Lilith. So it’s probably safe to say that we aren’t being targeted.”

“That might be true, but... Well, go have fun. Just remember not to strain your legs.”

“Fufu, you worry too much. Nonetheless, I’ll listen to your warning, and will be careful not to force myself.”

Tachibana’s heels were diagnosed to recover fully in around a month's time.

Since the <<Exceed>>’s recovery ability totally exceeds a normal person’s, it seems she will be able to take off the cast by next week.

“……..also, thanks Tachibana”

“It’s not something to thank me for. It’s for my precious <<Duo>> too.”

And after she said that and made a soft smile, Tachibana went back into the classroom and I followed her.

But----

At this time, we had no way to know what would happen.

The fact that there was a malevolence that would drag in everyone around its target without any hesitation...

Or the fact that Miyabi encountered a devil when she went out...

After lunch, we headed to the medical building to have a check-up on the wounds I received from the fight with <<K>>.

The recovery progress was going well and it seems Julie and I will be fully healed by around the middle of next week.

We were told that it’s okay to undertake some light exercise and we quickly headed to the training room after the check-up.

“Even if it's just a little, I'm happy to get permission to exercise.”

“Ja--. I have not moved my body at all recently.”

“Incidentally, we’ve been only studying nowadays………”

Taking into consideration that there were many students wounded during the attack, battle and stamina training was converted to conventional classroom work: they largely revolved around general knowledge-based subjects, as well as special techniques for missions.

Thanks to that, once classes ended over the past few days, I felt as though I might have smoke puffing out my ears as my frustration continued to pent up. That’s why I am happy that I got permission to exercise and my legs naturally sped me towards the training room.

When we reached it, there were already quite a number of students inside using the room for their personal training.

Inside, I saw familiar faces at the sparring area.

The giant Tatsu, over 180cm tall, and a small boy—Tora—were sparring.

Strangers that didn’t know their situation would probably think that Tatsu was at an advantage but, actually, since Tora’s <<Level>> was higher, he was handicapped with extra weights.

“Tora, Tatsu!”

I called out to them from afar.

“Tooru, and Julie huh. Can you two start moving your bodies already?”

“If we keep it light.”

“Fumu. Then, let’s spar since it’s been quite a while? All this musclehead ever does is swing his fist with power.”

Tora splendidly ignored Tatsu’s opinion: “A man won’t use stupid tricks.”

“Uuuun, I guess I’ll pass. Sparing with you won’t end up as light exercise.”

Thinking of our personalities, I can see us lighting up in a blaze once we start.

“Fuun. Well I have no choice then. It won’t even be something to brag about if I beat an injured opponent. The results would be the same even if you were fully healed though.”

“Bullshit.”

After I laughed back at Tora, I stood in front of the mirror.

“Shadow training?”<ref group="4a">Best guess that this is what the writer/TL meant; basically the same thing as "shadow boxing", it's intended to let a person check their own form.</ref>

“Aah. There’s something I want to confirm. Julie, try making some strikes?”

“Ja----”

Julie picked up training swords and stood up in front of a target that looks like a man located beside the mirror.

Julie’s self-training centered around sparring and striking, and it seems she wasn't going to change that today.

“You aren’t at full form, so don’t force yourself.”

“……………”

“Julie?”

The silver girl did not reply for some reason and frowned her eyebrows instead.

“That’s the line I wanted to tell Tooru. Tooru, you always force yourself.”

“Uguh………..bu-but I only force myself in situations where I have to do so………”

“………That might be true but, you can’t stop me by saying it can’t be helped.”

The side of her eyebrows dropped and her {{Furigana|red eyes|Ruby eyes}} looked at me.

I could guess her emotions when I saw the uneasiness in her shaking eyes.

(I see, she’s still seeing father in me…….)

She might be worried that I'll end up like her father someday.

That’s why; I made a smile to make her feel some relief before patting her head.

“Hey, Julie. You remember the promise I said about protecting you?”

“Ja---”

“I made that promise, so I won't die. If I die, I won’t be able to protect Julie right?”

“Tooru…………”

“However, I will do my best to not be reckless. I’d feel bad for making you worry too much.”

“Ja--♪ it’s a promise.”

Even though my wry smile dropped with my feelings, Julie made one in exchange.

“……..Go back to your room.”

“Hnn? Did you say something, Tora?”

When I looked at Tora who mumbled something, he was looking at me with disgusted eyes for some reason.

“I am just asking you if you’re going to train or not. As far as I can see, your mouth is the only part moving so far.”

“Haha, I’m going to start now. Okay then, let’s start, Julie.”

I took a stance facing towards the mirror while Julie looked back at the target.

I lightly swung my fist towards my image in the mirror.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Pann*! *Papann*!! The training sword moved from the left and right, and the target made a loud sound.

(She’s as fast as I thought……)

While continuing my shadow boxing, that thought would cross my mind when I sometimes saw the silver girl’s movements.

Julie made repeated slashes with blinding speed.

However, she wasn’t reckless and I could see her holding back her strength.

After thinking I didn’t need to be worried anymore, I decided to concentrate on my shadow.

With half of my strength, I swung my fist, switched to the body movements Tachibana taught me and performed a kick.

(…………..My body still hurts when I turn it. Next----)

After I confirmed that, my mind turned to something that I was curious about during the fight with <<K>>, I switched to a left posture.

''Hrungnir'': unlike ''Mjolnir'' which is a one-hit kill move, it was a high-speed punch meant for diversion.

“Haah!!”

I stopped my fist after a few shots because of the pain on my chest.

But, that was enough for me to notice.

(It’s true that my fist was lowered. But, it’s amazing that he could notice that in such a short time, what’s more during battle. That <<K>>…………)

It was humiliating to have my weakness pinpointed by the enemy, but it resulted in gaining something.

Leaving aside the chances that we might meet <<K>> again later or not, I won’t be able to beat him if I don’t fix this habit.

“Tooru. What’s that move?”

Maybe he took a rest from his sparring; '''''Tora saw Hrungnir''''' and asked me about it.

I told him about my mastering this technique, that this technique got broken by <<K>> who found its weakness in the battle, and the name given to this technique-----

“''Hrung-''………Since it’s Norse mythology, was Julie the one that named it?”

A weird question came over.

“Aah. I thought of naming this 'bullet punch' but, it resulted in that.”

“………………..”

“What’s wrong, why are you so quiet?”

“No reason………you have to thank Julie.”

“Thank Julie? For what?”

Without understanding his meaning, I looked at Julie with a questioning face.

“---------?”

It seems the silver girl heard her own name and asked, [Did you call me?], tilting her small head.

“It's just a little thing, but I think it was refreshing for her.”

Evening-----as usual, Tachibana talked to me with a voice only audible to me while I was picking at the buffet for my menu.

Although we did not say who "her" was, it’s obviously Miyabi.

“I see, that’s great. Also-----Thanks.”

“Fufuu. I told you this already during the day but, you don’t have to thank me. As a friend and her <<Duo>>, I was concerned about her.”

“So---where is she?”

From what I can see around me, it seems Miyabi wasn’t in the cafeteria.

“She said she wanted to run a bit, so she went outside. She said she wanted to make up for the the times she did not run for the past few days.”

Ever since <<{{Furigana|God’s Destruction Team|Libel}}>> attacked, Miyabi stopped her daily runs even though she attended lessons and training.

That’s why, I felt relieved when I heard that she was going to run again.

(It’s about that confession huh………)

I think of how to talk to her when I see her again, once my feelings become certain; while thinking about that, I reached the table.

After that, everyone had their dinner like usual but-----

“Hey, Tooru. Over summer break, want to go to the UK?”

“Huh?”

Lilith has been a fixed member of our dinner table ever since <<Survive>>, and it’s only natural to be shocked at the sudden change of topic.

It’s only natural since she invited me to go overseas with no warning at all.

“That’s sudden…….”

“Rather than suddenly reporting our marriage, reporting about our relationship first would make things smooth later on I think, you know?””

“………..We aren’t going out.”

“It's not a bad idea to take this chance and start dating, you know?”

“Rejected.”

Sitting on my left side, Julie swung her head and pulled me away from Lilith, who was sitting at my right side.

“Oh my, Tooru’s the one to decide that.”

“Before even the topic of going out or not going out, he has to go back to his hometown during summer break, so it’s impossible to go to the UK.”

“I see, how sad. I think I’ll give up this time.”

“Haha, this time huh…….”

While making a wry smile at Lilith’s reply, I thought about my hometown which was vacant now when I said those words.

There’s no family waiting for me.

(But even so, Otoha’s going to be lonely if I don’t show up now and then……….)

And, while I was a little sad,

[One, two……..] [[[Congratulations on your birthday-♪]]]

Celebrative voices could be heard from one corner of the cafeteria.

Noisy, cheerful and happy voices echoed in the cafeteria.

“Seriously, how noisy.”

“I think it’s nice to have a cheerful atmosphere. Thinking about recent events, I think this is a must.”

I smiled at a frowning Tora and told him such.

“………Fuun. That’s true.”

Tora snorted roughly and *Dooka* leaned against the back of his chair while folding his arms.

(Birthday huh……..)

My birthday was coming next week.

My heart felt dejected when I thought about it.

That’s because, the day before my birthday----was ''that summer day.''.

“Tooru. I have something to talk about”

Tora called out to me when we went out of the cafeteria after dinner.

His expression had an air that he wouldn't take no for an answer and-----

“…….Julie, can you go back first?”

“Ja---”

I made Julie go back to the room.

“Where should we talk?”

“Outside.”

(……..Going all the way outside means that, it’s a talk that he does not want anyone else to hear.)

While looking at his small back walking in front, I started to think about the topics Tora would talk about.

After he exited the front door, the heat from the afternoon was still there and it felt a little hot.

The surroundings were naturally dark but, thanks to the light coming from the dorm, we did not have a hard time finding our way and we walked over the grass.

“I guess around here is okay…….so, what do you want to talk about?”

I folded my arms and asked Tora who was walking closer to a nearby tree----

“…………”

There was no reply.

It’s not like he didn't hear my voice. Furthermore, the atmosphere he was giving off was as if it was something hard to say.

Judging by Tora’s straightforward personality, I could grasp the contents of his topic as something serious.

The silence continued for a while and------Tora finally spoke.

“You still can’t mend your relationship with Hotaka?”

“Buuuu!? Wha-whawhahwahwa, h-how do you, no, you noticed……!?”

I did not tell anyone that my relationship with Miyabi had been derailed.

Of course, that goes for Julie too.

I thought the only one who noticed this was Miyabi’s <<Duo>> and roommate Tachibana, but------

“Fuun, there’s no way I won’t notice. In the first place, judging by your attitude towards her until now, there’s no way I wouldn't guess that something happened during seaside school.”

Just as expected from him.

Given the recent state of affairs, I never would have thought that he would notice this.

Which means, I think this might be unlikely but, things might have turned complicated because of some reason……….

“I heard this from Tachibana during the afternoon but, Hotaka is going back to her home during summer break. Even if it's a short break, if you don't meet her for a full week, it'll probably become a lot harder to mend things. So that's why you need to hurry up and do something about it before summer break starts.”

“A-aah………Sorry, to make you worry about this……”

Whether it's on this matter or during the attack, Tora has been helping out a lot.

“It’s not like I am worried about you, it just feels annoying……….and that isn’t the only thing I want to talk about.”

“Eh, there’s something else?”

I thought the problem with Miyabi was what he wanted to talk about so I tilted my head.

“It’s about going home. Not Hotaka's, yours.”

“Mine?”

Tora nodded and continued on with his original business.

“You told that woman during dinner time, right? That you will be going back home?”

“I plan on doing so, what about it?”

“…………..Can I go with you?”

“Aah, let’s go back together. We are going to be together for half the trip anyway.”

“No.”

It was a quiet and yet strong tone.

When I thought Tora was different from usual, his face turned unusually serious and he looked a little stiff.

“I am asking if '''''I can go to your house''''', Tooru.”

My heart skipped a beat.

Tora has been to my house many times in the past.

But, it was when Otoha was still alive.

During a dojo exchange that occurs only a few times per year, we became friends since we were the same age and not long after, Tora started coming over to the dojo to learn and would often come over to my house.

However----The last time was over two years ago.

Tora does not know about it.

He does not know that the house no longer has anyone living in it anymore.

“I-I plan to stay for one night only so, Tora head back to your----”

He doesn’t need to know.

I reject the idea of a visit so that Tora will only have memories of the warm Kokonoe home of the past.

“No, I am going. Let me come with. '''''Let me offer flowers''''' to---to Otoha too.”

“-----!?”

I was so shocked from those unexpected words that I gasped.

That’s because ever since we reunited during the enrollment ceremony I did everything I could to avoid leading him to that conclusion.

“You……knew……….”

After a while, I managed to squeeze my voice out and Tora silently nodded.

“……….I was contacted by the dojo.”

“I see……..”

I missed something simple.

Because he was with us for a long time, it was only natural for him to be told.

“'''''It seems the dojo encountered a fire disaster because of someone smoking'''''. I knew this and keep quiet about it, sorry. This may be too late, but this is... just sad. And she took care of me before, so—”

“………I get it. Since you know about this, I am counting on you to follow-through. Otoha will be happy.”

Whenever Tora and I sparred, Otoha would be the one who treated our wounds.

I could clearly remember her giving it her all to assist us and I would never forget about it.

I would never lose the memories of me, Tora, Otoha, and—'''''him'''''... all four of us playing together.

“Sorry. Even though you know, this was something I should tell you…….”

“Fuun, don’t worry about it. Everyone has things they don’t want to say……….okay, our talk ends here. Let’s head back to the dorm.”

Tora started walking in front and I followed behind.

Even though he has a foul mouth, I am grateful for him for being concerned about his friend.

However, Tora does not know.

Two years ago, the disaster that occurred in the dojo was not a fire but rather, it was a tragedy that occurred because ''''he'''' swung his deadly blade.

The only ones that knew of this were myself, him and '''''another person'''''-----

That person was the one that saved me from that burning dojo.

But, that’s good.

Tora might be foul mouthed but he’s a good person, and if he finds out the truth about that day-------

If he found out that Otoha didn’t die from that fire, but was killed, he would fly into a rage and become a captive to vengeance, just like me so……..

That’s why, Tora doesn't have to know.

I am the only one who needs to take revenge against him.

===Part 2===
“Are you going out to run now? It’s already evening.”

“U-un. But I have been skipping these past few days so, I want to regain the lost time as much as possible so………”

“…………… I see, work hard then. However, gradually work your way back without rushing. It’s bad to suddenly force yourself. Also, you have to eat dinner once you finish running. And to avoid getting heat stroke-----”

“Fufu, it’s okay so don’t worry so much, Tomoe-chan.”

Miyabi giggled at her partner who was launching into a detailed lecture of warnings just like a mother.

Tomoe was received, since Miyabi had only worn false smiles ever since the seaside school.

After changing into clothes that made running easier, Miyabi told Tomoe that she was heading out.

But------

With the sun set and the surroundings dark, Miyabi left the dorm and looked around restlessly. Of course, there were no students walking around at night and she exhaled when she confirmed that fact.

(Eeeeeerrr………..I think I should get some more distance.)

Since there might be students coming back to the dorm, the girl ran towards the deserted south side of the academy dorms.

The conversation she had with the old man today resurfaced in her mind.

““Then, let me bestow upon you this-----the <<Power>> of <<{{Furigana|Ell.Libel|God’s Destruction soldier}}>> to you.”

“<<{{Furigana|Ell.Libel|God’s Destruction soldier}}>>………….?”

“Fuhahaha, just like how the word is read, it’s a power strong enough to destroy god.”

“Errrrr……….?”

Miyabi, who had been having a pleasant chat with him, was perplexed.

(Just what is this old man talking about?)

But the old man did not notice the girl's perplexity and continued.

“You’re a Kouryou student right?”

“------!! Ho-how did you know that……!?”

Miyabi was not wearing her uniform, but was in her casual clothes. So just how did the old man know that she was a Kouryou student?

Unluckily for the girl, having confided in the old man prevented her from being able to become as alert or suspicious as she should have been.

What’s more-----

“Oh it’s simple. I am acquainted with Tsukumo-Jou-chan<ref group="4a">"Jou-chan" is shorthand for "ojou-chan"; basically, he's saying "Young Lady Tsukumo", or "Little Lady Tsukumo" might be more accurate.</ref>.”

“Eh………? Errr----Tsukumo? Is that the director? Then Ojii-chan is part of the research team?”

The old man----the <<Equipment smith>> only smiled; he didn't confirm or deny that.

However, Miyabi believed her words were correct judging by his smile.

That’s only normal. That’s because there was no interaction between the students and the researchers coming in and out the <<Lucifer>> research facility under the academy. They would only coincidentally pass by and greet them during brief encounters at the dorm or at school.

But for a researcher, it wouldn't be strange at all that they would have already seen all the students' personal data.

Because of that, she did not doubt him and came to a conclusion.

“I am researching something else than the <<Lucifer>>. That’s this----<<Unit>>.”

Tooru and also Tomoe misunderstood the reason why Miyabi was sad, although they weren't far off.

It’s true that the confession was one of the reasons for it.

However, the main reason why she was depressed was because she had put the life of the person she loved—Tooru—in danger.

The cause behind her fall into despair was that she had become a hindrance to him because of her weakness.

That’s why Miyabi yearns for '''''it'''''.

The one thing she wished and yearned for----was <<Power>>.

And right now, Miyabi accepted the <<Power>> offered to her by the old man.

When she entered the forest at the south part of the grounds, Miyabi lowered her sights to the device, disguised as an accessory, she was holding.

(Is it really true………?)

Even though she placed her finger on the device’s switch, the girl raised her eyebrows at the question floating in her mind.

Maybe that old man said it as a joke to cheer her up.

More importantly, no one would suffer if anyone can gain strength with just a push of a button.

(But, even so……….)

It might be nonsense, but she still tensed with anticipation.

She wanted to say goodbye to her weak self.

As if to reveal her heart, she held the device with both her hands like she was praying and not long later-----

Miyabi pressed the button.

“Please, give me---<<Power>>!!”

<noinclude>

==Translation Notes and References==

<references group="4a" />

{{SimpleNav}}
</noinclude>

Absolute Duo:Volume 4 Chapter 1

2021-03-31T21:50:03Z

SNovah: /* Part 2 */

==Chapter 1 『Everyone Has Things They Don't Want To Say』==

===Part 1===
The first Saturday after returning from the seaside school has arrived.

Seasonally, the world would normally be in a summer mood but, that’s something unrelated to Kouryou academy.

With a minimum of one general subject lesson added in, Kouryou has taken in consideration the time for ability training—refining the student's battle arts—and thus the summer break here takes the Bon festival as the main holiday, meaning there's not even one full week off.

With that said, even though it’s now the second half of July, they should be heading back to school but-----

“Julie, let’s get going.”

While dozing off in her seat, the silver girl opened her eyes when I called out to her.

“Ja-………..”

“Are you alright? It’s been hot every night recently, and it looks like you haven’t been sleeping much……”

“Nai. I am okay, please don’t mind me.”

Even though Julie said that, the hot days will continue from now on, and there was a forecast that today was going to be ''very'' hot, with a temperature crossing over 35° (C).

(Uuun, it would be nice if there’s something I can do for her………..)

I probably can’t do anything about the heat, but I pondered if there is something I can do when she tries to sleep, and while I was doing so-----

“Okay then, let’s go Tooru.”

“Aah, okay.”

Instead, I was the one getting urged and we left the room with Julie following behind me.

Though it should be unneeded to say this, strong sunshine was shining down when we got outside the dormitory.

“It looks like it’s going to be hot as predicted. It’s probably going to be tough but, let’s work hard, Julie.”

“Ja--♪”

After the girl with {{Furigana|Silver hair|Silver Blonde}} nodded, the ribbon’s bell echoed and made a cooling sound.

On the familiar street to the school from the dorm----

There were students heading to the school in the surroundings and a lot of them wore dark expressions.

It wasn't because they were upset over not having a summer vacation.

They were wondering if they '''''should continue attending Kouryou academy or not.'''''

The day they returned to the main school, the chairman delivered a speech during an emergency assembly. That speech contributed, in no small way, to that worry.

That speech was delivered under the pretext that the attacks on the academy were in revenge, backed by a criminal organization which had fought against the Dawn organization's public order teams in the past. Their assault on the academy itself was the first time it had been attacked directly, but there remained a possibility that it could happen again.

With that warning given, she left the decision on remaining in or leaving Kouryou Academy up to to the students.

As a result, many of those students were left pondering on their futures.

The attack had, after all, not only caused of property damage from gunfire and explosions, but a great many were injured-------and the death count was in the double digits.

That reality was the main reason why many students were worried.

It’s only normal.

They were just normal middle school students, living peaceful lives until they enrolled in Kouryou. For them, a situation that determined if a person lived or died would only be seen through the filter of the Internet and television, or maybe in fictional categories like games and manga.

In the explanation we received before finalizing enrollment, everyone was warned that there would be danger during training and lessons, as well as the missions that would be issued when they were recruited into the public order maintenance teams upon graduation.

However, they only truly understood what that meant when they saw someone close to them lose their life.

No, they were forced to understand.

They were forced to understand that the path they are taking will not be one found in the normal world they knew, but instead will take them into a realm of abnormality.

That's why this incident has become such a crossroads for so many.

They can either return to the normal world and treasure their lives; or they can gather up their determination and will to advance into a world consumed by abnormalities.

Conclusion-----

So far, twelve first-year students that experienced the attack have left the academy. Most likely, more students will probably choose to quit. From what I can see, half of the students remaining are still pondering if they should drop out or continue.

Maybe the senior students have already participated in somewhat dangerous missions during training, as there were less of those that chose to quit. But even so, many of them seemed to be pondering the question too.

Me----and the silver girl walking beside me, have chosen to continue on this abnormal road.

As long as both of us follow the path of the <<Avenger>>, our decision has already been made.

“......It turned out pretty, huh, Tooru?”

“Aah, yeah, it has.”

We were staring at the scars left on the school in front of us from the attack.

Even though the enemy—who goes by the name <<{{Furigana|God’s Destruction Team|Libel}}>>—attacked the school to seize the <<Lucifer>> research facility located beneath it, the most violent part of the battle took place at the school entrance.

The pillars and walls were damaged or destroyed, still sticky with dark red bloodstains from the enemy... or the defenders.

Offerings of flowers had been left beside the pillars. There were some students that stopped to offer prayers, while there were also students that quickly walked by so they wouldn't have to see that.

“………I guess we should pray too.”

I joined my hands while facing the flowering offerings and Julie made a silent prayer.

Within the crying sound of cicadas, we quietly passed the time.

When I entered the classroom, only about 70% of the students were present, excluding the ones that had quit, even though class was about to start.

The people pondering on their course of action probably felt like skipping school.

I looked around at the classmates in the room, and leaked a small sigh when I could not see a close female friend----Miyabi in the class.

Her <<Duo>>--Tachibana was attending class and she was talking with a girl.

Nevertheless, it’s not like Miyabi was not in school because she was pondering if she wanted to quit or continue Kouryou.

She might still be in shock from almost being harmed by the battle suit man, but she still attended class and seriously participated in it and training without rest.

But other than those specific times, she would leave her seat and the classroom.

I didn’t even need to think to find a reason why she took those actions; it was probably the effect of ''that'' incident...

'''''“I love you”'''''

Her whispered feelings reached me, because the waves stopped.

At that moment, she expressed the feelings in her heart, confessing plainly to her affection towards me.

But, I could not reply to her.

That's because I didn't know how to reply to her. I thought of myself as an <<Avenger>>, yet I was happy to receive Miyabi's confession...

Ever since that day, the gears of the normal days I had experienced between the abnormal days at Kouryou Academy, have fallen out of place.

The last time I talked to Miyabi was right after we left the isolated island.

'''''“Tha-thank you for saving me yesterday, Tooru-kun………….and……….sorry………you encountered danger because of me, I am really sorry…………”'''''

Ever since, Miyabi would only apologetically greet me, while avoiding any conversation.

Maybe she wanted to avoid others noticing her clear change of attitude, because she would still appear during mealtimes with everyone else----but no-one noticed that there was no interaction between me and Miaybi.

I can’t talk to her even if I wanted to.

This frustrating situation has been continuing ever since the seaside school.

(I have to do something about this………)

I have no idea if this relationship can ever return to the way it was, but I will continue struggling to make it so.

That’s because I want Miyabi to smile.

Even if that smile was not going to be directed at me.

Soon, Miyabi quickly entered the classroom when the main bell began to ring.

Just like I expected, it looks like I won't get any time to take her out of the class and speak with her.

(I guess I'll try to speak with her during the break...)

The moment I thought that—

“Guess whooooo~~?”

My view suddenly got blocked----and a sweet scent floated across me at the same time.

Someone was hugging me from behind while covering my eyes.

“………Lilith, right?”

Without panicking or creating a scene, I took her hands off my eyes and looked towards the girl with dazzling {{Furigana|blonde hair|Yellow Topaz}}.

---However, I was far from calm in my heart.

That’s because her two soft voluptuous hills were being ''smooshed'' against my back.

“Fufu, as expected of Tooru, huh? It’s definitely because we love each other on a normal basis~”

“If I eliminate all the people that ''wouldn't'' do this, Lilith would be the one one who ''would''.”

I shrug my shoulders in response to the gold girl, who winked at me before showing a smile.

“Me being the only one would mean that I am special in a way right? Fufuu~”

The girl who carried the title of <<Exception>>, Lilith, went ahead and placed herself in my special spot-----

“Uuh!?”

My view was blocked again.

Once again, someone hugged me from behind and covered my eyes.

“Who am I, Tooru?”

“…………Julie.”

“As expected, Tooru, my <<Duo>>.”

“Haha, you’re welcome…….”

Even though I replied with a wry smile, there was no way I would mistake Julie’s voice.

---Besides, the sensation on my back was reinforced my conviction that it's her.

Leaving that aside, the girls who covered my eyes were now glaring at each other.

“………..you want to say something, right?”

“He immediately knew it was me when I covered his eyes, so you aren’t the only special one.”

“Hee, now you've done it...”

Lilith's mouth angled in an interested manner.

Without changing her expression, Julie looked straight back at her.

It was a glowing sun and a magical moon.

Two girls with opposite impressions were as opposed as always.

Julie turned on the gold girl who wants to make me into her <<Duo>>----although, for someone who claims to be unconcerned, but it was rare for her to actually retort to Julie's complaints. Perhaps because her being a "special one" was denied, she couldn't hold back...

(Ya-re Ya-re, these two are the same…….)

I made a small sigh and was about to stop them-----

“Okay okay♪ Good morning everyone☆ HR is going to start so sit down♥”

Contrary to the school’s gloomy atmosphere, a voice that was so cheerful that the owner ''had'' to be in the wrong place, echoed throughout the room.

Having released her real power to take on the <<{{Furigana|God’s Destruction Team|Libel}}>>, our homeroom teacher---Tsukimi was now valued in the class (especially her students) as someone they could count on after they witnessed her mowing down enemies.

[Good morning White Usa-sensei,] [You’re tension is high today too, White Usa-sensei!] [Well it’s White Usa-sensei!]

Replies and prattling could be heard in the classroom in response to Tsukimi's greeting.

The thing different from last time was that she was being called “White Usa<ref group ="4a">"Usa" generally means "rabbit", but in this context, "bunny" is arguably more accurate, given Tsukimi's... fashion choices.</ref>."

The reason for that was-----

“OooRah! Hurry up and sit down you brats!!”

[It’s Black Usa-sensei mode!] [This is bad, it’s Black Usa-sensei; this is bad!] [Black Usa-sensei, scold me more……]

Having had her identity revealed already, she didn't hesitate to reveal her real-self anymore in response to the student's teasing.

“The gold and silver girls fighting over a guy there. HR is going to start so, hurry up and end the Shuraba<ref group="4a">A quick search indicates that this word is used to mean "scene of bloodshed", "carnage", etc; basically, Tsukimi is implying that the contest over Tooru is about to turn violent, and homeroom isn't the time for that</ref> love triangle with the couple and mistress.”

“It’s not a Shuraba or anything!”

“Ja---”

“I agree with that, but I am curious as to why you looked at me when you said 'mistress'!”

“Iyaaan, the Ojou-sama’s senses sure are sharp, huh♪”

“Seriously, I always tell you that I am the legal wife!”

“Nai, I refuse.”

“Why would you be the one doing the refusing?!”

The sights of the two girls with silver and gold hair collided again.

I let out a small sigh, and stood in the middle.

“Come on, let’s end it here. HR is going to start.”

“……….Maa, it can’t be helped if Tooru says so. Okay then, see you later, Tooru~”

Lilith winked at me before returning back to her seat.

“Okay then, now, as I said HR is starting, so first it's announcement time☆ There is going to be joint training with the second year students today, okay♪ Okay, next! People that reached <<III>> will have to undergo special training soon☆ Okay, next! The people I call now----”

Turning back to her White Usa-sensei mode, Tsukimi was in her usual high spirits, and I could sometime hear giggles.

During those announcements, I snuck a peak behind me.

Just within my vision, Miyabi wore a depressed expression.

When break time finally came, I chased and called after Miyabi, who had stood up from her seat and immediately exited to the corridor.

“Miyabi, can I have a bit of your time?”

“So-sorry. I am in a hurry……..”

“Ah……..So-sorry.”

She most likely didn't have anything she actually had to hurry for. Judging by her recent state, I could guess that she was just making an excuse to avoid having a conversation with me.

[[File:Absolute Duo Volume 4 Non-Colour 1.jpg|thumb]]

But even so, I backed down since she told me that she was in a hurry.

When Miyabi quickly turned a corner down the hall and disappeared from sight, I let out a small sigh and felt my shoulders droop. Just as I did that----a dignified voice called out to me from behind.

“Kokonoe, can I have a little of your time?’

When I turned around, I saw a familiar face---my close classmate, Tachibana.

However, she was currently using crutches and it looked painful.

“Aah, what is it?”

“It’s about Miyabi. She looks tired recently so, I am thinking of bring her out for a change of scenery after school. So, err, you……….”

Even though she hesitated to finish her thought, her intentions were clear.

Tachibana was saying that I should not talk to Miyabi now.

Tachibana probably felt that something happened to me and Miyabi during the seaside school.

But even so, I feel happy for Tachibana's thoughtfulness for thinking of Miyabi's heart first, even though that should be something obvious.

“I get it; I’ll leave it to you…..but, be careful.”

“Umu. It's okay, we aren’t going somewhere deserted. But, from what I heard, it seems the enemy’s target is the chairman, <<Lucifer>>, and also Lilith. So it’s probably safe to say that we aren’t being targeted.”

“That might be true, but... Well, go have fun. Just remember not to strain your legs.”

“Fufu, you worry too much. Nonetheless, I’ll listen to your warning, and will be careful not to force myself.”

Tachibana’s heels were diagnosed to recover fully in around a month's time.

Since the <<Exceed>>’s recovery ability totally exceeds a normal person’s, it seems she will be able to take off the cast by next week.

“……..also, thanks Tachibana”

“It’s not something to thank me for. It’s for my precious <<Duo>> too.”

And after she said that and made a soft smile, Tachibana went back into the classroom and I followed her.

But----

At this time, we had no way to know what would happen.

The fact that there was a malevolence that would drag in everyone around its target without any hesitation...

Or the fact that Miyabi encountered a devil when she went out...

After lunch, we headed to the medical building to have a check-up on the wounds I received from the fight with <<K>>.

The recovery progress was going well and it seems Julie and I will be fully healed by around the middle of next week.

We were told that it’s okay to undertake some light exercise and we quickly headed to the training room after the check-up.

“Even if it's just a little, I'm happy to get permission to exercise.”

“Ja--. I have not moved my body at all recently.”

“Incidentally, we’ve been only studying nowadays………”

Taking into consideration that there were many students wounded during the attack, battle and stamina training was converted to conventional classroom work: they largely revolved around general knowledge-based subjects, as well as special techniques for missions.

Thanks to that, once classes ended over the past few days, I felt as though I might have smoke puffing out my ears as my frustration continued to pent up. That’s why I am happy that I got permission to exercise and my legs naturally sped me towards the training room.

When we reached it, there were already quite a number of students inside using the room for their personal training.

Inside, I saw familiar faces at the sparring area.

The giant Tatsu, over 180cm tall, and a small boy—Tora—were sparring.

Strangers that didn’t know their situation would probably think that Tatsu was at an advantage but, actually, since Tora’s <<Level>> was higher, he was handicapped with extra weights.

“Tora, Tatsu!”

I called out to them from afar.

“Tooru, and Julie huh. Can you two start moving your bodies already?”

“If we keep it light.”

“Fumu. Then, let’s spar since it’s been quite a while? All this musclehead ever does is swing his fist with power.”

Tora splendidly ignored Tatsu’s opinion: “A man won’t use stupid tricks.”

“Uuuun, I guess I’ll pass. Sparing with you won’t end up as light exercise.”

Thinking of our personalities, I can see us lighting up in a blaze once we start.

“Fuun. Well I have no choice then. It won’t even be something to brag about if I beat an injured opponent. The results would be the same even if you were fully healed though.”

“Bullshit.”

After I laughed back at Tora, I stood in front of the mirror.

“Shadow training?”<ref group="4a">Best guess that this is what the writer/TL meant; basically the same thing as "shadow boxing", it's intended to let a person check their own form.</ref>

“Aah. There’s something I want to confirm. Julie, try making some strikes?”

“Ja----”

Julie picked up training swords and stood up in front of a target that looks like a man located beside the mirror.

Julie’s self-training centered around sparring and striking, and it seems she wasn't going to change that today.

“You aren’t at full form, so don’t force yourself.”

“……………”

“Julie?”

The silver girl did not reply for some reason and frowned her eyebrows instead.

“That’s the line I wanted to tell Tooru. Tooru, you always force yourself.”

“Uguh………..bu-but I only force myself in situations where I have to do so………”

“………That might be true but, you can’t stop me by saying it can’t be helped.”

The side of her eyebrows dropped and her {{Furigana|red eyes|Ruby eyes}} looked at me.

I could guess her emotions when I saw the uneasiness in her shaking eyes.

(I see, she’s still seeing father in me…….)

She might be worried that I'll end up like her father someday.

That’s why; I made a smile to make her feel some relief before patting her head.

“Hey, Julie. You remember the promise I said about protecting you?”

“Ja---”

“I made that promise, so I won't die. If I die, I won’t be able to protect Julie right?”

“Tooru…………”

“However, I will do my best to not be reckless. I’d feel bad for making you worry too much.”

“Ja--♪ it’s a promise.”

Even though my wry smile dropped with my feelings, Julie made one in exchange.

“……..Go back to your room.”

“Hnn? Did you say something, Tora?”

When I looked at Tora who mumbled something, he was looking at me with disgusted eyes for some reason.

“I am just asking you if you’re going to train or not. As far as I can see, your mouth is the only part moving so far.”

“Haha, I’m going to start now. Okay then, let’s start, Julie.”

I took a stance facing towards the mirror while Julie looked back at the target.

I lightly swung my fist towards my image in the mirror.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Pann*! *Papann*!! The training sword moved from the left and right, and the target made a loud sound.

(She’s as fast as I thought……)

While continuing my shadow boxing, that thought would cross my mind when I sometimes saw the silver girl’s movements.

Julie made repeated slashes with blinding speed.

However, she wasn’t reckless and I could see her holding back her strength.

After thinking I didn’t need to be worried anymore, I decided to concentrate on my shadow.

With half of my strength, I swung my fist, switched to the body movements Tachibana taught me and performed a kick.

(…………..My body still hurts when I turn it. Next----)

After I confirmed that, my mind turned to something that I was curious about during the fight with <<K>>, I switched to a left posture.

''Hrungnir'': unlike ''Mjolnir'' which is a one-hit kill move, it was a high-speed punch meant for diversion.

“Haah!!”

I stopped my fist after a few shots because of the pain on my chest.

But, that was enough for me to notice.

(It’s true that my fist was lowered. But, it’s amazing that he could notice that in such a short time, what’s more during battle. That <<K>>…………)

It was humiliating to have my weakness pinpointed by the enemy, but it resulted in gaining something.

Leaving aside the chances that we might meet <<K>> again later or not, I won’t be able to beat him if I don’t fix this habit.

“Tooru. What’s that move?”

Maybe he took a rest from his sparring; '''''Tora saw Hrungnir and asked me.'''''

I told him about my mastering this technique, that this technique got broken by <<K>> who found its weakness in the battle, and the name given to this technique-----

“''Hrung-''………Since it’s Norse mythology, was Julie the one that named it?”

A weird question came over.

“Aah. I thought of naming this 'bullet punch' but, it resulted in that.”

“………………..”

“What’s wrong, why are you so quiet?”

“No reason………you have to thank Julie.”

“Thank Julie? For what?”

Without understanding his meaning, I looked at Julie with a questioning face.

“---------?”

It seems the silver girl heard her own name and asked, [Did you call me?], tilting her small head.

“It's just a little thing, but I think it was refreshing for her.”

Evening-----as usual, Tachibana talked to me with a voice only audible to me while I was picking at the buffet for my menu.

Although we did not say who "her" was, it’s obviously Miyabi.

“I see, that’s great. Also-----Thanks.”

“Fufuu. I told you this already during the day but, you don’t have to thank me. As a friend and her <<Duo>>, I was concerned about her.”

“So---where is she?”

From what I can see around me, it seems Miyabi wasn’t in the cafeteria.

“She said she wanted to run a bit, so she went outside. She said she wanted to make up for the the times she did not run for the past few days.”

Ever since <<{{Furigana|God’s Destruction Team|Libel}}>> attacked, Miyabi stopped her daily runs even though she attended lessons and training.

That’s why, I felt relieved when I heard that she was going to run again.

(It’s about that confession huh………)

I think of how to talk to her when I see her again, once my feelings become certain; while thinking about that, I reached the table.

After that, everyone had their dinner like usual but-----

“Hey, Tooru. Over summer break, want to go to the UK?”

“Huh?”

Lilith has been a fixed member of our dinner table ever since <<Survive>>, and it’s only natural to be shocked at the sudden change of topic.

It’s only natural since she invited me to go overseas with no warning at all.

“That’s sudden…….”

“Rather than suddenly reporting our marriage, reporting about our relationship first would make things smooth later on I think, you know?””

“………..We aren’t going out.”

“It's not a bad idea to take this chance and start dating, you know?”

“Rejected.”

Sitting on my left side, Julie swung her head and pulled me away from Lilith, who was sitting at my right side.

“Oh my, Tooru’s the one to decide that.”

“Before even the topic of going out or not going out, he has to go back to his hometown during summer break, so it’s impossible to go to the UK.”

“I see, how sad. I think I’ll give up this time.”

“Haha, this time huh…….”

While making a wry smile at Lilith’s reply, I thought about my hometown which was vacant now when I said those words.

There’s no family waiting for me.

(But even so, Otoha’s going to be lonely if I don’t show up now and then……….)

And, while I was a little sad,

[One, two……..] [[[Congratulations on your birthday-♪]]]

Celebrative voices could be heard from one corner of the cafeteria.

Noisy, cheerful and happy voices echoed in the cafeteria.

“Seriously, how noisy.”

“I think it’s nice to have a cheerful atmosphere. Thinking about recent events, I think this is a must.”

I smiled at a frowning Tora and told him such.

“………Fuun. That’s true.”

Tora snorted roughly and *Dooka* leaned against the back of his chair while folding his arms.

(Birthday huh……..)

My birthday was coming next week.

My heart felt dejected when I thought about it.

That’s because, the day before my birthday----was ''that summer day.''.

“Tooru. I have something to talk about”

Tora called out to me when we went out of the cafeteria after dinner.

His expression had an air that he wouldn't take no for an answer and-----

“…….Julie, can you go back first?”

“Ja---”

I made Julie go back to the room.

“Where should we talk?”

“Outside.”

(……..Going all the way outside means that, it’s a talk that he does not want anyone else to hear.)

While looking at his small back walking in front, I started to think about the topics Tora would talk about.

After he exited the front door, the heat from the afternoon was still there and it felt a little hot.

The surroundings were naturally dark but, thanks to the light coming from the dorm, we did not have a hard time finding our way and we walked over the grass.

“I guess around here is okay…….so, what do you want to talk about?”

I folded my arms and asked Tora who was walking closer to a nearby tree----

“…………”

There was no reply.

It’s not like he didn't hear my voice. Furthermore, the atmosphere he was giving off was as if it was something hard to say.

Judging by Tora’s straightforward personality, I could grasp the contents of his topic as something serious.

The silence continued for a while and------Tora finally spoke.

“You still can’t mend your relationship with Hotaka?”

“Buuuu!? Wha-whawhahwahwa, h-how do you, no, you noticed……!?”

I did not tell anyone that my relationship with Miyabi had been derailed.

Of course, that goes for Julie too.

I thought the only one who noticed this was Miyabi’s <<Duo>> and roommate Tachibana, but------

“Fuun, there’s no way I won’t notice. In the first place, judging by your attitude towards her until now, there’s no way I wouldn't guess that something happened during seaside school.”

Just as expected from him.

Given the recent state of affairs, I never would have thought that he would notice this.

Which means, I think this might be unlikely but, things might have turned complicated because of some reason……….

“I heard this from Tachibana during the afternoon but, Hotaka is going back to her home during summer break. Even if it's a short break, if you don't meet her for a full week, it'll probably become a lot harder to mend things. So that's why you need to hurry up and do something about it before summer break starts.”

“A-aah………Sorry, to make you worry about this……”

Whether it's on this matter or during the attack, Tora has been helping out a lot.

“It’s not like I am worried about you, it just feels annoying……….and that isn’t the only thing I want to talk about.”

“Eh, there’s something else?”

I thought the problem with Miyabi was what he wanted to talk about so I tilted my head.

“It’s about going home. Not Hotaka's, yours.”

“Mine?”

Tora nodded and continued on with his original business.

“You told that woman during dinner time, right? That you will be going back home?”

“I plan on doing so, what about it?”

“…………..Can I go with you?”

“Aah, let’s go back together. We are going to be together for half the trip anyway.”

“No.”

It was a quiet and yet strong tone.

When I thought Tora was different from usual, his face turned unusually serious and he looked a little stiff.

“I am asking if '''''I can go to your house''''', Tooru.”

My heart skipped a beat.

Tora has been to my house many times in the past.

But, it was when Otoha was still alive.

During a dojo exchange that occurs only a few times per year, we became friends since we were the same age and not long after, Tora started coming over to the dojo to learn and would often come over to my house.

However----The last time was over two years ago.

Tora does not know about it.

He does not know that the house no longer has anyone living in it anymore.

“I-I plan to stay for one night only so, Tora head back to your----”

He doesn’t need to know.

I reject the idea of a visit so that Tora will only have memories of the warm Kokonoe home of the past.

“No, I am going. Let me come with. '''''Let me offer flowers''''' to---to Otoha too.”

“-----!?”

I was so shocked from those unexpected words that I gasped.

That’s because ever since we reunited during the enrollment ceremony I did everything I could to avoid leading him to that conclusion.

“You……knew……….”

After a while, I managed to squeeze my voice out and Tora silently nodded.

“……….I was contacted by the dojo.”

“I see……..”

I missed something simple.

Because he was with us for a long time, it was only natural for him to be told.

“'''''It seems the dojo encountered a fire disaster because of someone smoking'''''. I knew this and keep quiet about it, sorry. This may be too late, but this is... just sad. And she took care of me before, so—”

“………I get it. Since you know about this, I am counting on you to follow-through. Otoha will be happy.”

Whenever Tora and I sparred, Otoha would be the one who treated our wounds.

I could clearly remember her giving it her all to assist us and I would never forget about it.

I would never lose the memories of me, Tora, Otoha, and—'''''him'''''... all four of us playing together.

“Sorry. Even though you know, this was something I should tell you…….”

“Fuun, don’t worry about it. Everyone has things they don’t want to say……….okay, our talk ends here. Let’s head back to the dorm.”

Tora started walking in front and I followed behind.

Even though he has a foul mouth, I am grateful for him for being concerned about his friend.

However, Tora does not know.

Two years ago, the disaster that occurred in the dojo was not a fire but rather, it was a tragedy that occurred because ''''he'''' swung his deadly blade.

The only ones that knew of this were myself, him and '''''another person'''''-----

That person was the one that saved me from that burning dojo.

But, that’s good.

Tora might be foul mouthed but he’s a good person, and if he finds out the truth about that day-------

If he found out that Otoha didn’t die from that fire, but was killed, he would fly into a rage and become a captive to vengeance, just like me so……..

That’s why, Tora doesn't have to know.

I am the only one who needs to take revenge against him.

===Part 2===
“Are you going out to run now? It’s already evening.”

“U-un. But I have been skipping these past few days so, I want to regain the lost time as much as possible so………”

“…………… I see, work hard then. However, gradually work your way back without rushing. It’s bad to suddenly force yourself. Also, you have to eat dinner once you finish running. And to avoid getting heat stroke-----”

“Fufu, it’s okay so don’t worry so much, Tomoe-chan.”

Miyabi giggled at her partner who was launching into a detailed lecture of warnings just like a mother.

Tomoe was received, since Miyabi had only worn false smiles ever since the seaside school.

After changing into clothes that made running easier, Miyabi told Tomoe that she was heading out.

But------

With the sun set and the surroundings dark, Miyabi left the dorm and looked around restlessly. Of course, there were no students walking around at night and she exhaled when she confirmed that fact.

(Eeeeeerrr………..I think I should get some more distance.)

Since there might be students coming back to the dorm, the girl ran towards the deserted south side of the academy dorms.

The conversation she had with the old man today resurfaced in her mind.

““Then, let me bestow upon you this-----the <<Power>> of <<{{Furigana|Ell.Libel|God’s Destruction soldier}}>> to you.”

“<<{{Furigana|Ell.Libel|God’s Destruction soldier}}>>………….?”

“Fuhahaha, just like how the word is read, it’s a power strong enough to destroy god.”

“Errrrr……….?”

Miyabi, who had been having a pleasant chat with him, was perplexed.

(Just what is this old man talking about?)

But the old man did not notice the girl's perplexity and continued.

“You’re a Kouryou student right?”

“------!! Ho-how did you know that……!?”

Miyabi was not wearing her uniform, but was in her casual clothes. So just how did the old man know that she was a Kouryou student?

Unluckily for the girl, having confided in the old man prevented her from being able to become as alert or suspicious as she should have been.

What’s more-----

“Oh it’s simple. I am acquainted with Tsukumo-Jou-chan<ref group="4a">"Jou-chan" is shorthand for "ojou-chan"; basically, he's saying "Young Lady Tsukumo", or "Little Lady Tsukumo" might be more accurate.</ref>.”

“Eh………? Errr----Tsukumo? Is that the director? Then Ojii-chan is part of the research team?”

The old man----the <<Equipment smith>> only smiled; he didn't confirm or deny that.

However, Miyabi believed her words were correct judging by his smile.

That’s only normal. That’s because there was no interaction between the students and the researchers coming in and out the <<Lucifer>> research facility under the academy. They would only coincidentally pass by and greet them during brief encounters at the dorm or at school.

But for a researcher, it wouldn't be strange at all that they would have already seen all the students' personal data.

Because of that, she did not doubt him and came to a conclusion.

“I am researching something else than the <<Lucifer>>. That’s this----<<Unit>>.”

Tooru and also Tomoe misunderstood the reason why Miyabi was sad, although they weren't far off.

It’s true that the confession was one of the reasons for it.

However, the main reason why she was depressed was because she had put the life of the person she loved—Tooru—in danger.

The cause behind her fall into despair was that she had become a hindrance to him because of her weakness.

That’s why Miyabi yearns for '''''it'''''.

The one thing she wished and yearned for----was <<Power>>.

And right now, Miyabi accepted the <<Power>> offered to her by the old man.

When she entered the forest at the south part of the grounds, Miyabi lowered her sights to the device, disguised as an accessory, she was holding.

(Is it really true………?)

Even though she placed her finger on the device’s switch, the girl raised her eyebrows at the question floating in her mind.

Maybe that old man said it as a joke to cheer her up.

More importantly, no one would suffer if anyone can gain strength with just a push of a button.

(But, even so……….)

It might be nonsense, but she still tensed with anticipation.

She wanted to say goodbye to her weak self.

As if to reveal her heart, she held the device with both her hands like she was praying and not long later-----

Miyabi pressed the button.

“Please, give me---<<Power>>!!”

<noinclude>

==Translation Notes and References==

<references group="4a" />

{{SimpleNav}}
</noinclude>

Absolute Duo:Volume 4 Chapter 1

2021-03-31T21:45:32Z

SNovah: Fixing reference links

==Chapter 1 『Everyone Has Things They Don't Want To Say』==

===Part 1===
The first Saturday after returning from the seaside school has arrived.

Seasonally, the world would normally be in a summer mood but, that’s something unrelated to Kouryou academy.

With a minimum of one general subject lesson added in, Kouryou has taken in consideration the time for ability training—refining the student's battle arts—and thus the summer break here takes the Bon festival as the main holiday, meaning there's not even one full week off.

With that said, even though it’s now the second half of July, they should be heading back to school but-----

“Julie, let’s get going.”

While dozing off in her seat, the silver girl opened her eyes when I called out to her.

“Ja-………..”

“Are you alright? It’s been hot every night recently, and it looks like you haven’t been sleeping much……”

“Nai. I am okay, please don’t mind me.”

Even though Julie said that, the hot days will continue from now on, and there was a forecast that today was going to be ''very'' hot, with a temperature crossing over 35° (C).

(Uuun, it would be nice if there’s something I can do for her………..)

I probably can’t do anything about the heat, but I pondered if there is something I can do when she tries to sleep, and while I was doing so-----

“Okay then, let’s go Tooru.”

“Aah, okay.”

Instead, I was the one getting urged and we left the room with Julie following behind me.

Though it should be unneeded to say this, strong sunshine was shining down when we got outside the dormitory.

“It looks like it’s going to be hot as predicted. It’s probably going to be tough but, let’s work hard, Julie.”

“Ja--♪”

After the girl with {{Furigana|Silver hair|Silver Blonde}} nodded, the ribbon’s bell echoed and made a cooling sound.

On the familiar street to the school from the dorm----

There were students heading to the school in the surroundings and a lot of them wore dark expressions.

It wasn't because they were upset over not having a summer vacation.

They were wondering if they '''''should continue attending Kouryou academy or not.'''''

The day they returned to the main school, the chairman delivered a speech during an emergency assembly. That speech contributed, in no small way, to that worry.

That speech was delivered under the pretext that the attacks on the academy were in revenge, backed by a criminal organization which had fought against the Dawn organization's public order teams in the past. Their assault on the academy itself was the first time it had been attacked directly, but there remained a possibility that it could happen again.

With that warning given, she left the decision on remaining in or leaving Kouryou Academy up to to the students.

As a result, many of those students were left pondering on their futures.

The attack had, after all, not only caused of property damage from gunfire and explosions, but a great many were injured-------and the death count was in the double digits.

That reality was the main reason why many students were worried.

It’s only normal.

They were just normal middle school students, living peaceful lives until they enrolled in Kouryou. For them, a situation that determined if a person lived or died would only be seen through the filter of the Internet and television, or maybe in fictional categories like games and manga.

In the explanation we received before finalizing enrollment, everyone was warned that there would be danger during training and lessons, as well as the missions that would be issued when they were recruited into the public order maintenance teams upon graduation.

However, they only truly understood what that meant when they saw someone close to them lose their life.

No, they were forced to understand.

They were forced to understand that the path they are taking will not be one found in the normal world they knew, but instead will take them into a realm of abnormality.

That's why this incident has become such a crossroads for so many.

They can either return to the normal world and treasure their lives; or they can gather up their determination and will to advance into a world consumed by abnormalities.

Conclusion-----

So far, twelve first-year students that experienced the attack have left the academy. Most likely, more students will probably choose to quit. From what I can see, half of the students remaining are still pondering if they should drop out or continue.

Maybe the senior students have already participated in somewhat dangerous missions during training, as there were less of those that chose to quit. But even so, many of them seemed to be pondering the question too.

Me----and the silver girl walking beside me, have chosen to continue on this abnormal road.

As long as both of us follow the path of the <<Avenger>>, our decision has already been made.

“......It turned out pretty, huh, Tooru?”

“Aah, yeah, it has.”

We were staring at the scars left on the school in front of us from the attack.

Even though the enemy—who goes by the name <<{{Furigana|God’s Destruction Team|Libel}}>>—attacked the school to seize the <<Lucifer>> research facility located beneath it, the most violent part of the battle took place at the school entrance.

The pillars and walls were damaged or destroyed, still sticky with dark red bloodstains from the enemy... or the defenders.

Offerings of flowers had been left beside the pillars. There were some students that stopped to offer prayers, while there were also students that quickly walked by so they wouldn't have to see that.

“………I guess we should pray too.”

I joined my hands while facing the flowering offerings and Julie made a silent prayer.

Within the crying sound of cicadas, we quietly passed the time.

When I entered the classroom, only about 70% of the students were present, excluding the ones that had quit, even though class was about to start.

The people pondering on their course of action probably felt like skipping school.

I looked around at the classmates in the room, and leaked a small sigh when I could not see a close female friend----Miyabi in the class.

Her <<Duo>>--Tachibana was attending class and she was talking with a girl.

Nevertheless, it’s not like Miyabi was not in school because she was pondering if she wanted to quit or continue Kouryou.

She might still be in shock from almost being harmed by the battle suit man, but she still attended class and seriously participated in it and training without rest.

But other than those specific times, she would leave her seat and the classroom.

I didn’t even need to think to find a reason why she took those actions; it was probably the effect of ''that'' incident...

'''''“I love you”'''''

Her whispered feelings reached me, because the waves stopped.

At that moment, she expressed the feelings in her heart, confessing plainly to her affection towards me.

But, I could not reply to her.

That's because I didn't know how to reply to her. I thought of myself as an <<Avenger>>, yet I was happy to receive Miyabi's confession...

Ever since that day, the gears of the normal days I had experienced between the abnormal days at Kouryou Academy, have fallen out of place.

The last time I talked to Miyabi was right after we left the isolated island.

'''''“Tha-thank you for saving me yesterday, Tooru-kun………….and……….sorry………you encountered danger because of me, I am really sorry…………”'''''

Ever since, Miyabi would only apologetically greet me, while avoiding any conversation.

Maybe she wanted to avoid others noticing her clear change of attitude, because she would still appear during mealtimes with everyone else----but no-one noticed that there was no interaction between me and Miaybi.

I can’t talk to her even if I wanted to.

This frustrating situation has been continuing ever since the seaside school.

(I have to do something about this………)

I have no idea if this relationship can ever return to the way it was, but I will continue struggling to make it so.

That’s because I want Miyabi to smile.

Even if that smile was not going to be directed at me.

Soon, Miyabi quickly entered the classroom when the main bell began to ring.

Just like I expected, it looks like I won't get any time to take her out of the class and speak with her.

(I guess I'll try to speak with her during the break...)

The moment I thought that—

“Guess whooooo~~?”

My view suddenly got blocked----and a sweet scent floated across me at the same time.

Someone was hugging me from behind while covering my eyes.

“………Lilith, right?”

Without panicking or creating a scene, I took her hands off my eyes and looked towards the girl with dazzling {{Furigana|blonde hair|Yellow Topaz}}.

---However, I was far from calm in my heart.

That’s because her two soft voluptuous hills were being ''smooshed'' against my back.

“Fufu, as expected of Tooru, huh? It’s definitely because we love each other on a normal basis~”

“If I eliminate all the people that ''wouldn't'' do this, Lilith would be the one one who ''would''.”

I shrug my shoulders in response to the gold girl, who winked at me before showing a smile.

“Me being the only one would mean that I am special in a way right? Fufuu~”

The girl who carried the title of <<Exception>>, Lilith, went ahead and placed herself in my special spot-----

“Uuh!?”

My view was blocked again.

Once again, someone hugged me from behind and covered my eyes.

“Who am I, Tooru?”

“…………Julie.”

“As expected, Tooru, my <<Duo>>.”

“Haha, you’re welcome…….”

Even though I replied with a wry smile, there was no way I would mistake Julie’s voice.

---Besides, the sensation on my back was reinforced my conviction that it's her.

Leaving that aside, the girls who covered my eyes were now glaring at each other.

“………..you want to say something, right?”

“He immediately knew it was me when I covered his eyes, so you aren’t the only special one.”

“Hee, now you've done it...”

Lilith's mouth angled in an interested manner.

Without changing her expression, Julie looked straight back at her.

It was a glowing sun and a magical moon.

Two girls with opposite impressions were as opposed as always.

Julie turned on the gold girl who wants to make me into her <<Duo>>----although, for someone who claims to be unconcerned, but it was rare for her to actually retort to Julie's complaints. Perhaps because her being a "special one" was denied, she couldn't hold back...

(Ya-re Ya-re, these two are the same…….)

I made a small sigh and was about to stop them-----

“Okay okay♪ Good morning everyone☆ HR is going to start so sit down♥”

Contrary to the school’s gloomy atmosphere, a voice that was so cheerful that the owner ''had'' to be in the wrong place, echoed throughout the room.

Having released her real power to take on the <<{{Furigana|God’s Destruction Team|Libel}}>>, our homeroom teacher---Tsukimi was now valued in the class (especially her students) as someone they could count on after they witnessed her mowing down enemies.

[Good morning White Usa-sensei,] [You’re tension is high today too, White Usa-sensei!] [Well it’s White Usa-sensei!]

Replies and prattling could be heard in the classroom in response to Tsukimi's greeting.

The thing different from last time was that she was being called “White Usa<ref group ="4a">"Usa" generally means "rabbit", but in this context, "bunny" is arguably more accurate, given Tsukimi's... fashion choices.</ref>."

The reason for that was-----

“OooRah! Hurry up and sit down you brats!!”

[It’s Black Usa-sensei mode!] [This is bad, it’s Black Usa-sensei; this is bad!] [Black Usa-sensei, scold me more……]

Having had her identity revealed already, she didn't hesitate to reveal her real-self anymore in response to the student's teasing.

“The gold and silver girls fighting over a guy there. HR is going to start so, hurry up and end the Shuraba<ref group="4a">A quick search indicates that this word is used to mean "scene of bloodshed", "carnage", etc; basically, Tsukimi is implying that the contest over Tooru is about to turn violent, and homeroom isn't the time for that</ref> love triangle with the couple and mistress.”

“It’s not a Shuraba or anything!”

“Ja---”

“I agree with that, but I am curious as to why you looked at me when you said 'mistress'!”

“Iyaaan, the Ojou-sama’s senses sure are sharp, huh♪”

“Seriously, I always tell you that I am the legal wife!”

“Nai, I refuse.”

“Why would you be the one doing the refusing?!”

The sights of the two girls with silver and gold hair collided again.

I let out a small sigh, and stood in the middle.

“Come on, let’s end it here. HR is going to start.”

“……….Maa, it can’t be helped if Tooru says so. Okay then, see you later, Tooru~”

Lilith winked at me before returning back to her seat.

“Okay then, now, as I said HR is starting, so first it's announcement time☆ There is going to be joint training with the second year students today, okay♪ Okay, next! People that reached <<III>> will have to undergo special training soon☆ Okay, next! The people I call now----”

Turning back to her White Usa-sensei mode, Tsukimi was in her usual high spirits, and I could sometime hear giggles.

During those announcements, I snuck a peak behind me.

Just within my vision, Miyabi wore a depressed expression.

When break time finally came, I chased and called after Miyabi, who had stood up from her seat and immediately exited to the corridor.

“Miyabi, can I have a bit of your time?”

“So-sorry. I am in a hurry……..”

“Ah……..So-sorry.”

She most likely didn't have anything she actually had to hurry for. Judging by her recent state, I could guess that she was just making an excuse to avoid having a conversation with me.

[[File:Absolute Duo Volume 4 Non-Colour 1.jpg|thumb]]

But even so, I backed down since she told me that she was in a hurry.

When Miyabi quickly turned a corner down the hall and disappeared from sight, I let out a small sigh and felt my shoulders droop. Just as I did that----a dignified voice called out to me from behind.

“Kokonoe, can I have a little of your time?’

When I turned around, I saw a familiar face---my close classmate, Tachibana.

However, she was currently using crutches and it looked painful.

“Aah, what is it?”

“It’s about Miyabi. She looks tired recently so, I am thinking of bring her out for a change of scenery after school. So, err, you……….”

Even though she hesitated to finish her thought, her intentions were clear.

Tachibana was saying that I should not talk to Miyabi now.

Tachibana probably felt that something happened to me and Miyabi during the seaside school.

But even so, I feel happy for Tachibana's thoughtfulness for thinking of Miyabi's heart first, even though that should be something obvious.

“I get it; I’ll leave it to you…..but, be careful.”

“Umu. It's okay, we aren’t going somewhere deserted. But, from what I heard, it seems the enemy’s target is the chairman, <<Lucifer>>, and also Lilith. So it’s probably safe to say that we aren’t being targeted.”

“That might be true, but... Well, go have fun. Just remember not to strain your legs.”

“Fufu, you worry too much. Nonetheless, I’ll listen to your warning, and will be careful not to force myself.”

Tachibana’s heels were diagnosed to recover fully in around a month's time.

Since the <<Exceed>>’s recovery ability totally exceeds a normal person’s, it seems she will be able to take off the cast by next week.

“……..also, thanks Tachibana”

“It’s not something to thank me for. It’s for my precious <<Duo>> too.”

And after she said that and made a soft smile, Tachibana went back into the classroom and I followed her.

But----

At this time, we had no way to know what would happen.

The fact that there was a malevolence that would drag in everyone around its target without any hesitation...

Or the fact that Miyabi encountered a devil when she went out...

After lunch, we headed to the medical building to have a check-up on the wounds I received from the fight with <<K>>.

The recovery progress was going well and it seems Julie and I will be fully healed by around the middle of next week.

We were told that it’s okay to undertake some light exercise and we quickly headed to the training room after the check-up.

“Even if it's just a little, I'm happy to get permission to exercise.”

“Ja--. I have not moved my body at all recently.”

“Incidentally, we’ve been only studying nowadays………”

Taking into consideration that there were many students wounded during the attack, battle and stamina training was converted to conventional classroom work: they largely revolved around general knowledge-based subjects, as well as special techniques for missions.

Thanks to that, once classes ended over the past few days, I felt as though I might have smoke puffing out my ears as my frustration continued to pent up. That’s why I am happy that I got permission to exercise and my legs naturally sped me towards the training room.

When we reached it, there were already quite a number of students inside using the room for their personal training.

Inside, I saw familiar faces at the sparring area.

The giant Tatsu, over 180cm tall, and a small boy—Tora—were sparring.

Strangers that didn’t know their situation would probably think that Tatsu was at an advantage but, actually, since Tora’s <<Level>> was higher, he was handicapped with extra weights.

“Tora, Tatsu!”

I called out to them from afar.

“Tooru, and Julie huh. Can you two start moving your bodies already?”

“If we keep it light.”

“Fumu. Then, let’s spar since it’s been quite a while? All this musclehead ever does is swing his fist with power.”

Tora splendidly ignored Tatsu’s opinion: “A man won’t use stupid tricks.”

“Uuuun, I guess I’ll pass. Sparing with you won’t end up as light exercise.”

Thinking of our personalities, I can see us lighting up in a blaze once we start.

“Fuun. Well I have no choice then. It won’t even be something to brag about if I beat an injured opponent. The results would be the same even if you were fully healed though.”

“Bullshit.”

After I laughed back at Tora, I stood in front of the mirror.

“Shadow training?”<ref group="4a">Best guess that this is what the writer/TL meant; basically the same thing as "shadow boxing", it's intended to let a person check their own form.</ref>

“Aah. There’s something I want to confirm. Julie, try making some strikes?”

“Ja----”

Julie picked up training swords and stood up in front of a target that looks like a man located beside the mirror.

Julie’s self-training centered around sparring and striking, and it seems she wasn't going to change that today.

“You aren’t at full form, so don’t force yourself.”

“……………”

“Julie?”

The silver girl did not reply for some reason and frowned her eyebrows instead.

“That’s the line I wanted to tell Tooru. Tooru, you always force yourself.”

“Uguh………..bu-but I only force myself in situations where I have to do so………”

“………That might be true but, you can’t stop me by saying it can’t be helped.”

The side of her eyebrows dropped and her {{Furigana|red eyes|Ruby eyes}} looked at me.

I could guess her emotions when I saw the uneasiness in her shaking eyes.

(I see, she’s still seeing father in me…….)

She might be worried that I'll end up like her father someday.

That’s why; I made a smile to make her feel some relief before patting her head.

“Hey, Julie. You remember the promise I said about protecting you?”

“Ja---”

“I made that promise, so I won't die. If I die, I won’t be able to protect Julie right?”

“Tooru…………”

“However, I will do my best to not be reckless. I’d feel bad for making you worry too much.”

“Ja--♪ it’s a promise.”

Even though my wry smile dropped with my feelings, Julie made one in exchange.

“……..Go back to your room.”

“Hnn? Did you say something, Tora?”

When I looked at Tora who mumbled something, he was looking at me with disgusted eyes for some reason.

“I am just asking you if you’re going to train or not. As far as I can see, your mouth is the only part moving so far.”

“Haha, I’m going to start now. Okay then, let’s start, Julie.”

I took a stance facing towards the mirror while Julie looked back at the target.

I lightly swung my fist towards my image in the mirror.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Pann*! *Papann*!! The training sword moved from the left and right, and the target made a loud sound.

(She’s as fast as I thought……)

While continuing my shadow boxing, that thought would cross my mind when I sometimes saw the silver girl’s movements.

Julie made repeated slashes with blinding speed.

However, she wasn’t reckless and I could see her holding back her strength.

After thinking I didn’t need to be worried anymore, I decided to concentrate on my shadow.

With half of my strength, I swung my fist, switched to the body movements Tachibana taught me and performed a kick.

(…………..My body still hurts when I turn it. Next----)

After I confirmed that, my mind turned to something that I was curious about during the fight with <<K>>, I switched to a left posture.

''Hrungnir'': unlike ''Mjolnir'' which is a one-hit kill move, it was a high-speed punch meant for diversion.

“Haah!!”

I stopped my fist after a few shots because of the pain on my chest.

But, that was enough for me to notice.

(It’s true that my fist was lowered. But, it’s amazing that he could notice that in such a short time, what’s more during battle. That <<K>>…………)

It was humiliating to have my weakness pinpointed by the enemy, but it resulted in gaining something.

Leaving aside the chances that we might meet <<K>> again later or not, I won’t be able to beat him if I don’t fix this habit.

“Tooru. What’s that move?”

Maybe he took a rest from his sparring; '''''Tora saw Hrungnir and asked me.'''''

I told him about my mastering this technique, that this technique got broken by <<K>> who found its weakness in the battle, and the name given to this technique-----

“''Hrung-''………Since it’s Norse mythology, was Julie the one that named it?”

A weird question came over.

“Aah. I thought of naming this 'bullet punch' but, it resulted in that.”

“………………..”

“What’s wrong, why are you so quiet?”

“No reason………you have to thank Julie.”

“Thank Julie? For what?”

Without understanding his meaning, I looked at Julie with a questioning face.

“---------?”

It seems the silver girl heard her own name and asked, [Did you call me?], tilting her small head.

“It's just a little thing, but I think it was refreshing for her.”

Evening-----as usual, Tachibana talked to me with a voice only audible to me while I was picking at the buffet for my menu.

Although we did not say who "her" was, it’s obviously Miyabi.

“I see, that’s great. Also-----Thanks.”

“Fufuu. I told you this already during the day but, you don’t have to thank me. As a friend and her <<Duo>>, I was concerned about her.”

“So---where is she?”

From what I can see around me, it seems Miyabi wasn’t in the cafeteria.

“She said she wanted to run a bit, so she went outside. She said she wanted to make up for the the times she did not run for the past few days.”

Ever since <<{{Furigana|God’s Destruction Team|Libel}}>> attacked, Miyabi stopped her daily runs even though she attended lessons and training.

That’s why, I felt relieved when I heard that she was going to run again.

(It’s about that confession huh………)

I think of how to talk to her when I see her again, once my feelings become certain; while thinking about that, I reached the table.

After that, everyone had their dinner like usual but-----

“Hey, Tooru. Over summer break, want to go to the UK?”

“Huh?”

Lilith has been a fixed member of our dinner table ever since <<Survive>>, and it’s only natural to be shocked at the sudden change of topic.

It’s only natural since she invited me to go overseas with no warning at all.

“That’s sudden…….”

“Rather than suddenly reporting our marriage, reporting about our relationship first would make things smooth later on I think, you know?””

“………..We aren’t going out.”

“It's not a bad idea to take this chance and start dating, you know?”

“Rejected.”

Sitting on my left side, Julie swung her head and pulled me away from Lilith, who was sitting at my right side.

“Oh my, Tooru’s the one to decide that.”

“Before even the topic of going out or not going out, he has to go back to his hometown during summer break, so it’s impossible to go to the UK.”

“I see, how sad. I think I’ll give up this time.”

“Haha, this time huh…….”

While making a wry smile at Lilith’s reply, I thought about my hometown which was vacant now when I said those words.

There’s no family waiting for me.

(But even so, Otoha’s going to be lonely if I don’t show up now and then……….)

And, while I was a little sad,

[One, two……..] [[[Congratulations on your birthday-♪]]]

Celebrative voices could be heard from one corner of the cafeteria.

Noisy, cheerful and happy voices echoed in the cafeteria.

“Seriously, how noisy.”

“I think it’s nice to have a cheerful atmosphere. Thinking about recent events, I think this is a must.”

I smiled at a frowning Tora and told him such.

“………Fuun. That’s true.”

Tora snorted roughly and *Dooka* leaned against the back of his chair while folding his arms.

(Birthday huh……..)

My birthday was coming next week.

My heart felt dejected when I thought about it.

That’s because, the day before my birthday----was ''that summer day.''.

“Tooru. I have something to talk about”

Tora called out to me when we went out of the cafeteria after dinner.

His expression had an air that he wouldn't take no for an answer and-----

“…….Julie, can you go back first?”

“Ja---”

I made Julie go back to the room.

“Where should we talk?”

“Outside.”

(……..Going all the way outside means that, it’s a talk that he does not want anyone else to hear.)

While looking at his small back walking in front, I started to think about the topics Tora would talk about.

After he exited the front door, the heat from the afternoon was still there and it felt a little hot.

The surroundings were naturally dark but, thanks to the light coming from the dorm, we did not have a hard time finding our way and we walked over the grass.

“I guess around here is okay…….so, what do you want to talk about?”

I folded my arms and asked Tora who was walking closer to a nearby tree----

“…………”

There was no reply.

It’s not like he didn't hear my voice. Furthermore, the atmosphere he was giving off was as if it was something hard to say.

Judging by Tora’s straightforward personality, I could grasp the contents of his topic as something serious.

The silence continued for a while and------Tora finally spoke.

“You still can’t mend your relationship with Hotaka?”

“Buuuu!? Wha-whawhahwahwa, h-how do you, no, you noticed……!?”

I did not tell anyone that my relationship with Miyabi had been derailed.

Of course, that goes for Julie too.

I thought the only one who noticed this was Miyabi’s <<Duo>> and roommate Tachibana, but------

“Fuun, there’s no way I won’t notice. In the first place, judging by your attitude towards her until now, there’s no way I wouldn't guess that something happened during seaside school.”

Just as expected from him.

Given the recent state of affairs, I never would have thought that he would notice this.

Which means, I think this might be unlikely but, things might have turned complicated because of some reason……….

“I heard this from Tachibana during the afternoon but, Hotaka is going back to her home during summer break. Even if it's a short break, if you don't meet her for a full week, it'll probably become a lot harder to mend things. So that's why you need to hurry up and do something about it before summer break starts.”

“A-aah………Sorry, to make you worry about this……”

Whether it's on this matter or during the attack, Tora has been helping out a lot.

“It’s not like I am worried about you, it just feels annoying……….and that isn’t the only thing I want to talk about.”

“Eh, there’s something else?”

I thought the problem with Miyabi was what he wanted to talk about so I tilted my head.

“It’s about going home. Not Hotaka's, yours.”

“Mine?”

Tora nodded and continued on with his original business.

“You told that woman during dinner time, right? That you will be going back home?”

“I plan on doing so, what about it?”

“…………..Can I go with you?”

“Aah, let’s go back together. We are going to be together for half the trip anyway.”

“No.”

It was a quiet and yet strong tone.

When I thought Tora was different from usual, his face turned unusually serious and he looked a little stiff.

“I am asking if '''''I can go to your house''''', Tooru.”

My heart skipped a beat.

Tora has been to my house many times in the past.

But, it was when Otoha was still alive.

During a dojo exchange that occurs only a few times per year, we became friends since we were the same age and not long after, Tora started coming over to the dojo to learn and would often come over to my house.

However----The last time was over two years ago.

Tora does not know about it.

He does not know that the house no longer has anyone living in it anymore.

“I-I plan to stay for one night only so, Tora head back to your----”

He doesn’t need to know.

I reject the idea of a visit so that Tora will only have memories of the warm Kokonoe home of the past.

“No, I am going. Let me come with. '''''Let me offer flowers''''' to---to Otoha too.”

“-----!?”

I was so shocked from those unexpected words that I gasped.

That’s because ever since we reunited during the enrollment ceremony I did everything I could to avoid leading him to that conclusion.

“You……knew……….”

After a while, I managed to squeeze my voice out and Tora silently nodded.

“……….I was contacted by the dojo.”

“I see……..”

I missed something simple.

Because he was with us for a long time, it was only natural for him to be told.

“'''''It seems the dojo encountered a fire disaster because of someone smoking'''''. I knew this and keep quiet about it, sorry. This may be too late, but this is... just sad. And she took care of me before, so—”

“………I get it. Since you know about this, I am counting on you to follow-through. Otoha will be happy.”

Whenever Tora and I sparred, Otoha would be the one who treated our wounds.

I could clearly remember her giving it her all to assist us and I would never forget about it.

I would never lose the memories of me, Tora, Otoha, and—'''''him'''''... all four of us playing together.

“Sorry. Even though you know, this was something I should tell you…….”

“Fuun, don’t worry about it. Everyone has things they don’t want to say……….okay, our talk ends here. Let’s head back to the dorm.”

Tora started walking in front and I followed behind.

Even though he has a foul mouth, I am grateful for him for being concerned about his friend.

However, Tora does not know.

Two years ago, the disaster that occurred in the dojo was not a fire but rather, it was a tragedy that occurred because ''''he'''' swung his deadly blade.

The only ones that knew of this were myself, him and '''''another person'''''-----

That person was the one that saved me from that burning dojo.

But, that’s good.

Tora might be foul mouthed but he’s a good person, and if he finds out the truth about that day-------

If he found out that Otoha didn’t die from that fire, but was killed, he would fly into a rage and become a captive to vengeance, just like me so……..

That’s why, Tora doesn't have to know.

I am the only one who needs to take revenge against him.

===Part 2===
“Are you going out to run now? It’s already evening.”

“U-un. But I have been skipping these past few days so, I want to regain the lost time as much as possible so………”

“…………… I see, work hard then. However, gradually work your way back without rushing. It’s bad to suddenly force yourself. Also, you have to eat dinner once you finish running. And to avoid getting heat stroke-----”

“Fufu, it’s okay so don’t worry so much, Tomoe-chan.”

Miyabi giggled at her partner who was launching into a detailed lecture of warnings just like a mother.

Tomoe was received, since Miyabi had only worn false smiles ever since the seaside school.

After changing into clothes that made running easier, Miyabi told Tomoe that she was heading out.

But------

With the sun set and the surroundings dark, Miyabi left the dorm and looked around restlessly. Of course, there were no students walking around at night and she exhaled when she confirmed that fact.

(Eeeeeerrr………..I think I should get some more distance.)

Since there might be students coming back to the dorm, the girl ran towards the deserted south side of the academy dorms.

The conversation she had with the old man today resurfaced in her mind.

““Then, let me bestow upon you this-----the <<Power>> of <<{{Furigana|Ell.Libel|God’s Destruction soldier}}>> to you.”

“<<{{Furigana|Ell.Libel|God’s Destruction soldier}}>>………….?”

“Fuhahaha, just like how the word is read, it’s a power strong enough to destroy god.”

“Errrrr……….?”

Miyabi, who had been having a pleasant chat with him, was perplexed.

(Just what is this old man talking about?)

But the old man did not notice the girl's perplexity and continued.

“You’re a Kouryou student right?”

“------!! Ho-how did you know that……!?”

Miyabi was not wearing her uniform, but was in her casual clothes. So just how did the old man know that she was a Kouryou student?

Unluckily for the girl, having confided in the old man prevented her from being able to become as alert or suspicious as she should have been.

What’s more-----

“Oh it’s simple. I am acquainted with Tsukumo-Jou-chan<ref group="4a">"Jou-chan" is shorthand for "ojou-chan"; basically, he's saying "Young Lady Tsukumo", or "Little Lady Tsukumo" might be more accurate.</ref>.”

“Eh………? Errr----Tsukumo? Is that the director? Then Ojii-chan is part of the research team?”

The old man----the <<Equipment smith>> only smiled; he didn't confirm or deny that.

However, Miyabi believed her words were correct judging by his smile.

That’s only normal. That’s because there was no interaction between the students and the researchers coming in and out the <<Lucifer>> research facility under the academy. They would only coincidentally pass by and greet them during brief encounters at the dorm or at school.

But for a researcher, it wouldn't be strange at all that they would have already seen all the students' personal data.

Because of that, she did not doubt him and came to a conclusion.

“I am researching something else than the <<Lucifer>>. That’s this----<<Unit>>.”

Tooru and also Tomoe misunderstood the reason why Miyabi was sad, although they weren't far off.

It’s true that the confession was one of the reasons for it.

However, the main reason why she was depressed was because she had put the life of the person she loved—Tooru—in danger.

The cause behind her fall into despair was that she had become a hindrance to him because of her weakness.

That’s why Miyabi yearns for ''''it''''.

The one thing she wished and yearned for----was <<Power>>.

And right now, Miyabi accepted the <<Power>> offered to her by the old man.

When she entered the forest at the south part of the grounds, Miyabi lowered her sights to the device, disguised as an accessory, she was holding.

(Is it really true………?)

Even though she placed her finger on the device’s switch, the girl raised her eyebrows at the question floating in her mind.

Maybe that old man said it as a joke to cheer her up.

More importantly, no one would suffer if anyone can gain strength with just a push of a button.

(But, even so……….)

It might be nonsense, but she still tensed with anticipation.

She wanted to say goodbye to her weak self.

As if to reveal her heart, she held the device with both her hands like she was praying and not long later-----

Miyabi pressed the button.

“Please, give me---<<Power>>!!”

<noinclude>

==Translation Notes and References==

<references group="4a" />

{{SimpleNav}}
</noinclude>

Absolute Duo:Volume 4 Chapter 1

2021-03-31T21:44:30Z

SNovah:

==Chapter 1 『Everyone Has Things They Don't Want To Say』==

===Part 1===
The first Saturday after returning from the seaside school has arrived.

Seasonally, the world would normally be in a summer mood but, that’s something unrelated to Kouryou academy.

With a minimum of one general subject lesson added in, Kouryou has taken in consideration the time for ability training—refining the student's battle arts—and thus the summer break here takes the Bon festival as the main holiday, meaning there's not even one full week off.

With that said, even though it’s now the second half of July, they should be heading back to school but-----

“Julie, let’s get going.”

While dozing off in her seat, the silver girl opened her eyes when I called out to her.

“Ja-………..”

“Are you alright? It’s been hot every night recently, and it looks like you haven’t been sleeping much……”

“Nai. I am okay, please don’t mind me.”

Even though Julie said that, the hot days will continue from now on, and there was a forecast that today was going to be ''very'' hot, with a temperature crossing over 35° (C).

(Uuun, it would be nice if there’s something I can do for her………..)

I probably can’t do anything about the heat, but I pondered if there is something I can do when she tries to sleep, and while I was doing so-----

“Okay then, let’s go Tooru.”

“Aah, okay.”

Instead, I was the one getting urged and we left the room with Julie following behind me.

Though it should be unneeded to say this, strong sunshine was shining down when we got outside the dormitory.

“It looks like it’s going to be hot as predicted. It’s probably going to be tough but, let’s work hard, Julie.”

“Ja--♪”

After the girl with {{Furigana|Silver hair|Silver Blonde}} nodded, the ribbon’s bell echoed and made a cooling sound.

On the familiar street to the school from the dorm----

There were students heading to the school in the surroundings and a lot of them wore dark expressions.

It wasn't because they were upset over not having a summer vacation.

They were wondering if they '''''should continue attending Kouryou academy or not.'''''

The day they returned to the main school, the chairman delivered a speech during an emergency assembly. That speech contributed, in no small way, to that worry.

That speech was delivered under the pretext that the attacks on the academy were in revenge, backed by a criminal organization which had fought against the Dawn organization's public order teams in the past. Their assault on the academy itself was the first time it had been attacked directly, but there remained a possibility that it could happen again.

With that warning given, she left the decision on remaining in or leaving Kouryou Academy up to to the students.

As a result, many of those students were left pondering on their futures.

The attack had, after all, not only caused of property damage from gunfire and explosions, but a great many were injured-------and the death count was in the double digits.

That reality was the main reason why many students were worried.

It’s only normal.

They were just normal middle school students, living peaceful lives until they enrolled in Kouryou. For them, a situation that determined if a person lived or died would only be seen through the filter of the Internet and television, or maybe in fictional categories like games and manga.

In the explanation we received before finalizing enrollment, everyone was warned that there would be danger during training and lessons, as well as the missions that would be issued when they were recruited into the public order maintenance teams upon graduation.

However, they only truly understood what that meant when they saw someone close to them lose their life.

No, they were forced to understand.

They were forced to understand that the path they are taking will not be one found in the normal world they knew, but instead will take them into a realm of abnormality.

That's why this incident has become such a crossroads for so many.

They can either return to the normal world and treasure their lives; or they can gather up their determination and will to advance into a world consumed by abnormalities.

Conclusion-----

So far, twelve first-year students that experienced the attack have left the academy. Most likely, more students will probably choose to quit. From what I can see, half of the students remaining are still pondering if they should drop out or continue.

Maybe the senior students have already participated in somewhat dangerous missions during training, as there were less of those that chose to quit. But even so, many of them seemed to be pondering the question too.

Me----and the silver girl walking beside me, have chosen to continue on this abnormal road.

As long as both of us follow the path of the <<Avenger>>, our decision has already been made.

“......It turned out pretty, huh, Tooru?”

“Aah, yeah, it has.”

We were staring at the scars left on the school in front of us from the attack.

Even though the enemy—who goes by the name <<{{Furigana|God’s Destruction Team|Libel}}>>—attacked the school to seize the <<Lucifer>> research facility located beneath it, the most violent part of the battle took place at the school entrance.

The pillars and walls were damaged or destroyed, still sticky with dark red bloodstains from the enemy... or the defenders.

Offerings of flowers had been left beside the pillars. There were some students that stopped to offer prayers, while there were also students that quickly walked by so they wouldn't have to see that.

“………I guess we should pray too.”

I joined my hands while facing the flowering offerings and Julie made a silent prayer.

Within the crying sound of cicadas, we quietly passed the time.

When I entered the classroom, only about 70% of the students were present, excluding the ones that had quit, even though class was about to start.

The people pondering on their course of action probably felt like skipping school.

I looked around at the classmates in the room, and leaked a small sigh when I could not see a close female friend----Miyabi in the class.

Her <<Duo>>--Tachibana was attending class and she was talking with a girl.

Nevertheless, it’s not like Miyabi was not in school because she was pondering if she wanted to quit or continue Kouryou.

She might still be in shock from almost being harmed by the battle suit man, but she still attended class and seriously participated in it and training without rest.

But other than those specific times, she would leave her seat and the classroom.

I didn’t even need to think to find a reason why she took those actions; it was probably the effect of ''that'' incident...

'''''“I love you”'''''

Her whispered feelings reached me, because the waves stopped.

At that moment, she expressed the feelings in her heart, confessing plainly to her affection towards me.

But, I could not reply to her.

That's because I didn't know how to reply to her. I thought of myself as an <<Avenger>>, yet I was happy to receive Miyabi's confession...

Ever since that day, the gears of the normal days I had experienced between the abnormal days at Kouryou Academy, have fallen out of place.

The last time I talked to Miyabi was right after we left the isolated island.

'''''“Tha-thank you for saving me yesterday, Tooru-kun………….and……….sorry………you encountered danger because of me, I am really sorry…………”'''''

Ever since, Miyabi would only apologetically greet me, while avoiding any conversation.

Maybe she wanted to avoid others noticing her clear change of attitude, because she would still appear during mealtimes with everyone else----but no-one noticed that there was no interaction between me and Miaybi.

I can’t talk to her even if I wanted to.

This frustrating situation has been continuing ever since the seaside school.

(I have to do something about this………)

I have no idea if this relationship can ever return to the way it was, but I will continue struggling to make it so.

That’s because I want Miyabi to smile.

Even if that smile was not going to be directed at me.

Soon, Miyabi quickly entered the classroom when the main bell began to ring.

Just like I expected, it looks like I won't get any time to take her out of the class and speak with her.

(I guess I'll try to speak with her during the break...)

The moment I thought that—

“Guess whooooo~~?”

My view suddenly got blocked----and a sweet scent floated across me at the same time.

Someone was hugging me from behind while covering my eyes.

“………Lilith, right?”

Without panicking or creating a scene, I took her hands off my eyes and looked towards the girl with dazzling {{Furigana|blonde hair|Yellow Topaz}}.

---However, I was far from calm in my heart.

That’s because her two soft voluptuous hills were being ''smooshed'' against my back.

“Fufu, as expected of Tooru, huh? It’s definitely because we love each other on a normal basis~”

“If I eliminate all the people that ''wouldn't'' do this, Lilith would be the one one who ''would''.”

I shrug my shoulders in response to the gold girl, who winked at me before showing a smile.

“Me being the only one would mean that I am special in a way right? Fufuu~”

The girl who carried the title of <<Exception>>, Lilith, went ahead and placed herself in my special spot-----

“Uuh!?”

My view was blocked again.

Once again, someone hugged me from behind and covered my eyes.

“Who am I, Tooru?”

“…………Julie.”

“As expected, Tooru, my <<Duo>>.”

“Haha, you’re welcome…….”

Even though I replied with a wry smile, there was no way I would mistake Julie’s voice.

---Besides, the sensation on my back was reinforced my conviction that it's her.

Leaving that aside, the girls who covered my eyes were now glaring at each other.

“………..you want to say something, right?”

“He immediately knew it was me when I covered his eyes, so you aren’t the only special one.”

“Hee, now you've done it...”

Lilith's mouth angled in an interested manner.

Without changing her expression, Julie looked straight back at her.

It was a glowing sun and a magical moon.

Two girls with opposite impressions were as opposed as always.

Julie turned on the gold girl who wants to make me into her <<Duo>>----although, for someone who claims to be unconcerned, but it was rare for her to actually retort to Julie's complaints. Perhaps because her being a "special one" was denied, she couldn't hold back...

(Ya-re Ya-re, these two are the same…….)

I made a small sigh and was about to stop them-----

“Okay okay♪ Good morning everyone☆ HR is going to start so sit down♥”

Contrary to the school’s gloomy atmosphere, a voice that was so cheerful that the owner ''had'' to be in the wrong place, echoed throughout the room.

Having released her real power to take on the <<{{Furigana|God’s Destruction Team|Libel}}>>, our homeroom teacher---Tsukimi was now valued in the class (especially her students) as someone they could count on after they witnessed her mowing down enemies.

[Good morning White Usa-sensei,] [You’re tension is high today too, White Usa-sensei!] [Well it’s White Usa-sensei!]

Replies and prattling could be heard in the classroom in response to Tsukimi's greeting.

The thing different from last time was that she was being called “White Usa<ref group ="4a">"Usa" generally means "rabbit", but in this context, "bunny" is arguably more accurate, given Tsukimi's... fashion choices.</ref>."

The reason for that was-----

“OooRah! Hurry up and sit down you brats!!”

[It’s Black Usa-sensei mode!] [This is bad, it’s Black Usa-sensei; this is bad!] [Black Usa-sensei, scold me more……]

Having had her identity revealed already, she didn't hesitate to reveal her real-self anymore in response to the student's teasing.

“The gold and silver girls fighting over a guy there. HR is going to start so, hurry up and end the Shuraba<ref group="4a">A quick search indicates that this word is used to mean "scene of bloodshed", "carnage", etc; basically, Tsukimi is implying that the contest over Tooru is about to turn violent, and homeroom isn't the time for that</ref> love triangle with the couple and mistress.”

“It’s not a Shuraba or anything!”

“Ja---”

“I agree with that, but I am curious as to why you looked at me when you said 'mistress'!”

“Iyaaan, the Ojou-sama’s senses sure are sharp, huh♪”

“Seriously, I always tell you that I am the legal wife!”

“Nai, I refuse.”

“Why would you be the one doing the refusing?!”

The sights of the two girls with silver and gold hair collided again.

I let out a small sigh, and stood in the middle.

“Come on, let’s end it here. HR is going to start.”

“……….Maa, it can’t be helped if Tooru says so. Okay then, see you later, Tooru~”

Lilith winked at me before returning back to her seat.

“Okay then, now, as I said HR is starting, so first it's announcement time☆ There is going to be joint training with the second year students today, okay♪ Okay, next! People that reached <<III>> will have to undergo special training soon☆ Okay, next! The people I call now----”

Turning back to her White Usa-sensei mode, Tsukimi was in her usual high spirits, and I could sometime hear giggles.

During those announcements, I snuck a peak behind me.

Just within my vision, Miyabi wore a depressed expression.

When break time finally came, I chased and called after Miyabi, who had stood up from her seat and immediately exited to the corridor.

“Miyabi, can I have a bit of your time?”

“So-sorry. I am in a hurry……..”

“Ah……..So-sorry.”

She most likely didn't have anything she actually had to hurry for. Judging by her recent state, I could guess that she was just making an excuse to avoid having a conversation with me.

[[File:Absolute Duo Volume 4 Non-Colour 1.jpg|thumb]]

But even so, I backed down since she told me that she was in a hurry.

When Miyabi quickly turned a corner down the hall and disappeared from sight, I let out a small sigh and felt my shoulders droop. Just as I did that----a dignified voice called out to me from behind.

“Kokonoe, can I have a little of your time?’

When I turned around, I saw a familiar face---my close classmate, Tachibana.

However, she was currently using crutches and it looked painful.

“Aah, what is it?”

“It’s about Miyabi. She looks tired recently so, I am thinking of bring her out for a change of scenery after school. So, err, you……….”

Even though she hesitated to finish her thought, her intentions were clear.

Tachibana was saying that I should not talk to Miyabi now.

Tachibana probably felt that something happened to me and Miyabi during the seaside school.

But even so, I feel happy for Tachibana's thoughtfulness for thinking of Miyabi's heart first, even though that should be something obvious.

“I get it; I’ll leave it to you…..but, be careful.”

“Umu. It's okay, we aren’t going somewhere deserted. But, from what I heard, it seems the enemy’s target is the chairman, <<Lucifer>>, and also Lilith. So it’s probably safe to say that we aren’t being targeted.”

“That might be true, but... Well, go have fun. Just remember not to strain your legs.”

“Fufu, you worry too much. Nonetheless, I’ll listen to your warning, and will be careful not to force myself.”

Tachibana’s heels were diagnosed to recover fully in around a month's time.

Since the <<Exceed>>’s recovery ability totally exceeds a normal person’s, it seems she will be able to take off the cast by next week.

“……..also, thanks Tachibana”

“It’s not something to thank me for. It’s for my precious <<Duo>> too.”

And after she said that and made a soft smile, Tachibana went back into the classroom and I followed her.

But----

At this time, we had no way to know what would happen.

The fact that there was a malevolence that would drag in everyone around its target without any hesitation...

Or the fact that Miyabi encountered a devil when she went out...

After lunch, we headed to the medical building to have a check-up on the wounds I received from the fight with <<K>>.

The recovery progress was going well and it seems Julie and I will be fully healed by around the middle of next week.

We were told that it’s okay to undertake some light exercise and we quickly headed to the training room after the check-up.

“Even if it's just a little, I'm happy to get permission to exercise.”

“Ja--. I have not moved my body at all recently.”

“Incidentally, we’ve been only studying nowadays………”

Taking into consideration that there were many students wounded during the attack, battle and stamina training was converted to conventional classroom work: they largely revolved around general knowledge-based subjects, as well as special techniques for missions.

Thanks to that, once classes ended over the past few days, I felt as though I might have smoke puffing out my ears as my frustration continued to pent up. That’s why I am happy that I got permission to exercise and my legs naturally sped me towards the training room.

When we reached it, there were already quite a number of students inside using the room for their personal training.

Inside, I saw familiar faces at the sparring area.

The giant Tatsu, over 180cm tall, and a small boy—Tora—were sparring.

Strangers that didn’t know their situation would probably think that Tatsu was at an advantage but, actually, since Tora’s <<Level>> was higher, he was handicapped with extra weights.

“Tora, Tatsu!”

I called out to them from afar.

“Tooru, and Julie huh. Can you two start moving your bodies already?”

“If we keep it light.”

“Fumu. Then, let’s spar since it’s been quite a while? All this musclehead ever does is swing his fist with power.”

Tora splendidly ignored Tatsu’s opinion: “A man won’t use stupid tricks.”

“Uuuun, I guess I’ll pass. Sparing with you won’t end up as light exercise.”

Thinking of our personalities, I can see us lighting up in a blaze once we start.

“Fuun. Well I have no choice then. It won’t even be something to brag about if I beat an injured opponent. The results would be the same even if you were fully healed though.”

“Bullshit.”

After I laughed back at Tora, I stood in front of the mirror.

“Shadow training?”<ref group="4a">Best guess that this is what the writer/TL meant; basically the same thing as "shadow boxing", it's intended to let a person check their own form. The use of the mirror might be because of how this Duo fights, and allows Tooru to view what Julie is doing.</ref>

“Aah. There’s something I want to confirm. Julie, try making some strikes?”

“Ja----”

Julie picked up training swords and stood up in front of a target that looks like a man located beside the mirror.

Julie’s self-training centered around sparring and striking, and it seems she wasn't going to change that today.

“You aren’t at full form, so don’t force yourself.”

“……………”

“Julie?”

The silver girl did not reply for some reason and frowned her eyebrows instead.

“That’s the line I wanted to tell Tooru. Tooru, you always force yourself.”

“Uguh………..bu-but I only force myself in situations where I have to do so………”

“………That might be true but, you can’t stop me by saying it can’t be helped.”

The side of her eyebrows dropped and her {{Furigana|red eyes|Ruby eyes}} looked at me.

I could guess her emotions when I saw the uneasiness in her shaking eyes.

(I see, she’s still seeing father in me…….)

She might be worried that I'll end up like her father someday.

That’s why; I made a smile to make her feel some relief before patting her head.

“Hey, Julie. You remember the promise I said about protecting you?”

“Ja---”

“I made that promise, so I won't die. If I die, I won’t be able to protect Julie right?”

“Tooru…………”

“However, I will do my best to not be reckless. I’d feel bad for making you worry too much.”

“Ja--♪ it’s a promise.”

Even though my wry smile dropped with my feelings, Julie made one in exchange.

“……..Go back to your room.”

“Hnn? Did you say something, Tora?”

When I looked at Tora who mumbled something, he was looking at me with disgusted eyes for some reason.

“I am just asking you if you’re going to train or not. As far as I can see, your mouth is the only part moving so far.”

“Haha, I’m going to start now. Okay then, let’s start, Julie.”

I took a stance facing towards the mirror while Julie looked back at the target.

I lightly swung my fist towards my image in the mirror.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Pann*! *Papann*!! The training sword moved from the left and right, and the target made a loud sound.

(She’s as fast as I thought……)

While continuing my shadow boxing, that thought would cross my mind when I sometimes saw the silver girl’s movements.

Julie made repeated slashes with blinding speed.

However, she wasn’t reckless and I could see her holding back her strength.

After thinking I didn’t need to be worried anymore, I decided to concentrate on my shadow.

With half of my strength, I swung my fist, switched to the body movements Tachibana taught me and performed a kick.

(…………..My body still hurts when I turn it. Next----)

After I confirmed that, my mind turned to something that I was curious about during the fight with <<K>>, I switched to a left posture.

''Hrungnir'': unlike ''Mjolnir'' which is a one-hit kill move, it was a high-speed punch meant for diversion.

“Haah!!”

I stopped my fist after a few shots because of the pain on my chest.

But, that was enough for me to notice.

(It’s true that my fist was lowered. But, it’s amazing that he could notice that in such a short time, what’s more during battle. That <<K>>…………)

It was humiliating to have my weakness pinpointed by the enemy, but it resulted in gaining something.

Leaving aside the chances that we might meet <<K>> again later or not, I won’t be able to beat him if I don’t fix this habit.

“Tooru. What’s that move?”

Maybe he took a rest from his sparring; '''''Tora saw Hrungnir and asked me.'''''

I told him about my mastering this technique, that this technique got broken by <<K>> who found its weakness in the battle, and the name given to this technique-----

“''Hrung-''………Since it’s Norse mythology, was Julie the one that named it?”

A weird question came over.

“Aah. I thought of naming this 'bullet punch' but, it resulted in that.”

“………………..”

“What’s wrong, why are you so quiet?”

“No reason………you have to thank Julie.”

“Thank Julie? For what?”

Without understanding his meaning, I looked at Julie with a questioning face.

“---------?”

It seems the silver girl heard her own name and asked, [Did you call me?], tilting her small head.

“It's just a little thing, but I think it was refreshing for her.”

Evening-----as usual, Tachibana talked to me with a voice only audible to me while I was picking at the buffet for my menu.

Although we did not say who "her" was, it’s obviously Miyabi.

“I see, that’s great. Also-----Thanks.”

“Fufuu. I told you this already during the day but, you don’t have to thank me. As a friend and her <<Duo>>, I was concerned about her.”

“So---where is she?”

From what I can see around me, it seems Miyabi wasn’t in the cafeteria.

“She said she wanted to run a bit, so she went outside. She said she wanted to make up for the the times she did not run for the past few days.”

Ever since <<{{Furigana|God’s Destruction Team|Libel}}>> attacked, Miyabi stopped her daily runs even though she attended lessons and training.

That’s why, I felt relieved when I heard that she was going to run again.

(It’s about that confession huh………)

I think of how to talk to her when I see her again, once my feelings become certain; while thinking about that, I reached the table.

After that, everyone had their dinner like usual but-----

“Hey, Tooru. Over summer break, want to go to the UK?”

“Huh?”

Lilith has been a fixed member of our dinner table ever since <<Survive>>, and it’s only natural to be shocked at the sudden change of topic.

It’s only natural since she invited me to go overseas with no warning at all.

“That’s sudden…….”

“Rather than suddenly reporting our marriage, reporting about our relationship first would make things smooth later on I think, you know?””

“………..We aren’t going out.”

“It's not a bad idea to take this chance and start dating, you know?”

“Rejected.”

Sitting on my left side, Julie swung her head and pulled me away from Lilith, who was sitting at my right side.

“Oh my, Tooru’s the one to decide that.”

“Before even the topic of going out or not going out, he has to go back to his hometown during summer break, so it’s impossible to go to the UK.”

“I see, how sad. I think I’ll give up this time.”

“Haha, this time huh…….”

While making a wry smile at Lilith’s reply, I thought about my hometown which was vacant now when I said those words.

There’s no family waiting for me.

(But even so, Otoha’s going to be lonely if I don’t show up now and then……….)

And, while I was a little sad,

[One, two……..] [[[Congratulations on your birthday-♪]]]

Celebrative voices could be heard from one corner of the cafeteria.

Noisy, cheerful and happy voices echoed in the cafeteria.

“Seriously, how noisy.”

“I think it’s nice to have a cheerful atmosphere. Thinking about recent events, I think this is a must.”

I smiled at a frowning Tora and told him such.

“………Fuun. That’s true.”

Tora snorted roughly and *Dooka* leaned against the back of his chair while folding his arms.

(Birthday huh……..)

My birthday was coming next week.

My heart felt dejected when I thought about it.

That’s because, the day before my birthday----was ''that summer day.''.

“Tooru. I have something to talk about”

Tora called out to me when we went out of the cafeteria after dinner.

His expression had an air that he wouldn't take no for an answer and-----

“…….Julie, can you go back first?”

“Ja---”

I made Julie go back to the room.

“Where should we talk?”

“Outside.”

(……..Going all the way outside means that, it’s a talk that he does not want anyone else to hear.)

While looking at his small back walking in front, I started to think about the topics Tora would talk about.

After he exited the front door, the heat from the afternoon was still there and it felt a little hot.

The surroundings were naturally dark but, thanks to the light coming from the dorm, we did not have a hard time finding our way and we walked over the grass.

“I guess around here is okay…….so, what do you want to talk about?”

I folded my arms and asked Tora who was walking closer to a nearby tree----

“…………”

There was no reply.

It’s not like he didn't hear my voice. Furthermore, the atmosphere he was giving off was as if it was something hard to say.

Judging by Tora’s straightforward personality, I could grasp the contents of his topic as something serious.

The silence continued for a while and------Tora finally spoke.

“You still can’t mend your relationship with Hotaka?”

“Buuuu!? Wha-whawhahwahwa, h-how do you, no, you noticed……!?”

I did not tell anyone that my relationship with Miyabi had been derailed.

Of course, that goes for Julie too.

I thought the only one who noticed this was Miyabi’s <<Duo>> and roommate Tachibana, but------

“Fuun, there’s no way I won’t notice. In the first place, judging by your attitude towards her until now, there’s no way I wouldn't guess that something happened during seaside school.”

Just as expected from him.

Given the recent state of affairs, I never would have thought that he would notice this.

Which means, I think this might be unlikely but, things might have turned complicated because of some reason……….

“I heard this from Tachibana during the afternoon but, Hotaka is going back to her home during summer break. Even if it's a short break, if you don't meet her for a full week, it'll probably become a lot harder to mend things. So that's why you need to hurry up and do something about it before summer break starts.”

“A-aah………Sorry, to make you worry about this……”

Whether it's on this matter or during the attack, Tora has been helping out a lot.

“It’s not like I am worried about you, it just feels annoying……….and that isn’t the only thing I want to talk about.”

“Eh, there’s something else?”

I thought the problem with Miyabi was what he wanted to talk about so I tilted my head.

“It’s about going home. Not Hotaka's, yours.”

“Mine?”

Tora nodded and continued on with his original business.

“You told that woman during dinner time, right? That you will be going back home?”

“I plan on doing so, what about it?”

“…………..Can I go with you?”

“Aah, let’s go back together. We are going to be together for half the trip anyway.”

“No.”

It was a quiet and yet strong tone.

When I thought Tora was different from usual, his face turned unusually serious and he looked a little stiff.

“I am asking if '''''I can go to your house''''', Tooru.”

My heart skipped a beat.

Tora has been to my house many times in the past.

But, it was when Otoha was still alive.

During a dojo exchange that occurs only a few times per year, we became friends since we were the same age and not long after, Tora started coming over to the dojo to learn and would often come over to my house.

However----The last time was over two years ago.

Tora does not know about it.

He does not know that the house no longer has anyone living in it anymore.

“I-I plan to stay for one night only so, Tora head back to your----”

He doesn’t need to know.

I reject the idea of a visit so that Tora will only have memories of the warm Kokonoe home of the past.

“No, I am going. Let me come with. '''''Let me offer flowers''''' to---to Otoha too.”

“-----!?”

I was so shocked from those unexpected words that I gasped.

That’s because ever since we reunited during the enrollment ceremony I did everything I could to avoid leading him to that conclusion.

“You……knew……….”

After a while, I managed to squeeze my voice out and Tora silently nodded.

“……….I was contacted by the dojo.”

“I see……..”

I missed something simple.

Because he was with us for a long time, it was only natural for him to be told.

“'''''It seems the dojo encountered a fire disaster because of someone smoking'''''. I knew this and keep quiet about it, sorry. This may be too late, but this is... just sad. And she took care of me before, so—”

“………I get it. Since you know about this, I am counting on you to follow-through. Otoha will be happy.”

Whenever Tora and I sparred, Otoha would be the one who treated our wounds.

I could clearly remember her giving it her all to assist us and I would never forget about it.

I would never lose the memories of me, Tora, Otoha, and—'''''him'''''... all four of us playing together.

“Sorry. Even though you know, this was something I should tell you…….”

“Fuun, don’t worry about it. Everyone has things they don’t want to say……….okay, our talk ends here. Let’s head back to the dorm.”

Tora started walking in front and I followed behind.

Even though he has a foul mouth, I am grateful for him for being concerned about his friend.

However, Tora does not know.

Two years ago, the disaster that occurred in the dojo was not a fire but rather, it was a tragedy that occurred because ''''he'''' swung his deadly blade.

The only ones that knew of this were myself, him and '''''another person'''''-----

That person was the one that saved me from that burning dojo.

But, that’s good.

Tora might be foul mouthed but he’s a good person, and if he finds out the truth about that day-------

If he found out that Otoha didn’t die from that fire, but was killed, he would fly into a rage and become a captive to vengeance, just like me so……..

That’s why, Tora doesn't have to know.

I am the only one who needs to take revenge against him.

===Part 2===
“Are you going out to run now? It’s already evening.”

“U-un. But I have been skipping these past few days so, I want to regain the lost time as much as possible so………”

“…………… I see, work hard then. However, gradually work your way back without rushing. It’s bad to suddenly force yourself. Also, you have to eat dinner once you finish running. And to avoid getting heat stroke-----”

“Fufu, it’s okay so don’t worry so much, Tomoe-chan.”

Miyabi giggled at her partner who was launching into a detailed lecture of warnings just like a mother.

Tomoe was received, since Miyabi had only worn false smiles ever since the seaside school.

After changing into clothes that made running easier, Miyabi told Tomoe that she was heading out.

But------

With the sun set and the surroundings dark, Miyabi left the dorm and looked around restlessly. Of course, there were no students walking around at night and she exhaled when she confirmed that fact.

(Eeeeeerrr………..I think I should get some more distance.)

Since there might be students coming back to the dorm, the girl ran towards the deserted south side of the academy dorms.

The conversation she had with the old man today resurfaced in her mind.

““Then, let me bestow upon you this-----the <<Power>> of <<{{Furigana|Ell.Libel|God’s Destruction soldier}}>> to you.”

“<<{{Furigana|Ell.Libel|God’s Destruction soldier}}>>………….?”

“Fuhahaha, just like how the word is read, it’s a power strong enough to destroy god.”

“Errrrr……….?”

Miyabi, who had been having a pleasant chat with him, was perplexed.

(Just what is this old man talking about?)

But the old man did not notice the girl's perplexity and continued.

“You’re a Kouryou student right?”

“------!! Ho-how did you know that……!?”

Miyabi was not wearing her uniform, but was in her casual clothes. So just how did the old man know that she was a Kouryou student?

Unluckily for the girl, having confided in the old man prevented her from being able to become as alert or suspicious as she should have been.

What’s more-----

“Oh it’s simple. I am acquainted with Tsukumo-Jou-chan<ref group="4a">"Jou-chan" is shorthand for "ojou-chan"; basically, he's saying "Young Lady Tsukumo", or "Little Lady Tsukumo" might be more accurate.</ref>.”

“Eh………? Errr----Tsukumo? Is that the director? Then Ojii-chan is part of the research team?”

The old man----the <<Equipment smith>> only smiled; he didn't confirm or deny that.

However, Miyabi believed her words were correct judging by his smile.

That’s only normal. That’s because there was no interaction between the students and the researchers coming in and out the <<Lucifer>> research facility under the academy. They would only coincidentally pass by and greet them during brief encounters at the dorm or at school.

But for a researcher, it wouldn't be strange at all that they would have already seen all the students' personal data.

Because of that, she did not doubt him and came to a conclusion.

“I am researching something else than the <<Lucifer>>. That’s this----<<Unit>>.”

Tooru and also Tomoe misunderstood the reason why Miyabi was sad, although they weren't far off.

It’s true that the confession was one of the reasons for it.

However, the main reason why she was depressed was because she had put the life of the person she loved—Tooru—in danger.

The cause behind her fall into despair was that she had become a hindrance to him because of her weakness.

That’s why Miyabi yearns for ''''it''''.

The one thing she wished and yearned for----was <<Power>>.

And right now, Miyabi accepted the <<Power>> offered to her by the old man.

When she entered the forest at the south part of the grounds, Miyabi lowered her sights to the device, disguised as an accessory, she was holding.

(Is it really true………?)

Even though she placed her finger on the device’s switch, the girl raised her eyebrows at the question floating in her mind.

Maybe that old man said it as a joke to cheer her up.

More importantly, no one would suffer if anyone can gain strength with just a push of a button.

(But, even so……….)

It might be nonsense, but she still tensed with anticipation.

She wanted to say goodbye to her weak self.

As if to reveal her heart, she held the device with both her hands like she was praying and not long later-----

Miyabi pressed the button.

“Please, give me---<<Power>>!!”

<noinclude>

==Translation Notes and References==

<references group="4a" />

{{SimpleNav}}
</noinclude>

Absolute Duo:Volume 4 Chapter 1

2021-03-31T21:42:16Z

SNovah: /* Chapter 1 『Everyone Has Things They Don't Want To Say』 */

==Chapter 1 『Everyone Has Things They Don't Want To Say』==

===Part 1===
The first Saturday after returning from the seaside school has arrived.

Seasonally, the world would normally be in a summer mood but, that’s something unrelated to Kouryou academy.

With a minimum of one general subject lesson added in, Kouryou has taken in consideration the time for ability training—refining the student's battle arts—and thus the summer break here takes the Bon festival as the main holiday, meaning there's not even one full week off.

With that said, even though it’s now the second half of July, they should be heading back to school but-----

“Julie, let’s get going.”

While dozing off in her seat, the silver girl opened her eyes when I called out to her.

“Ja-………..”

“Are you alright? It’s been hot every night recently, and it looks like you haven’t been sleeping much……”

“Nai. I am okay, please don’t mind me.”

Even though Julie said that, the hot days will continue from now on, and there was a forecast that today was going to be ''very'' hot, with a temperature crossing over 35° (C).

(Uuun, it would be nice if there’s something I can do for her………..)

I probably can’t do anything about the heat, but I pondered if there is something I can do when she tries to sleep, and while I was doing so-----

“Okay then, let’s go Tooru.”

“Aah, okay.”

Instead, I was the one getting urged and we left the room with Julie following behind me.

Though it should be unneeded to say this, strong sunshine was shining down when we got outside the dormitory.

“It looks like it’s going to be hot as predicted. It’s probably going to be tough but, let’s work hard, Julie.”

“Ja--♪”

After the girl with {{Furigana|Silver hair|Silver Blonde}} nodded, the ribbon’s bell echoed and made a cooling sound.

On the familiar street to the school from the dorm----

There were students heading to the school in the surroundings and a lot of them wore dark expressions.

It wasn't because they were upset over not having a summer vacation.

They were wondering if they '''''should continue attending Kouryou academy or not.'''''

The day they returned to the main school, the chairman delivered a speech during an emergency assembly. That speech contributed, in no small way, to that worry.

That speech was delivered under the pretext that the attacks on the academy were in revenge, backed by a criminal organization which had fought against the Dawn organization's public order teams in the past. Their assault on the academy itself was the first time it had been attacked directly, but there remained a possibility that it could happen again.

With that warning given, she left the decision on remaining in or leaving Kouryou Academy up to to the students.

As a result, many of those students were left pondering on their futures.

The attack had, after all, not only caused of property damage from gunfire and explosions, but a great many were injured-------and the death count was in the double digits.

That reality was the main reason why many students were worried.

It’s only normal.

They were just normal middle school students, living peaceful lives until they enrolled in Kouryou. For them, a situation that determined if a person lived or died would only be seen through the filter of the Internet and television, or maybe in fictional categories like games and manga.

In the explanation we received before finalizing enrollment, everyone was warned that there would be danger during training and lessons, as well as the missions that would be issued when they were recruited into the public order maintenance teams upon graduation.

However, they only truly understood what that meant when they saw someone close to them lose their life.

No, they were forced to understand.

They were forced to understand that the path they are taking will not be one found in the normal world they knew, but instead will take them into a realm of abnormality.

That's why this incident has become such a crossroads for so many.

They can either return to the normal world and treasure their lives; or they can gather up their determination and will to advance into a world consumed by abnormalities.

Conclusion-----

So far, twelve first-year students that experienced the attack have left the academy. Most likely, more students will probably choose to quit. From what I can see, half of the students remaining are still pondering if they should drop out or continue.

Maybe the senior students have already participated in somewhat dangerous missions during training, as there were less of those that chose to quit. But even so, many of them seemed to be pondering the question too.

Me----and the silver girl walking beside me, have chosen to continue on this abnormal road.

As long as both of us follow the path of the <<Avenger>>, our decision has already been made.

“......It turned out pretty, huh, Tooru?”

“Aah, yeah, it has.”

We were staring at the scars left on the school in front of us from the attack.

Even though the enemy—who goes by the name <<{{Furigana|God’s Destruction Team|Libel}}>>—attacked the school to seize the <<Lucifer>> research facility located beneath it, the most violent part of the battle took place at the school entrance.

The pillars and walls were damaged or destroyed, still sticky with dark red bloodstains from the enemy... or the defenders.

Offerings of flowers had been left beside the pillars. There were some students that stopped to offer prayers, while there were also students that quickly walked by so they wouldn't have to see that.

“………I guess we should pray too.”

I joined my hands while facing the flowering offerings and Julie made a silent prayer.

Within the crying sound of cicadas, we quietly passed the time.

When I entered the classroom, only about 70% of the students were present, excluding the ones that had quit, even though class was about to start.

The people pondering on their course of action probably felt like skipping school.

I looked around at the classmates in the room, and leaked a small sigh when I could not see a close female friend----Miyabi in the class.

Her <<Duo>>--Tachibana was attending class and she was talking with a girl.

Nevertheless, it’s not like Miyabi was not in school because she was pondering if she wanted to quit or continue Kouryou.

She might still be in shock from almost being harmed by the battle suit man, but she still attended class and seriously participated in it and training without rest.

But other than those specific times, she would leave her seat and the classroom.

I didn’t even need to think to find a reason why she took those actions; it was probably the effect of ''that'' incident...

'''''“I love you”'''''

Her whispered feelings reached me, because the waves stopped.

At that moment, she expressed the feelings in her heart, confessing plainly to her affection towards me.

But, I could not reply to her.

That's because I didn't know how to reply to her. I thought of myself as an <<Avenger>>, yet I was happy to receive Miyabi's confession...

Ever since that day, the gears of the normal days I had experienced between the abnormal days at Kouryou Academy, have fallen out of place.

The last time I talked to Miyabi was right after we left the isolated island.

'''''“Tha-thank you for saving me yesterday, Tooru-kun………….and……….sorry………you encountered danger because of me, I am really sorry…………”'''''

Ever since, Miyabi would only apologetically greet me, while avoiding any conversation.

Maybe she wanted to avoid others noticing her clear change of attitude, because she would still appear during mealtimes with everyone else----but no-one noticed that there was no interaction between me and Miaybi.

I can’t talk to her even if I wanted to.

This frustrating situation has been continuing ever since the seaside school.

(I have to do something about this………)

I have no idea if this relationship can ever return to the way it was, but I will continue struggling to make it so.

That’s because I want Miyabi to smile.

Even if that smile was not going to be directed at me.

Soon, Miyabi quickly entered the classroom when the main bell began to ring.

Just like I expected, it looks like I won't get any time to take her out of the class and speak with her.

(I guess I'll try to speak with her during the break...)

The moment I thought that—

“Guess whooooo~~?”

My view suddenly got blocked----and a sweet scent floated across me at the same time.

Someone was hugging me from behind while covering my eyes.

“………Lilith, right?”

Without panicking or creating a scene, I took her hands off my eyes and looked towards the girl with dazzling {{Furigana|blonde hair|Yellow Topaz}}.

---However, I was far from calm in my heart.

That’s because her two soft voluptuous hills were being ''smooshed'' against my back.

“Fufu, as expected of Tooru, huh? It’s definitely because we love each other on a normal basis~”

“If I eliminate all the people that ''wouldn't'' do this, Lilith would be the one one who ''would''.”

I shrug my shoulders in response to the gold girl, who winked at me before showing a smile.

“Me being the only one would mean that I am special in a way right? Fufuu~”

The girl who carried the title of <<Exception>>, Lilith, went ahead and placed herself in my special spot-----

“Uuh!?”

My view was blocked again.

Once again, someone hugged me from behind and covered my eyes.

“Who am I, Tooru?”

“…………Julie.”

“As expected, Tooru, my <<Duo>>.”

“Haha, you’re welcome…….”

Even though I replied with a wry smile, there was no way I would mistake Julie’s voice.

---Besides, the sensation on my back was reinforced my conviction that it's her.

Leaving that aside, the girls who covered my eyes were now glaring at each other.

“………..you want to say something, right?”

“He immediately knew it was me when I covered his eyes, so you aren’t the only special one.”

“Hee, now you've done it...”

Lilith's mouth angled in an interested manner.

Without changing her expression, Julie looked straight back at her.

It was a glowing sun and a magical moon.

Two girls with opposite impressions were as opposed as always.

Julie turned on the gold girl who wants to make me into her <<Duo>>----although, for someone who claims to be unconcerned, but it was rare for her to actually retort to Julie's complaints. Perhaps because her being a "special one" was denied, she couldn't hold back...

(Ya-re Ya-re, these two are the same…….)

I made a small sigh and was about to stop them-----

“Okay okay♪ Good morning everyone☆ HR is going to start so sit down♥”

Contrary to the school’s gloomy atmosphere, a voice that was so cheerful that the owner ''had'' to be in the wrong place, echoed throughout the room.

Having released her real power to take on the <<{{Furigana|God’s Destruction Team|Libel}}>>, our homeroom teacher---Tsukimi was now valued in the class (especially her students) as someone they could count on after they witnessed her mowing down enemies.

[Good morning White Usa-sensei,] [You’re tension is high today too, White Usa-sensei!] [Well it’s White Usa-sensei!]

Replies and prattling could be heard in the classroom in response to Tsukimi's greeting.

The thing different from last time was that she was being called “White Usa<ref group ="4a">"Usa" generally means "rabbit", but in this context, "bunny" is arguably more accurate, given Tsukimi's... fashion choices.</ref>."

The reason for that was-----

“OooRah! Hurry up and sit down you brats!!”

[It’s Black Usa-sensei mode!] [This is bad, it’s Black Usa-sensei; this is bad!] [Black Usa-sensei, scold me more……]

Having had her identity revealed already, she didn't hesitate to reveal her real-self anymore in response to the student's teasing.

“The gold and silver girls fighting over a guy there. HR is going to start so, hurry up and end the Shuraba<ref group="4b">A quick search indicates that this word is used to mean "scene of bloodshed", "carnage", etc; basically, Tsukimi is implying that the contest over Tooru is about to turn violent, and homeroom isn't the time for that</ref> love triangle with the couple and mistress.”

“It’s not a Shuraba or anything!”

“Ja---”

“I agree with that, but I am curious as to why you looked at me when you said 'mistress'!”

“Iyaaan, the Ojou-sama’s senses sure are sharp, huh♪”

“Seriously, I always tell you that I am the legal wife!”

“Nai, I refuse.”

“Why would you be the one doing the refusing?!”

The sights of the two girls with silver and gold hair collided again.

I let out a small sigh, and stood in the middle.

“Come on, let’s end it here. HR is going to start.”

“……….Maa, it can’t be helped if Tooru says so. Okay then, see you later, Tooru~”

Lilith winked at me before returning back to her seat.

“Okay then, now, as I said HR is starting, so first it's announcement time☆ There is going to be joint training with the second year students today, okay♪ Okay, next! People that reached <<III>> will have to undergo special training soon☆ Okay, next! The people I call now----”

Turning back to her White Usa-sensei mode, Tsukimi was in her usual high spirits, and I could sometime hear giggles.

During those announcements, I snuck a peak behind me.

Just within my vision, Miyabi wore a depressed expression.

When break time finally came, I chased and called after Miyabi, who had stood up from her seat and immediately exited to the corridor.

“Miyabi, can I have a bit of your time?”

“So-sorry. I am in a hurry……..”

“Ah……..So-sorry.”

She most likely didn't have anything she actually had to hurry for. Judging by her recent state, I could guess that she was just making an excuse to avoid having a conversation with me.

[[File:Absolute Duo Volume 4 Non-Colour 1.jpg|thumb]]

But even so, I backed down since she told me that she was in a hurry.

When Miyabi quickly turned a corner down the hall and disappeared from sight, I let out a small sigh and felt my shoulders droop. Just as I did that----a dignified voice called out to me from behind.

“Kokonoe, can I have a little of your time?’

When I turned around, I saw a familiar face---my close classmate, Tachibana.

However, she was currently using crutches and it looked painful.

“Aah, what is it?”

“It’s about Miyabi. She looks tired recently so, I am thinking of bring her out for a change of scenery after school. So, err, you……….”

Even though she hesitated to finish her thought, her intentions were clear.

Tachibana was saying that I should not talk to Miyabi now.

Tachibana probably felt that something happened to me and Miyabi during the seaside school.

But even so, I feel happy for Tachibana's thoughtfulness for thinking of Miyabi's heart first, even though that should be something obvious.

“I get it; I’ll leave it to you…..but, be careful.”

“Umu. It's okay, we aren’t going somewhere deserted. But, from what I heard, it seems the enemy’s target is the chairman, <<Lucifer>>, and also Lilith. So it’s probably safe to say that we aren’t being targeted.”

“That might be true, but... Well, go have fun. Just remember not to strain your legs.”

“Fufu, you worry too much. Nonetheless, I’ll listen to your warning, and will be careful not to force myself.”

Tachibana’s heels were diagnosed to recover fully in around a month's time.

Since the <<Exceed>>’s recovery ability totally exceeds a normal person’s, it seems she will be able to take off the cast by next week.

“……..also, thanks Tachibana”

“It’s not something to thank me for. It’s for my precious <<Duo>> too.”

And after she said that and made a soft smile, Tachibana went back into the classroom and I followed her.

But----

At this time, we had no way to know what would happen.

The fact that there was a malevolence that would drag in everyone around its target without any hesitation...

Or the fact that Miyabi encountered a devil when she went out...

After lunch, we headed to the medical building to have a check-up on the wounds I received from the fight with <<K>>.

The recovery progress was going well and it seems Julie and I will be fully healed by around the middle of next week.

We were told that it’s okay to undertake some light exercise and we quickly headed to the training room after the check-up.

“Even if it's just a little, I'm happy to get permission to exercise.”

“Ja--. I have not moved my body at all recently.”

“Incidentally, we’ve been only studying nowadays………”

Taking into consideration that there were many students wounded during the attack, battle and stamina training was converted to conventional classroom work: they largely revolved around general knowledge-based subjects, as well as special techniques for missions.

Thanks to that, once classes ended over the past few days, I felt as though I might have smoke puffing out my ears as my frustration continued to pent up. That’s why I am happy that I got permission to exercise and my legs naturally sped me towards the training room.

When we reached it, there were already quite a number of students inside using the room for their personal training.

Inside, I saw familiar faces at the sparring area.

The giant Tatsu, over 180cm tall, and a small boy—Tora—were sparring.

Strangers that didn’t know their situation would probably think that Tatsu was at an advantage but, actually, since Tora’s <<Level>> was higher, he was handicapped with extra weights.

“Tora, Tatsu!”

I called out to them from afar.

“Tooru, and Julie huh. Can you two start moving your bodies already?”

“If we keep it light.”

“Fumu. Then, let’s spar since it’s been quite a while? All this musclehead ever does is swing his fist with power.”

Tora splendidly ignored Tatsu’s opinion: “A man won’t use stupid tricks.”

“Uuuun, I guess I’ll pass. Sparing with you won’t end up as light exercise.”

Thinking of our personalities, I can see us lighting up in a blaze once we start.

“Fuun. Well I have no choice then. It won’t even be something to brag about if I beat an injured opponent. The results would be the same even if you were fully healed though.”

“Bullshit.”

After I laughed back at Tora, I stood in front of the mirror.

“Shadow training?”<ref group="4c">Best guess that this is what the writer/TL meant; basically the same thing as "shadow boxing", it's intended to let a person check their own form. The use of the mirror might be because of how this Duo fights, and allows Tooru to view what Julie is doing.</ref>

“Aah. There’s something I want to confirm. Julie, try making some strikes?”

“Ja----”

Julie picked up training swords and stood up in front of a target that looks like a man located beside the mirror.

Julie’s self-training centered around sparring and striking, and it seems she wasn't going to change that today.

“You aren’t at full form, so don’t force yourself.”

“……………”

“Julie?”

The silver girl did not reply for some reason and frowned her eyebrows instead.

“That’s the line I wanted to tell Tooru. Tooru, you always force yourself.”

“Uguh………..bu-but I only force myself in situations where I have to do so………”

“………That might be true but, you can’t stop me by saying it can’t be helped.”

The side of her eyebrows dropped and her {{Furigana|red eyes|Ruby eyes}} looked at me.

I could guess her emotions when I saw the uneasiness in her shaking eyes.

(I see, she’s still seeing father in me…….)

She might be worried that I'll end up like her father someday.

That’s why; I made a smile to make her feel some relief before patting her head.

“Hey, Julie. You remember the promise I said about protecting you?”

“Ja---”

“I made that promise, so I won't die. If I die, I won’t be able to protect Julie right?”

“Tooru…………”

“However, I will do my best to not be reckless. I’d feel bad for making you worry too much.”

“Ja--♪ it’s a promise.”

Even though my wry smile dropped with my feelings, Julie made one in exchange.

“……..Go back to your room.”

“Hnn? Did you say something, Tora?”

When I looked at Tora who mumbled something, he was looking at me with disgusted eyes for some reason.

“I am just asking you if you’re going to train or not. As far as I can see, your mouth is the only part moving so far.”

“Haha, I’m going to start now. Okay then, let’s start, Julie.”

I took a stance facing towards the mirror while Julie looked back at the target.

I lightly swung my fist towards my image in the mirror.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Pann*! *Papann*!! The training sword moved from the left and right, and the target made a loud sound.

(She’s as fast as I thought……)

While continuing my shadow boxing, that thought would cross my mind when I sometimes saw the silver girl’s movements.

Julie made repeated slashes with blinding speed.

However, she wasn’t reckless and I could see her holding back her strength.

After thinking I didn’t need to be worried anymore, I decided to concentrate on my shadow.

With half of my strength, I swung my fist, switched to the body movements Tachibana taught me and performed a kick.

(…………..My body still hurts when I turn it. Next----)

After I confirmed that, my mind turned to something that I was curious about during the fight with <<K>>, I switched to a left posture.

''Hrungnir'': unlike ''Mjolnir'' which is a one-hit kill move, it was a high-speed punch meant for diversion.

“Haah!!”

I stopped my fist after a few shots because of the pain on my chest.

But, that was enough for me to notice.

(It’s true that my fist was lowered. But, it’s amazing that he could notice that in such a short time, what’s more during battle. That <<K>>…………)

It was humiliating to have my weakness pinpointed by the enemy, but it resulted in gaining something.

Leaving aside the chances that we might meet <<K>> again later or not, I won’t be able to beat him if I don’t fix this habit.

“Tooru. What’s that move?”

Maybe he took a rest from his sparring; '''''Tora saw Hrungnir and asked me.'''''

I told him about my mastering this technique, that this technique got broken by <<K>> who found its weakness in the battle, and the name given to this technique-----

“''Hrung-''………Since it’s Norse mythology, was Julie the one that named it?”

A weird question came over.

“Aah. I thought of naming this 'bullet punch' but, it resulted in that.”

“………………..”

“What’s wrong, why are you so quiet?”

“No reason………you have to thank Julie.”

“Thank Julie? For what?”

Without understanding his meaning, I looked at Julie with a questioning face.

“---------?”

It seems the silver girl heard her own name and asked, [Did you call me?], tilting her small head.

“It's just a little thing, but I think it was refreshing for her.”

Evening-----as usual, Tachibana talked to me with a voice only audible to me while I was picking at the buffet for my menu.

Although we did not say who "her" was, it’s obviously Miyabi.

“I see, that’s great. Also-----Thanks.”

“Fufuu. I told you this already during the day but, you don’t have to thank me. As a friend and her <<Duo>>, I was concerned about her.”

“So---where is she?”

From what I can see around me, it seems Miyabi wasn’t in the cafeteria.

“She said she wanted to run a bit, so she went outside. She said she wanted to make up for the the times she did not run for the past few days.”

Ever since <<{{Furigana|God’s Destruction Team|Libel}}>> attacked, Miyabi stopped her daily runs even though she attended lessons and training.

That’s why, I felt relieved when I heard that she was going to run again.

(It’s about that confession huh………)

I think of how to talk to her when I see her again, once my feelings become certain; while thinking about that, I reached the table.

After that, everyone had their dinner like usual but-----

“Hey, Tooru. Over summer break, want to go to the UK?”

“Huh?”

Lilith has been a fixed member of our dinner table ever since <<Survive>>, and it’s only natural to be shocked at the sudden change of topic.

It’s only natural since she invited me to go overseas with no warning at all.

“That’s sudden…….”

“Rather than suddenly reporting our marriage, reporting about our relationship first would make things smooth later on I think, you know?””

“………..We aren’t going out.”

“It's not a bad idea to take this chance and start dating, you know?”

“Rejected.”

Sitting on my left side, Julie swung her head and pulled me away from Lilith, who was sitting at my right side.

“Oh my, Tooru’s the one to decide that.”

“Before even the topic of going out or not going out, he has to go back to his hometown during summer break, so it’s impossible to go to the UK.”

“I see, how sad. I think I’ll give up this time.”

“Haha, this time huh…….”

While making a wry smile at Lilith’s reply, I thought about my hometown which was vacant now when I said those words.

There’s no family waiting for me.

(But even so, Otoha’s going to be lonely if I don’t show up now and then……….)

And, while I was a little sad,

[One, two……..] [[[Congratulations on your birthday-♪]]]

Celebrative voices could be heard from one corner of the cafeteria.

Noisy, cheerful and happy voices echoed in the cafeteria.

“Seriously, how noisy.”

“I think it’s nice to have a cheerful atmosphere. Thinking about recent events, I think this is a must.”

I smiled at a frowning Tora and told him such.

“………Fuun. That’s true.”

Tora snorted roughly and *Dooka* leaned against the back of his chair while folding his arms.

(Birthday huh……..)

My birthday was coming next week.

My heart felt dejected when I thought about it.

That’s because, the day before my birthday----was ''that summer day.''.

“Tooru. I have something to talk about”

Tora called out to me when we went out of the cafeteria after dinner.

His expression had an air that he wouldn't take no for an answer and-----

“…….Julie, can you go back first?”

“Ja---”

I made Julie go back to the room.

“Where should we talk?”

“Outside.”

(……..Going all the way outside means that, it’s a talk that he does not want anyone else to hear.)

While looking at his small back walking in front, I started to think about the topics Tora would talk about.

After he exited the front door, the heat from the afternoon was still there and it felt a little hot.

The surroundings were naturally dark but, thanks to the light coming from the dorm, we did not have a hard time finding our way and we walked over the grass.

“I guess around here is okay…….so, what do you want to talk about?”

I folded my arms and asked Tora who was walking closer to a nearby tree----

“…………”

There was no reply.

It’s not like he didn't hear my voice. Furthermore, the atmosphere he was giving off was as if it was something hard to say.

Judging by Tora’s straightforward personality, I could grasp the contents of his topic as something serious.

The silence continued for a while and------Tora finally spoke.

“You still can’t mend your relationship with Hotaka?”

“Buuuu!? Wha-whawhahwahwa, h-how do you, no, you noticed……!?”

I did not tell anyone that my relationship with Miyabi had been derailed.

Of course, that goes for Julie too.

I thought the only one who noticed this was Miyabi’s <<Duo>> and roommate Tachibana, but------

“Fuun, there’s no way I won’t notice. In the first place, judging by your attitude towards her until now, there’s no way I wouldn't guess that something happened during seaside school.”

Just as expected from him.

Given the recent state of affairs, I never would have thought that he would notice this.

Which means, I think this might be unlikely but, things might have turned complicated because of some reason……….

“I heard this from Tachibana during the afternoon but, Hotaka is going back to her home during summer break. Even if it's a short break, if you don't meet her for a full week, it'll probably become a lot harder to mend things. So that's why you need to hurry up and do something about it before summer break starts.”

“A-aah………Sorry, to make you worry about this……”

Whether it's on this matter or during the attack, Tora has been helping out a lot.

“It’s not like I am worried about you, it just feels annoying……….and that isn’t the only thing I want to talk about.”

“Eh, there’s something else?”

I thought the problem with Miyabi was what he wanted to talk about so I tilted my head.

“It’s about going home. Not Hotaka's, yours.”

“Mine?”

Tora nodded and continued on with his original business.

“You told that woman during dinner time, right? That you will be going back home?”

“I plan on doing so, what about it?”

“…………..Can I go with you?”

“Aah, let’s go back together. We are going to be together for half the trip anyway.”

“No.”

It was a quiet and yet strong tone.

When I thought Tora was different from usual, his face turned unusually serious and he looked a little stiff.

“I am asking if '''''I can go to your house''''', Tooru.”

My heart skipped a beat.

Tora has been to my house many times in the past.

But, it was when Otoha was still alive.

During a dojo exchange that occurs only a few times per year, we became friends since we were the same age and not long after, Tora started coming over to the dojo to learn and would often come over to my house.

However----The last time was over two years ago.

Tora does not know about it.

He does not know that the house no longer has anyone living in it anymore.

“I-I plan to stay for one night only so, Tora head back to your----”

He doesn’t need to know.

I reject the idea of a visit so that Tora will only have memories of the warm Kokonoe home of the past.

“No, I am going. Let me come with. '''''Let me offer flowers''''' to---to Otoha too.”

“-----!?”

I was so shocked from those unexpected words that I gasped.

That’s because ever since we reunited during the enrollment ceremony I did everything I could to avoid leading him to that conclusion.

“You……knew……….”

After a while, I managed to squeeze my voice out and Tora silently nodded.

“……….I was contacted by the dojo.”

“I see……..”

I missed something simple.

Because he was with us for a long time, it was only natural for him to be told.

“'''''It seems the dojo encountered a fire disaster because of someone smoking'''''. I knew this and keep quiet about it, sorry. This may be too late, but this is... just sad. And she took care of me before, so—”

“………I get it. Since you know about this, I am counting on you to follow-through. Otoha will be happy.”

Whenever Tora and I sparred, Otoha would be the one who treated our wounds.

I could clearly remember her giving it her all to assist us and I would never forget about it.

I would never lose the memories of me, Tora, Otoha, and—'''''him'''''... all four of us playing together.

“Sorry. Even though you know, this was something I should tell you…….”

“Fuun, don’t worry about it. Everyone has things they don’t want to say……….okay, our talk ends here. Let’s head back to the dorm.”

Tora started walking in front and I followed behind.

Even though he has a foul mouth, I am grateful for him for being concerned about his friend.

However, Tora does not know.

Two years ago, the disaster that occurred in the dojo was not a fire but rather, it was a tragedy that occurred because ''''he'''' swung his deadly blade.

The only ones that knew of this were myself, him and '''''another person'''''-----

That person was the one that saved me from that burning dojo.

But, that’s good.

Tora might be foul mouthed but he’s a good person, and if he finds out the truth about that day-------

If he found out that Otoha didn’t die from that fire, but was killed, he would fly into a rage and become a captive to vengeance, just like me so……..

That’s why, Tora doesn't have to know.

I am the only one who needs to take revenge against him.

===Part 2===
“Are you going out to run now? It’s already evening.”

“U-un. But I have been skipping these past few days so, I want to regain the lost time as much as possible so………”

“…………… I see, work hard then. However, gradually work your way back without rushing. It’s bad to suddenly force yourself. Also, you have to eat dinner once you finish running. And to avoid getting heat stroke-----”

“Fufu, it’s okay so don’t worry so much, Tomoe-chan.”

Miyabi giggled at her partner who was launching into a detailed lecture of warnings just like a mother.

Tomoe was received, since Miyabi had only worn false smiles ever since the seaside school.

After changing into clothes that made running easier, Miyabi told Tomoe that she was heading out.

But------

With the sun set and the surroundings dark, Miyabi left the dorm and looked around restlessly. Of course, there were no students walking around at night and she exhaled when she confirmed that fact.

(Eeeeeerrr………..I think I should get some more distance.)

Since there might be students coming back to the dorm, the girl ran towards the deserted south side of the academy dorms.

The conversation she had with the old man today resurfaced in her mind.

““Then, let me bestow upon you this-----the <<Power>> of <<{{Furigana|Ell.Libel|God’s Destruction soldier}}>> to you.”

“<<{{Furigana|Ell.Libel|God’s Destruction soldier}}>>………….?”

“Fuhahaha, just like how the word is read, it’s a power strong enough to destroy god.”

“Errrrr……….?”

Miyabi, who had been having a pleasant chat with him, was perplexed.

(Just what is this old man talking about?)

But the old man did not notice the girl's perplexity and continued.

“You’re a Kouryou student right?”

“------!! Ho-how did you know that……!?”

Miyabi was not wearing her uniform, but was in her casual clothes. So just how did the old man know that she was a Kouryou student?

Unluckily for the girl, having confided in the old man prevented her from being able to become as alert or suspicious as she should have been.

What’s more-----

“Oh it’s simple. I am acquainted with Tsukumo-Jou-chan<ref group="4d">"Jou-chan" is shorthand for "ojou-chan"; basically, he's saying "Young Lady Tsukumo", or "Little Lady Tsukumo" might be more accurate.</ref>.”

“Eh………? Errr----Tsukumo? Is that the director? Then Ojii-chan is part of the research team?”

The old man----the <<Equipment smith>> only smiled; he didn't confirm or deny that.

However, Miyabi believed her words were correct judging by his smile.

That’s only normal. That’s because there was no interaction between the students and the researchers coming in and out the <<Lucifer>> research facility under the academy. They would only coincidentally pass by and greet them during brief encounters at the dorm or at school.

But for a researcher, it wouldn't be strange at all that they would have already seen all the students' personal data.

Because of that, she did not doubt him and came to a conclusion.

“I am researching something else than the <<Lucifer>>. That’s this----<<Unit>>.”

Tooru and also Tomoe misunderstood the reason why Miyabi was sad, although they weren't far off.

It’s true that the confession was one of the reasons for it.

However, the main reason why she was depressed was because she had put the life of the person she loved—Tooru—in danger.

The cause behind her fall into despair was that she had become a hindrance to him because of her weakness.

That’s why Miyabi yearns for ''''it''''.

The one thing she wished and yearned for----was <<Power>>.

And right now, Miyabi accepted the <<Power>> offered to her by the old man.

When she entered the forest at the south part of the grounds, Miyabi lowered her sights to the device, disguised as an accessory, she was holding.

(Is it really true………?)

Even though she placed her finger on the device’s switch, the girl raised her eyebrows at the question floating in her mind.

Maybe that old man said it as a joke to cheer her up.

More importantly, no one would suffer if anyone can gain strength with just a push of a button.

(But, even so……….)

It might be nonsense, but she still tensed with anticipation.

She wanted to say goodbye to her weak self.

As if to reveal her heart, she held the device with both her hands like she was praying and not long later-----

Miyabi pressed the button.

“Please, give me---<<Power>>!!”

<noinclude>

==Translation Notes and References==

{{SimpleNav}}
</noinclude>

Absolute Duo:Volume 4 Chapter 1

2021-03-31T21:39:14Z

SNovah: Major pass, fixing punctuation, tenses, sentences, etc

==Chapter 1 『Everyone Has Things They Don't Want To Say』==

===Part 1===
The first Saturday after returning from the seaside school has arrived.

Seasonally, the world would normally be in a summer mood but, that’s something unrelated to Kouryou academy.

With a minimum of one general subject lesson added in, Kouryou has taken in consideration the time for ability training—refining the student's battle arts—and thus the summer break here takes the Bon festival as the main holiday, meaning there's not even one full week off.

With that said, even though it’s now the second half of July, they should be heading back to school but-----

“Julie, let’s get going.”

While dozing off in her seat, the silver girl opened her eyes when I called out to her.

“Ja-………..”

“Are you alright? It’s been hot every night recently, and it looks like you haven’t been sleeping much……”

“Nai. I am okay, please don’t mind me.”

Even though Julie said that, the hot days will continue from now on, and there was a forecast that today was going to be ''very'' hot, with a temperature crossing over 35° (C).

(Uuun, it would be nice if there’s something I can do for her………..)

I probably can’t do anything about the heat, but I pondered if there is something I can do when she tries to sleep, and while I was doing so-----

“Okay then, let’s go Tooru.”

“Aah, okay.”

Instead, I was the one getting urged and we left the room with Julie following behind me.

Though it should be unneeded to say this, strong sunshine was shining down when we got outside the dormitory.

“It looks like it’s going to be hot as predicted. It’s probably going to be tough but, let’s work hard, Julie.”

“Ja--♪”

After the girl with {{Furigana|Silver hair|Silver Blonde}} nodded, the ribbon’s bell echoed and made a cooling sound.

On the familiar street to the school from the dorm----

There were students heading to the school in the surroundings and a lot of them wore dark expressions.

It wasn't because they were upset over not having a summer vacation.

They were wondering if they '''''should continue attending Kouryou academy or not.'''''

The day they returned to the main school, the chairman delivered a speech during an emergency assembly. That speech contributed, in no small way, to that worry.

That speech was delivered under the pretext that the attacks on the academy were in revenge, backed by a criminal organization which had fought against the Dawn organization's public order teams in the past. Their assault on the academy itself was the first time it had been attacked directly, but there remained a possibility that it could happen again.

With that warning given, she left the decision on remaining in or leaving Kouryou Academy up to to the students.

As a result, many of those students were left pondering on their futures.

The attack had, after all, not only caused of property damage from gunfire and explosions, but a great many were injured-------and the death count was in the double digits.

That reality was the main reason why many students were worried.

It’s only normal.

They were just normal middle school students, living peaceful lives until they enrolled in Kouryou. For them, a situation that determined if a person lived or died would only be seen through the filter of the Internet and television, or maybe in fictional categories like games and manga.

In the explanation we received before finalizing enrollment, everyone was warned that there would be danger during training and lessons, as well as the missions that would be issued when they were recruited into the public order maintenance teams upon graduation.

However, they only truly understood what that meant when they saw someone close to them lose their life.

No, they were forced to understand.

They were forced to understand that the path they are taking will not be one found in the normal world they knew, but instead will take them into a realm of abnormality.

That's why this incident has become such a crossroads for so many.

They can either return to the normal world and treasure their lives; or they can gather up their determination and will to advance into a world consumed by abnormalities.

Conclusion-----

So far, twelve first-year students that experienced the attack have left the academy. Most likely, more students will probably choose to quit. From what I can see, half of the students remaining are still pondering if they should drop out or continue.

Maybe the senior students have already participated in somewhat dangerous missions during training, as there were less of those that chose to quit. But even so, many of them seemed to be pondering the question too.

Me----and the silver girl walking beside me, have chosen to continue on this abnormal road.

As long as both of us follow the path of the <<Avenger>>, our decision has already been made.

“......It turned out pretty, huh, Tooru?”

“Aah, yeah, it has.”

We were staring at the scars left on the school in front of us from the attack.

Even though the enemy—who goes by the name <<{{Furigana|God’s Destruction Team|Libel}}>>—attacked the school to seize the <<Lucifer>> research facility located beneath it, the most violent part of the battle took place at the school entrance.

The pillars and walls were damaged or destroyed, still sticky with dark red bloodstains from the enemy... or the defenders.

Offerings of flowers had been left beside the pillars. There were some students that stopped to offer prayers, while there were also students that quickly walked by so they wouldn't have to see that.

“………I guess we should pray too.”

I joined my hands while facing the flowering offerings and Julie made a silent prayer.

Within the crying sound of cicadas, we quietly passed the time.

When I entered the classroom, only about 70% of the students were present, excluding the ones that had quit, even though class was about to start.

The people pondering on their course of action probably felt like skipping school.

I looked around at the classmates in the room, and leaked a small sigh when I could not see a close female friend----Miyabi in the class.

Her <<Duo>>--Tachibana was attending class and she was talking with a girl.

Nevertheless, it’s not like Miyabi was not in school because she was pondering if she wanted to quit or continue Kouryou.

She might still be in shock from almost being harmed by the battle suit man, but she still attended class and seriously participated in it and training without rest.

But other than those specific times, she would leave her seat and the classroom.

I didn’t even need to think to find a reason why she took those actions; it was probably the effect of ''that'' incident...

'''''“I love you”'''''

Her whispered feelings reached me, because the waves stopped.

At that moment, she expressed the feelings in her heart, confessing plainly to her affection towards me.

But, I could not reply to her.

That's because I didn't know how to reply to her. I thought of myself as an <<Avenger>>, yet I was happy to receive Miyabi's confession...

Ever since that day, the gears of the normal days I had experienced between the abnormal days at Kouryou Academy, have fallen out of place.

The last time I talked to Miyabi was right after we left the isolated island.

'''''“Tha-thank you for saving me yesterday, Tooru-kun………….and……….sorry………you encountered danger because of me, I am really sorry…………”'''''

Ever since, Miyabi would only apologetically greet me, while avoiding any conversation.

Maybe she wanted to avoid others noticing her clear change of attitude, because she would still appear during mealtimes with everyone else----but no-one noticed that there was no interaction between me and Miaybi.

I can’t talk to her even if I wanted to.

This frustrating situation has been continuing ever since the seaside school.

(I have to do something about this………)

I have no idea if this relationship can ever return to the way it was, but I will continue struggling to make it so.

That’s because I want Miyabi to smile.

Even if that smile was not going to be directed at me.

Soon, Miyabi quickly entered the classroom when the main bell began to ring.

Just like I expected, it looks like I won't get any time to take her out of the class and speak with her.

(I guess I'll try to speak with her during the break...)

The moment I thought that—

“Guess whooooo~~?”

My view suddenly got blocked----and a sweet scent floated across me at the same time.

Someone was hugging me from behind while covering my eyes.

“………Lilith, right?”

Without panicking or creating a scene, I took her hands off my eyes and looked towards the girl with dazzling {{Furigana|blonde hair|Yellow Topaz}}.

---However, I was far from calm in my heart.

That’s because her two soft voluptuous hills were being ''smooshed'' against my back.

“Fufu, as expected of Tooru, huh? It’s definitely because we love each other on a normal basis~”

“If I eliminate all the people that ''wouldn't'' do this, Lilith would be the one one who ''would''.”

I shrug my shoulders in response to the gold girl, who winked at me before showing a smile.

“Me being the only one would mean that I am special in a way right? Fufuu~”

The girl who carried the title of <<Exception>>, Lilith, went ahead and placed herself in my special spot-----

“Uuh!?”

My view was blocked again.

Once again, someone hugged me from behind and covered my eyes.

“Who am I, Tooru?”

“…………Julie.”

“As expected, Tooru, my <<Duo>>.”

“Haha, you’re welcome…….”

Even though I replied with a wry smile, there was no way I would mistake Julie’s voice.

---Besides, the sensation on my back was reinforced my conviction that it's her.

Leaving that aside, the girls who covered my eyes were now glaring at each other.

“………..you want to say something, right?”

“He immediately knew it was me when I covered his eyes, so you aren’t the only special one.”

“Hee, now you've done it...”

Lilith's mouth angled in an interested manner.

Without changing her expression, Julie looked straight back at her.

It was a glowing sun and a magical moon.

Two girls with opposite impressions were as opposed as always.

Julie turned on the gold girl who wants to make me into her <<Duo>>----although, for someone who claims to be unconcerned, but it was rare for her to actually retort to Julie's complaints. Perhaps because her being a "special one" was denied, she couldn't hold back...

(Ya-re Ya-re, these two are the same…….)

I made a small sigh and was about to stop them-----

“Okay okay♪ Good morning everyone☆ HR is going to start so sit down♥”

Contrary to the school’s gloomy atmosphere, a voice that was so cheerful that the owner ''had'' to be in the wrong place, echoed throughout the room.

Having released her real power to take on the <<{{Furigana|God’s Destruction Team|Libel}}>>, our homeroom teacher---Tsukimi was now valued in the class (especially her students) as someone they could count on after they witnessed her mowing down enemies.

[Good morning White Usa-sensei,] [You’re tension is high today too, White Usa-sensei!] [Well it’s White Usa-sensei!]

Replies and prattling could be heard in the classroom in response to Tsukimi's greeting.

The thing different from last time was that she was being called “White Usa<ref group ="1a">"Usa" generally means "rabbit", but in this context, "bunny" is arguably more accurate, given Tsukimi's... fashion choices.</ref>."

The reason for that was-----

“OooRah! Hurry up and sit down you brats!!”

[It’s Black Usa-sensei mode!] [This is bad, it’s Black Usa-sensei; this is bad!] [Black Usa-sensei, scold me more……]

Having had her identity revealed already, she didn't hesitate to reveal her real-self anymore in response to the student's teasing.

“The gold and silver girls fighting over a guy there. HR is going to start so, hurry up and end the Shuraba<ref group="1b">A quick search indicates that this word is used to mean "scene of bloodshed", "carnage", etc; basically, Tsukimi is implying that the contest over Tooru is about to turn violent, and homeroom isn't the time for that</ref> love triangle with the couple and mistress.”

“It’s not a Shuraba or anything!”

“Ja---”

“I agree with that, but I am curious as to why you looked at me when you said 'mistress'!”

“Iyaaan, the Ojou-sama’s senses sure are sharp, huh♪”

“Seriously, I always tell you that I am the legal wife!”

“Nai, I refuse.”

“Why would you be the one doing the refusing?!”

The sights of the two girls with silver and gold hair collided again.

I let out a small sigh, and stood in the middle.

“Come on, let’s end it here. HR is going to start.”

“……….Maa, it can’t be helped if Tooru says so. Okay then, see you later, Tooru~”

Lilith winked at me before returning back to her seat.

“Okay then, now, as I said HR is starting, so first it's announcement time☆ There is going to be joint training with the second year students today, okay♪ Okay, next! People that reached <<III>> will have to undergo special training soon☆ Okay, next! The people I call now----”

Turning back to her White Usa-sensei mode, Tsukimi was in her usual high spirits, and I could sometime hear giggles.

During those announcements, I snuck a peak behind me.

Just within my vision, Miyabi wore a depressed expression.

When break time finally came, I chased and called after Miyabi, who had stood up from her seat and immediately exited to the corridor.

“Miyabi, can I have a bit of your time?”

“So-sorry. I am in a hurry……..”

“Ah……..So-sorry.”

She most likely didn't have anything she actually had to hurry for. Judging by her recent state, I could guess that she was just making an excuse to avoid having a conversation with me.

[[File:Absolute Duo Volume 4 Non-Colour 1.jpg|thumb]]

But even so, I backed down since she told me that she was in a hurry.

When Miyabi quickly turned a corner down the hall and disappeared from sight, I let out a small sigh and felt my shoulders droop. Just as I did that----a dignified voice called out to me from behind.

“Kokonoe, can I have a little of your time?’

When I turned around, I saw a familiar face---my close classmate, Tachibana.

However, she was currently using crutches and it looked painful.

“Aah, what is it?”

“It’s about Miyabi. She looks tired recently so, I am thinking of bring her out for a change of scenery after school. So, err, you……….”

Even though she hesitated to finish her thought, her intentions were clear.

Tachibana was saying that I should not talk to Miyabi now.

Tachibana probably felt that something happened to me and Miyabi during the seaside school.

But even so, I feel happy for Tachibana's thoughtfulness for thinking of Miyabi's heart first, even though that should be something obvious.

“I get it; I’ll leave it to you…..but, be careful.”

“Umu. It's okay, we aren’t going somewhere deserted. But, from what I heard, it seems the enemy’s target is the chairman, <<Lucifer>>, and also Lilith. So it’s probably safe to say that we aren’t being targeted.”

“That might be true, but... Well, go have fun. Just remember not to strain your legs.”

“Fufu, you worry too much. Nonetheless, I’ll listen to your warning, and will be careful not to force myself.”

Tachibana’s heels were diagnosed to recover fully in around a month's time.

Since the <<Exceed>>’s recovery ability totally exceeds a normal person’s, it seems she will be able to take off the cast by next week.

“……..also, thanks Tachibana”

“It’s not something to thank me for. It’s for my precious <<Duo>> too.”

And after she said that and made a soft smile, Tachibana went back into the classroom and I followed her.

But----

At this time, we had no way to know what would happen.

The fact that there was a malevolence that would drag in everyone around its target without any hesitation...

Or the fact that Miyabi encountered a devil when she went out...

After lunch, we headed to the medical building to have a check-up on the wounds I received from the fight with <<K>>.

The recovery progress was going well and it seems Julie and I will be fully healed by around the middle of next week.

We were told that it’s okay to undertake some light exercise and we quickly headed to the training room after the check-up.

“Even if it's just a little, I'm happy to get permission to exercise.”

“Ja--. I have not moved my body at all recently.”

“Incidentally, we’ve been only studying nowadays………”

Taking into consideration that there were many students wounded during the attack, battle and stamina training was converted to conventional classroom work: they largely revolved around general knowledge-based subjects, as well as special techniques for missions.

Thanks to that, once classes ended over the past few days, I felt as though I might have smoke puffing out my ears as my frustration continued to pent up. That’s why I am happy that I got permission to exercise and my legs naturally sped me towards the training room.

When we reached it, there were already quite a number of students inside using the room for their personal training.

Inside, I saw familiar faces at the sparring area.

The giant Tatsu, over 180cm tall, and a small boy—Tora—were sparring.

Strangers that didn’t know their situation would probably think that Tatsu was at an advantage but, actually, since Tora’s <<Level>> was higher, he was handicapped with extra weights.

“Tora, Tatsu!”

I called out to them from afar.

“Tooru, and Julie huh. Can you two start moving your bodies already?”

“If we keep it light.”

“Fumu. Then, let’s spar since it’s been quite a while? All this musclehead ever does is swing his fist with power.”

Tora splendidly ignored Tatsu’s opinion: “A man won’t use stupid tricks.”

“Uuuun, I guess I’ll pass. Sparing with you won’t end up as light exercise.”

Thinking of our personalities, I can see us lighting up in a blaze once we start.

“Fuun. Well I have no choice then. It won’t even be something to brag about if I beat an injured opponent. The results would be the same even if you were fully healed though.”

“Bullshit.”

After I laughed back at Tora, I stood in front of the mirror.

“Shadow training?”<ref group="1c">Best guess that this is what the writer/TL meant; basically the same thing as "shadow boxing", it's intended to let a person check their own form. The use of the mirror might be because of how this Duo fights, and allows Tooru to view what Julie is doing.</ref>

“Aah. There’s something I want to confirm. Julie, try making some strikes?”

“Ja----”

Julie picked up training swords and stood up in front of a target that looks like a man located beside the mirror.

Julie’s self-training centered around sparring and striking, and it seems she wasn't going to change that today.

“You aren’t at full form, so don’t force yourself.”

“……………”

“Julie?”

The silver girl did not reply for some reason and frowned her eyebrows instead.

“That’s the line I wanted to tell Tooru. Tooru, you always force yourself.”

“Uguh………..bu-but I only force myself in situations where I have to do so………”

“………That might be true but, you can’t stop me by saying it can’t be helped.”

The side of her eyebrows dropped and her {{Furigana|red eyes|Ruby eyes}} looked at me.

I could guess her emotions when I saw the uneasiness in her shaking eyes.

(I see, she’s still seeing father in me…….)

She might be worried that I'll end up like her father someday.

That’s why; I made a smile to make her feel some relief before patting her head.

“Hey, Julie. You remember the promise I said about protecting you?”

“Ja---”

“I made that promise, so I won't die. If I die, I won’t be able to protect Julie right?”

“Tooru…………”

“However, I will do my best to not be reckless. I’d feel bad for making you worry too much.”

“Ja--♪ it’s a promise.”

Even though my wry smile dropped with my feelings, Julie made one in exchange.

“……..Go back to your room.”

“Hnn? Did you say something, Tora?”

When I looked at Tora who mumbled something, he was looking at me with disgusted eyes for some reason.

“I am just asking you if you’re going to train or not. As far as I can see, your mouth is the only part moving so far.”

“Haha, I’m going to start now. Okay then, let’s start, Julie.”

I took a stance facing towards the mirror while Julie looked back at the target.

I lightly swung my fist towards my image in the mirror.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Pann*! *Papann*!! The training sword moved from the left and right, and the target made a loud sound.

(She’s as fast as I thought……)

While continuing my shadow boxing, that thought would cross my mind when I sometimes saw the silver girl’s movements.

Julie made repeated slashes with blinding speed.

However, she wasn’t reckless and I could see her holding back her strength.

After thinking I didn’t need to be worried anymore, I decided to concentrate on my shadow.

With half of my strength, I swung my fist, switched to the body movements Tachibana taught me and performed a kick.

(…………..My body still hurts when I turn it. Next----)

After I confirmed that, my mind turned to something that I was curious about during the fight with <<K>>, I switched to a left posture.

''Hrungnir'': unlike ''Mjolnir'' which is a one-hit kill move, it was a high-speed punch meant for diversion.

“Haah!!”

I stopped my fist after a few shots because of the pain on my chest.

But, that was enough for me to notice.

(It’s true that my fist was lowered. But, it’s amazing that he could notice that in such a short time, what’s more during battle. That <<K>>…………)

It was humiliating to have my weakness pinpointed by the enemy, but it resulted in gaining something.

Leaving aside the chances that we might meet <<K>> again later or not, I won’t be able to beat him if I don’t fix this habit.

“Tooru. What’s that move?”

Maybe he took a rest from his sparring; '''''Tora saw Hrungnir and asked me.'''''

I told him about my mastering this technique, that this technique got broken by <<K>> who found its weakness in the battle, and the name given to this technique-----

“''Hrung-''………Since it’s Norse mythology, was Julie the one that named it?”

A weird question came over.

“Aah. I thought of naming this 'bullet punch' but, it resulted in that.”

“………………..”

“What’s wrong, why are you so quiet?”

“No reason………you have to thank Julie.”

“Thank Julie? For what?”

Without understanding his meaning, I looked at Julie with a questioning face.

“---------?”

It seems the silver girl heard her own name and asked, [Did you call me?], tilting her small head.

“It's just a little thing, but I think it was refreshing for her.”

Evening-----as usual, Tachibana talked to me with a voice only audible to me while I was picking at the buffet for my menu.

Although we did not say who "her" was, it’s obviously Miyabi.

“I see, that’s great. Also-----Thanks.”

“Fufuu. I told you this already during the day but, you don’t have to thank me. As a friend and her <<Duo>>, I was concerned about her.”

“So---where is she?”

From what I can see around me, it seems Miyabi wasn’t in the cafeteria.

“She said she wanted to run a bit, so she went outside. She said she wanted to make up for the the times she did not run for the past few days.”

Ever since <<{{Furigana|God’s Destruction Team|Libel}}>> attacked, Miyabi stopped her daily runs even though she attended lessons and training.

That’s why, I felt relieved when I heard that she was going to run again.

(It’s about that confession huh………)

I think of how to talk to her when I see her again, once my feelings become certain; while thinking about that, I reached the table.

After that, everyone had their dinner like usual but-----

“Hey, Tooru. Over summer break, want to go to the UK?”

“Huh?”

Lilith has been a fixed member of our dinner table ever since <<Survive>>, and it’s only natural to be shocked at the sudden change of topic.

It’s only natural since she invited me to go overseas with no warning at all.

“That’s sudden…….”

“Rather than suddenly reporting our marriage, reporting about our relationship first would make things smooth later on I think, you know?””

“………..We aren’t going out.”

“It's not a bad idea to take this chance and start dating, you know?”

“Rejected.”

Sitting on my left side, Julie swung her head and pulled me away from Lilith, who was sitting at my right side.

“Oh my, Tooru’s the one to decide that.”

“Before even the topic of going out or not going out, he has to go back to his hometown during summer break, so it’s impossible to go to the UK.”

“I see, how sad. I think I’ll give up this time.”

“Haha, this time huh…….”

While making a wry smile at Lilith’s reply, I thought about my hometown which was vacant now when I said those words.

There’s no family waiting for me.

(But even so, Otoha’s going to be lonely if I don’t show up now and then……….)

And, while I was a little sad,

[One, two……..] [[[Congratulations on your birthday-♪]]]

Celebrative voices could be heard from one corner of the cafeteria.

Noisy, cheerful and happy voices echoed in the cafeteria.

“Seriously, how noisy.”

“I think it’s nice to have a cheerful atmosphere. Thinking about recent events, I think this is a must.”

I smiled at a frowning Tora and told him such.

“………Fuun. That’s true.”

Tora snorted roughly and *Dooka* leaned against the back of his chair while folding his arms.

(Birthday huh……..)

My birthday was coming next week.

My heart felt dejected when I thought about it.

That’s because, the day before my birthday----was ''that summer day.''.

“Tooru. I have something to talk about”

Tora called out to me when we went out of the cafeteria after dinner.

His expression had an air that he wouldn't take no for an answer and-----

“…….Julie, can you go back first?”

“Ja---”

I made Julie go back to the room.

“Where should we talk?”

“Outside.”

(……..Going all the way outside means that, it’s a talk that he does not want anyone else to hear.)

While looking at his small back walking in front, I started to think about the topics Tora would talk about.

After he exited the front door, the heat from the afternoon was still there and it felt a little hot.

The surroundings were naturally dark but, thanks to the light coming from the dorm, we did not have a hard time finding our way and we walked over the grass.

“I guess around here is okay…….so, what do you want to talk about?”

I folded my arms and asked Tora who was walking closer to a nearby tree----

“…………”

There was no reply.

It’s not like he didn't hear my voice. Furthermore, the atmosphere he was giving off was as if it was something hard to say.

Judging by Tora’s straightforward personality, I could grasp the contents of his topic as something serious.

The silence continued for a while and------Tora finally spoke.

“You still can’t mend your relationship with Hotaka?”

“Buuuu!? Wha-whawhahwahwa, h-how do you, no, you noticed……!?”

I did not tell anyone that my relationship with Miyabi had been derailed.

Of course, that goes for Julie too.

I thought the only one who noticed this was Miyabi’s <<Duo>> and roommate Tachibana, but------

“Fuun, there’s no way I won’t notice. In the first place, judging by your attitude towards her until now, there’s no way I wouldn't guess that something happened during seaside school.”

Just as expected from him.

Given the recent state of affairs, I never would have thought that he would notice this.

Which means, I think this might be unlikely but, things might have turned complicated because of some reason……….

“I heard this from Tachibana during the afternoon but, Hotaka is going back to her home during summer break. Even if it's a short break, if you don't meet her for a full week, it'll probably become a lot harder to mend things. So that's why you need to hurry up and do something about it before summer break starts.”

“A-aah………Sorry, to make you worry about this……”

Whether it's on this matter or during the attack, Tora has been helping out a lot.

“It’s not like I am worried about you, it just feels annoying……….and that isn’t the only thing I want to talk about.”

“Eh, there’s something else?”

I thought the problem with Miyabi was what he wanted to talk about so I tilted my head.

“It’s about going home. Not Hotaka's, yours.”

“Mine?”

Tora nodded and continued on with his original business.

“You told that woman during dinner time, right? That you will be going back home?”

“I plan on doing so, what about it?”

“…………..Can I go with you?”

“Aah, let’s go back together. We are going to be together for half the trip anyway.”

“No.”

It was a quiet and yet strong tone.

When I thought Tora was different from usual, his face turned unusually serious and he looked a little stiff.

“I am asking if '''''I can go to your house''''', Tooru.”

My heart skipped a beat.

Tora has been to my house many times in the past.

But, it was when Otoha was still alive.

During a dojo exchange that occurs only a few times per year, we became friends since we were the same age and not long after, Tora started coming over to the dojo to learn and would often come over to my house.

However----The last time was over two years ago.

Tora does not know about it.

He does not know that the house no longer has anyone living in it anymore.

“I-I plan to stay for one night only so, Tora head back to your----”

He doesn’t need to know.

I reject the idea of a visit so that Tora will only have memories of the warm Kokonoe home of the past.

“No, I am going. Let me come with. '''''Let me offer flowers''''' to---to Otoha too.”

“-----!?”

I was so shocked from those unexpected words that I gasped.

That’s because ever since we reunited during the enrollment ceremony I did everything I could to avoid leading him to that conclusion.

“You……knew……….”

After a while, I managed to squeeze my voice out and Tora silently nodded.

“……….I was contacted by the dojo.”

“I see……..”

I missed something simple.

Because he was with us for a long time, it was only natural for him to be told.

“'''''It seems the dojo encountered a fire disaster because of someone smoking'''''. I knew this and keep quiet about it, sorry. This may be too late, but this is... just sad. And she took care of me before, so—”

“………I get it. Since you know about this, I am counting on you to follow-through. Otoha will be happy.”

Whenever Tora and I sparred, Otoha would be the one who treated our wounds.

I could clearly remember her giving it her all to assist us and I would never forget about it.

I would never lose the memories of me, Tora, Otoha, and—'''''him'''''... all four of us playing together.

“Sorry. Even though you know, this was something I should tell you…….”

“Fuun, don’t worry about it. Everyone has things they don’t want to say……….okay, our talk ends here. Let’s head back to the dorm.”

Tora started walking in front and I followed behind.

Even though he has a foul mouth, I am grateful for him for being concerned about his friend.

However, Tora does not know.

Two years ago, the disaster that occurred in the dojo was not a fire but rather, it was a tragedy that occurred because ''''he'''' swung his deadly blade.

The only ones that knew of this were myself, him and '''''another person'''''-----

That person was the one that saved me from that burning dojo.

But, that’s good.

Tora might be foul mouthed but he’s a good person, and if he finds out the truth about that day-------

If he found out that Otoha didn’t die from that fire, but was killed, he would fly into a rage and become a captive to vengeance, just like me so……..

That’s why, Tora doesn't have to know.

I am the only one who needs to take revenge against him.

===Part 2===
“Are you going out to run now? It’s already evening.”

“U-un. But I have been skipping these past few days so, I want to regain the lost time as much as possible so………”

“…………… I see, work hard then. However, gradually work your way back without rushing. It’s bad to suddenly force yourself. Also, you have to eat dinner once you finish running. And to avoid getting heat stroke-----”

“Fufu, it’s okay so don’t worry so much, Tomoe-chan.”

Miyabi giggled at her partner who was launching into a detailed lecture of warnings just like a mother.

Tomoe was received, since Miyabi had only worn false smiles ever since the seaside school.

After changing into clothes that made running easier, Miyabi told Tomoe that she was heading out.

But------

With the sun set and the surroundings dark, Miyabi left the dorm and looked around restlessly. Of course, there were no students walking around at night and she exhaled when she confirmed that fact.

(Eeeeeerrr………..I think I should get some more distance.)

Since there might be students coming back to the dorm, the girl ran towards the deserted south side of the academy dorms.

The conversation she had with the old man today resurfaced in her mind.

““Then, let me bestow upon you this-----the <<Power>> of <<{{Furigana|Ell.Libel|God’s Destruction soldier}}>> to you.”

“<<{{Furigana|Ell.Libel|God’s Destruction soldier}}>>………….?”

“Fuhahaha, just like how the word is read, it’s a power strong enough to destroy god.”

“Errrrr……….?”

Miyabi, who had been having a pleasant chat with him, was perplexed.

(Just what is this old man talking about?)

But the old man did not notice the girl's perplexity and continued.

“You’re a Kouryou student right?”

“------!! Ho-how did you know that……!?”

Miyabi was not wearing her uniform, but was in her casual clothes. So just how did the old man know that she was a Kouryou student?

Unluckily for the girl, having confided in the old man prevented her from being able to become as alert or suspicious as she should have been.

What’s more-----

“Oh it’s simple. I am acquainted with Tsukumo-Jou-chan<ref group="1c">"Jou-chan" is shorthand for "ojou-chan"; basically, he's saying "Young Lady Tsukumo", or "Little Lady Tsukumo" might be more accurate.</ref>.”

“Eh………? Errr----Tsukumo? Is that the director? Then Ojii-chan is part of the research team?”

The old man----the <<Equipment smith>> only smiled; he didn't confirm or deny that.

However, Miyabi believed her words were correct judging by his smile.

That’s only normal. That’s because there was no interaction between the students and the researchers coming in and out the <<Lucifer>> research facility under the academy. They would only coincidentally pass by and greet them during brief encounters at the dorm or at school.

But for a researcher, it wouldn't be strange at all that they would have already seen all the students' personal data.

Because of that, she did not doubt him and came to a conclusion.

“I am researching something else than the <<Lucifer>>. That’s this----<<Unit>>.”

Tooru and also Tomoe misunderstood the reason why Miyabi was sad, although they weren't far off.

It’s true that the confession was one of the reasons for it.

However, the main reason why she was depressed was because she had put the life of the person she loved—Tooru—in danger.

The cause behind her fall into despair was that she had become a hindrance to him because of her weakness.

That’s why Miyabi yearns for ''''it''''.

The one thing she wished and yearned for----was <<Power>>.

And right now, Miyabi accepted the <<Power>> offered to her by the old man.

When she entered the forest at the south part of the grounds, Miyabi lowered her sights to the device, disguised as an accessory, she was holding.

(Is it really true………?)

Even though she placed her finger on the device’s switch, the girl raised her eyebrows at the question floating in her mind.

Maybe that old man said it as a joke to cheer her up.

More importantly, no one would suffer if anyone can gain strength with just a push of a button.

(But, even so……….)

It might be nonsense, but she still tensed with anticipation.

She wanted to say goodbye to her weak self.

As if to reveal her heart, she held the device with both her hands like she was praying and not long later-----

Miyabi pressed the button.

“Please, give me---<<Power>>!!”

<noinclude>

==Translation Notes and References==

{{SimpleNav}}
</noinclude>

Absolute Duo:Volume 4 Prologue

2021-03-31T12:55:38Z

SNovah: Readability updates, punctuation fixes; leaving TLs alone due to no knowledge of the source

==Prologue==

“It has now been delivered:-----Your invitation to the <<Rein Conference>>.”

What is <<{{Furigana|7 Lunar|Rein}}>>?----

That was the important term chosen for a group of seven people in pursuit of the <<Absolute Duo>>.

They who were crowned with the <<Sepher Names>>, symbolizing the stars, were walking along different paths even though the <<Absolute Duo>> was the main goal.

Even so, they would have a meeting in one place sometimes.

That was the banquet that went by the name <<Rein Conference>>.

And now-----there was an invitation sent to the Kouryou academy chairman-Tsukumo Sakuya.

“I have been ordered to tell <<Blaze Diabolica>>-sama, that the supervisor is eagerly awaiting the day.”

“I am honored. Please tell the supervisor that I am looking forward to this banquet.”

After confirming the contents of the invitation handed to her, Sakuya smiled to the servant who was dispatched by the man at the center of the <<{{Furigana|7 Lunar|Rein}}>>.

---But, the moment the heavy door closed when the servant left, the girl sunk her small body into the chair and let out a big sigh.

“You don’t look happy at all, Sakuya-sama.”

"Feeling down when thinking about having to attend a worthless 'banquet' is only natural."

In front of Mikuni who was right beside her, Sakuya released a second sigh.

She does not feel that meeting other the <<{{Furigana|7 Lunar|Rein}}>> members would provide any sort of benefit to her actual goal: the advancement of her <<Lucifer>> research.

Honestly speaking, she felt that it was just a waste of time.

(………….No, that is not necessarily the case.)

Suddenly, the thought of a member of <<{{Furigana|7 Lunar|Rein}}>>-----the <<Equipment Smith>> who had sent his minions, going by the name <<{{Furigana|God’s Destruction Team|Libel}}>>, to infiltrate ''her'' academy twice now. His name popped in her mind just as she was dismissing the entire idea of the conference.

The fight with the men wearing battle suits called <<Unit>> had created an excellent chance for her to see the talents of the first year students, including those of the branch school.

What she wanted to see was the natural talents of the people fighting.

She wanted to see if they could win against their fear and fight when their lives were on the line-----

In just one night, she was able to see the the sprouting of talent that would normally only appear after taking on several missions.

Although the girl was almost kidnapped, she thought of the great results gained in the process.

(Now that I think about it…………..)

Several students stood up to defend the black-clothed girl; they took action to save her after she had been kidnapped.

They fought against life-threatening danger with the <<Irregular>> boy as their leader, and because of their strong will and tenacity, they were able to find victory and send the <<{{Furigana|God’s Destruction Team|Libel}}>> away a second time.

Because of that, the leader of the enemy team seemed to have developed a strong attachment to the <<Irregular>>.

Sakuya felt some kind of flow, a connection formed between the two of them.

(Which means, it might be very interesting to intentionally arrange for them to bite into each other next time.)

“…..You look quite happy, did you think of something?”

“*Giggle*......I changed my thinking just a little bit, and found an unexpected source of joy."

Mikuni questioned how much his master's demeanor had changed in a short time.

However, after he gave it some thought, he concluded that there must be something related to her research at the banquet after all.

Even though he had no clue what kind of relation there was, Mikuni knows that the black-clothed girl prioritizes anything that will bring her closer towards the goal of the <<Absolute Duo>>.

Without any further words, Sakuya stood up.

“Where are you going?”

“I will be going to the research lab. There is something I want to prepare before the banquet. Although I suspect I would have finished it already if not for this useless banquet in the first place.”

Even though she said that, he was now sure that the girl would not let the banquet end uneventfully.

“I am looking forward to this. Just what kind of flower will he bloom as? *giggle*, *giggle giggle*……….”

The girl in black clothes smiled in front of the opened door.

A smile that would send chills and goosebumps down the spine of any stranger who saw it.

And thus, the banquet would begin.

The meeting of the peoples who have a connection to the <<Absolute Duo>>------the <<Rein Conference>>.

<noinclude>

{{SimpleNav}}
</noinclude>

Absolute Duo:Volume 3 Epilogue

2021-03-31T01:31:13Z

SNovah: Quick runthrough, punctuation changes, sentence modifications

==Epilogue==

===Part 1===

“Oh yeah, Miyabi stay here and rest, I will go and buy some soft cream………..don’t worry about me. I rest everyday so, I have to walk around or I won’t be satisfied.”

After half-forcing her roommate and <<Duo>> to rest on the bench, Tomoe pushed through the crowd while she was in crutches.

(This is tough……….)

Tomoe made a small sigh when was walking.

Of course, the sigh was about Miyabi.

Although she took her out to get her spirits up even if it’s a little, it ended up forcing her to act spirited and that made Tomoe regret it.

Tomoe did not ask what happened between her and Tooru on that day.

However, Tomoe could guess something was up judging by the attitude Miyabi was displaying by evading Tooru.

No matter how dense she was in love issues, after being told two, then three times that Miyabi was not feeling good, and does not want to see Tooru when he came over to meet her, it was obvious Tomoe would realize something was off.

(It would be nice if there is something I can do to help these two……….)

Even though she doesn't know how much help she could be since she was unfamiliar with love issues, Tomoe thought of wanting to do something for her close friends.

But as long as she knows something occurred between these two during the seaside school, she thought things would get even more complicated if she moved around recklessly.

That’s why for now Tooru and Miyabi------she prayed that both her friends would return to how they used to be.

And at the same time, wished their relationship would be better than before.

(I think those two will match nicely. Fufuu)

After imagining both of them happily cuddling together, Tomoe naturally smiled but----

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Zukiri*

(-----? What was that………….)

Pain ran through her chest for some reason.

Tomoe deluded herself by telling herself that her heart was in pain because her precious friend was feeling down.

Tachibana Tomoe was dense.

Because of that, she has once again failed to notice the change taking place in her heart, which was starting to grow attracted to that boy.

Around the time Tomoe mixed in with the crowd, Miyabi continued staring at her back-----and soon, she faced downwards.

(She was being considerate to me………..)

Miyabi felt sorry to Tomoe who brought her out to cheer up even though her injuries were not healed yet.

When she over the people walking in front with a dazed look, they looked very happy to her.

The scenes of family, friends and couples laughing together was something cruel for Miyabi now.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Jiwari* tears appeared and she rubbed her downcast eyes.

Tooru’s face he made on that day was still stuck on her mind.

(Why am I causing trouble for the person I like…….)

She caused trouble to the kind boy she loved by confessing to him.

She caused unnecessary trouble to the boy she loved who always tries to cheer her up.

And more importantly, there was a big scar left on Miyabi when Tooru came very close to losing his life because of her.

What’s more, it happened twice.

In the a la mode and the seaside school too, she caused trouble to Tooru by always having to be protected by him.

Her chest was close to bursting open from fear when she thought of the possibility of losing someone precious----the worst result possible of having that precious person protect her weak and useless self.

The inerasable regrets kept pilling on top of each other one after another until it accumulated in a great number and----not long later, it started to spill out.

“It would be nicer if I was stronger……….”

If she had the power enough to not become a burden, she thought Tooru’s life won’t be exposed to any danger but, Miyabi's dark mood spilled over.

(However, it's impossible for me no matter how much I work hard…….)

Miyabi thought this in her deeply sunk heart.

“…………..I wonder what it means to be stronger?”

Miyabi got surprised by the sudden call out.

An old man with a gentle smile was sitting beside her before she knew it.

“E-errr………you heard me?”

“I heard a little bit.”

Miyabi felt a faint affinity with the old man who was showing a *nipaa* smile while facing his thumb and index finger together.

Her house was an inn so quite a number of old couples would visit the inn throughout the year and even though she was bad with the opposite sex, she was not that bad with old men. Particularly, old men with a gentle air around them.

That’s why Miyabi continued talking to the old man without being cautious while at the same time feeling embarrassed.

“Errrr………I-is that so. I want to be stronger…………”

Although Miyabi was choosing her words, she told him about the problems she was causing to her friends and precious person, and the fact she wants to become stronger to stop causing any troubles for them, but it was completely futile.

The old man did not deny nor consent, and just let the girl borrow his ears while providing good answers.

Soon, Miyabi regained her composure and made a powerless smile.

“Ahaha…………I am sorry for making a stranger hear my grumbles…..”

“I don’t mind. It’s sometimes important to let out the things inside.”

The old man laughed.

“By the way, Ojou-san. Judging by that talk----I think you can become stronger.”

“I-is that true…..?”

“Umu. People who know their own weakness can definitely become stronger.”

“*Giggle*, thank you very much, ojii-san. I think I cheered up a little. It would be nice if that happens though………….”

“Fuhaha, I guarantee that.”

The old man laughed.

From a bystander perspective's, that was not a laugh from a gentle old man but rather a laugh from a devil.

And right now, the devil was charming a girl with his honey sweet words.

“Ojou-san, let me give you the chance. But it depends if you want <<Power>> from the bottom of your heart.”

Miyabi didn’t know.

A person’s <<Soul>> is needed as sacrifice in a devil’s bargain.

Because of that, the girl lent her ears to the devil-----and finally nodded.

“Then, let me bestow upon this-----The <<Power>> of <<{{Furigana|Ell.Libel|God’s Destruction soldier}}>> to you.”

<noinclude>

==Translation Notes and References==

{{SimpleNav}}
</noinclude>

Absolute Duo:Volume 3 Chapter 7

2021-03-31T01:13:37Z

SNovah: First pass for punctuation, some sentences/word order

==Chapter 7 『We Are Jumping!』==

===Part 1===

I’m scared---- I’m scared I’m scared I’m scared I’m scared I’m scared I’m scared I’m scared I’m scared I’m scared I’m scared.

Fear completely filled the heart of Miyabi who ran into the dark forest.

She felt she was getting chased from behind.

She felt the man in the battle suit chasing her.

She turned around several times, but she could only see the forest shrouded in darkness.

Thus, Miyabi looked like she was just being chased by the darkness.

(Why! Why are those people here! I don’t want this, I don’t want this anymore……!!)

Turning the clock back to earlier in the evening-----

After running away from Tooru, Miyabi was at the cliff before she knew it.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Porori* Tears were falling in front of a sunset that was too beautiful to describe.

Once she started crying, the only thing left was for the tears to spill out-------so she just sat at that place and allowed her tears to flow.

In her mind's eye, the expression Tooru had made just before floated about.

He became troubled because she told him her feelings.

Miyabi knew what Tooru was thinking about himself by his expression.

It would probably be a lie if she said she didn't expect anything somewhere in her heart.

Tooru was always kind.

Even though she knows he's kind to everyone.

The unforgettable scene left only painful memories in Miyabi’s heart.

Miyabi’s feelings calmed down a bit when the sun was half way down, and she decided to head back to the branch school.

Even though Tooru had seen Miyabi standing there from far away at that moment, they ended up missing her by a few minutes.

Miyabi had left the cliff, climbed down the ridge and walked through the small path in the forest with absolutely no clue that Tooru and Tomoe were going around looking for her.

She had a reluctant feeling about going back, and considered the possibility that she had made everyone worried, but still moved her legs forward even though each step was heavy.

(What should I say……….)

Imari told her to work hard, but Miyabi knew she never had any intention of telling her to confess.

Make a memory only the two of them have and close the distance between them.

Even though everyone cooperated to make a chance for her to gradually close the distance to him, everything became useless with one foolish sentence to satisfy herself.

She didn't want to go back. But she has to.

She didn't want to report to them. But she probably has to.

Those heavy contradictions pulled her heart but once Miyabi got back to the hall, what waited for her was the sight of her classmates running amok in fear and the men in battle suits.

“Auuu………..!!”

Miyabi stumbled on something and fell down.

Even if she didn’t fall now, she would probably trip on a dent in the floor or a tree root sooner or later if she continued running through the dark forest frightened to death like that. Rather, it’s probably a miracle that she could run this far without falling down.

She tried to stand up thinking she had to run away.

But, her legs were trembling and that made her fall down again.

Not only her legs; her whole body was trembling.

She somehow managed to raise her body, but sitting down was all she could do, and it looked like she wouldn’t be standing for a while.

She grazed her knees when she fell, but she did not have the time to feel the pain now.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Hyuu**Hyuu* she couldn't even notice that this unfamiliar sound was her own body hyperventilating due to fear.

No shadows moved at all, although she turned around and stared at the darkness with scared eyes.

(Am I safe…………?)

Just when she had that thought...

“Kukuku, I never would have thought I would find that damn brat’s friend out here…………”

Miyabi’s whole body got goosebumps.

That voice that was the source of her fear was something she could not ever forget.

When she moved her sights to the direction of the voice----- in front of her trembling form, a nightmare was standing there.

“------Uuh! Iyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”

“Shut up!!”

“Uh, Kahah…….!!”

Her scream was forcefully stopped. The man in a battle suit had his hands around her neck and was choking Miyabi.

“Stop with the shouting already!! I am pissed off because I let your man run away, and the wound is aching so much that I am going crazy!!”

“Hii…………!”

Being a victim to his anger, Miyabi lost her voice.

Seeing her in such a state, the man smiled happily before slightly relaxing the grip on her neck.

“Kuku………oh yeah. I’ll have you take responsibility for your man’s misconduct. I will slam this pain into you, slam the shit into you!! Over, and over and over again!! But rejoice! I won’t kill you! Thank me, and report to that damn brat while crying!! Hyaahahahaha!!”

Despair took over Miyabi’s heart.

She knows no help would probably come even if she cried and shouted in this forest.

(Sa………save me……….Tooru-kun……….)

Her body will now become tainted and a wound that could never disappear will be carved into her heart.

Miyabi shut down her consciousness in order to run away from that fear.

A moment before she fainted, she felt she heard a shout and-------

She immediately regained her senses when her body felt a flutter.

After a moment of feeling like she was floating in the air, Miyabi’s body was being carried by someone.

She shrunk her body inwards, thinking that it was his dirty fangs touching her body but------something was off.

The arm holding her was very warm and gentle.

(Who is it……..?)

Slowly opening her eyelids, the person who appeared in Miyabi eyes----was Tooru.

===Part 2===

Tachibana told me to go on ahead, so I left her and entered the forest, when I heard a voice coming from ahead on the forest path; I saw a man a in battle suit holding Miyabi by the neck while making a loud laugh.

The next instant, my mind turned completely blank------and I jumped forward to punch the man before I knew it.

After seeing the man fly a few meters away, I immediately turned to Miyabi.

Just like a puppet with its strings cut off, I caught her lifeless falling body and called out to her several times.

“Miyabi, Miyabi……! Are you okay, Miyabi!!”

“Too-ru………kun……..?”

Her consciousness was probably still cloudy. With her eyes opened Miyabi said my name in gasping parts.

(Thank god……!)

Even though I was close to hugging her, I returned to my senses when I heard a sound coming from behind.

“Miyabi wait for me for a bit.”

I lightly tapped Miyabi’s shoulder while she was still blank and dazed, and stood up.

“Just when I thought you were running around like a rat, you appear and disturb me from slamming her down, you damn brat……..”

“………….Shut up”

“What did you say!? Bastard, now that you reappeared nonchalantly, this time I will------“

“I told you to shut up, you piece of shit! Don’t talk anymore! Stop breathing out that stench! How dare you hurt this girl!!”

My words, my rage, were really pointed at me.

That’s because I was the one who hurt Miyabi before this man.

Anger surged in me. The anger towards this man was going wild in my heart.

“SHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT UUUUUUUUP!!”

The man lost control of his emotions and pulled out his knife before jumping at me.

However, that went for me too------no, I charged in with an even darker emotion.

Forgetting to manifest my <<Blaze>> I jumped at the man again.

The knife grazed my shoulder and my fist crushed his cheekbones at the same time.

Even though the man was staggering, he did not give in and--------I continued slamming him mercilessly with a storm of fists.

Several punches, several more punches. There was no technique, just plain violence and rage.

“Gah, Haah………..! Ra-Ramn, brat, Gaah!!”

He dropped to the ground, but the man stood up again staggering-----

He jumped towards the assault rifle he dropped when I first punched him.

It was too late when I thought '''''oh shit''''', the man prepared the gun and--------it was pointed at Miyabi.

“Ku-kuku………..don’t move okay, you know what will happen if you do right…….!!”

There were a few meter distance between us. However, the man would probably pull the trigger mercilessly if I made even the slightest of movements.

This was a complete reversal.

“Kuh……!”

I couldn’t move. The man was convinced of his absolute superiority by my reaction and prepared his knife.

In an instant, a sound like night's cold air sliced through the heated battle and-----

The <<Chain>> coiled itself around the arm holding the gun and the man was pulled backwards.

“Whaaa!?”

The knife he threw pierced itself into a tree far away from his target, me.

When the man looked behind him-----he saw the <<Chain user>>, her eyes shaking in anger for her precious friend. Tachibana had fought through the pain from her wounds and managed to reach us.

“You filth!! Don’t lay your hands on my friends!!”

“Shut up bitch! I’ll wreck you too----”

“……..I told you to shut up.”

The man looked towards me again. But I had already closed in on him.

I was there pulling my fist back like I was about to shoot an arrow.

I will release the power-----with that black angry emotion in it.

My fist crushed the man in the battle suit and he was blown away.

“Sorry for the wait, Miyabi. It’s alright now.”

“I’m sorry I made you wait Miyabi.”

After we ran over to Miyabi, her eyes moistened when she realized we were there.

“To-Too-kun, Tomoe-chan…………I was, scared…….I thought it was useless but, both of you, came………..an-d……sorry, Tooru-kun, I am very sorry…….”

She might not know what she was saying already.

Miyabi just let her tears flow.

I didn't get hurt at all from the fight-----

“Miyabi, you don’t have to apologize. I ------”

“A……………a-aah…………”

Miyabi’s expression changed half-way through my words.

From surprise to fear. Her pale face was directed behind me----

“GURUAAAAAA!!”

His eyes no longer had any sanity in them and they were glaring at me.

The hand he swung up was holding the knife, and the blade was emitting pale glow.

I can’t dodge this. This blade will easily slice through the girl in front of me if I dodge it.

“Miyabi!!”

I hug Miyabi to cover her.

But------the knife did not come swinging down.

What's going on, I slowly turned behind and-----

“………Gah, ah………..a……..a……….”

The body of the man in the battle suit shook as if it was stuck in a frozen position, holding up the knife------

I saw the tip of the sharp <<Katar>> piercing through his chest.

“Fuun, looks like I made it in time”

After the man's huge body collapsed producing a tremor, our friend was standing behind him.

“Tora………….!!”

I confirmed the man had completely fainted this time, and I asked Tora why he was here and what was happening at the branch school.

[[File:Absolute Duo Volume 3 Non-Colour 7.jpg|thumb]]

“------So the situation is worse than what we had imagined huh…………”

I learned that there was an attack by people in battle suits like the man collapsed in front of me.

I lost my voice when I heard that there were many injured people and in the worst case scenario there might be some deaths too.

“I saw one of them chase after Hotaka. And that’s the reason why I followed them.”

Half-way through his pursuit, some of the attackers managed to catch up him, and after he defeated all of them he chased after Miyabi again and reached this spot.

“I turned up late because there was a little bit of trouble.”

“There's no problem since we're saved. Anyway, thanks a lot for going after Miyabi. If you hadn't followed her then……………”

I cut my words and looked at Miyabi whose shoulders were being hugged by Tachibana.

She had been released from her fear and started crying again.

“I don’t need your thanks. I just thought you would feel bad if anything happened to this girl, even if she was somewhere beyond your reach.”

That’s exactly true.

That was why I was seriously thankful to my precious friend Tora for the actions he took.

“Anyway let’s head back to the branch school. They need as much battle potential as possible now.”

“Wait, Kokonoe. I really want to do that too, but I can’t take Miyabi there now……………”

“That’s true. It’s better to hide Miyabi somewhere safe. Also for Tachibana, it’s dangerous for you to follow us with those injuries.”

“Thi-this level of injury to me is………!”

“Don’t ask for the impossible. You’re in such a bad condition that even moving is tough for you right now.”

Even though it was to save us, her injuries had gotten even worse because she forced herself just now.

“Both of us will go so Tachibana, you take Miyabi and hide somewhere-----”

“…………It's okay if they can hide, but what are you going to do if this guy’s comrades find them? Forget fighting, both Tachibana and Hotaka don’t have the power to even resist.”

It’s just as Tora says.

I can’t just leave the two of them here, but I can’t bring them along either; now this is a problem.

“Then, I’ll go alone-----”

“Don’t be stupid. How can I let you go into that situation alone?”

Judging by Tora’s tone, it seems he was not budging at all.

My name was called out at that moment and two----no, three girls ran over to us. The last girl was a female butler being carried by a ponytailed girl.

“Julie, Imari……….and Sara too! You guys are amazing to have found us here!”

They were a little out of breath, and I was surprised at the three of them that had run over.

We were currently at a place far away from both the promenade and forest path.

“We used this. You know, the thing I used during the <<Blaze practice>> on the first day……….”

The terminal Imari showed me after our battle during the day we reached the island was again in her hands.

“………..I am sorry to interrupt, but about my Ojou-sama’s situation...”

“Ah, that’s right. Sorry.”

“Did something happen to Lilith…….?”

Even though her tone wasn’t that different, I could feel a weird change from Sara who could not hide the anxiousness of her expression.

“Actually------”

Imari’s talk gave the same shock----no, an even stronger shock compared to what Tora just told me.

Another enemy team appeared in the office, and Lilith stayed there alone to let the chairman escape.

“We got attacked by the enemy half-way too, but Julie saved us.”

Julie said '''''it’s okay don’t worry about it''''' when Imari thanked her.

“I’m worried about Lilith. Let’s head back quickly. Sara, you stay here with Tachibana and the rest. Also-----Imari too. Can you protect the three of them for me?”

“………….Sorry, Tooru. I can’t do that. I promised Lilith I would head back immediately. I might not be that helpful in battle, but I want to go back no matter what.”

A strong will was in her eyes as Imari stared at me------

An unexpected person supported her opinion; it was Tora.

“…………I will stay. Even if Nagakura stays here, she won’t be able to handle the situation if an opponent of this guy’s level shows up. It pisses me off, but it's better in terms of battle potential to have Julie head back to the battle at the branch school.”

“Tora………..”

“Hurry up and go. You’re going to save that girl right?”

“………Sorry, Tora. Leave it to me”

“Tora, I apologize too. And, thank you.”

Tora turned away when he heard Imari’s words.

“It’s just picking the right people for the right job…………more importantly, all of you stay alive. Understand?”

“Ah………of course, I promise.”

“The three of you-----please help my Ojou-sama.”

The last one, Sara, who hates me like a snake, lowered her head as we headed out after I replied '''''I definitely will'''''.

“Julie, Imari. Let’s go!!”

[Ya---!] [Uun!!]

The four of them remained there and the rest of us ran toward the branch school.

When we got near the branch school, I could hear gunshots, screams, shouts, trembles and so on from there.

We got through the forest not long after and-----

I gasped when I saw a giant ring blade in the battle at the hall.

“What’s that………?”

“Apparently that’s Tsukimi’s <<Blaze>>. You know, the one where you can release its full power at <<IV>>.”

Running beside me, Imari gave a quick explanation.

(If she has that amazing <<Power>>, why didn’t she use it during our fight?)

Although I had some questions, I postponed it for later and charged into the western-style building.

We went through the door that had lost its shape due to explosives or something and ran up the stairs.

“Lilith!!”

We went inside the room and found the gold girl covered with injuries.

Her skin and clothes were stained with soot-like dirt and the six holes on the wall caused by some kind of explosion similar to the building entrance was probably not unrelated.

Three men in battle suits were attacking Lilith, but one of them turned towards us when they heard us.

Faster than he could prepare his rifle, Julie jumped to him and swung down her sword. However the enemy could not be taken lightly since he blocked the sword in a flash.

“Are you alright Lilith?!”

“Sorry. Preparations for tea time haven’t started yet.”

Although Lilith spoke nonchalantly with a wry smile, she was a little different than usual.

Maybe it was because she was handling three opponents or maybe she was tired from her injuries.

(………her expression huh.)

It looked as if she was irritated or filled with unease, it was such a far cry from her usual leisurely attitude.

“I’ll help out too, Lilith.”

“It’s okay. More importantly go inside.”

“Tooru, the chairman went inside there”

She pointed towards the broken wall that had probably been a door and Imari gave a simple explanation.

“That’s the case. So, this might be pathetic coming from the <<Exception>>, but I let one go. That’s why; you don’t have the time to handle these guys”

Lilith’s judgment was probably correct.

Judging by her impatient and fast tone, there was no time for questions and answers.

But, is it okay to leave this spot to Lilith who is exhausted now?

“Tooru. I will stay!”

“Imari………!?”

“I think it’s better if I stay here. If not, I might not be able to honor my promise.”

After looking at Lilith’s condition and those three enemies, Imari made her decision and prepared her <<Sword>>.

“Understood. I leave this to you, Imari.”

“Right back at you. If Tooru and Julie don’t come back safe then I won’t be protecting my promise at all! Julie, I will handle that man!”

As soon she shouted, Imari slashed towards the man in a battle suit that Julie had attacked before.

“Ya----, I understand. I will protect Tooru.”

“You heard her, Tooru.”

Imari giggled while the sound of a sword clashing with the man rang.

“I will protect Julie too………..”

“…………..Tooru, that vow should belong to your future partner, which is me. Well, I guess I will let it go this time since I have no choice.”

Lilith seemed to slightly regain her composure when she said that.

“Okay then, I leave that guy to you, Imari!”

“Yes, Lilith! …………but, taking this guy alone is too much for me so, it would be a lifesaver if you finish it fast!”

Both the {{Furigana|blonde hair|Yellow Topaz}} and ponytail fluttered.

Julie and I put our concerns aside and ran towards the big hole ahead.

“I'm counting on you! Please protect that girl-Sakuya, Tooru!! Julie, I will count on you too, but only tentatively!!”

[Aah, I will definitely protect her!] [Ja---!]

We accepted Lilith’s request as we broke into a run.

After we advanced into the big hole that had been opened up when the wall was destroyed, there were stairs leading underground. While scanning through the wreckage, a dim road revealed itself. Although the underground road had lamps lighted up with a few meters interval between them, the length of the whole road was unknown to us.

We silently ran on the road leading straight ahead.

Our footsteps were the only sounds echoing there.

It was probably rarely used until today. After advancing through the slightly dusty air for a while------the underground road suddenly reached its end.

There was a big open place when we got through the road, and it seems this cave was connected to the sea, given the strong smell of salt floating through the air.

When we peeked down from our foothold, we found out we were standing on a place constructed thirty meters (the height of a ten-story building) from the sea and there were iron stairs along the wall leading downwards. There was a pier further down the stairs and a twenty meter long pleasure boat was anchored there.

(--------! That’s…………!!)

The moment I noticed the people I believed to be the staff members collapsed on the pier, the sound of the engine echoed throughout the cave.

The boat at the pier was being moved by some unknown individual.

Who was moving the boat? There was only one conclusion I could reach after assessing the situation.

At the same time, I knew we wouldn’t make it if we descended the stairs.

“Julie, we're jumping!”

“Ja---!”

There was no hesitation. We jumped through the fence and let our bodies hang in the air.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>ByuuGooo* the air hit my cheeks and-----

We reached the deck while making a loud sound and the pleasure boat shook greatly. Although there was a dent in the metal deck, the boat continued exiting the cave without stopping.

“Yoo, we meet again.”

The teenage Caucasian boy I thought to be moving the boat came to the deck, and after exchanging glances with his arrow-like eyes, those were the only words that I could naturally come up with.

“Yeh, we meet again as expected.”

The teenager made a small smile.

We will meet again------

Whether or not two months was a long time or short a time, the prediction I had made at that time now became reality.

The ship slowly moved forward during this tense standoff.

Assessing from the fact of no one on the bridge, the boat was probably on autopilot.

“Where is the chairman?”

Standing beside me, Julie asked the teenager while pointing the tip of her <<Saber>> at him.

“She is not injured at all, so do not worry. She is currently taking a rest inside the cabin.”

The teenager’s tone was polite, but his voice was laced with a sarcastic courtesy could be readily felt within, bringing forth an extreme unpleasantness.

“Even so, it was reckless to jump down from that height.”

“That’s okay because the target was big.”

“Even if you are an <<Exceed>>, you should be somewhat hesitant to do something like that.”

“You will take the chairman away if we hesitate even a little.”

By the sudden decision I made, the girl who jumped off without any signs of hesitation answered him.

“Amazing decision skills…………..however we are about to go out to sea.”

Just as the teenager’s words, the boat passed through the cave and we found ourswelves under the starry skies.

Judging by the position of the shining moon above the sky and the giant island silhouette, I found out that we were southeast of the island.

“………….Can I hear your names?”

“Kokonoe Tooru. She is my <<Duo>>, Julie=Sigtuna.”

“I am called <<K>>. It’s Kokonoe Tooru right? I predicted I would meet you soon----in the near future, but I never would have thought I would do so at the end of the <<Selection>>.”

“<<Selection>>? What’s that? For what reason did you attack us?”

“At the very least, it is a plan unrelated to you now.”

“I believe I am quite related though.”

“Well, you won’t be related anymore if you die here.”

“What did you say………..!”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Kuku* <<K>> laughed as if he was looking down on us and that provoked some irritation.

“…………….Tooru”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Kui* my sleeve was pulled and I regained my composure.

“Sorry. I have to calm down.”

“Ja---”

Since I managed to relax a bit thanks to Julie, I started talking to <<K>> while thinking about what we should do now.

(The ideal choice is to beat this guy up and save the chairman.)

I can’t guarantee we can achieve that. That’s why; I decided to try another way.

I casually operated the armband while acting as if I was checking my arms condition and sent out a rescue signal.

I then released the clasp before hiding it in my hand and dropped it on the deck.

Even if we fall into the sea, it will be possible to find the boat's location with this.

(…………Getting thrown out off the ship means the end but, I can’t think about that)

Another problem would be, does the academy's side have the leisure to pick up the rescue signal?

The possibility that the branch school is still fighting now is high, and if that’s the case they probably don’t have the leisure to send a rescue here. The reason why I still sent the signal out was because I recalled Imari’s words: '''''use everything you have in your hand.'''''

“Well then, it might be weird to say this but, I am very merciful------I have a very sweet personality for a soldier……….five seconds, I will give you that much time to think. It's the time I give for you two to jump into the sea and flee.”

“Then I don’t need even one second. I can’t refuse the request I got from Lilith. Also, I will protect the people within my reach………That’s why-----I will protect the chairman!!”

“Houu. The girl there-----Julie=Sigtuna was it? How about your answer?”

“It’s tentative but, I got requested by that {{Furigana|person|Lilith}}…………..and I also reject it because I can’t swim.”

“Fufu, your partner is good with jokes I see.”

(……………it’s the truth though...)

It seems <<K>> took Julie’s answer as a joke and clapped his hands.

“Okay then------let’s begin. The game where the winner would be given the princess and our lives would be bet on the toss of the coin………..of course the winner will be me.”

The owner of those arrow-like eyes made a different kind of smile.

It was an evil, distorted and ice cold smile.

“Captain of the <<Riberus>>, <<K>>-----will now exterminate the obstacles.”

[Kuh……..!?] [That’s…….!!]

Killing intent blew towards us like a sudden gust.

I prepared myself in reflex from that strong intent.

There was probably no gap between our physiques and ages, but the pressure <<K>> was giving off was so strong it made sweat flow down my back.

“Okay, let’s go.”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Ka* *Ka* *Ka*………….<<K>> walked on the deck and slowly closed the gap.

Even though a misapprehension that the battle hadn’t started almost got to me, there was no way I can let myself be thrown off. Those arrow-like eyes did not look away from us, and one step after another, he slowly came closer.

I suspected it might be a trap or something, by looking at his casual state but-----

“…….Tooru.”

“Yeah. Let’s go, Julie!”

His intention in coming closer was unknown to me but, it’s convenient to us who are experts at close- and short-distance combat. We matched our breathing and moved into the gap at the same time.

We aimed at his stomach with me releasing my fist from the right while Julie took the left-------but, <<K>> moved his body only by a bit and dodged the <<Saber>> before easily blocking my fist with his palm.

“That is quite some power you have there. It's at the same level with my subordinate wearing the <<Unit>>, or about there I guess. I never would have thought this would come from flesh even if it was genetically altered……………I now understand the reason why <<Equipment Smith>>-dono is fixated on the <<Exceed>>.”

While blocking my fist, <<K>> said something incomprehensible. During that time, I relaxed the power before pushing in again but, he was not budging at all.

Julie swung her blade again during that moment. Even though he dodged the horizontally swung blade by lowering his head, Julie kept that momentum and used the other sword to cut upwards. He then lifted his head that he had lowered previously. The moment he made a big swing reaction with his upper body, I relaxed my fist and performed a locking move, but-----

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Buun* The kick missed. <<K>> used the momentum he got when he lifted his head and jumped backwards.

“He is quite a skilled fighter.”

Since the boat floating on the waves was constantly swaying, it was hard to maintain the center of gravity. However, judging by how <<K>> had outdone our attacks without any trouble from that display of attack and defense; I could feel that was only a fraction of his true strength.

“We are going to continue attacking, Julie. It’s his disadvantage to keep blocking on this small deck.”

“Ja---!”

We charged in again. I went in front this time and released a hook from a distance-----but, this was a feint. I shifted to bending my body when I missed, and made a spinning side sweep with my leg. However, <<K>> slightly crouched down to dodge that too.

“Not bad! But, both my attacks are feints!”

The moment <<K>> moved to dodge the sidekick, the silver girl jumped over my head while my body stance was low, thanks to bending down. Julie then performed a splendid drop kick with the momentum and slammed her foot into <<K>>’s face.

“…….how disappointing. It might be fast but, it’s regretfully light.”

Julie’s kick was blocked by <<K>>’s crossed hand guards, and no damage could get through.

“But----you stopped moving!”

After Julie jumped away from the kick’s recoil, I switched in and delivered a hit.

I slammed his stomach with an elbow strike plus the momentum of me standing up, <<K>>, who took a clean hit, was blown away, with his back slammed into the guardrail.

The iron fence served its purpose to prevent people from falling off the deck, but its shape was greatly distorted from the impact.

However-----

“Fufu, that is one fine combination.”

My expression stiffened when I see <<K>> stand up without breaking his small smile.

“………I thought you took a clean hit, you know?”

I should have the power to destroy a concrete wall now that I am <<{{Furigana|III|Level 3}}>>.

I never would have thought he would stand up as easily as if there was no damage done to him at all.

“It is somewhat painful.”

“Haha……..somewhat, huh?”

<<K>> showed a smile while rubbing his stomach.

“The damage would probably be quite extreme if it was my subordinates, but it’s not so strong as to make them faint though. However, the <<Unit>> I am wearing now is actually an exclusive model for me. Output, armor, and other statuses are higher than the normal ones, so I only received some slight damage from that attack just now.”

“I see. So the reason why you people transcended humans is because it thanks to those battle suits. No wonder all of you were wearing strange outfits.”

“That is correct. Just like you <<Exceed>> who transcended humans with the <<Lucifer>>, we transcended humans with this <<Unit>>.”

“I am kind of happy there was a hit, even though it’s not much.”

Although I made a sarcastic smile to him, I was confirming the situation in my mind.

(If he isn’t bluffing then, it wasn’t that effective. He might have taken some damage but, it’s far from a critical hit……….so that means----)

I moved my consciousness to the girl standing beside me with her <<Double>> prepared. No matter how much the <<Unit>> is resistant to impacts, it should be unable to block slash attacks. That is probably true judging by the fact he dodged Julie’s <<Saber>> when she first swung it down.

The basic strategy I thought from that point, was to have Julie finish him as I become her support.

(………I guess I should find a chance behind him and slam <<{{Furigana|Thunder god’s strike|Mjolnir}}>> there)

“Julie. Sorry but----”

“I understand. Tooru’s will focus on support and use that when you find a chance.”

As expected from the partner that's stood beside me, shoulder-to-shoulder, several times.

She has already figured out my intentions.

“It’s really reassuring to have Julie around huh.”

“Nai. That’s what I want to say to Tooru.”

“………….now that you have finished your discussion, can I begin now? However, I will be moving my hands now.”

<<K>> pulled out two knives from the circular storage on his hips, and prepared it with both his hands.

“Let’s go, <<K>>!!”

I sent an eye signal to Julie-------and charged in for the third time.

However this time was different, I changed to a left-focused stance with my right fist and leg brought forward.

Compared to the original right-focused stance with my left arm and leg brought forward, my defense will become softer because I cannot use my <<Shield>> for attacks coming from the right. What’s more, I can’t use the <<{{Furigana|Thunder god’s strike|Mjolnir}}>> which requires twisting my body.

“Hoou, what are you trying to do after changing your stance?”

“This!”

In an instant, I lowered my arm after hardening its muscle-------and my right fist, placed around my hip, sliced into the air.

“------!!”

A slightly surprised expression appeared on <<K>>’s face who was making a very leisurely expression until now.

Even though he dodged the fist aimed at his face, it brushed through his hair.

“I see, so this is the reason why you took a left stance.”

This was a new move I made by the experience I gained, during the final battle we had with Lilith to scatter her rose two months ago.

The stillness before the button falling, and the move after it fell-----

That battle like the ones shown in western movies was the inspiration.

The new move was similar to a flicker of jabs in boxing, with the fist prepared at a low angle thrust straight at the opponent in an instant. Taking <<{{Furigana|Thunder god’s strike|Mjolnir}}>>, the move of releasing all the charged power in one punch as the base, I rearranged it to a move stressing rapid fire. Since the motion required was minimal, while the power was reduced, it looked as if I was performing cowboy-style quick shots, and so I gave this move a suiting name.

“Eat this, bullet punch!!”

“…………..Let’s name it <<{{Furigana|Hrungnir|Thunder speed roar}}>>, Tooru.”

Different from the first one, <<K>> could only strengthen his guard to my fast fists fired in rapid succession. Even though it stressed rapid fire, it does have the same power as a right straight, making it worthy of having <<{{Furigana|Thunder god’s strike|Mjolnir}}>> as its base move.

Julie slashed down at that moment but, <<K>> jumped back immediately.

Julie’s charging attack was wild and------<<K>> blocked all-side slash attack with the knives in both his hands. Instead of stopping it, he diverted the power away.

But, Julie’s attack was not so sloppy to allow him to divert everything away.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Kiin*! One of the knives flew out his hand, together with a high-pitched sound. Even though Julie took this as a good opportunity to slash down at him, it was a trap invitation. He purposely threw the knife away.

The moment <<K>> dodged the downward swung sword, he aimed for her petrified moment that didn’t last a tenth of a second, and grabbed Julie’s wrist before throwing her-----no, slamming her into the deck.

“Hah……….!!”

Julie’s face distorted in pain from the impact.

<<K>> lifted his leg to step on her but-----

“I won’t let you!!”

It got prevented when I slammed into him.

Taking the chance when <<K>> staggered a bit, Julie rolled away but----

“Nice follow-up……….but, you carelessly closed in too much!”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Dozuuu*,*Gah*……….!! His knee strike thrust towards my stomach and made me stagger before he blew me away with a punch.

“Fufu, nice work surviving through that. However, I wonder how many more you can take?”

Luckily-----no, it was on purpose. When the charge attack stopped, <<K>> showed a leisurely smile when he looked at us standing up. Two knives flew towards me when I fell down after getting blown away. I blocked one with my <<Shield>> and somehow managed to dodge the other one by twisting my body but, my sleeve was cut open.

“Are you okay, Julie?”

“Ja--, no, problem………”

Her words do not match her apparent state at all. Julie’s shoulders were heaving up and down, while her breathing was in complete disarray.

“Please don’t force yourself. That’s because you have to perform the final blow!”

Before I had even finished speaking, I headed to <<K>> waiting for us.

It was not a simple charge but rather I moved in a zig-zag.

I blocked the knife thrust towards me with my <<Shield>> and got closer to him.

The knives <<K>> was holding in both his hands were freely trying to aim for my life. It was probably impossible for me to get close to him if I was fighting him alone, especially given his amazing knife technique. However, I was not alone. My partner Julie was constantly making diversions for me.

Unlike me, Julie moved into <<K>>’s blind spot with footwork diversions. Of course, because <<K>> could not afford to ignore her movements too, he focused on changing his position to always have Julie’s movement in his field of view and because of that, he could not concentrate on the fight he was having with me.

[[File:Absolute Duo Volume 3 Non-Colour 8.jpg|thumb]]

It was not a simple attack but rather it was one of our combination plays.

“Seriously, it’s annoying.”

“That’s praise for us. I’ll gratefully accept that.”

I obstructed a knife's path with my <<Shield>> and tore the air with my fist, while Julie repeatedly performed hit-and-run strikes. But even so, he has yet to receive a decisive hit.

(Damn it, this guy is amazingly good in defense……!)

I gradually understood <<K>>’s strength as we fought.

It goes without saying that it was thanks to his knife techniques and <<Unit>>'s enhancements, but his defense is amazing.

He skillfully wards off my attacks and Julie’s slashes before dodging. Because the power was diverted away to the air, chances would appear after our attacks, and he would swing his knife, aiming towards that chance.

Since he wouldn’t make any big swings with his counterattacks, no chances were formed to counter <<K>>’s counters.

He was different from any enemies we faced before. His style, which involves not initiating an attack but still gaining the upper hand, was a battle style which could be made possible because of his confidence in his absolute defense.

(Strong! But, I can’t lose!!)

“Again with that flicker huh……however, overusing a single move is something not worth for praise you know.”

While paying attention to the knives position, the moment I released the <<{{Furigana|Hrungnir|Thunder speed roar}}>>...

A sharp pain ran through my body and after warm blood splashed out from my forehand, I scrambled across the deck.

“Guuu!!”

The <<{{Furigana|Hrungnir|Thunder speed roar}}>> has been broken.

He swung his blade matching with the punch I released and-----a wound appeared in my forehand.

“No way………!”

I got surprised that he matched a counter to my fist moving at such high speeds that the eye would struggle to capture.

“No matter how amazing the move is, it’s not something you should repeatedly showcase. Especially for '''''a move that has a clear weakness''''' to it. You are slightly lowering your fist the moment you release it.”

“Guuh……..Damn it!”

I could not restrain my discomposure when he found my weakness in that short battle, with such with detailed specification.

Because of that, I made a simple attack.

<<K>> easily dodged the big swing attack I made----before stabbing the knife into my thighs.

“uuuuuh!! Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”

“Tooru!!”

When <<K>> turned around, he pulled out the knife from my thighs to ward off Julie’s charge attack and at the same time, he used the leg supporting his body as an axle and-----landed one kick at her knees.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Mikiri* together with such a dull sound, the silver girl’s facial expression distorted.

“Chances will be born when your calmness is broken-----it’s hard to understand why you would join the battle when you don't even know something that simple.”

<<K>> mercilessly delivered a kick to Julie’s stomach when she was staggering. Julie was suspended in mid-air with the leg he used, before he slammed her down to the deck.

“Kuh, Fuu………!!”

The deck dented from the impact and she dropped the <<Double>> she manifested with her <<Soul>>.

The knife was mercilessly swung down at her there.

“Ju-lie………!!”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Giikiii*!! I covered Julie and blocked the blade with the <<Shield>>.

“Fufu, it’s amazing you can move with that leg.”

“I promised to protect Julie……!!”

“You are just going to irritate me if you keep spouting out stuff you can’t do.”

I got blown away with a kick at my stomach the same time he said that.

<<K>> walked over to the downed me and-----stepped onto my chest.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Mishi*…………..*mishi*, *mishii*, *Mikii*………!!

“UGuh……….AaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaa!!”

My bones started to scream from the strong pressure and it made me shout.

“Nice voice there………..well then, please say that one more time. What are you going to for her?”

While making a sadistic smile, <<K>> increased the pressure of the leg on my chest.

Even though I tried pushing his leg away, his legs didn’t move at all, as if it was a rock.

A shout of anguish ripped out from my throat, a complete mismatch with the starry skies echoed throughout the area.

“*Cough*…….Gah, Haa………!!”

Blood was mixed into my shout but right when my consciousness was starting to fade----

The silver girl stood up.

“Get away from…….Tooru!!”

Even though she was staggering and dragging her leg, Julie still swing her sword.

For me. In order to protect me.

Even though a simple swing will cause great pain to her.

However the power was low because of her condition and she stumbled back after her slash got deflected.

“Please stay still. I will send you to same place as him soon.”

“I won’t let you………! I will protect Tooru!!”

“Protecting each other. What a wonderful bond. Hahahaha!”

Julie was moving her body with a will strong as steel. She repeatedly performed breath-taking combination attacks with a speed that was unthinkable given the pain she had to be in from her leg.

“To think you still have some moves left………….okay, I’ll play with you too. Until that small body reaches its limit that is!”

<<K>> pulled out the remaining two knifes from his circular storage and retaliated against the silver girl.

Julie became like a gust and moved around the small deck with high-speed movements. Her {{Furigana|Silver hair|Silver Blonde}} hair fluttered like wings, illuminated by the moon.

“Houu, you still can move faster huh. It’s amazing how you can move like that with a broken knee.”

“I won’t let anyone…….die in front of me!! I won’t let anyone become like my Papa………..!! That’s why I will protect Tooru!! I-I, vowed that!! That’s why I will definitely protect him!! In order for that----I will defeat you!!”

It was at that moment.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii--------*!!

Suddenly, a noise that makes one want to cover the ears by reflex, echoed throughout the ship and across the sea.

It was being produced from Julie.

Julie accelerated together with that sound.

It was a speed even I, as her <<Duo>>, has never seen before.

“Ju-Julie…….!?”

<<K>>’s leisurely expression disappeared when he saw Julie swinging her blades with crazy speed.

“-----Muu, I never thought you could still move faster……….!?”

He became anxious and could not ward off the attacks as he pleased anymore; preventing the swords from reaching his body was all he could do.

“Guhh, no way……….impossible, this much………..!!”

<<K>>’s expression distorted from the shock.

“Haa,ah………! Ah………! Haaa! Kuh, Haa…………!!”

Julie’s expression also distorted from the pain.

But even so, she continued accelerating.

Under the moonlight, Julie’s sword speed and quick body movements caused her to become a silver flash.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh!!”

The silver girl roared and----

Her presence changed.

Her presence changed to a silver wolf that just had its chains released.

“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!”

The gale of slashes turned into a storm of swords-----

The storm of swords turned into a windstorm of sword bashes-----

And finally, the windstorm of sword bashes turned to a hurricane of storm blades.

“Impossible, impossible, Guh, uu……Gugahh, Guaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!”

He was swallowed by the hurricane of blades: his knives were destroyed; his iron hard defense was pierced through, and he was blown back-----

Having been blown away, <<K>> shattered the boat’s forward glass and slammed into the captain seat.

“Haaa……….! Haaa….! uh, Haa………..!”

--Iiiiinn…………..

The sound stopped the same time Julie fell to her knees.

(What the hell was that……….)

“-----!! Ju-Julie are you okay!?”

Those movements clearly shattered her own limits; that meant Julie’s body was paying a heavy price.

“Tooru, too……….are, you, okay………..?”

Even though she was so exhausted that she would collapse if not for the swords support, Julie was still worried about me. I became happy but my chest hurt at the same time; it was a very complex feeling.

---However, those feelings vanished in an instant.

“…………Ya-re ya-re. To think you hid that much <<Power>>……..it-it’s unexpected as expected you know………. however, it looks like moving itself will be trouble for you judging by that state……….”

A wobbly shadow stood behind Julie.

<<K>> grabbed Julie’s neck from the back and lifted her up like that.

“-------------uuh!!”

While raising a sound that does not sound like a voice, Julie’s expression was filled with pain.

“Okay then, should I kill you by twisting your neck, or choke you to death-------"

<<K>> pondered for a moment, before coming out with a cruel conclusion.

“I guess I’ll throw you into the sea. You can’t swim right? Even if you could swim, you will probably drown with your current stamina anyway. On top of that, there is nothing uglier than a drowned corpse. It’s also quite fun to make a beauty like you into something obscene.”

“--------! S-stop------!!”

Julie’s body was ruthlessly thrown into the night sea.

I extended my hands and jumped.

“Julie, extend your hands! Just like that time!! Take my hand--------!!”

“Too…..ru…….!”

Our extended hands and fingers touched.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Gashaa*!! We grabbed each other hands, and I strongly pulled Julie to me.

While hugging her small body, I slammed into the iron fence.

“Guh………ouch………”

“Are you okay, Tooru?”

“Aah, Julie how about you?”

“Ja--. It’s thanks to Tooru hugging me properly.”

“I see. I would like to keep hugging you like this after this too but……….”

“It sounds nice but, we don’t have time to say that.”

I stared at <<K>> while nodding.

“Seriously, how foolish. Someone unable to stand is just a burden and not a comrade. That’s something you should know right?”

“Foolish you say? Nooo, you’re wrong. I can continue standing up because my comrade is with me. That’s something you will never understand though!”

“………….What can you do after you stand up. Don’t tell me you seriously think you can do something in this hopeless situation?”

Hopeless------That might be true.

However, that only truly happens when all hope is lost.

I still have <<Power>>. A fang that is able ''to pierce through all'' that dwells in my right fist.

“Tooru……….”

Julie looked at me from inside my arms.

There was no despair in her eyes.

She believes in me. Even though no words came out from her, her {{Furigana|red eyes|Ruby eyes}} were telling me that.

“I know. Let’s defeat him and head back with the chairman.”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Chirin* her bell rang when Julie nodded.

('''''Use everything you have in your hand'''''. Anything is okay, just think of something…….!)

I recalled back the words Imari said-------

Something appeared in my mind the moment I recalled our reunion.

(Oh yeah, I have '''''that'''''! I can use '''''that''''' in this situation!)

“…………..Tooru, you thought of something?”

As expected from my <<Duo>>.

After nodding, I asked one crazy request to Julie.

“Julie. I have a request. Will you listen?”

“Ja----. I will listen to everything if it’s Tooru’s words.”

“……….that’s one crazy answer depending on the time and situation...”

“-----?”

I made a small wry smile before asking Julie who was showing a mysterious expression.

“Will you fly…..for this time?”

“If Tooru wishes so-----I will fly.”

It might be harsh to ask Julie this when her knees might be broken.

But even so, Julie still nodded at me.

That’s because she believes in me.

“I will stop his movements for an instant. I’ll leave that moment to you.”

“Ja---”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>kokun* after hitting her forehead, Julie leaned against the handrails.

“Sorry for the wait, <<K>>. I’ll let you taste this next.”

I clenched my right fist and thrust it forward.

“As you like…………..though, there is the question of whether or not you can hit.”

He could say that because of his confidence in his defense.

It was only natural for him to be so, since most of my attacks except fast, complex attacks like <<{{Furigana|Hrungnir|Thunder speed roar}}>> did not hit him once since the start of this battle.

But even so, I swore I would slam a <<{{Furigana|Thunder god’s strike|Mjolnir}}>> to him and closed the gap.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Zuu*……….*zuzu*……… I dragged my legs and left a trail of blood on the deck before standing in front of <<K>>.

“Fufu. You’re completely covered in wounds.”

“I think that goes for the both of us.”

I was completely worn-out from the attacks until now but, <<K>> was in a similar state because after the assault from Julie.

There were scratches on the so-called <<Unit>> and it was intermittently sparking.

“Let’s end this, <<K>>.”

I slowly took a left stance and said that.

“I wonder who will be the last one standing, you two or me-----"

[It’s a match!!] [It’s a match!!]

Both sides released fighting spirit and the final attack started with that as the signal.

We were the one taking the first move as usual. I was going to use <<{{Furigana|Hrungnir|Thunder speed roar}}>> to steal the flow.

However, to <<K>> who has seen through its weakness already, averted all of the punches by slapping it all downwards instantaneously.

(I hate to admit this about an enemy, nut this guy’s blocking is as fantastic as expected! However-----)

“'''''Blocking won’t be enough to beat me'''''. You're making a face like that, huh?”

“------Gabuh!”

A counter flew at me the same time he said that.

After I got punched in the face he stomped on my foot; a severe pain ran through that leg.

I got punched again at that moment, and even though I was able to keep my body from collapsing this time, I immediately rolled away from the next attack.

“I lost all my knives. And I admit, the <<Unit>>’s output has decreased. However, it’s not so low until I can’t kill you with punches. A fist fight contest is very inelegant, but it can’t be helped in this situation though.”

<<K>> talked without any concern or doubt that he might lose.

(Ouchh…………saying whatever you like and acting all happy………)

Even though my face was distorted from pain-------I already achieved my goal.

Yes, I purposely took the hit to achieve my goal.

All of this was to stop <<K>>’s movement.

(This will probably be the only chance. Can I do it……..? No, I have to do it!!)

I clenched my fist under the <<Shield>> and stood up after steeling my resolve.

“……….Your eyes... I guess you're resolved to end this, huh? I have little stamina left anyway, so I was thinking of going for the finish too. Fufu, I have to focus on this.”

“Kuh…….!”

It was quite annoying, but our techniques, movements, and mentality have been seen through by those arrow-like eyes, as if everything was dancing in his palms.

But-----'''''that is also the reason for our victory.'''''

“Correct, I will end it with this. My fist-----go ahead, see through it if you can!!”

I roared and stepped in, and release a horizontally curved attack.

“A feint again huh?”

<<K>> remembered this attack as the feint I used during the start of the battle.

And it was the same as this time------my fist hit the air, and I rolled forward with the momentum of the punch.

But, that's where it changed. Instead of a sidekick, I performed a left back blow while raising my body.

However, <<K>> saw through that attack in an instant and dodged it.

“Forming a different combination from the first-------however, it's an immature attack pattern!!”

“As expected from you…….! Then------”

The moment my back blow missed, I opened my clenched fist.

'''''“See through this!!”'''''

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Kaa!!*<<K>>’s eyes burned from the light.

“Guh, what the heck was that……!?”

The object I hid using the <<Shield>> when I stood up just now was inside my clenched fist.

The '''''switch was already turned on''''' , at the moment I showed my back to <<K>> when I rolled my body-----right after I performed the back blow.

The object I held in my fist was the armband. The reason why I took a hit on purpose was to pick up this object I threw on the deck.

Since the armband’s light was brighter than the moon and glittering stars, he took a blinding hit with his arrow-like eyes that could see everything.

After losing his sight for an instant, his expression distorted greatly ------and, <<K>> noticed something.

He noticed Julie was gone.

“*Tsk*, where did you…..!?”

“Julie, Goo------!!”

As if to respond to my shout, <<K>> looked up at the sky.

Over there, an unrealistic, beautiful and magical picture was there.

The angel signifying the end was dancing in the moonlight night.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Chirin* After the appearing sound of the bell rang-----

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Gikikiiiiiiiin*!! The <<Double>> sliced through the <<Unit>>.

<<K>> staggered when a slash was formed from the top of his shoulder down across his chest.

“Not yet………I have not------”

“No, this is the end. I’ll finish it with this.”

I also jumped into <<K>>’s chest area the moment Julie brandished her sword.

Those sharp arrow-like eyes were staring at me in hatred.

I pulled my fist back like pulling back an arrow and-----

The <<{{Furigana|Thunder god’s strike|Mjolnir}}>> broke the <<Unit>> and pulled closed the curtains of the battle.

“Tooru, the helicopter is getting closer. I think it belongs to that person.”

In the direction Julie was pointing to, I saw a helicopter with roaming search lights.

“Okay then, I am sorry to say this when you are resting but, let’s go pick up the chairman.”

I forced my creaking body to stand up and entered the cabin, dragging my leg behind me.

Having been put to sleep by <<K>>, the chairman did not wake up and appear on the boat even though there was a rough battle just now; she was just sleeping soundly on the bed.

After lifting up her small body, I was shocked by her light weight.

(Does she eat? Or is a child this light?)

After exiting the cabin while paying attention not to swing around, the helicopter has reached a distance where hearing the rotor is possible.

The helicopter soon reached the boat and the girl with {{Furigana|blonde hair|Yellow Topaz}} showed herself from the hovering machine above.

“To----O------RU------!”

I was relieved to see Lilith leaning out the opened door, swinging her hands; she was safe. Tsukimi could be seen behind her.

“Hnn………uu………”

At that moment, the black clothed girl moved her eye lids. After several weak blinks, her eyes fully opened and the chairman talked to me in a slightly dumbfounded tone.

“Kokonoe……Tooru……..? Where is this…….”

“On the boat. We are rather far away from the island though.”

“I see……….. …………… which means, I take it you were the one that saved me?”

I quietly shook my head to the side when she asked.

“It wasn’t only me. Julie too. Also, Lilith, Imari, Tora and the others made the path for us……….”

“…………I understand. I am grateful to everyone. I will be indebted to you all for this matter.”

“Debt, no------“

We did not save the chairman for such a reason.

Before I could tell her that, the chairman asked the next question.

“What happened to that boy?”

“Errr……..do you mean <<K>>? If it’s him-----“

“I am over here, <<Blaze Diabolica>>-dono”

Everyone immediately concentrated their sights towards the source of the voice, echoing from the bow of the boat.

“<<K>>!!”

Those arrow-like eyes were staring at us.

I thought he would be unconscious for a while because he took a clean hit from the <<{{Furigana|Thunder god’s strike|Mjolnir}}>> but, it seems <<K>> was tougher than what I imagined.

I put down the chairman and prepared against <<K>>.

“Relax. I have no intentions to continue this battle. I don’t think I have any chances of winning if I take on Miss Bristol and Tsukimi Rito in this condition.”

After taking a step back, the teenager showed his light smile.

“Wait!!”

“Let him go, Kokonoe Tooru.”

The chairman was the one that stopped me.

“B-but chairman……..”

“I don’t mind………you’re <<K>> right? Nice to meet you. Please tell <<Equipment smith>>-sama I said 'hi'.”

“I understand.”

After taking a deep bow, <<K>> jumped to the sea----and landed with a heavy *Thud*.

A submarine was there on the sea surface before I knew it.

<<K>> then disappeared together with the submarine.

“Kokonoe Tooru, and Julie=Sigtuna. I will get my payback sooner or later. Well then………”

He left with those words.

“Ya-re ya-re………looks like we made a connection with one annoying guy.”

“That’s true. However, it won’t be a problem if we get stronger before the next time we meet again.”

“Haha, you got that right.”

I laughed at the words that the girl beside me said----and recalled something.

I recalled back the ear-piercing sound that echoed in the battle.

And the memory of Julie moving at a speed that could be described as unusual, together with the sound.

(That sound and the Julie at that time, just what’s with that……….? It’s as if a beast trapped in a cage got loose for an instant………….)

But now, the silver girl looks normal from what I can see.

As if that event had never occurred.

“----Tooru?”

Those {{Furigana|red eyes|Ruby eyes}} were looking at me before I noticed.

“Ah, So-sorry. I was daydreaming………..no-now that I think about this, Julie. When did you overcome your seasickness?”

“…………….I had forgotten about it.”

I could see Julie’s face change color under the search light.

Next morning------even though my wounds did not heal yet, we have to separate from Imari and the other branch school students.

“Leaving the last day aside, this one week was fun.”

“Ahaha, that goes for me too. It was really great……..that I met everyone, and more importantly Tooru again.”

Imari and the branch school group came to the harbor to see us off.

It was very regretful to separate from the friends we made during the seaside school.

“I could not fulfill the cake promise in the end.”

“Fufuu, it can’t be helped in this island without any shops. Nonetheless, it doesn’t change the fact it’s disappointing…………..aaah, you still have three debts left though.”

I talked to Imari who held her hands behind her head while looking away from me.

“Oh come on. Don’t make it sound like we will never meet again. I will just have to fulfill the cake promise the next time we meet, and repay the remaining two debts each time we meet again.”

“Next time huh……….”

The pony tail girl turned around with lonely eyes.

“Next time. We will meet again, just like this time, so we will definitely meet again. At least, we can do so when we join the Dawn organization after graduation. That’s why I will look forward to that day.”

“………Mouu, oh Tooru. I won’t be able to completely give up, even after finally giving in, if you tell me something like that.”

“Give up!? O-oi, Imari. Don’t give up. Our paths managed to connect so; you just have to take one more step! We have one more year, so there are many chances to <<Level up>> right?!”

I could not hide my surprise and panic when I heard that sentence come out from Imari who has a positive personality.

Imari looked at me with big wide eyes and------

She lifted the side of her lips to make a smile.

“Seriously, you sure gave out a carefree comment, like it's just one simple step, just because you have the qualification to graduate already. I am still <<{{Furigana|II|Level 2}}>> you know.”

“Oi oi it isn't carefree you know. I said it because I believe Imari will definitely become <<{{Furigana|III|Level 3}}>>."

“Ahah, you sure like to say whatever you want……….”

While laughing, Imari looked up at the summer skies----and said.

“But well, I have to respond to your expectations since you said all that.”

“If you don’t want to respond to that, then you can cancel all those debts you know.”

“Ah, no fair! Then I will definitely sublimate to <<{{Furigana|III|Level 3}}>>. So prepare yourself because I will make you treat me to a cake buffet, Tooru!”

“Wasn’t it just one cake!?”

“Bubuu, you’re wrong. I never said it was going to be one cake in the first place.”

That might be true but, I just can’t agree to that……

“Well, leaving that aside-----'''''see you again''''', Tooru.”

“Aah. See you later, Imari.”

Despite her tone a minute ago, we swore that we will meet again, and bumped our fists.

The branch school group saw off the boat while standing at the wharf. When we reached a point where we can no longer see them, the ten classmates atop the poop deck gradually entered the ship one after another.

The last ones left there were three people; me, Julie and Tora.

“I will go back to the cabin. Tooru, don’t make a mistake and fall into the sea.”

“I won’t………..”

Although I replied like that, there was no guarantee I won’t do that when the boat makes a big shake.

My body was creaking due to <<{{Furigana|Thunder god’s strike|Mjolnir}}>>’s burden. Adding onto that, my ribs were cracked, and there was a stab wound on my leg, and so my situation was completely far away from the concept of "balanced".

If I really fell off then rather than laughing, I would probably be off to the next world and-----even if I don’t go there, I probably can’t avoid getting called idiot for a while.

And with that, after I leaned against the wall and sat down with my legs jutting out in front of me, facing the opposite direction of the boat, Julie *chokon* sat beside me too.

“Julie. The salty wind might harm your wounds if you stay for too long so, you don’t have to force yourself just because you are my <<Duo>>.”

“Nai. That goes for you too when it comes to injuries. And it’s not because I am your <<Duo>> that I am with you, it’s because I just want to be beside Tooru……..also, I think I will get seasick if I head back immediately.”

The last sulky mumble made me spurt out laughing.

“You’re evil, Tooru. It’s a big problem for me……..”

“Hahaa, Sorry sorry. I’ll lend you my shoulder as an apology so forgive me.”

“……….nai, I prefer your lap.”

“Lap? Well I don’t mind……….”

“Ja---. Then I will accept the offer.”

Julie lay down her body and used my lap as a pillow.

“Good night, Julie.”

When I patted on the head of the girl that looks like a small animal, she closed her eyes comfortably.

I continued looking at the island turning smaller while patting on her silky {{Furigana|Silver hair|Silver Blonde}}.

“………….Tooru.”

“You’re not sleeping? I think you will feel more comfortable doing so you know.”

“Ja---. But, I need to ask something before that.”

Just when I thought what it is, she threw me an expected question at me.

“If……..if Imari was accepted to the main school then-----would Tooru have formed a <<Duo>> with her?”

“With Imari?”

If Imari fought someone else other than me, she might have been accepted to the main school.

But------there were no 'what-if’s'.

Everything in front of me is important now.

But even so, I guess I have some free time to imagine at least.

“That’s true………she might be a good friend, and good rival. But------I would only team up with Julie if I have to team with a girl.”

“Tooru……….”

Towards the girl right now getting spoiled by the lap pillow I am giving her...

I extended my hand out to this girl out of my own will.

“Even if Imari were to enroll into the main school-----I will still take Julie’s hand.”

“………..It’s somehow embarrassing. It’s embarrassing but------”

Even though I could not see her expression, Julie was probably making a smile.

“I am very happy.”

It seems she was satisfied with my answer and I rubbed the silver girls head.

“Let’s drink apple tea when we get back.”

“Ja---♪”

Among the view with the sea, sky and clouds-----

While hearing the endless sound of the waves, I was thinking about one girl.

It was not the silver girl sleeping on my lap ,nor was it the ponytail girl I swore to meet again.

The hard-working, but shy and reserved girl.

The girl that fell in love with someone like me.

I continuously thought about the girl I hurt over and over again.

<noinclude>

==Translation Notes and References==

{{SimpleNav|e=7}}
</noinclude>

Absolute Duo:Volume 3 Chapter 6

2021-03-30T23:18:20Z

SNovah: First pass for punctuation, some sentences/word order

==Chapter 6 『Devour it』==

===Part 1===

Miyabi’s face changed color immediately when she saw my shocked expression.

While she covered her mouth as if to say, '''''I’ve done it'''''-----

It was too late.

“You heard that……..?”

I did not answer. However, that silence ''was'' an answer.

She dropped her sights to the ground, and continued speaking; I couldn't tell if those words were directed at me or to herself.

“Ah, ahaha……….You heard………E-errr, I actually planned to say it with the wave sound to prevent you from hearing. After that, Tooru-kun would ask me what I said, and I would answer *Uun* nothing………then, I will tell myself to work harder than usual…………….and………it would be nice if that worked out……….”

“Miyabi……….”

Miyabi's shoulders twitched, *Bikun*, when I called her-----

She slowly lifted her face.

“Errr-errr, Tooru-kun………..I want you to listen……..you might have heard that just now but……but even so, I want you to listen………..!”

Her face was so red that it could not get any redder but she continued staring straight at me-----

She told me what was in her heart.

“I love you………it might not have been long since we met but……..but even so, I love you. Ever since Tooru-kun told me that you would be lonely if I left………….I was in love with you……..that’s why……..that’s why, I really love Tooru-kun…..!!”

Even though the sound of the waves was echoing, that confession clearly reached me.

I-----was shocked, while at the same time I had somehow predicted this.

I thought of this possibility during the afternoon, when I went looking for shells with Miyabi.

At that time, I rejected that possibility since Miyabi was bad with the opposite sex.

However, when I recalled some events before now, there were some things I should have noticed.

Those '''''some things''''' happen during times she comes in contact with me. The image of her getting embarrassed when our hands touch; that shy face when I nonchalantly told her to work hard and focus; those things started appearing in my mind.

All of it were forms of affection for me.

My heart changed from shock to confusion, and------then to annoyance.

'''''(How should I answer……….?)'''''

My thoughts showed in my face------for an instant. It accidentally appeared.

While Miyabi was uneasy, she was still looking at me so she did not miss that one instant.

It was already too late when I thought '''''oh no'''''----

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Tosaa* the sound of sand moving when the straw bag fell again.

Miyabi’s expression, changed to a tearful one in the blink of an eye-----

But she still tried her best to smile.

“Ah…….aha-ha…….As expected huh……..that’s true……even if I told you I love you………..it’s anno-ying……right………So-sorry……….!”

“Miyabi…….!!”

Miyabi started running on the beach.

I could not chase after her even though I called her name.

“Miyabi………..”

While standing frozen on the evening beach, I looked at her back gradually turning smaller and muttered.

After her figure disappeared by the rocks, I gathered the stuff scattered from the bag on the ground----

I picked up the heart-shaped stone last.

The memory I had of Miyabi smiling when I found this stone and gave it to her this afternoon seemed like it was from a distant past.

I destroyed that smile.

“Damn……….!”

I clenched the stone.

Time won’t turn back even if I regret it.

I'll never get a second chance.

Why did I get annoyed?

Because, I am an <<Avenger>>.

I entered Kouryou academy with a secret goal in my heart called revenge.

All of it was to gain <<Power>>.

In order to bring down my sister’s killer with my <<Power>>, which he judged as weak.

But, I gained back some of the days I lost two years ago in Kouryou Academy.

These warm, fun, and comfortable days.

But not everything that happened could be said to be good things.

I will gain <<Power>>, find its true meaning, and accomplish my revenge------

Doubt was born inside me; I who lived with only those wishes from that day.

I don’t want to let go of the warm days I regained.

However, I also can’t let go of my revenge, which is counter to those normal days.

Normal days and abnormal goals----my heart was wavering between those boundaries.

Those wavers moved and the doubt slowly changed to fear.

It changed to the fear of my everyday life filled with happy laughter and peace, always turning my mind back to that summer day; my past filled with anger, hate, and sadness.

I must not forget.

I must not let those simple joys sink deep into my heart.

That’s because I am an <<Avenger>>.

(To have fallen……..for a guy like that……….)

How should I reply to the girl who told me her heart-felt feelings while looking straight at me?

What do I think about Miyabi?

Although she is shy and quiet, it's fun talking to her. I would get energetic whenever I see her work hard, and she looks quite charming.

More importantly, her shy smile is so cute it's bewitching.

There is no way I wouldn't be happy that Miyabi shows affection towards me.

It's also true that I have some affection for her.

But, but even so, I-----

I can’t throw away my revenge.

Around the time the sun had almost set, I returned back to the hall through the small path.

The main and branch school students were together in the hall getting started with dinner’s preparations.

“Kokonoe, you came back.”

A girl stopped her prep work-----Tachibana jogged over and asked me.

“Where’s Miyabi?”

“Eh? Miyabi headed back before-----don’t tell me, she isn’t back?”

“A-ahh………..this might be unlikely but, did she get lost?”

I thought it was still better if she got lost.

I distorted my expression and Tachibana’s face color changed.
My expression distorted and Tachibana's color changed.

“………….did something happen?”

“Sorry, hold this for me! I’ll go look for her!”

I pushed Miyabi’s bag onto Tachibana and tried to head back onto the road I just come through, but my hand was grabbed.

“Wait, Kokonoe! I’ll go with you!!”

She might have guessed something when she saw my expression. Tachibana wore a serious look.

At that moment, Imari and Miwa approached us. It seems they heard us shouting.

“What’s the commotion, Tooru, Tomoe? Ah-re, where’s Miyabi? -----you got separated…………as expected, it’s dangerous when the sun is down. Okay, we will go, both of you wait here.”

“Noo, I will look for her no matter what you say.”

Faster than me, Tachibana shook her head before continuing.

“I am Miyabi’s <<Duo>>. She is the precious partner I chose. Imari, it’s true that you are more informed about this island but, I can’t do something like sitting down and waiting. So, I am sorry, but I will go look for her! Let’s go, Kokonoe!!”

After handing the bag to Miwa, Tachibana ran out to the small path and I chased after her.

“Wait! Wait up……….! Arm ba…………..! …………..!!”

Imari’s panicked voice faded immediately and could not be heard anymore.

Inside the forest in the ending twilight, Tachibana who was in front turned to me and asked.

“Kokonoe, where did you separate with Miyabi…….!?”

“………….probably at the hill road where we separated with you guys. Around there.”

There was no road other than the mountain ridge from the beach. Which means, Miyabi did not take the usual road and should be somewhere around the ridge to the hall.

“I see. Then let’s head to the mountain ridge first. From there, let’s search the spots which Miyabi would most likely get lost in.”

There are quite a number of forking paths from the ridge to the branch school and she had most likely mistaken one for the road back.

It’s only natural since she was in a situation where she'd lost her composure.

“You’re not asking anything, huh?”

“………….. You lost her even though you two were together. I know something happened, but I don’t know if it’s something I can pry into.”

Tachibana might know Miyabi’s feelings.

No, thinking back carefully, Imari and Tachibana were the ones that created the circumstances to put me and Miyabi together. That’s why if anything happened, it was not strange if she predicted something.

“Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize. More importantly, finding Miyabi is our first priority.”

Even though we looked down to the beach from the ridge as we were climbing down the slope, we did not see anyone.

Further up the beach-----the sun had sunk into the water horizon and the sky turned into dusk before we knew it.

On the opposite side----when we looked down from the caldera, we found out it was already quite dark.

Even if it was the afternoon, it would probably be impossible to find someone under the trees.

“We have to hurry. It’ll be more dangerous at night……..”

Even though she is an <<Exceed>> I don’t think Miyabi in her current unstable state could make good decisions.

I heard that there are no big animals on the island, but it’s still dangerous to wander around in the dark.

“There are three paths that look like they would be easy to mistake as a way back………….then first, let’s go on the animal trail. That looks like the path we used------Hnn?”

“What’s wrong, Kokonoe? You’re not going?”

I stopped Tachibana who was about to climb down the forest from the ridge.

“Wait. Just now, that’s…….a shadow right…….?”

“A shadow……….?”

Further up my finger------I saw a human-like shadow on the cliff thrusting out from the seaward side.

I felt as if I saw something move at the edge of my view for an instant but, the shadow was already gone by the time Tachibana looked there.

“Let’s try heading there?”

It might be Miyabi.

Guessing my unexpressed intentions, Tachibana nodded before we ran to the cliffs.

“Should be around here.”

After a few minutes we reached the cliff, but there was no one there.

“I think we made a mistake coming here, it seems like it'd be really easy to lose your footing…………”

“Do-don’t tell me………”

From the shock------a nasty picture crossed my mind and we headed to the tip of the cliff.

While watching our footsteps, we peeked down the cliff and could only see rocky areas down there.

Even though we are <<Exceed>>, it seems we won’t be able to reach the sea unless we manage a long jump.

“She probably moved.”

Tachibana peeked around me, but I agreed with her.

“What should we do? Should we head back to where we were before?”

“No, I think it’s better to look at the road around here leading to the branch building. Even if we head back, as long as there is a chance we missed her when we came here, I think it would be wasting our efforts to leave.”

If I think about the chance Miyabi might have been here just now, it’s probably better to move according to what Tachibana said.

I swung my head down vertically, and was about to leave the cliff.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Jyari*. A giant shadow appeared, accompanied by the sound of small stones getting stepped, blocking our way.

Of course, it wasn’t Miyabi.

A familiar and yet unfamiliar giant male was standing there glaring at me with wickedness in his eyes.

“Long time no see, damn brat. I was hoping to see you……..”

“Y-You are…….!!”

This guy, who was making a vulgar smile, was unmistakably the guy that intruded in the <<Survive>>. Of course, along with the face, he had a characteristic battle suit and assault rifle in his hands; the memories of two months ago vividly returned.

“……….Kokonoe. is this man perhaps…….”

“Yeah, it’s that guy.”

I nodded to Tachibana without moving my sights from the man. Even though it was the first time she met this man, she probably guessed who it was since she heard about it from me and Miyabi.

“Why are you here…….!?”

“For a mission, you should know that if you use your head a little. Although, my role is already done.”

“-----!! Did you do something to Lilith!?”

“Keh, no. This time, it’s a different target than the Bristol's rampaging horse……………wait, you’re going to die now anyway, so it’s not your problem.”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Perori* the man brought out his tongue and licked his lips in a foul manner.

"Seriously, that's one heck of a cliché bad guy line, straight out of a B-movie. Since you've said that much, how about telling me what your actual mission is?"

Tachibana whispered to me who was speaking bitterly.

“Kokonoe……….”

“I know. We have to get through somehow. We are at a complete disadvantage if this goes on.”

It’s probably impossible to avoid battle since he specifically appeared in front of me.

We are at the edge of a cliff. Meaning, we're already at a disadvantage before things even start.

We will probably be in serious trouble if we don’t at least get rid of the terrain issue.

“Be grateful, you damn brat. I came to this island a few hours ago, just for the purpose of beating the shit out of you.”

“I’m not happy at all to be popular with you, old man…….”

The man was not showing any weakness even though we were talking. His gun was just casually aimed towards us.

His hatred of me was probably boiling, but it seems he was calm in battle aspects. He probably lost to me before because he made light of me during our last confrontation.

“Your face is as annoying as before. But, what are you going to do in this situation? Destroy the ground again? I think it’s a nice experiment to see if the <<Exceed>> would die after smashing into rocks from a few meters above the ground! Gyaahahaha!!”

His disgusting laugh echoed throughout the area.

“Answer me this. Were you the one here just now?”

“…………Idiot. It's not my duty to answer you.”

He made a mocking expression.

But, since his reaction was slow by an instant, I understood that the shadow I saw before was not this man.

That shadow was Miyabi like I thought huh.

(I guess its good luck that Miyabi did not meet up with this guy……….)

I changed my frame of mind here. I'm still worried about Miyabi, but it will be dangerous if I don’t focus on this man.

“Tachibana. I will charge in. It’s the same basic strategy we used against Lilith. But it’s impossible to block all the assault rifle’s bullets so-----“

“Understood. I just have to be your support right”

Even if I didn’t finish my sentence, she immediately guessed the rest of it. I once again thought Tachibana is one trustworthy comrade.

“Well then…………time for you to die, damn brat.”

The man released killing intent and distorted his mouth; he might have been picturing our deaths.

His trigger finger moved-----

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Gagagagagagaga*!! Together with ear piercing gunshots, the bullets flew with killing intent.

“”<<Blaze>>!!””

<nowiki>*</nowiki>GiKikii*!! Tachibana’s <<Chain>> turned into a tornado and averted the bullet’s path. Although some bullets got through, most of them were blocked by my <<Shield>>.

“Whattt!?”

It’s normal for the man to be shocked.

That’s because most of the bullets were taken down or blocked with only two <<Blaze>>.

We might get some injuries but, it’s far off from critical damage.

“Now!!”

I aimed at the moment of his discomposure, and lowered my body while preparing my <<Shield>> before charging at him.

The man is probably a veteran soldier as expected. He immediately regained his composure, and prepared his gun-----but, there was an attack obstructing him from pulling the trigger. The <<Chain>>’s metal drip hit the guys hand and made him drop the gun.

“Y-you little bitch……!!”

His anger burst and the moment I jumped into the man’s chest area-----

“Idiot, I purposely lured you in!”

“-----!!”

The fist I thought connected got dodged, and it hit the air.

“'''''Judging by the previous match, my physical abilities are now higher because I became <<{{Furigana|III|Level 3}}>>'''''-----that’s what you probably thought right, you damn brat……!?!”

It probably got drawn at the same time he dodged. There was a knife being held in the man’s hand.

A blade slashed----from below to upwards.

Even though it was a close dodge, I got punched when my balance collapsed.

“I already know you got stronger. That’s because, I have been looking at you brats these past few days in detail!! But we're also done adjusting the <<Unit>>!! Hyahahahaha!!”

I received more punches when I was wobbly and the knife came falling down as a finale. Even though I managed to move my <<Shield>> and blocked it, I immediately took an uppercut to my jaw.

“Kokonoe!!”

As if to change places with me who got blown to the edge of the cliff, Tachibana stood in front. Tachibana and the man exchanged attacks while defending in close combat. The <<Chain>> would avert the knife, the sickle would cut the air, and she would ward off his giant punches with Juuhou<ref group ="3G">A Kenpou-style with the principle of “Soft” to overcome the jujitsu weakness such as thrust and kicks</ref>. His giant body floated up for an instant------and got slammed to the ground.

But----

“………….Too naïve!!”

Disregarding the fact he got slammed hard into the ground, the man stood up immediately, while at the same time releasing a kick with his log-like legs.

Tachibana got blown away even though she guarded it.

“That was a mistake. I never would have thought you would retaliate that way………”

Tachibana landed without falling down but, the arm she blocked the kick with was hanging limply by her side.

“Kuh, Tachibana……uu……..”

Even though I tried to head out to stop Tachibana from fighting with her injuries, my view shook and I fell to my knees.

The jaw attack shook my head vertically and that caused a cerebral concussion.

“Kukuh………nice look you got there. Stay quiet like that. I’ll beat the shit out of you and give you pain you've never imagined before.”

He licked the knife and made a disgusting laugh.

“……….This is a crisis huh?”

Judging by Tachibana’s tone, I know she was feeling disadvantageous.

She probably calmly analyzed the situation by my condition and the wound on her chest.

“You can try running you know? But, that’s if you can do it.”

There was no place to run. The man made a scornful smile at our completely disadvantage situation.

“………..Okay then, I’ll do that.”

“Whaaa!?”

Faster than his words, Tachibana turned her heels around and ran to me.

“…………..Kuh, damn it!!”

The man looked surprised but, he immediately picked up his gun after guessing Tachibana’s intentions and fired.

“Kokonoe, we are jumping!!”

Running towards me, Tachibana did not slow down and hugged my body----

Inside the bullet storm, we reached the edge of the cliff and------

We jumped into the sea.

“-----E………Konoe…..Wake up, Kokonoe…….”

There was the sound of a helicopter rotor passing overhead.

I could hear a weak call mixed with that sound.

(Wh-where is this……..? What was I……..I was searching for for Miyabi and……)

Inside my cloudy conscious, I wondered why I was lying down on a place like this.

When I came to, I was laying on top of a rock.

“-----! Oh yeah, that guy! And Tachibana……….Kuh…….!?”

I felt pain on my head after I raised my upper body when my memories clarified, and I felt a damp sensation when I touched my head.

“Sorry………….I injured you…….”

Someone talked to me, and I noticed Tachibana lying down on the rock nearby for the first time.

“This is just a scratch, don’t worry about it. Although, it’s a little sad that I lost my parka.”

We fell a few meters down to the sea after jumping from the cliff.

We rode on the wild waves and it seems I lost my parka when I hit the rocks; my upper body was currently bare.

“Haha, I did something bad to you………”

When I say thanks in a joking manner, Tachibana made a weak smile.

“It’s thanks to Tachibana I am alive at all. I am really thankful.”

Even if we had continued fighting, we would probably be tormented by that guy since I could not move with that my concussion, and Tachibana could only use one hand because of her injury.

That's why I think Tachibana’s choice to retreat immediately was a good one.

“More importantly, Tachibana are you okay?”

Tachibana probably lost a lot of blood in the sea.

She looked like she was in pain, but showed a firm smile.

“Fufu, of course. I am somehow-----Fuu, Guh…..!!”

Half-way in her words, Tachibana’s expression distorted into pain.

She got a palpation after she said no; it seems the shoulder she got hit by the man got dislocated and there were some more spots hurting because she slammed into some rocks.

“Your ankle seems to have the worst injury. I think it’s broken. I can fix it if I have cloth but………..”

I am worried about Miyabi but, as long as there is no way to tell what that man would do next, we have to get back to the branch school as fast as possible.

That’s why I have to perform emergency treatment for her fast but, I don’t have the cloth needed to fix her leg.

“Kokonoe, I am okay……leave me and-----“

“Don’t be stupid. How can I leave a girl alone out here?”

It seems he might be injured too, but there was a possibility that guy might still be around looking for us.

I can’t leave Tachibana out here.

“………….Tha-thank you, Kokonoe……..”

“It’s a normal thing to do so don’t thank me.”

More importantly I need cloth or something close to it.

I looked around to look for something that got washed ashore so I can use and-------

“…………..Ko-Kokonoe. Errr, if it’s a substitute for the cloth……….. You can use my…..…”

“Eh? I use what?”

Since the word got erased by the sound of the waves, I could not hear what I should use at all.

When I looked at Tachibana’s face, she was making an expression as if she was struggling to say something.

“Li-like I said…….. St-st-strip off my l-leotard and use it…………”

“I see, your leotard. I get it!”

Its elasticity and length was enough. I had no objections using it as a bandage substitute.

“…………….strip your----leotard?”

I regained my senses here.

“Me?”

“I-I have no choice, right?! I can only use one arm even if I want to do it myself, and my body hurts whenever I move…….”

Thinking about the injuries on her shoulder and body, it’s true that her words are correct but-----

“T-that’s why, I want you to strip off my………leotard with……your hands……..”

She looked dazed half-way through her words.

Maybe Tachibana was clear on what she was suggesting for me to do right now.

“Thi-this is a treatment done because of this emergency situation. You should know that too……..!”

“A-ahh………….”

But even so--------*Gulp*.

Although I have no time to be thinking weird stuff now.

Even though I know Tachibana does not mean it in any weird way when she brought up the suggestion.

But even so, Tachibana’s suggestion was enough to slam me into a vortex of nervousness.

I could clearly see her cheeks blushing in the dusk.

Of course, it goes for me too.

“F-faster…………….will you strip it off for me……….? I-if possible, do it gently…….”

“That’s what I’m planning but………tell me if it hurts okay……..?”

“I-I get it……….”

“Okay then…………I’m taking it off.”

I made up my mind and slowly put my hands into her skirt.

Tachibana looked away from me and stayed silent but-----

“Hnn……….”

She twitched her shoulders when I placed my fingers on her leotard’s waistband.

After I pulled away my fingers in surprise, Tachibana looked at me meekly and apologized.

“So-sorry. Continue……..”

I nodded and placed my hands on the waistband again before starting to pull it down slowly.

“Can you lift your hips a little higher?”

“Hnn………Hah, nnu………li-like this……..?”

I made her slightly lift her hips but, it hurts my heart to see her breath roughly.

But since I had no choice of stopping here, I started pulling down the leotard again----and half-way, my finger got caught on something.

“What? Strings……?”

“---------!! Wa-wait, Kokonoe! Pl-please don’t pull any further, that’s my…………under……..”

Her voice turned softer as time goes even though she was behaving flustered.

('My under'………?)

Judging by this situation, I tried thinking the rest of the words and----

“Ah……”

I let out my voice when something comes to mind. When I did that, Tachibana saw my realization and looked downwards in embarrassment.

“Uaa, E-errr. Ah-no, Ta-Tachibana is like an adult so, I think those are good, un!”

“Wh-what is good, you sh-sh-shameless fool! Don’t imagine anything weird, limit those perverted thoughts!”

“Uu……..Sorry……….”

Even though I was trying to help, I got scolded.

(My mouth is the one causing disaster huh……….)

While reflecting on my mistake, I vow to pull her leotard down silently from now on------I made that vow, but...

“Fuu…………Hnn, ah…………..Nuuuuu……….A-ahh, Haaan………Kokonoe, your fingers are, haaa……..”

“P-please stop with the weird sounds…………”

As expected, I just had to tell her after she leaked puffing breaths.

“Don’t call it weird……..! I can’t help it since your fingers have been touching my thighs and its ticklish………..I'm just ticklish………!”

Tachibana was showing an expression that was either anger or troubled.

“So-sorry………Errr, I am continuing”

While feeling awkward, I started pulling down her leotard again.

“Hnn, Haaa………..a,Hnkuh………..Fuaa-a-a-aaaaa………”

In the end, I could not help but touch her legs with my fingers and although Tachibana pressed her mouth with her hands to resist it, she could not avoid letting out those charming breaths until the end.

Thanks to that, I felt as if I couldn't look straight at Tachibana’s face for a while.

“-----Okay. done patching you up. Let’s hurry to the branch school.”

Not long later, the emergency treatment to fix her legs and other injuries was done so I carried Tachibana.

“This is the second time I've carried Tachibana like this. Please don’t go wild like last time?”

“Carry……..!? Do-don’t say something weird!! Uu, ouch ouch………..”

“I-I don’t mean it that way so stop rampaging!! Anyway, let’s go. It will be wobbly but bear with it.”

“U-umu……Kokonoe……err, Thanks……….”

“Don’t worry about it. Okay, let’s hurry!”

I started running, with full power towards the branch school.

However------

After a few steps forward, I could not help but to stop my legs.

That’s because I found a familiar parka washed ashore at the rocky area.

I wouldn't have had to use her leotard.

“”…………………””

“How should I say this……..sorry.”

“Don’t say anything, Kokonoe……..”

We crossed the mountain ridge and after we left the forest path I continued running toward the branch school.

It was clear that there was a weird air wrapping the island.

Even though it was night already, I could hear the birds making noises.

Something was happening.

Although I didn’t know what it was, I continued running while an uneasy feeling grew in my body-----

“Iyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!”

I stopped my leg at the sudden scream that sliced through the darkness.

“Kokonoe, that’s……..!!”

We both immediately realized who the owner of that scream was.

“Miyabi…………!!”

===Part 2===
Reversing the time to when Tooru and Tomoe were at the mountain ridge.

“Excuse me.”

A staff member brought a ponytailed girl into the office Sakuya and Lilith were in.

“What’s wrong?”

Since there was an emergency at the main school, Sakuya was irritated, although it didn't show on her face.

However, anger leaked into her voice and both people that entered the room got overwhelmed for an instant.

(Ahaha………it’s hard to think that you're ten years old.)

Even though Imari thought that of the girl in front of her, she immediately composed her feelings and proceeded with her business.

“I am sorry. One student from the main school got lost in the forest and has not came back yet. I apologize but can I borrow a terminal to use?”

When Tooru and Tomoe ran out, she tried telling them about the armband-based tracking device but her voice did not reach them. Imari did not chase after them and told the problem to a staff member immediately; that’s why she went there to receive permission to borrow a terminal which acts as a receiver.

“…………..Understood. We will prepare it.”

Although Sakuya was thinking '''''why of all times''''' in her mind, she changed her displayed mood and gave orders to the staff.

Left there, Imari felt the uncomfortable atmosphere in the room.

The owner and the previous visitors remained silent and the air there was heavy.

Regardless of the fact that she holds the highest authority in the academy, Sakuya was still a young ten year old genius.

Another was a girl wearing a butler outfit.

The last person was the <<Rifle>> user and has another name, <<Exception>>.

Imari did not have many chances to talk with Sakuya so she had no idea what she’s like.

Even though Sara talks a little, she has seen her swear her loyalty to the gold girl.

Lilith was the only one there that she had spent any time with these past few days and somewhat understood.

Although she is a little selfish and follows her own pace, she basically has a sociable personality and because of that, she has a good relationship with the other students. She’s a beauty and although she knows it, she doesn't boast about it. She probably was confident about herself. She was so relaxed that it was unthinkable she was the same age as Imari.

And one more thing------She does not hide her affections for Tooru at all, regardless of the surroundings.

That all was Imari’s observations could conclude of the three people in the room.

(I wonder if they were talking about something serious……..?)

Something had happened judging by the atmosphere, but Imari would never have come to the conclusion that the main school was being attacked.

Within the silence, Imari glanced towards the gold girl.

Because Imari would often come in contact with Tooru, she would talk to Lilith too; and although she likes her personality, it was hard to speak as long as the others wouldn’t do so.

Lilith finally broke the silence.

“……….Imari, who got lost?”

“Ah……..Err, it’s Miyabi. Tooru and Tomoe are looking for her now”

“I see. That’s so like Tooru.”

Imari felt the room atmosphere turned a little lighter when she saw her smiling.

At that time, the staff member that went out of the room came back with the terminal in his hands.

“Thank you very much. If you would excuse-----“

Before she could finish excusing herself and leave...

“--------!!”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Gattann*. Lilith suddenly ran to the window and looked out with a stern expression.

Imari decided against leaving, temporarily, when she saw Lilith's expression as the gold girl quietly looked at the situation outside.

“……………we got hit. I never would have thought they would come using HALO……….”

High Altitude Low Opening<ref group ="3G">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_military_parachuting</ref>----AKA, HALO.

An air delivery method which consists of jumping out of an aircraft flying at a height of 10,000 meters, and opening the parachute after reaching just 300 meters above ground. Infiltrating from a distance that even Lilith could not perceive their presence, the island was swallowed by chaos.

On the other hand, many of the students preparing for dinner in the hall first noticed the abnormal situation when they heard the sound of parachutes opening. Even though everyone pointed at the night sky and saw something falling down, only a few of the students there realized that it was a HALO.

This would be included later in their curriculum but at the current point, since this was a technique not taught to them yet, it was only normal for them to be unaware.

However, it was different for the teachers and staff who had graduated from Kouryou academy. They immediately noticed it was a HALO and judged that an unscheduled abnormal situation completely irrelevant to the sea school training was happening.

Intruders started landing one after another. They all had the same mechanical designed battle suits on, helmets covering their face leaving only the mouth exposed, and all of them were holding assault rifles.

With the students unable to understand what was going on, none of them moved and they continued staring at the intruders until-----

Muzzles flashed and bullets flew.

Screams rang out one after another-----and what’s more, they were from comrades they trained together with every day; the students fell into a panic.

Everyone was running around screaming and many of them ran away without any shame or honor. The box filled with ingredients got kicked down; the campfire used for cooking was trampled, and they ran away pathetically thinking of their own safety first. Even though they received <<Exceed>> training, they were still trainees. There were only a handful of people there with the will to fight.

A small teenager stood among that handful----Tora held his <<Katar>> and was glaring at the men.

“It’s you bastards…….!! Fuun, I will now repay my previous debts!!”

Within sparks of flames, Tora, his <<Duo>> Tatsu, and the teachers confronted them.

He jumped into an attacker’s chest area and made it a melee fight after slashing with his blade. Since the enemies were were in a chaotic mess, the attackers stopped using their guns to avoid shooting their own people and close combat became the main focus in the battle.

Tora’s fighting capability makes it hard to think he is a trainee.

(…………..mu? That’s-------)

Within the chaotic battle, Tora noticed the girl standing frozen at the edge of the hall with a scared expression----it was Miyabi.

He also saw one of the guys in battle suits approaching her.

“I-iyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!”

Tora started running when he saw Miyabi running into the forest with the man chasing after her.

“…….Fuun, she sure loves to cause trouble.”

Clicking his tongue, Tora disappeared into the dark forest too.

The team sent by <<Equipment Smith>> was trampling over the hall with overwhelming power.

Even though the teachers and staff were putting up a good fight, the situation gradually turned disadvantageous.

The students thought they would be killed.

Under the situation where most of the students were starting to fall into despair from fear------

There was only one person there with a smile.

“Kuhah, Kuhahah……….! Oi oi! That sure was flashy, huh oi! I didn’t hear that these visitors were coming. I didn’t hear it but………it’s damn interesting!!”

Wearing a rabbit hairband, a remaining teacher with a youthful visage was laughing.

Her blood was boiling at the battle that was starting.

“There are a lot of things I want to say like, what the hell are you doing to our brats, or how dare you do that to Doryo but oh well. Anyways, I get to be serious after such a long time……!!”

The rabbit-ear girl-----Tsukimi Rito swung the <<{{Furigana|Fang sword|Tebutje}}>> in her hands.

One guy in a battle suit nearby jumped out of her range and dodged it-----or that was what he 'tried' to do.

The blade separated and suddenly extended its range.

The attacker could not avoid Rito’s attack and his blood splashed all over.

Rito’s <<Blaze>> was not a <<{{Furigana|Fang sword|Tebutje}}>>, but rather it was a <<{{Furigana|Snake |Whip blade}}>>. Two-thirds of the sword’s body was connected with a metal steel line that separated into several blades and was used as a whip------this was one of the things she did not show Tooru and the others during their fight.

“Kuhahahaha! Ora ora ora, bring it onn!!”

An insane rabbit was hopping along in the moonlight.

One attacker after another fell each time she swung her sword.

“This woman is on a whole different level, be careful! Unlike the brats, you can kill her!”

Ordered so by the leader, the attackers scattered and started shooting at Rito after gaining some distance.

Although Rito was a <<{{Furigana|V|Level 5}}>> which is a <<High Level>>, not only was she outnumbered by the attackers with powers incomparable to normal people-----(What’s more they are even stronger compared two months ago), they also have guns at their disposal.

Even though she knows she won’t lose, it was true that the damage would increase if this goes on.

While dodging the bullets and hitting them down with the <<{{Furigana|Snake |Whip blade}}>>, Rito clicked her tongue.

“Seriously, how annoying……. but, Mr Damn-Glasses not appearing even though I am causing this chaos would mean-----it’s okay '''''if I use it''''' right?”

Having passed her time in the hall, Rito has no idea Mikuni had already left the island and was heading to the attack occurring at the main school.

But, since there were no orders given for this kind of situation, she decided that it was okay and----shouted.

“Devour-------<<Ouroboros>>!!”

Rito’s <<Blaze>>, which is classified as a destruction type, released its real power by the use of the <<Words that carried strength>>.

A change-----

The attackers were overwhelmed at that appearance and loosened their triggers.

They doubted reality and were wondering if the scene they were looking at was an illusion.

The <<{{Furigana|Snake |Whip blade}}>> Rito was holding was only one-third of the sword’s actual body.

Then, what happened to the remaining two-thirds? ------The answer is on top of Rito’s head.

Further up the hand she was holding up to the sky, the blades had formed a circle and were rotating, as if they was like a snake biting its own tail.
After they saw the ring-formed blades floating three meters off the ground, the veteran solders (Attackers) felt a chill run down their spines-------

Rito made a wicked smile.

“Well then, time to go crazy with the moon rabbit!!”

After getting trampled one-sidedly, the Kouryou academy swiftly moved to counterattack because of Rito’s <<Blaze>>.

The blades moved continuously slashed and slammed at the attackers one after another by Rito’s command.

“Amazing……… I didn’t know <<Blaze>> had that kind of <<Power>>……..”

Imari was the one surprised when she saw the battle in the hall from the office. Lilith stopped her from leaving, saying that it’s better not to head outside, and thus she remained there looking at the situation outside the room.

If Imari was in the hall, she did not know if she could remain this calm.

With a window frame between her and the scene, she could be somewhat remain calm.

“I knew this from the data but, it’s still amazing.”

“The low accuracy is a flaw in the crystal though.”

Lilith mumbled, and Sakuya responded to her comment.

However, it was true that there was no more trustworthy existence than her in this current situation.

But-------even with the accumulation circumstances of <<Ouroboros>>’s weakness, Rito’s battle-loving traits, and the violent firefight piling up on top of one another, one more new danger arrived.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Dozunn*……….!! A sound and tremor of a small explosion echoed from the corridor.

“Wh-who are you all!!”

Immediately, shouts from the staff standing-by outside the room were followed by the sound of blades clashing.

“…………..Ya-re Ya-re. Both the main school and the attack outside were diversions, huh?”

In the main school attack, they made a situation there to make the strongest ally - Mikuni leave the island-----

In the branch school attack, they pulled the attention of the remaining strong ally - Rito outside away from them ------

With a small time delay, the intruders moved to their true target.

Everything was dancing in the enemy’s palm.

“Sakuya, you head underground. The staff there can operate the boat right? Sakuya please follow them. Imari, head outside and take Sara with you. I’m sorry, but you'll need use the window to exit.”

“I understand. I leave the rest to you.”

Sakuya took a glance at the gold girl who gave out the orders, giving a simple response, before disappearing through another doorway with a staff member. There were stairs behind the door and it was connected to an emergency evacuation pathway.

“What do you mean by leave the rest to you…………what are you going to do, Lilith?”

“I am obviously going to hold them off here.”

As long as they have no clue as to what the attackers real intentions were, Lilith’s top priority was to let Sakuya get away.

If she was the target, then she concluded that everything would end if she turns the tables here.

Sara sent a surprised look towards Lilith, who threw back her {{Furigana|blonde hair|Yellow Topaz}} hair, while making a very natural smile.

“Ojou-sama!? No way, if ojou-sama is going to stay, I am-----”

Lilith faced to the ponytail girl, ignoring her perplexed butler.

“Imari. It’s going to get annoying for you but please do this. Also------please tell the situation to Tooru. You have the terminal so you should able to find him in this situation.”

“I-I understand!”

Even if she brings Tooru here, the battle situation here would not change much. Everyone would say that, if they saw the collapsed staff members who, incidentally were the same <<{{Furigana|III|Level 3}}>> as Tooru.

---but, Lilith was different. She knows Tooru would be able to do something about this.

Imari understood her feelings and gave a firm nod.

“I’ll find Tooru and bring him back.”

“I’ll be expecting that. I think the preparation for teatime would be over if you take your time though.”

After Lilith sent her a one-eyed wink, Imari made a small smile and carried Sara out the window before running into the chaos outside.

“Okay then………”

After seeing them off, Lilith slowly turned around.

In front of the gold girl, the door opened and-----

A teenager with arrow-like eyes was standing there with his subordinates.

“Sorry but, you’re not getting through.”

“Fufu, well looks who we have here………..it’s unexpected that you would be the one taking the role of stopping us, Miss Bristol. I am greatly honored to see you. My name is <<K>>----Pleased to meet you.”

Lilith frowned at the unpleasant feeling coming from the polite words spoken in a rude tone and attitude.

“Okay, Miss Bristol. I apologize after just meeting you but, we have to bring the <<Blaze Diabolica>> to <<Equipment smith>>-dono. We did not receive any orders to invite you this time, so please move away from there; it will be a great help if you make this quick………..”

A gunshot echoed and a hole was formed in the floor.

“I won’t say it twice. I already told you, you’re not getting through.”

“This is a disappointment but, we can't just go along with your wishes and leave.”

“Then prepare yourself and come at me. I already charged up my energy to protect that cute girl today.”

After making a wink, Lilith pointed her gun at the gang.

“I guess I have no choice.”

Offer declined-------but, the teenager never thought the offer would be accepted in the first place anyway.

Matching <<K>>’s words, the three men standing behind him stepped out and forward.

Under the watchful gaze of those arrow-like eyes, a three vs one battle started.

Since the room was not that big, Lilith chose to use the <<Rifle>> like a club. It’s disadvantageous for her to handle several opponents like that but even so, she would sometimes shoot bullets and cleverly take advantage of the walls and office tables to prevent the three of them from attacking at the same time.

“How magnificent. You sure have the stuff to back up your title of <<Exception>>, as expected.”

The enemy-<<K>> expressed his admiration at the sight of her magnificent footwork and the blocking of his blade with the <<Rifle>>.

“------nonetheless, we don’t have the time to dawdle around like this.”

<<K>>’s priority was to execute his mission.

That’s why it was obviously necessary to stop wasting time with Lilith, and prevent Sakuya from running away-------so he had prepared a gun in order to finish this quickly.

It was a gun that caused a loud explosion that could be heard throuout the office-----a grenade launcher.

A moment before he pulled the trigger, Lilith noticed <<K>>’s posture and was shocked.

“uhhh!! That isn’t funny!!”

Immediately, the door was blasted open with a loud sound, and the building shook.

<noinclude>

==Translation Notes and References==

<references group="3G" />

{{SimpleNav}}
</noinclude>

Absolute Duo:Volume 3 Chapter 5

2021-03-30T21:04:58Z

SNovah: Basic punctuation fixes, typos, tried to get sentences a little clearer; Part 2 is really still quite confusing though

==Chapter 5 『I Love You』==

===Part 1===

[Julie-chan, you are so slim and fair-skinned, just like I thought. How nice…………] [Neeh--. She’s so small and very cute♪] [Thank you very much. But, I hope I grow a little taller.] [You’re wrong, Julie-chan! It’s better when you're small!] [Is that so…….but my reach is too short, so I want to become taller.] [I think your reason for growing is weird, Julie…….] [------?]

[Hey, save the talking until after we're done changing!] [Ahaha, that’s true………..wait, Tomoe you look stylish. Places that are meant to bulge, bulge, yet you're still slim!] [Just how many guys have you seduced before now!?] [I-I haven’t seduced anyone!] [Then how about seducing Kokonoe-kun♪ He would definitely fall, just like that~] [Seduce…….Ko-Kokonoe……..Huh!? Wh-what are you saying, Sensei!?!?]

<nowiki>*</nowiki>kyai**kyai* I could hear a happy commotion coming from the cave behind me.

When their voices started to drift out, I had no idea what they were talking about even though I could recognize familiar voices and tones within it.
Rather----

(Did they forget that I'm here……….?)

I felt my name had been mentioned several times, but it seemed my presence had completely escaped from their minds; it also looked like they wouldn't be done changing any time soon.

I sighed while under the scorching sunlight.

(Why does this always have to happen………..?)

Regarding what I was doing right then-----I was standing guard at the cave entrance to prevent anyone from coming close and peeping on the girls changing. Unlike myself, who changed in the tent before heading out, it seemed that the girls were in the middle of changing inside the cave------which dead ended with a ten meter space.

Because of that, I had been ordered to stand guard and was forced to go through this awkward situation.

Of course, the girl talk was still on-going----

[I thought this during bath time too, but Hotaka-san has some amazing ones huh? What's your cup size?] [Tha-that’s a little………..] [Kuhah, if you won’t answer…..this will happen☆]

[Hyaau……….sto-stop, Sensei, Fuaa…………ah, nuu, st-stop, don’t fondle me, fuann………….] [Amazing♪ my fingers are sinking in☆] [Ah, I’ll touch them too. Uwah, it’s true!! Kuh, I am so jealous!! Thus to tyrants!!] [Kuhahah, do this too while you’re at it☆ Soryah, pinchy pinch♪] [ Hyaa, Hyaaaaaaa…….do-don’t pinch…….Hyuuu……………..] [ It’s going to be worse if you don’t answer you know?] [I-I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you so err, its F…………….HnKuuuun!! Haa, haa……..Hafuu…………]

I could hear rough and seductive breathing, and my imagination was running wild because I couldn't see; I let out a large gulp.

[[File:Absolute Duo Volume 3 Non-Colour 5.jpg|thumb]]

(Mi-Miyabi has F's……….The fantasy F………----nonono, it isn’t the time to be drinking my saliva!!)

In order to get rid of the images in my head, I shook my head vigorously.

(Concentrate! Concentrate on guarding……….! Monitor the surroundings……..!!)

I covered my ears and tried my best to decrease my worldly desires by chanting tongue-twisters in my head.

I wished they would get done changing soon.

…………..if this keeps up, something dreadful would happen to my ethical standards.

“Err so, the biggest breast goes to Miyabi, Imari is three ranks below and another two ranks below will go to Julie-chan. Usa-sensei is third and Tachibana is one rank above her. I would be-----“

The result of covering my ears was excellent. Even though I could still somewhat hear their voices, I couldn’t make out the exact content.

While making a relieved sigh, I continued my mental tongue-twister recital.

Not long after----

My shoulders got poked and I turned around.

At that moment, the girl that popped her face out from behind the rock shade was looking at me shyly.

“Sorry for the wait, Tooru.”

After saying that, Julie timidly came out.

“Oou……….”

I unintentionally let out my voice.

“How is it?”

“What do mean how………”

A fairy in a white bikini appeared in front of me.

There was more exposure compared to her normal T-shirt appearance and that alone set my heart pumping. Also, since the white swimsuit emphasized her pale skin, my heartbeat pumped even faster. On top of that, she had a slender body with modest breasts and slim legs. Finally, the colorful float ring she was holding behind her brought out her girlish charms.

Her appearance was the combination of slight egotism and loveliness, and it was enough to make me wonder if it was okay to look directly at her.

“I-it’s cute…….very cute…….”

The words that I could say normally without any discomposure usually, just felt embarrassing somehow now.

“Ya—♪“

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Chirin* the bell echoed when Julie nodded happily.

At that moment, five more girls appeared from the cave.

---however, there was one person that I hesitated in calling a 'girl'<ref group ="3F">女子-Girls.He is referring to the 子 in the 女子 which means child. He is basically calling someone in the group a woman</ref>.

Although this should be obvious, everyone was in their swimsuits, and honestly speaking I was having trouble as to where to look.

Everyone was directing their eyes at me while I was struggling with that.

“Tooru. You know what we are going to ask, right?”

“…………you’re going to ask me for my thoughts, right?”

Imari clapped at my answer.

“Correct. You will give us your thoughts on each of us as our male representative♪ Praise us too if you can.”

“What do you mean by male representative, I'm the only guy here……….”

Today’s participants are me, Julie, Miyabi, Tachibana, Imari, Miwa and for some reason Tsukimi was also here: seven people.

I am undoubtedly the only guy here.

It’s not like I wanted to be in this situation. I invited Tora, Tatsu and two other close guy friends but------since Tora chose to sleep on the rest day as usual, Tatsu was muscle training with a staff member he got along with, the other two wanted to have a good rest and go out on a date with a branch school girl respectively; each of them didn't join because of their own reasons and that has caused this overwhelmingly unbalanced male-to-female ratio.

“Okay okay, we will be losing time to play if you don’t hurry up and tell us your thoughts, Tooru.”

It seems I was not permitted to go with 'no comment'.

“Err, for Imari………..”

The swimsuit with frilly attachments was tied together with a big, eye-catching ribbon, creating a cute look and a casual atmosphere that suits Imari very well. Imari’s tight and balanced body was dazzling and posssessed a healthy charm.

“I think you have a very charming body.”

“Bufuu!? Wh-why are you saying something that outrageous suddenly!? What kind of eyes were you using to look at me!?”

“Do-don’t misunderstand! I mean it like, you have an athlete’s body!”

“I-I see……….It’s okay if it’s like that but, it’s not good to put words together that would cause misunderstandings. You said something similar last time too, seriously……….”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Puri**puri* Imari puffed her cheeks so I decided not to pry any further, and moved my sights beside her.

“Ko-Kokonoe. Don’t look at me that much.”

“So-Sorry………Wait a second? Tachibana told me not to look so, it’s okay if I don’t tell you my thoughts right?”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Pikoon* I had a good idea, like a neon sign lighting!

“I-I didn't say I don’t want your opinion. Hurry up and say it.”

Again, it looks like I am not allowed go with 'no comment'……..

I looked up and down at Tachibana, a faint blush glowing on her cheeks, while she looked away from me.

The dark color swimsuit looked simple at first glance, but the black lace ornaments attached to it brought out Tachibana's adult charms. Adding her exceptional proportions into the equation, along with her flowing black hair, she'd attract anyone that sees her.

“Tachibana is beautiful, like I've always thought.”

“-----! I-I’m not……..err, not so much worth calling beautiful……..”

“You’re beautiful. Everyone would think the same thing if they saw you.”

While she was facing away in embarrassment, her eyes kept glancing at me.

“……….Ko-kokonoe too?”

“I’ve been saying it now, right?………You’re beautiful, Tachibana.”

“Yo-you don’t have to say it that many times!..........*co-cough* Well, I will gratefully accept your thoughts.”

Even though she was red-faced and embarrassed, it seems she was satisfied. While thinking that’s great, I praised Miwa beside her also.

“Ahaha, Kokonoe-kun is cool too. You’re more slender in clothes than I thought. It’s not to Tatsu-kun’s level but, you have nice muscles there♪ ……….*Slurp*”

“O-ou, Thanks…………”

Her eyes were somewhat scary, so I decided to ignore that while moving next to Miyabi----

At least, that's what I planned to do, but she was wearing a straw hat and cardigan.

“Hey, Miyabi. Hurry up and take off that boring thing.”

“Bu-but, I'm bad at swimming and I think this is enough since I'll be playing in the shallow water………”

Imari got closer to Miyabi and she panicked. Miwa also joined in at that point---------

“We managed to get Tooru to give his thoughts about everyone else, so take that off♪”

“HyaWaa!?”

Two people teamed up to take off Miyabi’s cardigan and her hat was taken away too.

Like that, Miyabi's swimsuit appearance was exposed to me but………

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Do------------------N!!*

Wow. It would be SUGOI<ref group ="3F">AMAZING</ref> in English………..well, if it was in Romaji. Anyways, it's amazing, too amazing. It was hard to maintain my cool, with my thoughts going a little crazy. About what you ask? I am referring to Miyabi. It might sound very crude, but her watermelon sized breasts were swaying around and I was making useless worries about whether or not if the thin strings supporting them would be okay.

“To-Tooru-kun…..?”

“Haah!?”

Miyabi was hugging her breasts to run away from my sight and was twisting her body when my awareness returned.

It's also amazing that her arms could not completely cover her chest.

“Tooru. Comment, comment.”

Imari poked my elbows.

“Ah-aah……….err-----“

Miyabi was wearing a pale color skirt swimsuit with a cute design. However, her voluminous breasts, which could not be restrained completely by the swimsuit, were such that they could be called sensational. I was curious whether the available cloth was too little, or Miyabi’s breasts were too big, but it will remain an eternal mystery since I can’t ask her that.

“I think it’s cute”

“Ah…….ehehe, Thank you……..”

“*Pipi* Yellow card!”

Imari pinched Tachibana’s ribbon and shook it.

“What are you doing. And what's with the yellow card?”

“Tooru. You told that comment to Julie before. R.E.D.O!”

“Uuh. I can’t do anything about it even if you tell me that. Don’t expect an extensive vocabulary from me……….”

“I understand your feelings, but work hard and squeeze those words out. Using the same words on another girl is not even at the impolite level okay?”

“Uguhh, I-I get it. Errrr…………”

Even though I hesitated, there were no good words coming up.

That’s why, I decided to say what I thought. ＊Except for the breast part.

“I-it really suits you……….It’s the first time I've seen Miyabi in a swimsuit but, I think it’s great!”

“Tha-thank you, Tooru-kun. Err, it’s very embarrassing but………..I am very happy about it…..”

“I- I see? Then that’s great.”

“Unn...”

It seems she's really happy.

My heart pumped hard because the shy Miyabi looked more charming than usual and the cause of it might be the swimsuit.

Imari was poking Miyabi's arm for some reason.

[………….This is the first time I showed Tooru my swimsuit though...] [M-me too.] [Well, well…….]

“Okay then, everyone’s comment is done, so let’s swim.”

“………….Wait there <<Irregular>>.”

“Your real face is showing.”

“……………..Iyaaan♥ Oh Kokonoe-kun, I wonder if you're forgetting someone important♪”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>PyoKonn* her rabbit ears swung and there was someone who was directing a pose at me; It’s obvious who the person was, it was Tsukimi.

“How is this how is this, these beach specifications♪ Go ahead and share your comments, YOU☆”

“…………………Isn’t it nice. It suits you a lot, the bitch specifications.”

“Iyaaan, thank you Kokonoe-kun♥ …………….Wait a sec you bastard, who the hell is the bitch? Aarrh? Should I fall down accidentally and pull down your swimsuit to expose your Mr. Elephant?”

“It isn’t an accident if it’s like that…………”

She brought her face closer half-way through that sentence and finished with that whispered threat.

It’s true that the beach specification she was referring to was probably the swimsuit material but, she looks like a bunny girl no matter how much I look. Of course, she has a rabbit tail on too. It would probably make it a complete set if she was wearing net tights or stockings, but I would have to ask her why she even bothered coming to the beach if she did that.

“So, why are you here……..!?”

“It would be dangerous for you students, so I joined in as a guardian, you shithead.”

(Guardian huh……….)

Even though the last day was a free day, everyone was made to put on the armband since it was the rules.

Because of that we can just send out a rescue signal if there is any emergency, so it was incomprehensible that a guardian would be accompanying us.

“………..You just wanted to play.”

“Kuhah, Correct. Look, I am interested in you too <<Irregular>>.”

Ignoring that---

The comment war finally ended and all of us warmed up before running to the sea.

Leaving the two people from the branch school aside, the main school group has only seen such a transparent sea and white beach on television, so I can understand why everyone was in high spirits. We're in a situation where the whole place was reserved just for us.

Swimming in the sea, diving into the sea, playing beach ball, each of them started doing what they wanted and just when I was wondering what I should do----

“Tooru, let’s swim.”

In complete preparation, Julie was already inside the float ring before she took my hand and started running.

I ran onto the beach while holding a girl’s hand.

Just like the first experience between lovers, my heart was pumping hard but-----

<nowiki>*</nowiki>ZaaPaan*. Both of us tripped on a big wave the moment we stepped into the sea.

“I was surprised………..Fuwaah!?”

With her eyes opened wide, the next wave covered Julie’s head while she was on her butt.

I started laughing when I saw her wet already and she was unable to hide her surprise by blinking several times.

“It’s not good to laugh.”

Julie splashed water at me with both her hands.

It looks like she was trying to get me wet too, but the amount of water was pitiable.

I blocked it with my left hand and splashed back with my right hand while laughing before----

“Chance-----!!”

My leg got pulled at the same time a shout suddenly sounded.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Bashaan* my whole body got dragged into the sea together with that splashing sound.

“Wh-who is that!?”

After I surfaced my face, I saw the back of someone running away while swaying her ponytail.

“Damn that Imari……..”

Imari then jumped into the sea and swam away.

“Tooru, Tooru.”

“Hnn? ………Puuah!?”

Sea water was splashed onto my face when I turned over after Julie called me.

“Payback for laughing.”

The smiling Julie looked kind of satisfied.

“I was already wet……”

“But even so.”

“Then payback for the payback----“

“The first strike wins.”

“Puoooh!?”

My face got splashed with sea water even as I was preparing to splash back.

“No-now you’ve done it, Julie!”

After shaking my head, I looked to Julie and she did the same thing as Imari, and was about to run away into the sea.

However-----

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Spash splash splash*…………..*Zazaan*.

After advancing a little further, she got pushed back to the beach by the waves.

“-----?”

Julie turned around and got shocked that I did not run that far away before trying to swim away to the sea again.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Spash splash splash*…………..*Zazaan*. *Kuruu*.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Spash splash splash*! *Zazaan*. *Kuruu*.

“------!?”

She did her very best to run away but, since there wasn't much distance opened from me, Julie strengthened her flutter kick but it only increased the water splash size.

However it was as expected from an <<Exceed>>. She advanced a little further ahead and-----

<nowiki>*</nowiki>DoPaan*.

She got overturned by a big wave and got swallowed into the sea.

“Hahaha…………wait, Julie!?”

I had forgotten that Julie could not swim for an instant, but I immediately recalled that fact back before running to her and-----

A large splash sprung up to the summer skies and the silver mermaid showed her face from the sea. ＊However, she was not swimming.

“Julie, are you okay?”

It looks like she did not drown in the shallow waters, but I called out to her just in case.

“Ya---. I was very surprised….”

Julie turned around to face me, and her upper body was naked.

(Where did her bikini go-------!?)

Lucky or unlucky------------(I’ll leave it as lucky)-----since her silver hair was sticking onto her nipples and successfully acting as a guard, I couldn't see everything.

“Ju-Julie! Up, uppp!!”

I turned my back at her and shouted while bringing her attention to the problem.

“Nice weather.”

“Not that, your swimsuit!!”

“Ah……….”

It seems she finally noticed.

“……………Did you see?”

“I-I didn’t, it was safe…………..it was close though”

“It was a close save huh. Then there is no problem……..but if you saw it, then I have no choice but to give a you strict punishment.”

It seems she would not forgive me even if I saw it accidentally.

“………..I’ll ask this just in case but, what kind of punishment?”

“I will splash water on you. Lots and lots of water on you.”

I’m already in the sea.

“Okay then, it will be embarrassing if this goes on like this so, I will go fix my swimsuit.”

“Aah, got it.”

I nodded while keeping my back to Julie.

I guess I’ll stay like this until she fixes her swimsuit.

The moment I thought that------*Pito*, *Funyuun*.

“Hn?”

Something suddenly touched my back. Something soft.

“My swimsuit is over there, Tooru.”

A hand like as white as a fish was coming out from under my armpits and it pointed a few meters ahead.

Thanks to that, I could easily figure out the true identity of the soft objects touching my back.

(Σ@♀π-------!!)

“Ju-Ju-Juliee!?”

“No, Tooru. You must not look here.”

Julie hugged me tightly when I was about to turn back in reflex.

Then of course, those modest bulges would only press further into my back.

“Wh-wh-why are you sticking onto me…..!?”

“In case the depth is too deep for me to get it alone, I am going to ask Tooru to get it for me. The reason why I am sticking onto you like this is because, this way, I won’t end up showing Tooru my embarrassing spots.”

(Please feel embarrassed when your breasts are pushing onto me-----!!)

Not knowing what kind of basis of embarrassment Julie has, I shouted inside my heart.

Without any choice, I started walking to the swimsuit while Julie stayed glued onto me.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Puni puni puni puni puni puni puni puni*………….

I would feel a soft sensation on my back each time I moved. I was constantly feeling it.

“Tooru. It’s hard for me to walk if you slouch………”

Even if you tell me that.

Just like that, I fought against a cotton-like body while having distressful thoughts in the sea, before reaching Julie’s bikini top which was floating on the waves-------before I suddenly noticing something.

“Wouldn’t it be okay if I just retrieved it alone?”

“………….That’s true too.”

“Kokonoe, we are going to play beach volleyball now, want to join in too?”

After returning to the shallow waters to knock out the water in my ears by hopping, Tachibana called out to me.

Right now, I decided that it was probably safe to not head back out there since Julie was playing with Imari and accepted the invitation to play beach volleyball.

“Kuhaha. Don’t fail in receiving and drag me down, <<Irregular>>.”

I immediately regretted accepting the offer when the team was organized.

“What’s with that unhappy face?”

“Not just unhappy, disgusted.”

“Should I pull down your swimsuit like I thought huh? You’ll probably feel good hearing *Kyaa**Kyaa* squealed because of you.”

“I'd lose my humanity if I felt good in that situation!!”

"Can we start already," Tachibana sent a tired voice over and we started the match, despite my reluctance to team up with Tsukimi.

Our opponents were Tachibana and Miwa. However, since Miwa was the only one with a lower <<Level>>, we agreed on a rule that we cannot use our dominant hand to attack as a handicap.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Poon* Tachibana served the ball and a parabola was drawn in the blue sky.

Tsukimi quickly entered the landing point and received it. Tsukimi then spiked the ball I tossed up-----but Tachibana obstructed it with a block.

[As expected from the honor student☆Amazing♪] ＊It seems she was wearing her public personality since Miwa was here too.

“Fufu, I will gratefully accept those words, Tsukimi-sensei.”

Both of them looked at each other with a fearless smile but----

“Eh, I was talking about your boobs? I was referring to the fact that it made a super *Boin*-bounce when you landed on the ground♥”

“Bo-Booinn!?”

Tachibana’s face turned red instantly and she covered her chest.

“Kokonoe you think so too right?”

“Don’t bring me into this!!”

“Ko-ko-Kokonoe! A guy like you; were you looking at me with those shameless eyes!?”

“I didn’t look!!”

Even though I replied like that, it caused caused me to become more conscious of *those*, and I couldn't get rid of those thoughts. Thus the game continued while I was unable to concentrate.

What’s more-----

“Kuhah, they bounced again♪”

A battle plan whispered happily from behind and------

“Kokonoe--. Look at this dangerous angle☆ Look at me♪”

After switching between the front and rear guard, she shook her butt and that caused me to lose my concentration.

(Damn it, she is definitely an enemy!!)

Luckily (?) Tachibana had a huge crack in her movements, and the match was taking favorable and unfavorable turns------

And it reached to the situation where if we could take just one more point it would be our win but...

“Seii!”

Tachibana raised a spirited shout-------but on the contrary, she only tapped the ball and it dropped into our court.

This was the best chance for me and Tsukimi’s attack.

[Kuh…….! I won’t let you!!] [Idiot! Leave it to me--------]

“PuuWaah!?”

An impact was felt after we jumped in to hit the ball.

I crashed into Tsukimi who also came to receive the ball like me, before rolling across the sand.

“Where is the ball!?”

After I lifted my face when I stopped, I saw Miwa unable to reach the ball flying to her.

It seems she made a mistake in her estimations because of the wind.

“I did it!!”

“………..are you happy, <<Irregular>>?”

“Of course. I mean we won!”

“In this posture?”

The moment I moved my conscious from Tachibana and Miwa’s court to my current situation when I heard those words------I spurt out.

I was on top of Tsukimi and my hips were touching her lower body……….

“Iyaaan♪ Kokonoe-kun is spinning his hips and pushing onto me♥”

Faster than I can say anything, Tsukimi performed a kanibasami-like move<ref group ="3F">A judo move where the user would slide to the opponent and lock the opponent between the legs</ref> and locked my hips with her legs.

“Uwaaaaaa, just who is the one pushing me onto you-----!?”

Even though I was panicking from that stupid action, the real trouble happened after this.

“Kokonoe……….You shameless fool-------!!”

Tachibana ran away shouting.

“It’s a misunderstanding----------!!”

Tsukimi performed a giant swing and threw me towards the sea before I could chase after Tachibana.

After we finished playing beach volleyball, everyone enjoyed themselves with the Bento which Miyabi woke up early to prepare. The taste was delicious without any complaints, and Miyabi turned shy when we complimented her. Imari said *Not bad* and kept poking Miyabi’s elbow while laughing.

Everyone commenced the standard watermelon splitting in the afternoon and after that, around the time we started passing the time happily like the whole morning----

I saw Miyabi faraway searching for something, bending over in the shallows, and approached her.

“Oiii, Miyabi. What are you doing?”

“I-I am hunting for seashells. I'm planning to bring back a shell that would serve as reminders of being here.”

Miyabi showed the several shells she was holding.

It’s true that the colorful shells were beautiful, and I agreed with the thought of using them as mementoes.

“Shell hunting huh…….if that’s the case, then can I join in?”

“Eh…………? Bu-but……”

“It’s more fun to do things while talking right?”

“------!? I-i-it’s fun talking with me………!?”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Splash splash splash*………..maybe they slipped out of her hands; all of the shells Miyabi was holding fell into the sea.

“Haha. What are you doing, Miyabi?”

I crouched down and gathered the shells Miyabi dropped while laughing.

“Ah……….To-tooru-kun. I’ll pick them up myself……..”

“It’s okay it’s okay. ……….okay, that’s all of them.”

I took Miyabi’s hand and placed the shells on top of them.

“Auu…….Uuau………..”

“Hnn? What’s wrong, Miya----“

Miyabi’s face was completely red; and her mouth was constantly opening and closing like a goldfish.

“Pyaaa----!?”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Banzai* Miyabi raised both her hands together with a weird shout, and all of the shells she had in her hands scattered.

“Auu…….Sorry, just when you picked them up for me………”

“It’s my fault since I forgot about Miyabi’s sensitivities, so don’t worry about it.”

“Uu……..Tha-that just now is well, true, but……..this is different from that……and it’s because it’s Tooru-kun…………”

(Because it’s me……..?)

Half of that was mumbled, but it reached my ears.

I couldn't help but think on the meaning of those words.

(………There’s no way right……….? Because, Miyabi is------)

Although one possibility comes to mind, I decided there was no way it’s true and shook my head.

“Tooru-kun. Errr, I think it’s weird for me to say this after scattering all the shells you picked up for me but…………ca-can you join me in finding shells again?”

“Aah, of course. Let’s find lots!”

“Unn………..!”

Miyabi nodded. Maybe the heat was getting left in her cheeks; they were slightly redder than usual.

After that, we started finding shells while chatting.

Soon, around the time the sun was sinking, Imari came to call us back since it was almost evening.

I nodded, and after telling Miyabi we should head back to everyone------

Suddenly, I found a special-shaped rock half-buried in the sand.

“Hey, Miyabi. This isn't a shell, but-----“

Around the time the sky was turning slightly orange, Tachibana showed herself after changing back into her uniform in the cave. Julie and the others came out behind her a little later.

“Sorry for the wait, Kokonoe.”

“……Ah-re, where’s Imari?”

I asked about the ponytail girl because she was the only one I couldn't find there-----

“Ahaha, sorry. Thanks for the wait”

As Imari came out of the cave with good timing, I decided to head back to the branch school.

“It was fun today. It would have been nice if Tora and Lilith had joined in too.”

We talked about the members that did not join us while walking on the path leading to the mountain ridge.

“Fufuu, Tora looks like someone who prefers sleeping to playing. He is probably having fun on the rest day in his own way.”

“But, it was a disappointment with Lilith-san though…..”

Tora wasn’t the only one we invited to take a dip in the sea with us.

We also called out to the gold girl whose hair color would look attractive against the blue sea.

But regretfully, Lilith shook her head.

Since she had accumulated fatigue, she decided to pass the time leisurely, while having Sara massage her today.

However, she told me she would join if I accepted a condition of hers.

'''''“I wouldn’t mind joining if Tooru would give me an oil massage, you know?”'''''

She complained when I immediately told her to take her time with Sara.

“Well we can’t help it. We just have to invite them when we have the chance to play again-------“

And at this moment...

“Ahhh!!”

Imari stopped after making a sudden shout.

“What’s wrong?”

“I was wondering if I had forgotten something just now and it looks like I left my pouch in the cave.”

“Haha, how clumsy. No one would pick it up I think, but I think it’s better to head back there immediately and get it.”

“That’s true, let’s go with that……………..Ah, oh no. it’s my turn to prepare the ingredients for dinner in the hall. Uuuun, it looks like I would be skipping work if I went to get my pouch………..”

“If you run at full strength from here-----“

'It will probably be enough to make a round trip', was what I was about to say when Imari made a loud shout again.

“Oh yeah! Neee, Miyabi. I apppooooologize for this but, can you go take my pouch for me? Please, I am counting on you!”

“Eh………? Errr………U-unn. Okay.”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Pan* I thought this when I watched her as she slapped her hands together in front of Miyabi, and Miyabi nodded.

(Miyabi just can’t refuse a favor, huh?)

She might be weak when being pressured by someone, but I can’t imagine this soft-hearted girl refusing someone’s request.

That characteristics is one of the good points of the girl named Miyabi.

“Thanks, Miyabi! I seriously owe you one! ……….ahh but, it would probably be dangerous if one girl went there alone and something happened. That’s no good. I'm worried.”

I wonder why some part of that sounded strange just now.

“Then it’s okay if Kokonoe-kun went along right?”

“Fuuee!?”

“That’s true. Tooru is perfect for the job; I'll be relieved if he goes with Miyabi.”

“Fueeee!?”

Acting as if she thought of a good idea, Miwa said my name and Imari agreed with her.

“You’ll go right, Tooru?”

I had no intention to refuse, but it looks like I was going to be pushed into it regardless of what I thought.

“I got it. Alright then, let’s go get it, Miyabi.”

“Eh? Eh? Eh?”

“Just like what Imari says, it would be bad if something happens while you're alone. So, we'll go together.”

Since the conversation was advancing so quickly, she was probably confused about what was happening.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Pokan* Imari lightly tapped Miyabi’s back while she was blankly staring at me with her mouth open.

“FIGHT!”

(It’s just retrieving a forgotten object, what does she have to work hard for………..)

However, Miyabi made a shocked expression and [U-un………..!] before replying back energetically for some reason.

[Tooru, Miyabi. I will head back with you as well.] [That’s a good point. I’ll go along too.]

“STOOP! Tomoe it’s your turn too, right?!”

“My turn? No, I-----“

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Pachi pachi pachi pachi*……….

Imari was blinking violently.

Just what’s wrong with her?

“-----!! O-oh yeah! Hahaha, oh silly me……..”

“Ju-Julie too right?”

“Nai. You’re wrong------“

“I asked you last night! Say, might you have forgotten since you were dozing off!?”

“……………It’s true that I don’t remember. I have no choice but to prioritize my duties if I was asked for then.”

I could hear several relieved sighs when Julie replied for some reason.

“…………Everyone is so kind☆”

Ignoring Tsukimi’s weird comment, I headed back to the rocky area where the cave was located together with Miyabi.

“Ah…..it’s over here, Tooru-kun.”

We returned to the cave and started looking for the pouch, and Miyabi finally found it.

(It’s only natural to forget if it’s placed in a place like this……..)

It was a hiding place between the rocks and it’s only natural to wonder why it’s located in a place like that. We took a longer time than expected because of that but we would probably make it back to the branch school before the sun set.

Miyabi put the pouch into the straw bag she wore on her shoulders before we walked out to the beach.

“Waa-ah……pretty……..”

Miyabi muttered that when she saw the evening sun was near the water horizon and it was causing the sea to glitter.

The sun reflected on the sea surface, creating a road of light on the sea.

“This……….is amazing………..”

I agreed with Miyabi’s opinion and stopped my legs to look.

The beach we were playing at during the afternoon had turned into a mystical scene, as if it was from a picture.

But personally, this scenery could not even compare to photos in terms of captivating the heart.

The indescribable scenery created by Mother Nature was beautiful, yet it was somehow heartrending.

“E-err hey, Tooru-kun. If it’s okay with you, can we wait here for a while………I want to watch this scenery for a little bit………….”

“That’s right. I guess it’s alright if it’s not that late. Oh well, let’s look at this scenery together for a while.”

“U-un…………!”

After sitting down on the sand with Miyabi, my ears were filled with the sounds of continuous waves.

The glittering gold color on the sea from the twilight looked even more magical and an awed breath escaped me.

“It’s pretty huh, Tooru-kun?”

“That’s true. It’s really pretty.”

While the sound continued in the background, I looked over to Miyabi and our eyes met.

In an instant, her eyes opened wide before she hugged her legs and buried her face in her thighs in panic-----

After a little while, I had a rush of shyness when she looked over at me after slightly lifting her face up.

My heart skipped a beat when I saw that smile; the tempo of my heart beat gradually increased.

I was looking over a scene so beautiful that it would not be an exaggeration to say that it would remain with me for life, and I was together with a girl at the same time, even if we are just friends.

Together with a friendly, shy and cute girl.

“…………Errr, Tooru-kun. What’s wrong…….? I-it’s kind of embarrassing……..if you stare at me like that……”

“------! So-sorry, I was day dreaming a bit……..”

I avoid saying I got charmed by her and changed the topic after turning to face to the sea.

“B-by the way. I have to thank Imari later. If she did not forgot her pouch, we probably wouldn’t have seen this scenery.”

“Ah……….E-err, about that. I think Imari wanted to show me this scenery…………..”

“So, it’s on purpose?”

“Unn……….That’s because, Imari has been living in this island for three months already. So, I think she knows the perfect time to see this pretty scene………..”

I see, I agreed with her. But, if that is the case------

“If that was the case then, everyone should have come too. Well, it can’t be helped since they have to prepare for dinner.”

“U-un………….with everyone……that’s true…….”

It looks like Miyabi thought the same thing, but her shoulders drooped in disappointment.

“Alright, we should head back now. Everyone will get worried if we take too long.”

“U-un………….”

Even though Miyabi wore a regretful expression, she nodded.

We stood side by side again and started walking while looking at the magical scenery at our side.

“…………..Ah, oh yeah.”

“What’s wrong, Tooru-kun?”

“Aah, there is something I forgot to do.”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Zazan*,*Zazan* I stared at the waves coming to the shore-----

I then measured the timing and *tatatata* ran on the beach.

The foot trail I made on the beach disappeared immediately after that.

“Haha like I thought, this was something I had to do if I came to the sea.”

“………………..”

Miyabi's jaw dropped, *Pokan*, and stared blankly at me----before bursting into laughter.

“*Giggle*………..Tooru-kun you're like a child!”

“I didn’t do that in front of everyone because I knew I would be told that!”

It’s just too embarrassing doing something that childish in front of girls.

“Fufu. But, I am here right?”

“I thought I would be okay if I showed Miyabi…………ahh, keep this a secret from the rest. I’ll probably get laughed at.”

“If it’s me huh……..fufuun. Un, I’ll keep it a secret."

Miyabi giggled again.

“You swear?”

“It’s okay; I will absolutely keep it a secret. Or what, Tooru-kun does not believe me?”

“I believe you. Tentatively though.”

“……………….Okay then, I can’t expose it now since I'll be an accomplice.”

Before I could ask what does she meant, Miyabi placed her bag on the ground before jogging out.

She then made a trail of small footsteps on the sand.

By the time I understood her meaning, the footsteps were washed away by the waves.

“It’s true that this makes you an accomplice………so, how is it?”

“It was fun, it was like I went back to being a kid…………”

“Right?!”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Un* Miyabi nodded before making a lively laugh.

This girl with a smile like a big flower blooming and the glittering ocean in the background does not look like someone that had been about to leave the academy because of her fears.

I was glad I extended my hand to her on that day.

If I hadn't, I probably would have never seen this smile.

“Ah………….”

After lifting up her luggage, Miyabi let out a soft voice.

It seems she fell on the sand when she was about to take the bag handle.

“Are you okay?”

“U-un. Sorry.”

Several of her belongings scattered about on the sand because she fell down energetically.

Within them, there was a white stone with the color of the sunset on it.

That was the stone I picked up and gave to Miyabi.

“It’s a memorable object so please don’t forget it like that okay?”

“I-I won’t forget it. I absolutely won’t………”

Miyabi made a wry smile when she received the pure-white special heart-shaped stone.

While still directing that wry smile to me, the wry smile turned into a sweet smile.

“Thank you for finding this stone for me, Tooru-kun.”

“Haha, you already thanked me when I found it. You don't need to thank me every time, okay?”

“Uun, but I still want to tell you……….not only this stone, Tooru-kun keeps giving me things like energy, or encouragement to work hard, etc-------that’s why, I want to keep telling you, 'thank you'……………”

Inside the sunset-colored world, Miyabi started talking.

“Thank you for everything, Tooru-kun. Thank you lots and lots. And-----“

The words that continued after that, were supposed to be a soft mutter that was meant to be covered by the sound of the waves.

But-----

Was this lucky or unlucky-----

The sound of the waves paused at that moment.

[[File:Absolute Duo Volume 3 Non-Colour 6.jpg|thumb]]

“I love you.”

===Part 2===

In the Kouryou academy branch school-----

The reason for its existence was to be the net for those that had dropped out from the <<Qualification Ceremony>>.

“……………There is a 1 in a 1000 chance someone would have an <<Adapt>>. It really is a strange thing that he seriously thought I would throw them away because of one failure.”

Tsukumo Sakuya made a weak smile, recalling back the conversation she had with Tooru a few days ago.

"Oh my, but wasn't that close to your own thoughts, Sakuya?"

Another girl was there combing her yellow topaz hair while asking a question.

“Yes, that is right…………..I don’t mind throwing away losers.”

Sakuya replied back with her personal opinion to Lilith’s question.

They might have the strength to be second-tier in the group, but they lost because they got unlucky and got paired up with a strong, first-rate opponent. That’s why they thought they would win if they were put together with a different person-------what bullshit.

Those are words that could only be described as funny, spoken by fools that have not thrown themselves into a war of survival with their lives bet on victory.

No matter how much power a person possesses, it's meaningless if they don’t win when the time calls for it.

“Everything ends when you die.”

The results were both extremely logical while also being irrational.

However------it's the simple truth that they live in that kind of world.

But that was still Sakuya’s personal opinion in the end, and the Dawn organization’s objectives were a different story. A huge amount of funds is needed to continue the <<Lucifer>> research. In order to gain those funds, they need as many public maintenance <<Exceeds>> teams as possible----even if they are not people Sakuya needs.

Of course, Sakuya does not think the existence of the branch school is completely worthless.

All of them are sacrifices.

They are sacrifices to plant confidence into the main school students that have survived the <<Qualification Ceremony>>-----and also give them the readiness to aim for the top, for the sake of the loser they defeated with their own hands.

The reason why she allowed them to know of the existence of the branch school through the seaside school was also a type of mental testing for them.

It had been three months since they enrolled into Kouryou academy. During the period when they start getting a little relaxed after getting used to the daily training, they are made to meet up with the branch school and that will cause the students thoughts to follow one of two major tracks.

They would either continue to aim for top knowing that they might be defeated by the losers who had accumulated additional training as branch school students...

Or they would become even more relaxed and lose their aspiration.

It is obvious that Sakuya wished for the former.

If she thought about the future, she would not need people that would be satisfied at this level.

“By the way Lilith. This is about a few days ago, but what kind of intentions did you have when you said I wasn’t honest with myself?”

“It’s more convenient to have Tooru think the chairman is actually a good child. He's too earnest for his own good.”

Sakuya gave a small shrug in response the gold girl who winked at her.

“……………Kokonoe Tooru sure has it rough, to be loved by this two-faced woman.”

“The living thing called 'woman' has two-sides, you know. More importantly, it is a fact that I do love him, so isn’t that fine? Other than that, I move in order to achieve the things I must. In order to reach the <<Absolute Duo>>…………that's all there is to it.”

While placing her hand on her chest as if she was singing in an opera, and spreading out her free hand, Lilith made an exaggerated posture and talked about the contents of her heart.

How much can she believe those words? Sakuya could not begin to guess how much of that was true.

“Now then, a question from me.”

The Lilith from a few moments ago was no longer here.

Her smile was gone and her eyes narrowed; an expression that she does not usually show Tooru was there.

“Will it be tonight, if they are coming at all?”

“Oh my, did you notice?”

"When there is an idiot deliberately blowing its cover that much, there is no way I wouldn't notice."

On the morning of the third day after the start of the Seaside school, Lilith felt someone’s presence.

The presence would not get near the students, but could be seen observing their movements; it kept itself just far enough away, waiting for its existence to be perceived.

“It has been two months since the last incident……………I even set out bait, thinking that <<Equipment Smith>> might start moving around to cause something…………….”

Sakuya made a faint smile while swinging her head to those let-down results.

“No close encounters huh…………but, I don’t think you need to act as bait by going for walks at night. Even though you have Mikuni with you.”

It was every evening until today that they could feel the trespassers presence, and Sakuya took Mikuni along for a stroll about the island. Just like what Lilith said, she was acting as bait.

“It’s either me or you. I just wanted to know which one of us they want………..The results were: they won’t make a move on either one of us, so I just know they are there.”

“I wonder what kind of intentions they have for moving around.”

“I don’t care. I only hope that it makes for good sacrifices.”

Sakuya made a cold smile that was unthinkable from a ten year-old girl.

The reason why that smile broke suddenly was because of the emergency signal sent from Kouryou academy's main school.

“…………a call for reinforcement, why?”

The expression of the black-clothed girl turned dubious, when she received a report that they were under attack by unidentified personnel with guns and were at a disadvantage.

The guards stationed there numbered two <<Exceed>>----<<IV>>, ten <<III>>s, and their power alone can rival an army battalion (around 300 regular soldiers). Adding in the second and third year students from the main school that had survived training, it was only natural for her to be dubious at this unnatural event of receiving a call for reinforcements.

“-------I see, their goal is the research lab………….I understand, please withstand for another forty minutes. I will send Mikuni.”

After cutting the transmission, Sakuya clenched her teeth.

(Their aim was not me, but the <<Lucifer>> data------I predicted that too but………….)

“They sure have sent quite a force there. I wonder if we should say that it's our loss?”

Ignoring Lilith's frivolous chatter, Sakuya ordered Mikuni who was standing beside her.

“…………Mikuni, it’s just like what you’ve heard. Head back to the main school and clean up the attackers.”

“But Sakuya-sama. If an attack occurs here then-----”

It’s only natural for Mikuni to be concerned. It's a fact that they already have one trespasser on the island.

“Judging by this situation, I can’t send Rito over there. She might end up destroying the facilities. I'm ordering you there because you are an assassin type…………..or what, are you saying you will not listen to my orders?”

“…………..I would never do something such as that.”

The gold girl then spoke to Mikuni who was still concerned about his master.

“It’s okay; you don’t have to worry about it. I, the staff and also Tsukimi Rito are here. She is <<V>> right? Unless they sent over a powerful force, it will be impossible to bring us down.”

“…………….Understood. I am counting on you; please take care of Sakuya-sama.”

“Of course.”

Leaning on the wall, Lilith sent a one-eyed wink at him.

Mikuni turned on his heels and headed out of the room.

Lilith did not bother to watch him leave, instead turning her sight to the window.

(I did say that, but there is a bad feeling I'm getting……….)

The presence that was squirming around these past few days was still here.

But something different from that, an indescribable *something* was causing anxiousness in her chest.

Both Sakuya and Lilith were lost in thought.

The room was wrapped in silence but-----

Soon, an echoing knock broke the silence.

<noinclude>

==Translation Notes and References==

<references group="3F" />

{{SimpleNav}}
</noinclude>

Absolute Duo:Volume 3 Chapter 5

2021-03-30T04:14:08Z

SNovah: General changes for readability, punctuation; some changes to sentences, left ambiguous things in; halfway pass

==Chapter 5 『I Love You』==

===Part 1===

[Julie-chan, you are so slim and fair-skinned, just like I thought. How nice…………] [Neeh--. She’s so small and very cute♪] [Thank you very much. But, I hope I grow a little taller.] [You’re wrong, Julie-chan! It’s better when you're small!] [Is that so…….but my reach is too short, so I want to become taller.] [I think your reason for growing is weird, Julie…….] [------?]

[Hey, save the talking until after we're done changing!] [Ahaha, that’s true………..wait, Tomoe you look stylish. Places that are meant to bulge, bulge, yet you're still slim!] [Just how many guys have you seduced before now!?] [I-I haven’t seduced anyone!] [Then how about seducing Kokonoe-kun♪ He would definitely fall, just like that~] [Seduce…….Ko-Kokonoe……..Huh!? Wh-what are you saying, Sensei!?!?]

<nowiki>*</nowiki>kyai**kyai* I could hear a happy commotion coming from the cave behind me.

When their voices started to drift out, I had no idea what they were talking about even though I could recognize familiar voices and tones within it.
Rather----

(Did they forget that I'm here……….?)

I felt my name had been mentioned several times, but it seemed my presence had completely escaped from their minds; it also looked like they wouldn't be done changing any time soon.

I sighed while under the scorching sunlight.

(Why does this always have to happen………..?)

Regarding what I was doing right then-----I was standing guard at the cave entrance to prevent anyone from coming close and peeping on the girls changing. Unlike myself, who changed in the tent before heading out, it seemed that the girls were in the middle of changing inside the cave------which dead ended with a ten meter space.

Because of that, I had been ordered to stand guard and was forced to go through this awkward situation.

Of course, the girl talk was still on-going----

[I thought this during bath time too, but Hotaka-san has some amazing ones huh? What's your cup size?] [Tha-that’s a little………..] [Kuhah, if you won’t answer…..this will happen☆]

[Hyaau……….sto-stop, Sensei, Fuaa…………ah, nuu, st-stop, don’t fondle me, fuann………….] [Amazing♪ my fingers are sinking in☆] [Ah, I’ll touch them too. Uwah, it’s true!! Kuh, I am so jealous!! Thus to tyrants!!] [Kuhahah, do this too while you’re at it☆ Soryah, pinchy pinch♪] [ Hyaa, Hyaaaaaaa…….do-don’t pinch…….Hyuuu……………..] [ It’s going to be worse if you don’t answer you know?] [I-I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you so err, its F…………….HnKuuuun!! Haa, haa……..Hafuu…………]

I could hear rough and seductive breathing, and my imagination was running wild because I couldn't see; I let out a large gulp.

[[File:Absolute Duo Volume 3 Non-Colour 5.jpg|thumb]]

(Mi-Miyabi has F's……….The fantasy F………----nonono, it isn’t the time to be drinking my saliva!!)

In order to get rid of the images in my head, I shook my head vigorously.

(Concentrate! Concentrate on guarding……….! Monitor the surroundings……..!!)

I covered my ears and tried my best to decrease my worldly desires by chanting tongue-twisters in my head.

I wished they would get done changing soon.

…………..if this keeps up, something dreadful would happen to my ethical standards.

“Err so, the biggest breast goes to Miyabi, Imari is three ranks below and another two ranks below will go to Julie-chan. Usa-sensei is third and Tachibana is one rank above her. I would be-----“

The result of covering my ears was excellent. Even though I could still somewhat hear their voices, I couldn’t make out the exact content.

While making a relieved sigh, I continued my mental tongue-twister recital.

Not long after----

My shoulders got poked and I turned around.

At that moment, the girl that popped her face out from behind the rock shade was looking at me shyly.

“Sorry for the wait, Tooru.”

After saying that, Julie timidly came out.

“Oou……….”

I unintentionally let out my voice.

“How is it?”

“What do mean how………”

A fairy in a white bikini appeared in front of me.

There was more exposure compared to her normal T-shirt appearance and that alone set my heart pumping. Also, since the white swimsuit emphasized her pale skin, my heartbeat pumped even faster. On top of that, she had a slender body with modest breasts and slim legs. Finally, the colorful float ring she was holding behind her brought out her girlish charms.

Her appearance was the combination of slight egotism and loveliness, and it was enough to make me wonder if it was okay to look directly at her.

“I-it’s cute…….very cute…….”

The words that I could say normally without any discomposure usually, just felt embarrassing somehow now.

“Ya—♪“

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Chirin* the bell echoed when Julie nodded happily.

At that moment, five more girls appeared from the cave.

---however, there was one person that I hesitated in calling a 'girl'<ref group ="3F">女子-Girls.He is referring to the 子 in the 女子 which means child. He is basically calling someone in the group a woman</ref>.

Although this should be obvious, everyone was in their swimsuits, and honestly speaking I was having trouble as to where to look.

Everyone was directing their eyes at me while I was struggling with that.

“Tooru. You know what we are going to ask, right?”

“…………you’re going to ask me for my thoughts, right?”

Imari clapped at my answer.

“Correct. You will give us your thoughts on each of us as our male representative♪ Praise us too if you can.”

“What do you mean by male representative, I'm the only guy here……….”

Today’s participants are me, Julie, Miyabi, Tachibana, Imari, Miwa and for some reason Tsukimi was also here: seven people.

I am undoubtedly the only guy here.

It’s not like I wanted to be in this situation. I invited Tora, Tatsu and two other close guy friends but------since Tora chose to sleep on the rest day as usual, Tatsu was muscle training with a staff member he got along with, the other two wanted to have a good rest and go out on a date with a branch school girl respectively; each of them didn't join because of their own reasons and that has caused this overwhelmingly unbalanced male-to-female ratio.

“Okay okay, we will be losing time to play if you don’t hurry up and tell us your thoughts, Tooru.”

It seems I was not permitted to go with 'no comment'.

“Err, for Imari………..”

The swimsuit with frilly attachments was tied together with a big, eye-catching ribbon, creating a cute look and a casual atmosphere that suits Imari very well. Imari’s tight and balanced body was dazzling and posssessed a healthy charm.

“I think you have a very charming body.”

“Bufuu!? Wh-why are you saying something that outrageous suddenly!? What kind of eyes were you using to look at me!?”

“Do-don’t misunderstand! I mean it like, you have an athlete’s body!”

“I-I see……….It’s okay if it’s like that but, it’s not good to put words together that would cause misunderstandings. You said something similar last time too, seriously……….”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Puri**puri* Imari puffed her cheeks so I decided not to pry any further, and moved my sights beside her.

“Ko-Kokonoe. Don’t look at me that much.”

“So-Sorry………Wait a second? Tachibana told me not to look so, it’s okay if I don’t tell you my thoughts right?”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Pikoon* I had a good idea, like a neon sign lighting!

“I-I didn't say I don’t want your opinion. Hurry up and say it.”

Again, it looks like I am not allowed go with 'no comment'……..

I looked up and down at Tachibana, a faint blush glowing on her cheeks, while she looked away from me.

The dark color swimsuit looked simple at first glance, but the black lace ornaments attached to it brought out Tachibana's adult charms. Adding her exceptional proportions into the equation, along with her flowing black hair, she'd attract anyone that sees her.

“Tachibana is beautiful, like I've always thought.”

“-----! I-I’m not……..err, not so much worth calling beautiful……..”

“You’re beautiful. Everyone would think the same thing if they saw you.”

While she was facing away in embarrassment, her eyes kept glancing at me.

“……….Ko-kokonoe too?”

“I’ve been saying it now, right?………You’re beautiful, Tachibana.”

“Yo-you don’t have to say it that many times!..........*co-cough* Well, I will gratefully accept your thoughts.”

Even though she was red-faced and embarrassed, it seems she was satisfied. While thinking that’s great, I praised Miwa beside her also.

“Ahaha, Kokonoe-kun is cool too. You’re more slender in clothes than I thought. It’s not to Tatsu-kun’s level but, you have nice muscles there♪ ……….*Slurp*”

“O-ou, Thanks…………”

Her eyes were somewhat scary, so I decided to ignore that while moving next to Miyabi----

At least, that's what I planned to do, but she was wearing a straw hat and cardigan.

“Hey, Miyabi. Hurry up and take off that boring thing.”

“Bu-but, I'm bad at swimming and I think this is enough since I'll be playing in the shallow water………”

Imari got closer to Miyabi and she panicked. Miwa also joined in at that point---------

“We managed to get Tooru to give his thoughts about everyone else, so take that off♪”

“HyaWaa!?”

Two people teamed up to take off Miyabi’s cardigan and her hat was taken away too.

Like that, Miyabi's swimsuit appearance was exposed to me but………

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Do------------------N!!*

Wow. It would be SUGOI<ref group ="3F">AMAZING</ref> in English………..well, if it was in Romaji. Anyways, it's amazing, too amazing. It was hard to maintain my cool, with my thoughts going a little crazy. About what you ask? I am referring to Miyabi. It might sound very crude, but her watermelon sized breasts were swaying around and I was making useless worries about whether or not if the thin strings supporting them would be okay.

“To-Tooru-kun…..?”

“Haah!?”

Miyabi was hugging her breasts to run away from my sight and was twisting her body when my awareness returned.

It's also amazing that her arms could not completely cover her chest.

“Tooru. Comment, comment.”

Imari poked my elbows.

“Ah-aah……….err-----“

Miyabi was wearing a pale color skirt swimsuit with a cute design. However, her voluminous breasts, which could not be restrained completely by the swimsuit, were such that they could be called sensational. I was curious whether the available cloth was too little, or Miyabi’s breasts were too big, but it will remain an eternal mystery since I can’t ask her that.

“I think it’s cute”

“Ah…….ehehe, Thank you……..”

“*Pipi* Yellow card!”

Imari pinched Tachibana’s ribbon and shook it.

“What are you doing. And what's with the yellow card?”

“Tooru. You told that comment to Julie before. R.E.D.O!”

“Uuh. I can’t do anything about it even if you tell me that. Don’t expect an extensive vocabulary from me……….”

“I understand your feelings, but work hard and squeeze those words out. Using the same words on another girl is not even at the impolite level okay?”

“Uguhh, I-I get it. Errrr…………”

Even though I hesitated, there were no good words coming up.

That’s why, I decided to say what I thought. ＊Except for the breast part.

“I-it really suits you……….It’s the first time I've seen Miyabi in a swimsuit but, I think it’s great!”

“Tha-thank you, Tooru-kun. Err, it’s very embarrassing but………..I am very happy about it…..”

“I- I see? Then that’s great.”

“Unn...”

It seems she's really happy.

My heart pumped hard because the shy Miyabi looked more charming than usual and the cause of it might be the swimsuit.

Imari was poking Miyabi's arm for some reason.

[………….This is the first time I showed Tooru my swimsuit though...] [M-me too.] [Well, well…….]

“Okay then, everyone’s comment is done, so let’s swim.”

“………….Wait there <<Irregular>>.”

“Your real face is showing.”

“……………..Iyaaan♥ Oh Kokonoe-kun, I wonder if you're forgetting someone important♪”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>PyoKonn* her rabbit ears swung and there was someone who was directing a pose at me; It’s obvious who the person was, it was Tsukimi.

“How is this how is this, these beach specifications♪ Go ahead and share your comments, YOU☆”

“…………………Isn’t it nice. It suits you a lot, the bitch specifications.”

“Iyaaan, thank you Kokonoe-kun♥ …………….Wait a sec you bastard, who the hell is the bitch? Aarrh? Should I fall down accidentally and pull down your swimsuit to expose your Mr. Elephant?”

“It isn’t an accident if it’s like that…………”

She brought her face closer half-way through that sentence and finished with that whispered threat.

It’s true that the beach specification she was referring to was probably the swimsuit material but, she looks like a bunny girl no matter how much I look. Of course, she has a rabbit tail on too. It would probably make it a complete set if she was wearing net tights or stockings, but I would have to ask her why she even bothered coming to the beach if she did that.

“So, why are you here……..!?”

“It would be dangerous for you students, so I joined in as a guardian, you shithead.”

(Guardian huh……….)

Even though the last day was a free day, everyone was made to put on the armband since it was the rules.

Because of that we can just send out a rescue signal if there is any emergency, so it was incomprehensible that a guardian would be accompanying us.

“………..You just wanted to play.”

“Kuhah, Correct. Look, I am interested in you too <<Irregular>>.”

Ignoring that---

The comment war finally ended and all of us warmed up before running to the sea.

Leaving the two people from the branch school aside, the main school group has only seen such a transparent sea and white beach on television, so I can understand why everyone was in high spirits. We're in a situation where the whole place was reserved just for us.

Swimming in the sea, diving into the sea, playing beach ball, each of them started doing what they wanted and just when I was wondering what I should do----

“Tooru, let’s swim.”

In complete preparation, Julie was already inside the float ring before she took my hand and started running.

I ran onto the beach while holding a girl’s hand.

Just like the first experience between lovers, my heart was pumping hard but-----

<nowiki>*</nowiki>ZaaPaan*. Both of us tripped on a big wave the moment we stepped into the sea.

“I was surprised………..Fuwaah!?”

With her eyes opened wide, the next wave covered Julie’s head while she was on her butt.

I started laughing when I saw her wet already and she was unable to hide her surprise by blinking several times.

“It’s not good to laugh.”

Julie splashed water at me with both her hands.

It looks like she was trying to get me wet too, but the amount of water was pitiable.

I blocked it with my left hand and splashed back with my right hand while laughing before----

“Chance-----!!”

My leg got pulled at the same time a shout suddenly sounded.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Bashaan* my whole body got dragged into the sea together with that splashing sound.

“Wh-who is that!?”

After I surfaced my face, I saw the back of someone running away while swaying her ponytail.

“Damn that Imari……..”

Imari then jumped into the sea and swam away.

“Tooru, Tooru.”

“Hnn? ………Puuah!?”

Sea water was splashed onto my face when I turned over after Julie called me.

“Payback for laughing.”

The smiling Julie looked kind of satisfied.

“I was already wet……”

“But even so.”

“Then payback for the payback----“

“The first strike wins.”

“Puoooh!?”

My face got splashed with sea water even as I was preparing to splash back.

“No-now you’ve done it, Julie!”

After shaking my head, I looked to Julie and she did the same thing as Imari, and was about to run away into the sea.

However-----

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Spash splash splash*…………..*Zazaan*.

After advancing a little further, she got pushed back to the beach by the waves.

“-----?”

Julie turned around and got shocked that I did not run that far away before trying to swim away to the sea again.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Spash splash splash*…………..*Zazaan*. *Kuruu*.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Spash splash splash*! *Zazaan*. *Kuruu*.

“------!?”

She did her very best to run away but, since there wasn't much distance opened from me, Julie strengthened her flutter kick but it only increased the water splash size.

However it was as expected from an <<Exceed>>. She advanced a little further ahead and-----

<nowiki>*</nowiki>DoPaan*.

She got overturned by a big wave and got swallowed into the sea.

“Hahaha…………wait, Julie!?”

I had forgotten that Julie could not swim for an instant, but I immediately recalled that fact back before running to her and-----

A large splash sprung up to the summer skies and the silver mermaid showed her face from the sea. ＊However, she was not swimming.

“Julie, are you okay?”

It looks like she did not drown in the shallow waters, but I called out to her just in case.

“Ya---. I was very surprised….”

Julie turned around to face me, and her upper body was naked.

(Where did her bikini go-------!?)

Lucky or unlucky------------(I’ll leave it as lucky)-----since her silver hair was sticking onto her nipples and successfully acting as a guard, I couldn't see everything.

“Ju-Julie! Up, uppp!!”

I turned my back at her and shouted while bringing her attention to the problem.

“Nice weather.”

“Not that, your swimsuit!!”

“Ah……….”

It seems she finally noticed.

“……………Did you see?”

“I-I didn’t, it was safe…………..it was close though”

“It was a close save huh. Then there is no problem……..but if you saw it, then I have no choice but to give a you strict punishment.”

It seems she would not forgive me even if I saw it accidentally.

“………..I’ll ask this just in case but, what kind of punishment?”

“I will splash water on you. Lots and lots of water on you.”

I’m already in the sea.

“Okay then, it will be embarrassing if this goes on like this so, I will go fix my swimsuit.”

“Aah, got it.”

I nodded while keeping my back to Julie.

I guess I’ll stay like this until she fixes her swimsuit.

The moment I thought that------*Pito*, *Funyuun*.

“Hn?”

Something suddenly touched my back. Something soft.

“My swimsuit is over there, Tooru.”

A hand like as white as a fish was coming out from under my armpits and it pointed a few meters ahead.

Thanks to that, I could easily figure out the true identity of the soft objects touching my back.

(Σ@♀π-------!!)

“Ju-Ju-Juliee!?”

“No, Tooru. You must not look here.”

Julie hugged me tightly when I was about to turn back in reflex.

Then of course, those modest bulges would only press further into my back.

“Wh-wh-why are you sticking onto me…..!?”

“In case the depth is too deep for me to get it alone, I am going to ask Tooru to get it for me. The reason why I am sticking onto you like this is because, this way, I won’t end up showing Tooru my embarrassing spots.”

(Please feel embarrassed when your breasts are pushing onto me-----!!)

Not knowing what kind of basis of embarrassment Julie has, I shouted inside my heart.

Without any choice, I started walking to the swimsuit while Julie stayed glued onto me.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Puni puni puni puni puni puni puni puni*………….

I would feel a soft sensation on my back each time I moved. I was constantly feeling it.

“Tooru. It’s hard for me to walk if you slouch………”

Even if you tell me that.

Just like that, I fought against a cotton-like body while having distressful thoughts in the sea, before reaching Julie’s bikini top which was floating on the waves-------before I suddenly noticing something.

“Wouldn’t it be okay if I just retrieved it alone?”

“………….That’s true too.”

“Kokonoe, we are going to play beach volleyball now, want to join in too?”

After returning to the shallow waters to knock out the water in my ears by hopping, Tachibana called out to me.

Right now, I decided that it was probably safe to not head back out there since Julie was playing with Imari and accepted the invitation to play beach volleyball.

“Kuhaha. Don’t fail in receiving and drag me down, <<Irregular>>.”

I immediately regretted accepting the offer when the team was organized.

“What’s with that unhappy face?”

“Not just unhappy, disgusted.”

“Should I pull down your swimsuit like I thought huh? You’ll probably feel good hearing *Kyaa**Kyaa* squealed because of you.”

“I'd lose my humanity if I felt good in that situation!!”

"Can we start already," Tachibana sent a tired voice over and we started the match, despite my reluctance to team up with Tsukimi.

Our opponents were Tachibana and Miwa. However, since Miwa was the only one with a lower <<Level>>, we agreed on a rule that we cannot use our dominant hand to attack as a handicap.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Poon* Tachibana served the ball and a parabola was drawn in the blue sky.

Tsukimi quickly entered the landing point and received it. Tsukimi then spiked the ball I tossed up-----but Tachibana obstructed it with a block.

[As expected from the honor student☆Amazing♪] ＊It seems she was wearing her public personality since Miwa was here too.

“Fufu, I will gratefully accept those words, Tsukimi-sensei.”

Both of them looked at each other with a fearless smile but----

“Eh, I was talking about your boobs? I was referring to the fact that it made a super *Boin*-bounce when you landed on the ground♥”

“Bo-Booinn!?”

Tachibana’s face turned red instantly and she covered her chest.

“Kokonoe you think so too right?”

“Don’t bring me into this!!”

“Ko-ko-Kokonoe! A guy like you; were you looking at me with those shameless eyes!?”

“I didn’t look!!”

Even though I replied like that, it caused caused me to become more conscious of *those*, and I couldn't get rid of those thoughts. Thus the game continued while I was unable to concentrate.

What’s more-----

“Kuhah, they bounced again♪”

A battle plan whispered happily from behind and------

“Kokonoe--. Look at this dangerous angle☆ Look at me♪”

After switching between the front and rear guard, she shook her butt and that caused me to lose my concentration.

(Damn it, she is definitely an enemy!!)

Luckily (?) Tachibana had a huge crack in her movements, and the match was taking favorable and unfavorable turns------

And it reached to the situation where if we could take just one more point it would be our win but...

“Seii!”

Tachibana raised a spirited shout-------but on the contrary, she only tapped the ball and it dropped into our court.

This was the best chance for me and Tsukimi’s attack.

[Kuh…….! I won’t let you!!] [Idiot! Leave it to me--------]

“PuuWaah!?”

An impact was felt after we jumped in to hit the ball.

I crashed into Tsukimi who also came to receive the ball like me, before rolling across the sand.

“Where is the ball!?”

After I lifted my face when I stopped, I saw Miwa unable to reach the ball flying to her.

It seems she made a mistake in her estimations because of the wind.

“I did it!!”

“………..are you happy, <<Irregular>>?”

“Of course. I mean we won!”

“In this posture?”

The moment I moved my conscious from Tachibana and Miwa’s court to my current situation when I heard those words------I spurt out.

I was on top of Tsukimi and my hips were touching her lower body……….

“Iyaaan♪ Kokonoe-kun is spinning his hips and pushing onto me♥”

Faster than I can say anything, Tsukimi performed a kanibasami-like move<ref group ="3F">A judo move where the user would slide to the opponent and lock the opponent between the legs</ref> and locked my hips with her legs.

“Uwaaaaaa, just who is the one pushing me onto you-----!?”

Even though I was panicking from that stupid action, the real trouble happened after this.

“Kokonoe……….You shameless fool-------!!”

Tachibana ran away shouting.

“It’s a misunderstanding----------!!”

Tsukimi performed a giant swing and threw me towards the sea before I could chase after Tachibana.

After we finished playing beach volleyball, everyone enjoyed themselves with the Bento which Miyabi woke up early to prepare. The taste was delicious without any complaints, and Miyabi turned shy when we complimented her. Imari said *Not bad* and kept poking Miyabi’s elbow while laughing.

Everyone commenced the standard watermelon splitting in the afternoon and after that, around the time we started passing the time happily like the whole morning----

I saw Miyabi faraway finding something while bending her body at the shallow waters and approached her.

“Oiii, Miyabi. What are you doing?”

“i-I am finding shells. I'm planning to bring back a shell that would serve as memories of here since we are here.”

Miyabi showed the several shells she was holding.

It’s true that the colorful shells were beautiful, and I agreed at the thought of using them as products for remembrance.

“Shell finding huh…….if that’s the case, then can I join in?”

“Eh…………? Bu-but……”

“It’s more fun finding while talking right?”

“------!? I-i-it’s fun talking to me………!?”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Splash splash splash*………..maybe they slipped out if her hands; all of the shells Miyabi was holding fell into the sea.

“Haha. What are you doing, Miyabi”

I crouched down and gathered the shells Miyabi dropped while laughing.

“Ah……….To-tooru-kun. I’ll pick them up myself……..”

“It’s okay it’s okay. ……….okay, that’s all of them”

I took Miyabi’s hand and placed the shells on top of them.

“Auu…….Uuau………..”

“Hnn? What’s wrong, Miya----“

Miyabi’s face was completely red and was constantly opening and closing her mouth like a gold fish.

“Pyaaa----!?”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Banzai* Miyabi raised both her hands together with a weird shout, and all of the shells she had on her hands scattered around.

“Auu…….Sorry, just when you picked them up for me………”

“It’s my fault since I forgot about Miyabi’s sensitivities, so don’t worry about it”

“Uu……..Tha-that just now is well, true but……..this is different from that……and it’s because it’s Tooru-kun…………”

(Because it’s me……..?)

Half of it was mumbles but, it reached my ears.

I thought of the meaning of the words because it reached me.

(………There’s no way right……….? Because, Miyabi is------)

Although I have one possibility in mind, I decided there was no way it’s true and swung my head.

“Tooru-kun. Errr, I think it’s weird for me to say this after scattering all the shells you picked up for me but…………ca-can you join me to find shells again?”

“Aah, of course. Let’s find lots”

“Unn………..!”

Miyabi nodded. Maybe it was left on her cheeks; her cheeks were slightly redder than usual.

After that, we started finding shells while talking.

Soon, around the time the sun was sinking, Imari came to call us back since it was almost evening.

I nodded, and after telling Miyabi we should head back to everyone------

Suddenly, I found a special shaped rock half-buried in the sand.

“Hey, Miyabi. This isn't a shell but, this-----“

Around the time the sky was turning slightly orange, Tachibana showed herself after changing back into her uniform in the cave. Julie and the others came behind her after that.

“Sorry for the wait, Kokonoe”

“……Ah-re, where’s Imari?”

I asked about the ponytail girl because she was the only one I couldn't find there-----

“Ahaha, sorry. Thanks for the wait”

As Imari came out of the cave with good timing, I decided to head back to the branch school.

“It was fun today. It would have been nice if Tora and Lilith had joined in too”

We talked about the members that did not join us while walking on the path leading to the mountain ridge.

“Fufuu, Tora looks like someone who prefers sleeping compared to playing. He is probably having fun on the rest day in his own way.”

“But, it was a disappointment with Lilith-san though…..”

Tora wasn’t the only one we invited to take a dip in the sea with us.

We also called out to the gold girl whose hair color would look attractive with the blue sea.

But regretfully, Lilith swung her head.

Since she had accumulated fatigue, she decided to pass the time leisurely while having Sara massage her today.

However, she told me she would join depending on if I accept her condition or not.

'''''“I wouldn’t mind joining if Tooru would give me an oil massage you know?”'''''

She complained when I immediately told her to take her time with Sara.

“Well we can’t help it. We just have to invite them when we have the chance to play again-------“

And this occurred at this moment.

“Ahhh!!”

Imari stopped after making a sudden shout.

“What’s wrong?”

“I was wondering if I had forgotten something just now and it looks like I left my pouch in the cave”

“Haha, how clumsy. No one would pick it up I think, but I think it’s better to head back there immediately and get it”

“That’s true, let’s go with that……………..Ah, oh no. it’s my turn to prepare the ingredients for dinner in the hall. Uuuun, it looks like I would skip my work if I went to get my pouch………..”

“If you run at full strength from here-----“

It will probably be enough to make a round trip, was what I was about to say and Imari made a loud shout again.

“Oh yeah! Neee, Miyabi. I apppooooologize for this but, can you go take my pouch for me? Please, I am counting on you!”

“Eh………? Errr………U-unn. Okay”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Pan* I thought this when I watched her as she slapped her hands together in front of Miyabi, and Miyabi nodded.

(Miyabi just can’t refuse huhh)

She might be weak with being pressed by someone, but I can’t imagine this soft-hearted girl refusing someone’s request.

Those characteristics are the good points of the girl named Miyabi.

“Thanks, Miyabi! I seriously owe you one! ……….ahh but, it would probably be dangerous if one girl went there alone and something happened. That’s no good. I'm worried”

I wonder why some part of it sounded strange just now.

“Then it’s okay if Kokonoe-kun went along right?”

“Fuuee!?”

“That’s true. Tooru is perfect for the job; I will be relieved if he goes with Miyabi”

“Fueeee!?”

Thinking she thought of a good idea, Miwa said my name and Imari agreed with her.

“You’ll go right, Tooru”

I had no plans to refuse but, it’s an irrefutable situation no matter how much I think about it.

“I get it. Alright then, let’s go get it, Miyabi”

“Eh? Eh? Eh?”

“Just like what Imari says, it would be bad if something happened when you went alone. We will go together”

Since the conversation was advancing like that, she was probably confused about what was happening.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Pokan* Imari lightly tapped Miyabi’s back while she was staring at me with her mouth open blankly.

“FIGHT”

(It’s just retrieving a forgotten object, why does she have to work hard for………..)

However, Miyabi made a shock expression and [U-un………..!] before replying back energetically for some reason.

[Tooru, Miyabi. I will head back too] [That’s true. I’ll go along too]

“STOOP! Tomoe it’s your turn too right!”

“My turn? No, I-----“

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Pachi pachi pachi pachi*……….

Imari was blinking violently.

Just what’s wrong with her?

“-----!! O-oh yeah! Hahaha, oh silly me……..”

“Ju-Julie too right”

“Nai. You’re wrong------“

“I asked you last night! See, you might have forgotten since you were dozing off!?”

“……………It’s true that I don’t remember. I have no choice but to prioritize my role if I was asked for then”

I could hear several relieved sighs when Julie replied for some reason.

“…………Everyone is so kind☆”

Ignoring Tsukimi’s weird sentence, I headed back to the rocky area where the cave was located together with Miyabi.

“Ah…..it’s over here, Tooru-kun”

We returned back to the cave and started looking for the pouch, before Miyabi found it.

(It’s only natural to forget if it’s placed in a place like this……..)

It was a hiding place in the rock and it’s only natural to wonder why it’s located in a place like that. We took a longer time than expected because of that but we would probably make it back to the branch school before the sun set.

Miyabi put the pouch into her straw bag and wore it on her shoulders before we walked out to the beach.

“Waa-ah……pretty……..”

Miyabi muttered that when she saw the evening sun was near the water horizon and it was causing the sea to glitter.

The sun reflected on the sea surface and created a road of light on the sea.

“This……….is amazing………..”

I agreed with Miyabi’s opinion and stopped my legs to look.

The beach we were playing at during the afternoon had turned into a mystical scene as if it was from a picture.

But personally, this scenery could not even compare to photos in terms of captivating the heart.

The indescribable scenery created by Mother Nature was beautiful, but it looked somewhat heartrending.

“E-err hey, Tooru-kun. If it’s okay with you, can we wait here for a while………I want to see the evening sun………….”

“That’s right. I guess it’s alright if it’s not that late. Oh well, let’s look at this scenery together for a while”

“U-un…………!”

After sitting down on the sand with Miyabi, I lost my ears to the sounds of the layers of waves.

The glittering gold color on the sea from the twilight looked even more magical and I started leaking a breath before I knew it.

“It’s pretty huh, Tooru-kun”

“That’s true. It’s really pretty”

While there was sound in the background, I looked over to Miyabi and our eyes met.

In an instant, her eyes opened wide before she hugged her legs in panic and buried her face into her thighs-----

After a while, I got shy when she saw me after slightly lifting her face up.

My heart skipped a beat when I saw that smile and the tempo of my heart beat gradually increased.

I was looking at a beautiful scene that was not over exaggerating to say that it would remain in my memories for life, together with a girl even though we are just friends.

Together with a friendly, shy and cute girl.

“…………Errr, Tooru-kun. What’s wrong…….? I-it’s kind of embarrassing……..if you stare at me like that……”

“------! So-sorry, I was day dreaming a bit……..”

I avoid saying I got charmed by her and changed to conversation after turning my face to the sea.

“B-by the way. I have to thank Imari later. If she did not forgot her pouch, we probably wouldn’t have seen this scenery”

“Ah……….E-err, about that. I think Imari wanted to show me this scenery…………..”

“So, it’s on purpose?”

“Unn……….That’s because, Imari has been living in this island for 3 months already. Then, I think she knows the time to see this pretty sun………..”

I see, I agreed with her. But, if that is the case------

“If that was the case then, everyone should have come too. Well, it can’t be helped since they have to prepare for dinner”

“U-un………….with everyone……that’s true…….”

It looks like Miyabi thought the same thing but, she dropped her shoulders in disappointment.

“Alright, we should head back now. Everyone will get worried if we take too long”

“U-un………….”

Even though Miyabi made a regretful expression, she nodded.

We stood side by side again and started walking while looking at the magical scenery at the side.

“…………..Ah, oh yeah”

“What’s wrong, Tooru-kun?”

“Aah, there is something I forgot to do”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Zazan*,*Zazan* I stared at the waves coming to the shore-----

I then measured the timing and *tatatata* ran on the beach.

The foot trail I made on the beach disappeared immediately after that.

“Haha like I thought, this was something I had to do if I came to the sea”

“………………..”

Miyabi *Pokan* opened her mouth blankly at my actions and words----before laughing not long later.

“*Giggle*………..Tooru-kun you are like a child”

“I didn’t do that In front of everyone because I knew I would be told that”

It’s just too embarrassing doing something that childish in front of girls.

“Fufu. But, I am here right?”

“I thought I would be okay if I showed Miyabi…………ahh, keep this a secret from the rest. I’ll probably get laughed at”

“If it’s me huh……..fufuun. Un, I’ll keep it a secret."

Miyabi giggled again.

“You swear?”

“It’s okay; I will absolutely keep it a secret. Or what, Tooru-kun does not believe me?”

“I believe you. Tentatively though”

“……………….Okay then, I can’t expose it now since I also became an accomplice”

Before I could ask what does she meant, Miyabi placed her bag on the ground before jogging out.

She then made a trail of small footsteps on the sand.

Around the time I understood her meaning, the foot trail got washed away be the waves.

“It’s true that this make you an accomplice………so, how is it?”

“It was fun, it was like I went back to being a kid…………”

“Am I right”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Un* Miyabi nodded before making a lively laugh.

This girl with a big flower blooming and the glittering ocean in the background does not look like someone that had been about to leave the academy cowardly by her own will.

I was glad I extended my hands to her on that day.

I probably would not be able to see this smile, If I didn’t do so.

“Ah………….”

After lifting up her luggage, Miyabi let out a soft voice.

It seems she fell on the sand when she was about to take the bag handle.

“Are you okay?”

“U-un. Sorry”

Several of her belongings scattered about on the sand because she fell down energetically.

Within them, there was a white stone with the color of the sunset engraved in it.

That was the stone I picked up and gave to Miyabi.

“It’s a memorable object so please don’t forget it like that okay?”

“I-I won’t forget it. I absolutely won’t………”

Miyabi made a wry smile when she received the pure-white special love (heart?) shape stone.

While still directing that wry smile to me, the wry smile turned into a sweet smile.

“Thank you for finding this stone for me, Tooru-kun”

“Haha, you already thanked me when I found it. Don’t tell me that every time okay”

“Uun, but I still want to tell you……….not only this stone, Tooru-kun keeps giving me things like energy, or the feelings to tell me to work hard, etc-------that’s why, I want to keep telling you this……………”

Inside the sunset world, Miyabi started talking.

“Thank you for everything, Tooru-kun. Thank you lots and lots. And-----“

The words that continued after that, were supposed to be a soft mutter that was meant to be blocked by the sound of the waves.

But-----

Either this was lucky or unlucky-----

The sound of the waves stopped at that moment coincidentally.

[[File:Absolute Duo Volume 3 Non-Colour 6.jpg|thumb]]

“I love you”

===Part 2===

In the Kouryou academy branch school-----

The reason for its existence, was to be the saucer for the people that had dropped out from the <<Qualification Ceremony>>.

“……………There is a 1 in a 1000 chance someone would have an <<Adapt>>. It really is a strange thing that he seriously thought I would throw them away because of one failure”

Tsukumo Sakuya made a weak smile after recalling back the conversation she had with Tooru a few days ago.

“Oh my, was it that different from your personal thoughts, Sakuya?”

Another girl was there combing her Yellow topaz hair while asking the question.

“Yes, that is right…………..I don’t mind throwing away losers”

Sakuya replied back her personal opinion to Lilith’s question.

They might have the strength to be second-tier in the group, but they lost because they got unlucky and got paired up with a first-rate strong opponent. That’s why they thought they would win if they were put together with a different person-------What bullshit.

Those are words that could only be described as funny, by fools that have not thrown themselves into a survival war with their own whole lives bet on it.

No matter how much power a person owns, it would be meaningless if they don’t win when the time calls for it.

“Everything ends when you die”

The results were all extreme logic and also irrational.

However------it is also true that they live in that kind of world.

But that was still Sakuya’s personal opinion to the end, and the Dawn organization’s objectives were a different story. A huge amount of funds is needed to continue the <<Lucifer>> research. In order for that, they need as many public maintenance team <<Exceeds>> as possible for the source of those funds----even if they are not people Sakuya needs.

Of course, Sakuya does not think the existence of the branch school is completely worthless.

All of them are sacrifices.

They are sacrifices to plant confidence into the main school students that have survived in the <<Qualification Ceremony>>-----and also give them the readiness to aim for the top for the loser they won against with their own bare hands.

The reason why she allowed them to know of the existence of the branch school through the seaside school was also a type of mental testing for them.

It had been 3 months since they enrolled into Kouryou academy. During the period when they start getting a little relaxed after getting used to the daily training, they are made to meet up with the branch school and that will cause the students thoughts to change into two big flows.

They would either aim back at the top knowing that they might lose to the losers who had piled up additional training as branch school students...

Or they would become even more relaxed and lose their aspirations.

It is practically obvious that Sakuya wished for the former.

If she thought about the future, she would not need people that would relax at this level.

“By the way Lilith. This is about a few days ago but, what kind of intentions did you have when you said I wasn’t honest with myself?”

“It’s more convenient to have Tooru think the chairman is actually a good child. Especially, that good boy”

Sakuya made a small shrug with her shoulders to the gold girl who winked at her.

“……………Kokonoe Tooru sure is having it rough, to be loved by this double-faced woman”

“The living thing called woman has two-sides you know. More importantly, it is a fact that I do love him, so isn’t that fine? Other than that, I move in order to achieve the things I have to do. In order to reach the <<Absolute Duo>>…………it’s just that”

While placing her hand on her chest as if she was singing in an opera, and spreading out her free hand, Lilith made an exaggerated posture and talked about the contents of her heart.

How much can she believe those words? Sakuya could not measure it as long as she does not say it out loud.

“Then now, a question from me”

The Lilith from a few moments ago was no longer here.

Her smile was gone and she narrowed her eyes; an expression that she does not usually show Tooru was there.

“Will it be tonight, if they are coming?”

“Oh my, did you notice?”

“When there is an idiot scattering its presence that much, there is no way I won’t notice.”

It was the 3rd day’s morning after the start of the Seaside school that, Lilith felt someone’s presence.

The presence would not get near the students and would only remain observing their movements; it was just stopped there far away, waiting for its existence to be perceived.

“It has been 2 months since the last incident……………I even set the bait, thinking that <<Equipment Smith>> might start moving around to cause something…………….”

Sakuya made a faint smile while swinging her head to those let-down results.

“No close encounter huh…………but, I don’t think you need to act as bait by having a night walk even though you have Mikuni with you?”

It was every evening until today that they could feel the trespassers presence, and Sakuya took Mikuni along for a stroll about the island. Just like what Lilith said, she was acting as bait.

“It’s either me or you. I just wanted to know which one of us they want………..The results were; they won’t make a move at either one of us and I just know they are there”

“I wonder what kind of intentions they have for moving around”

“I don’t care. I only hope that it’s good sacrifices”

Unthinkable from a 10 year old girl, Sakuya made a cold smile.

The reason why that smile broke suddenly was because of the emergency signal sent from Kouryou academy main school.

“…………call for reinforcement, why?”

The expression of the black-clothed girl turned dubious, when she received a report that they were receiving an attack by unidentified personnel with guns and were at a disadvantage.

The guards stationed there numbered 2 <<Exceed>>----<<IV>>, 10 number of <<III>>, and their power can rival an army battalion (Around 300 people). Adding in the 2nd and 3rd year students from the main school that had survived training, it was only natural for her to be dubious at this unnatural event of being called for reinforcement.

“-------I see, their goal is the research lab………….I understand, please withstand for 40 minutes. I will make Mikuni head there”

After cutting the transmission, Sakuya clenched her teeth.

(Their aim was not me, but the <<Lucifer>> data------I predicted that too but………….)

“They sure have sent quite a force there. I wonder if we should say that we got defeated here?”

Ignoring Lilith who was talking frivolously, Sakuya ordered Mikuni standing by beside her.

“…………Mikuni, it’s just like what you’ve heard. Head back to the main school and clean up the attackers”

“But Sakuya-sama. If an attack occurs here then-----“

It’s only natural for Mikuni to be concerned. It’s because it is a fact that there is a trespasser on the island.

“Judging by this situation, I can’t send Rito over there. She might end up destroying the facilities there. That’s why, I ordered you because you are an assassin type…………..or what, are you saying you will not listen to my orders?”

“…………..I would never do something such as that”

The gold girl then opened her mouth to Mikuni who was still concerned about her master.

“It’s okay; you don’t have to worry about it. I, the staff and also Tsukimi Rito are here. She is <<V>> right? Unless they sent over a powerful force, it will be impossible to bring us down”

“…………….Understood. I am counting on you; please take care of Sakuya-sama”

“Of course”

Leaning on the wall, Lilith winked one eye back to him.

Mikuni turned on his heels and headed out of the room.

Lilith did not see his back off and moved her sights to the window.

(I did say that, but there is just this bad feeling I am getting……….)

The presence that was squirming around in this these past few days was still here.

But something different from that, an indescribable something was causing anxiousness in her chest.

Both Sakuya and Lilith were thinking without opening their mouths.

The room was wrapped in silence but-----

Soon, the knock that echoed in the room broke the silence.

<noinclude>

==Translation Notes and References==

<references group="3F" />

{{SimpleNav}}
</noinclude>

Absolute Duo:Volume 3 Chapter 4

2021-03-29T23:53:07Z

SNovah: Changed a few things that *really* stuck out. Tried to leave as much of the original TL/editor work in place while making it less jarring for a native ENG reader

==Chapter 4 『I Wanted To Be Together Longer』==

===Part 1===

On the sea 180km southeast of Tokyo, on an island that's blocked from the public------

The second morning of the seaside school came to greet us.

“Fuwah, Ah…………”

“Fufu. You look tired, Kokonoe”

“That’s because yesterday was tiring”

I exited the tent without waking Julie up and Tachibana laughed when I headed to the meeting spot while yawning. Unlike me, it seems Tachibana was already completely awake and giving out her usual dignified atmosphere.

I left the hall lined up with the tents to avoid waking everyone else up and headed to the forest path reaching from the branch school to the harbor.

Maybe most of the animals living in the island were still sleeping, but I could occasionally hear the sound of birds chirping; basically it was very quiet. The air in this untouched island smells nice and after I took a good sniff of the clear air into my chest, the morning just like what I go through in the main school started.

“Okay then, let’s begin from the first like usual. Start!”

Tachibana urged me and I started the training like normal.

I made a stance first: it was a basic move where I only can move my back feet.

I then moved to the eighth style basic move and advanced forward while changing my step in leg’s axis just like what Tachibana taught me. This technique of sometimes turning around or half around coupled with the technique of turning in the opposite direction was the combination I used to throw Imari when I fought her on the first day.

The last was the middle line--------I started the Tachibana style Himonho technique which consists of me turning around Tachibana without showing most of my body's vital points.

I’ll be honest and say that this training is plain, but it's because I know how important the basics are that I concentrate and repeat it.
And I found something out because I was concentrating, and that’s--------

“Hey Tachibana. Now that I have a good look, your hair is really beautiful.”

“Buuu!? What are you saying all of a sudden!?”

“It’s not all of a sudden you know. I touched Julie and Lilith’s hair last night. Both of them had different hair types but, both of them were beautiful.”

“S-so how does that relate to my hair?”

Maybe she thought I was teasing her because Tachibana's tone was angry, while her cheeks were slightly blushing.

“Recently, you are the one I have been seeing the most compared to everyone else. And since there was that hair conversation last night, my eyes went there for some reason and I just thought it looked pretty.”

“More than everyone else!? Bu-but if that’s the case then you see Julie more than me right!?”

“Tachibana joins me in morning training everyday like this and I have to keep you in my sight the whole time when I am doing the Himonho, right? In terms of being together longer, it would probably be Julie. But, it feels as if Julie and I are shoulder-to-shoulder, so we just see the same things and……….most of the time we would be looking at the television.”

“I-I see, more than Julie too huh………..”

The conversation changed from hair to Julie before I knew it. Why is that………..

“Anyway, I just thought Tachibana’s hair was beautiful when I saw it. It’s not like I was making fun of you, I am really serious about it.”

“Eh, ah………Fu-fumu…….err, Tha-thank you…………”

While fiddling with her hair by twirling it around with her finger, Tachibana said her thanks.

I relaxed knowing that she understood that I was being serious, rather than teasing her.

“Ah, that’s right. Can I touch your hair since we're on this topic?”

“------!? Eh, uaa………….we-well, I don’t mind…………”

After receiving Tachibana’s permission, I tried touching her long black hair.

Her glossy hair was smooth and completely different from Julie or Lilith’s hair.

“Hou…….Houhou……..”

“Wha-what is with that reaction?”

It seems it was ticklish, and Tachibana who was shutting her eyes tightly, opened one of her eyes and asked me, doubt in her voice.

“Iyaaa---, I just thought it feels soft and nice. A girl’s hair really is soft huh? My hair is just plain hard. Want to try touching?”

“Fu-fumu. Then excuse me------“

After hesitating for a while, Tachibana timidly touched my hair.

“It’s hard right?”

“I-I don't think it’s hard enough to worry about……..”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Touch touch touch touch touch touch touch touch touch touch touch touch touch touch touch touch touch*

It's taking too long.

“………..Tachibana. That's ticklish... and how long do you plan on touching?”

“WaHyaa!? Yo-you did not say anything so, I forgot to stop.”

I got scolded.

It sounds it was my fault, but I can’t seem to agree with that………..

“Mo-more importantly, let’s start training again………..ah, iyah, stop for a moment. You can stop doing the Himonho.”

“Hn? Then what should I restart with? The things you taught me stop here.”

“Umu. That is why I am thinking of advancing to the next stage.”

“Is that okay? It's only been two months since I started learning you know.”

Even though I can smoothly perform the steps and body movements that I first learned, it was not at the level where I can put my chest up proudly and say I mastered it completely.

When I asked whether is it okay to go to the next stage with this hasty knowledge------

“It's okay. It’s true that grasping the basics is important, but the thing that really matters is to go past the surface techniques and grasp the true nature of it. In order for that to happen, the next step is to gain experience. If you don’t get it then you won’t be able to grasp its nature, right?”

Of course, Tachibana sums it up by telling me to continue practicing what I learned before when I have time, before making a smile.

“Okay let’s begin. First, please thrust your hand forward. Next make a circle with the hand you thrust forward-----“

Like this, she started teaching me a new move and I secretly made a relieved sigh since luckily, there was no close body contact this time.

Hard training continued for the rest of the second day of the seaside school.

Not only was there the battle training we usually go through in the main school, but we also had survival training and rock climbing using the islands terrain with traps set up.

With such tough training, we could not escape getting hurt if we didn’t concentrate, and since the contents of the training usually came with dangers we went through the every day without any chance to relax.

Fourth day-----

A different kind of training started today compared to the other days.

“Haaa…………..Haaa………!”

I was dripping in sweat while running deep inside the dark forest even though it was the in the afternoon.

The temperature today was the highest among these past few days and it was quite tough.

(Tsk, this is unexpectedly one thought out training…………!!)

The content for the afternoon training was-------a game of tag.

I doubted my ears and thought it was a joke when Tsukimi announced that but, now that the event started I realized the contents of the training was just as hard as the training until now. I could not continuously run fast since I have to maintain my concentration in this terrain filled with obstacles such as tree roots and rough trunks on the ground.

On top of that, I was made to carry a doll filled with sand for seven kilometers. Following that context, it seems the concept was to bring the VIP we secured and escape from the spot.

The ones running were the main school group; the catchers are mostly the branch school group. However, it feels like we were getting chased by hunting dogs because the branch school group has lived in this isolated island and has repeatedly done this training.

As long as this is a game of tag, we are bound by the rules of no attacking the catchers, so we had to hide and scatter about. The winning condition was to get to one of the goal points set at several spots along the mountain ridge.

But-----

“Found you, Tooru!”

The catcher was Imari and she appeared in front of me.

“Kuh, you got here before me huh?”

“That’s right. I got contacted that Tooru was heading here.”

She displayed the power of the wireless cellphone exclusive to the catchers’ magnificently.

“Seriously……………I am happy in the sense that you keep aiming for me to this extent”

“------uh!? Y-you’re wrong! It’s not like I purposely came chasing Tooru, it’s just that you were nearby me!!”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Wa**Wa* Imari swung her head and swings her ponytail.

“A-anyway! This is game over for you, Tooru!”

After saying that, Imari kicked the tree trunk.

She kicked off the ground, rocks, trunks and branches; it was the glamorous moves she showed on the first day.

Since it would be defeat the moment the catcher touches me, this attack pattern is the most annoying kind.

But-----

“Don’t think the same method will work every time, Imari!!”

I grabbed the tree vines and concentrated on the direction Imari was going to jump in.

An instant later-----

“Kyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!”

Imari’s scream echoed throughout the area.

“………Tooru you pervert. Tooru you lecher. Tooru you beast!”

After the game of tag ended and I was in the middle of heading back to the western-style building-----

Several abusive words came from Imari, who is glaring at me.

“Like I said, it wasn’t on purpose…………”

“Even though it was not on purpose, it is still a fact that you saw my panties!”

At that time, I made a ring with the vines and threw it at Imari's landing spot, while dodging her attack at the same time. The moment she landed, I pulled the vine and caught her, leaving her hanging upside down; the trap I learned yesterday was a success.

But, it was also a fact that I caused Imari to have an embarrassing experience.

“Si-since I was the only one who saw it, so it’s considered safe right? Also, I ran immediately after confirming the trap worked so I did not see much…………..”

“Who was the one that said [Hahaha, how naïve Imari. I have already seen through that attack from last time-----Towaaah!?] before running away with a red face?”

She poked my cheeks.

“Sorry………….”

“Fuuun? I wonder if I should add up the debts while you're reflecting on this…………….ah, now that I think about it carefully, you did touch my breast on the first day so that makes it three debts. Also, not only do you have a super cute <<Duo>> called Julie, you get to sleep with her in a small tent at night so that makes it four debts. Next, since you were so flirty with that beautiful blonde fiancée of yours, that brings the total debts to five!”

“Wait wait. I know it's my bad up to the third one but, the fourth and fifth ones have totally no relations to Imari’s debts at all.”

“You found out huh♪”

I made a sigh while making a bitter face at Imari who stuck her tongue out.

“Well, forget that for now, I might have said this on the first day but it seems I did not see it incorrectly. Your moves are completely different compared to the entrance ceremony three months ago. Just what kind of training did you go through until you could move like that?”

“Ahaha, thank you. I have been training really hard every day, ever since I came to the branch school. I would be made to climb steep cliffs with only my hands, or get thrown off of those cliffs………….fufu, the life at the main school sounds like fun……………”

Imari’s eyes looked like the eyes of a dead fish half-way through that sentence.

“Honestly, it was so tough that it made me want to run away, you know? But, I guess it’s okay since I got to surprise Tooru this much. Fufuu♪”

She turned around once before making a cheerful smile.

If she can make this expression, then she can probably clear any trials in the future.

---At that moment I thought that...

“Aaah, it would be nice if I could be together with Tooru-------uun, wi-with everyone in the main school forever.”

Imari showed a lonely face, just for a moment.

I understand her feelings really a lot.

We will separate again once this seaside school ends.

The main school group will return back to the Kouryou academy while Imari and the rest will remain on this island.

It’s not like we won’t ever meet again, but it still feels kind of lonely.

“…………..I think so too. I would really like to be with Imari more too.”

“-------uh!! Wh-why is it only limited to me!?”

“Hn? Imari is the only one in this spot right now.”

“…………….That’s right. Tooru has that kind of personality. Haa………….”

Imari made an exaggerated sigh for some reason.

When the sun set and the sky turned dark, it became time to start preparing our meal.

Ever since the second day, the students have been made to cook for themselves as part of the training. Of course, we were required to make our side-dishes on our own along with the main course.

It took some time since we were completely exhausted from the afternoon training, but it was quite fun cooking while everyone was being lively.

At the same time, I saw an unexpected ability that I had not known until now.

While peeling a potato, I send a look to the girl standing in front of the kitchen with an apron on.

Over there, *ton**ton**ton*………….Tachibana was moving the kitchen knife with a good rhythm.

However, Tachibana wasn’t the only one showing unexpected traits.

“Is this much enough, Miyabi?”

Like that, Tachibana called out to Miyabi who was doing other preparations.

“Errr…………I think it would be better if it was a little finer.”

“I see, understood.”

Tachibana's knife-hand started moving again.

Without a break, Julie called out to Miyabi this time.

“Miyabi. I finished cutting the eggplant. What should I do next?”

“Yes, errr, can you cut the carrots to bite-sized this time?”

“Ya---”

Julie threw the vegetable to the air and cut it into pieces in an instant like a scene from a manga.

On the other hand, Miyabi was still taking questions from all directions------

“Miyabi-chan. Is this much taste enough? It seems a little bland---”

“Hnn…….*Zu**zu*…………Let’s see. I guess we should add a teaspoon of salt since it is a little bland. If it still tastes bland after that, please put in half a teaspoon more.”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>I understand* Kibitsu said that before heading back to her post.

“That’s a face showing that you are surprised no matter how many times you see it.”

While peeling the potatoes along with me, Tora lifted his face and spoke.

“Aah. I feel bad for Miyabi, I feel she isn’t the type to be standing at the center of everything.”

“Fuun, I agree on that point.”

The event that resulted in Miyabi’s current position occurred yesterday.

At first, the center position for the preparation of meals belonged to Tachibana and Imari for the main school and the branch school respectively, but yesterday night, a particular group failed in their seasoning, causing a gloomy air to settle in. Since they were completely exhausted and the food they made—the big fun event after training, was a failure—it was only normal for the mood to sour.

Miyabi was the one that changed that atmosphere in one go.

“Ma-maybe we can change the taste a bit………..maybe……….”

After mumbling that, I pushed Miyabi’s back and brought her to the failure that resembled food.

Miyabi confirmed the taste of the failed food, then immediately started to add new flavorings to it.

She then fixed the smell with herbs and within a few minutes she changed the taste of inedible food to------well, it wasn't like it was wonderful, but it became something manageable.

Today’s situation was the result.

(I have no talent huh………….)

The girl who berated herself like that on the very day of enrollment.

However, that was not true. That’s because, no matter what Miyabi thinks about herself, she was currently being relied on by everyone.

When I looked at her working hard in the position she was being perplexed in, I naturally made a smile.

“…………..Tooru. Grinning while staring at a girl is a little disgusting you know.”

“----!? I-it’s not like I was grinning……….wait, Ouwahh!?”

Thanks to the lack of composure caused by Tora’s comment, I dropped the potato I was holding.

Even though I went to pick it up, I accidentally kicked it like a ball (as I was panicking) and the potato flew even further away.

“Wa-wait for me---!”

“What are you doing you idiot…………”

I chased after the potato while hearing a tired voice behind me.

I picked it up at a small dark path slightly far away from the hall----and I stopped moving the moment I raised my face.

That’s because a girl with her dark hair tied into two sides and in a gothic dress was standing there.

“Go-good evening, chairman.”

“……………you look like you’re having fun, Kokonoe Tooru”

“Yes, well……….”

“It is a good thing.”

The chairman made a small giggle.

“Tomorrow is the last day you will receive training on this island. Please be careful not to get injured.”

She then started walking with her assistant Mikuni-sensei, who was following her like a shadow.

“Ah………..”

I should be considerate and say my thanks, before lowering my head and returning to Tora.

However, I realized something when I heard the chairman's words.

“Is there anything wrong?”

“N-no, it's nothing much-------there’s no way huh…………errr. I misunderstood the chairman before. So I am very sorry”

I took a deep bow.

“Ahra, what kind of misunderstanding did you make?”

“Do you remember the conversation we had during the <<Qualification ceremony>>?”

The chairman nodded and I continued speaking.

“I thought the chairman was a heartless person at that time. I thought you were someone……..that is able to perform that cruel exam and play with someone's future calmly without any disturbance in your heart. But when I came to this island and found out that Imari-----the people that failed the exam were enrolled here, I found out I was wrong. I felt that when the chairman apologized to us at that time.”

The chairman swung her head and made a soft smile.

“Kokonoe Tooru. It is your right to comment on what kind of a human I am. However, I do accept being a heartless person. Fter all, I think it is only normal to eliminate you all through the trials that I will be preparing from now on.”

That was something normal for the leader of the academy meant to nurture capable people wanted by the Dawn organization.

I can’t think she's truly heartless because of that fact.

It was our wish to be in Kouryou, so it was very natural to expel people who are unable to bring results there.

“Chairman. To chairman, I-----”

“Oh my, Tooru. Are you going to confess your love here? That’s what you should be doing to me, right? I think this is impossible, but does Tooru have a loli fetish?”

Lilith was the one that interrupted my words.

I thought her glowing {{Furigana|blonde hair|Yellow Topaz}} from the light coming the hall reaching this small path was beautiful for an instant but, now wasn’t the time for that.

“Don’t make any weird misunderstandings. I am just------”

“The person herself says that she is heartless, so isn't that enough? It’s only normal for peoples' opinions to differ.”

“That is completely correct, Lilith=Bristol…………..that is the case, Kokonoe Tooru. Do you get it now?”

I think that’s true.

I did think that, but I had a strong urge to tell the chairman that it was the case for her and was about to open my mouth------

“You should stop now. This girl may talk like that, but she is actually a shy person. Seriously, she isn’t honest at all.”

Lilith whispered into my ears.

It was however not a soft voice because it was quiet here so, it reached the chairman's ears too.

“…………..Mikuni, let’s go.”

Unable to hide her dissatisfaction, the chairman frowned a little before walking away.

“Have a good day, Kokonoe Tooru. I will be expecting much from you, from now on.”

The chairman left those words for last and left for the western building with Mikuni-sensei.

I was left alone with Lilith there, and-------

“*Giggle*. The part of her running away is because she is unable to retort; that bulls-eye still makes her a child.”

“…………….hey. No matter if you are the <<Exception>>, I think it’s bad to anger the chairman.”

“Oh, isn’t that cute?”

Lilith did not show any signs of reflection at my tired reply.

“Leaving that aside, I'm quite shocked to find out that Tooru has a loli fetish.”

“You know it’s all wrong after hearing the whole situation, so which mouth is it that's saying you're shocked?”

“Of course, with this mouth.”

Lilith linked her arm with mine before looking at me and touching her red lips with her finger.

I thought back to the moment those light red glossy lips kissed my cheek and *doki**doki* my heart started pumping hard-----, but I quickly unlinked our arms before she could notice.

“O-okay then, I have to get back to Tora or else I will get scolded.”

“Hnn mouu. Oh Tooru! Wait for me!!”

When I got back to Tora with that blaming voice coming behind me, it seems he saw me as I was running away from her and again [What are you doing, you idiot………] a warm greeting was waiting for me.

Since it had been established that today was the hottest day of this summer, it was hard to sleep at night.

Nonetheless most of the students had fallen asleep before the date changed, because we were exhausted from the training; I was one of those students, but……….

“………….you have me, and you still sleep with this girl in this small place every day, oh Tooru-----Hn moouu”

I felt my name get called and my consciousness got a little clearer.

“Well then. I have to prepare to sleep.”

(What………is this……..? Julie’s sleep talking………? Well, forget it……)

Even though I could hear the rustling sound, it did not defeat my sleepiness and my consciousness started to sink again.

“Hn, it’s a little embarrassing like this. But I can’t sleep if I don’t do this………….I know, if I do this then………………un, problem solved. Good night, Tooru………….*Chuu*”

In the brink of my consciousness getting cut, I could feel something touching my cheeks.

Who knows how long had passed since then------

“Hnn……it’s hot……….”

I could hear Julie’s mumbling in the dark.

The rustling sound that I could hear next was probably because she took off the bed cover of her sleeping bag.

Although I could feel Julie squirming around, it turned quiet not long after and I once again lost my body to the sleepiness.

'''''I knew it was still dark outside''''' even though my eyelids were closed, and I could hear the sound of birds chirping.

Mixed in with those chirpings------

“Tooru……….”

My name was suddenly whispered into my ears.

“Tooru, I love you………”

I completely woke up when I heard those sweet whispers next.

(Wha……!? Ju-Julie!?)

It wasn’t only those sweet words. Julie was holding my arm tightly as if to show her behavior.

Her soft and those '''''voluptuous''''' bulges were pushed onto me.

(Uwah, wait, eh, soft, wait, if she clings onto me, her breast will………….Ah-re?)

Big.

What did you ask? It’s obviously the soft object touching my elbow.

“Hnn……….it’s tea time Tooru………”

“-----!?”

The moment I realized it wasn’t Julie’s voice, I raised my upper body.

“Ah, ah-re?”

I turned around and tried to confirm the owner of that voice but, another problem was added into the confusion.

My vision is dark. The dark I was experiencing was pure darkness and rather, I can’t open my eyes in the first place.

(What is this? A blindfold…….?)

After I touched my face in panic, there was a cloth tied around my head to hide my sight.

While having a huge amount of question marks popping in my head, I took off the blindfold to find out that it was quite bright outside.

(Just what is this?...............wait, more importantly, whose voice was------“

I became speechless when I turned around.

No matter how many times I see this situation, I would still remain speechless regardless.

That’s because there are 2 beautiful girls sleeping in this tent.

What’s more they are completely naked.

“uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh!?”

I was exactly by definition speechless when I saw both, the silver and gold beauties not wearing anything at all.

I get it for the silver blonde girl----Julie.

She probably took off her clothes because last night was especially humid.

But I have no idea why the {{Furigana|blonde hair|Yellow Topaz}} girl------Lilith is here.

I could guess that she sneaked in but, I can’t guess why she was naked.

“Nuu………….Tooru……….Good morning………..”

Maybe she noticed me waking up; Lilith scratched her eyes while raising her body.

When she did that, *tayun**puru**puru*…………..her 2 bulges made a big jiggle and it was probably the nature of a sad man to automatically look at it.

(No no no no no no, don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t, must not look------!!)

Even though I covered my eyes with my hands in panic, that overwhelming fleshy appearance has vividly been burned into the back of my eyelids.

It was the revival of the goddess of love and beauty that was told in the legends-----

I received an attack that could make me hallucinate like that forever from the gold girl.

“Lea-Lea-Lilith!! Why are you naked!?”

I’ll leave out the fact that she sneaked in.

“What do mean by why………….I can’t sleep unless I take off my clothes……….”

She probably hasn’t slept enough. She answered my question while dozing off.

“Ah…………..you can’t, Tooru…….you must not take your blindfold off………….it will be embarrassing………”

Then put some clothes on and sleep, was what I thought but, that might be something she won’t give up doing.

“I get it. I get it already so put on some clothes……..!!”

“Mou, I have no choice……….”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Bafuu*. After nodding, Lilith once again lay on the bed and started sleeping again.

(Just who is the one having no choice………..)

Julie slowly woke up this time just when I was completely tired from waking up.

“Good morning, Tooru……….”

“Aah, Good morning, Juli------“

(Wait, I must not look there too------!!)

Different from Lilith’s certain fleshy part; hers were not jiggling at alllllll.

However, her {{Furigana|Silver hair|Silver Blonde}}, {{Furigana|white skin|Snow white}} and that magical fairy-like appearance told in fairy-tales has been burned into my eyes.

“Tooru………..?”

Julie was completely oblivious to my confusing troubles------it was probably on the level where it would not be over exaggerated if I called it a war and was making a dazed expression while tilting her small head.

“La-last night was hot. I understand that. But it's morning now. That’s why put your clothes on!!”

“Ya---……………”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Bofuu*. While nodding, Julie lies back on the mat again before starting to sleep comfortably.

(No seriously, why are you going back to sleep………)

I made a sigh deeper than the sea to the 2 beauties sleeping comfortably.

At that moment-----

“Kokonoe, are you awake?”

“uuuuuuh!?”

My heart skipped a beat when my name was called from outside the tent.

I did not need to confirm who it was----it was Tachibana. My morning training is still being continued in this seaside too, and she would come to wake me up if I was late at the promised time.

“Are you still sleeping?”

“I am awake! I am awake so!! I will go out soon so wait there!!”

When I called outside with a voice soft enough to avoid waking Julie and Lilith, and [I understand] was replied back.

(Tha-that was dangerous……)

I placed my hands on my chest which was beating really hard while recalling Tachibana shaking my shoulders when she came into the tent yesterday morning to wake me up from oversleeping.

If I was still sleeping just now, and she came inside-------

(I don’t want to think about itttt…………!!)

I felt a chill at my back.

“Julie, Lilith. Put on your clothes when you wake up”

[Ya--……….][I get it, mouu……..]

I used the sleeping bag and placed it on top of them as a replacement for the bed cover before heading out while carefully preventing Tachibana from knowing the inside situation.

“Good morning, Kokonoe. It’s a refreshing morning today”

“That’s true………it really is comfortable morning……..”

“…………….your expression doesn’t match your words at all though”

“Don’t mind it………….”

Around the time for breakfast preparations, we wrapped up the training and I headed back to the hall with Tachibana.

Mid-way-------my stomach growled and it was mixed with the birds chirping which could be heard from the forest.

“Fufuu, your body is far from being full”

“If you understand that, then let me eat more meat-------“

“No”

She answered immediately with a smile.

When I dropped my shoulders in disappointment, my stomach made a big growl again as if to conspire with my actions.

Since my stomach started *Guu**guu* growling as if to show my dissatisfaction, I made a bitter smile and-----

“Puu…………hahaha. Kokonoe, your timing is just too good; it should have a limit, Fufu,hahahaha”

Tachibana might have reached her own limit because she grabbed her stomach while placing her hand on her mouth while laughing hard.

“It’s not that funny. Also, look in front when you walk or you’ll hit a branch”

The place we are walking right now was a promenade used as a shortcut from the woods to the hall.

It's just like an animal trail and since there were branches extending to our face level everywhere, we could meet a painful experience if we didn’t look in front properly.

“I won’t do something that dumb-----Puwahh!?”

There is a dumb girl who received a painful experience in front of me.

Not only did Tachibana hit the branch, she panicked because a spider nest got stuck onto her.

“Hyaaaaaa, Koko-Kokonoe. Tak-take it off, please………..!”

“I get it. I’ll take it off immediately so stay still”

I nodded and made a small wry smile at Tachibana who was begging for help while moving restlessly to get rid of the spider nest on her face.

“So-sorry………err……the '''''main thing''''' is not on me right?”

“Main thing? Aah, the spider huh, nope it’s not on you”

Tachibana let out a relieved breath when she heard my reply.

“You bad with it?”

“……………we-well, it’s embarrassing but, yeah”

“It’s not embarrassing you know? Everyone has something they're bad with”

(…………….like Tachibana during meals)

Not knowing anything about the sentence I swallowed before it came out, Tachibana became bashful.

“I-It’ll be a big help if you say that------but, please keep it a secret from the others okay? .............well, Miyabi found out on the first day itself though”

“I get it………..okay, everything is off-----ah”

“Ah?”

Just when I stopped my words mid-way, Tachibana opened her eyes wide.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Kasa*……….

Tachibana noticed '''''that''''' riding on her shoulders and her face turned into a stiff expression.

“Hiiiiyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!?”

“O-oi Tachibana!? Where are you going------Oi, wait! I’ll take it off for you!!”

Tachibana shouted and started running, before I chased after her in panic.

“Fyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa don’t comeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!”

It might be something said to the spider but, it's rather confusing for the one chasing her.

“------!! Dangerous!”

The moment Tachibana was about to slam into a tree, I caught her hand and pulled it strongly.

--But, It was too strong and *Bofuu* Tachibana’s face was buried into my chest.

“Puwah!?”

“Sorry. Are you okay?”

“A-aah, sorry……………Spi-spider!!”

Although she regained her composure for an instant from the impact when she buried her face in my chest, she was almost close to panic again.

“Wait, calm down!”

Tachibana hugged me tightly and I grabbed the spider and tossed it away.

“I took it off already so calm down”

“Re-really…………?”

With her usual dignified atmosphere gone somewhere, Tachibana looked up at me with tears in her eyes.

While nodding, I pointed at the spider walking on the grass and Tachibana took a big sigh.

“Uuu………I showed you something pathetic………”

“It’s okay. Just like what I said just now, everyone has something they are bad with. Also, thank god you weren’t hurt”

“Kokonoe……………*giggle*, that’s true. I have to thank you for that”

When I smiled at her while saying there was no need to be embarrassed, Tachibana softened her expression.

My heart pounded a little the moment I saw that soft smile which was different from the usual.

(Uh, your face is too close………..)

Since the situation occurred just a few moments ago, it seems Tachibana had not realized that she was being hugged. If she realized this, there would be no mistake she would call me shameless or perverted.

When I was about to let go before that happened; this happened when I was about to separate our bodies-----

“Ah…………”

An intruding rustling sound appeared together with a soft voice of a 3rd person.

The person standing in front us when we moved our sights there was-----Miyabi.

“I-is that so. A spider huh…………you were both hugging each other, so I was close to making a misunderstanding in shock, ahaha…………..”

After explaining to Miyabi why we were hugging each other, she quickly believed our story because it seems she knew Tachibana was bad with spiders.

“I’m ashamed………”

Tachibana who said that had her cheeks blushing a little.

“………..That’s nice”

“What is?”

“Fuee!? Errrrr, well, a spider got onto my shoulders too just now so, errr, neh”

Meaning, she had run with full strength just like Tachibana and it dropped off somewhere before she knew it.

She probably thought I would take it off for her if I was nearby.

“However, it seriously is a life saver you believed it immediately”

I nodded beside Tachibana when she made a relieved sigh.

“Seriously. If it was the other way around, you would be shouting shamelessly before running away”

[The other way around………?][What do you mean?]

Both of them asked me back together.

It seems the sentence was not complete and the meaning was not clear to them.

“I was referring to the assumption that if I was hugging Miyabi, and we were seen by Tachibana instead”

“”------------!!””

“I-I-I, so-so-something like that, errrr, spider, where is the spider………….!?”

“Kokonoe! Wh-what kind of perverted things were you thinking about……!!”

“………….it’s just an assumption”

I made a sigh to the both of them who were panicking even though I said it was an assumption beforehand.

“Oh yeah, why are you here this early in the morning Miyabi?”

“I was coming back from my morning run”

“I see. You are still continuing that even though it’s the seaside school”

“U-un………..That’s because I would be late by one lap from Tooru-kun if I don’t work hard”

“Haha, you can’t be careless at all”

“Ahahaha……………….”

“-------?”

Tachibana made a curious face at our conversation. Her reaction was probably normal since she didn’t know I told Miyabi that I wouldn’t be running with her in the mornings for a while.

“B-by the way, does Tooru-kun have any plans for tomorrow since it’s a rest day?”

Miyabi changed the conversation; she might have felt sorry for Tachibana who was unable to join in the conversation.

There is no training tomorrow, the 6th day, and it was a day given to us to move around freely.

Nonetheless, I have nothing special planned so I told her I was thinking of just resting.

“If that’s the case then why not come with us? I invited Imari and the rest last night but, I think it’s more fun if there are more people if we are going to play anyway”

“Aah, okay. But where are we going?”

There were no game facilities on this island and the only places here were the branch school and the harbor.

Just where are we going to go in an environment like that.

“What are you saying………..it’s summer now. What’s more the sea is surrounding the island. Meaning, it’s obvious that we would be playing at the sea”

“………….now that I think about, the sea is a good place to play”

We were made to swim with our clothes on the first day, run on top of logs floating in the sea, and were made to have a <<Blaze practice>> with our lower bodies submerged, so the sea had completely turned into a tough training spot for me.

“Well anyways, I understand. Is it okay if I invite Tora and the others?”

“Aah, I don’t mind”

Like this, we passed through the promenade right when I filled in tomorrow’s schedule.

When we got back to the hall, there were some students awake who were already cleaning up their tents.

“Alright, I have to go around waking the people who are still sleeping”

It was a very Tachibana-like announcement. As expected from the chairman-----which I am secretly calling her-----she still goes around waking everyone up, not only in the dorm but during the seaside school too.

“I have to wake Julie up too”

Julie’s and my tent was still up nearby and the {{Furigana|Silver hair|Silver Blonde}} girl could not be seen in the hall. She was probably still sleeping since she didn't sleep much last night.

“Kokonoe. Even though you live with her normally, I think it’s a problem looking at a girl’s sleeping face. I’ll wake her up instead”

“I get it. Then please”

Honestly, I have something against that but, I’ll follow Tachibana’s will.

“I’ll go clean up the tent”

“I see. I’ll leave that to you, Miyabi”

Leaving those words, Miyabi went back to her tent and we went back to my tent.

“But even so, it’s quite rare for Julie to oversleep”

“It was a hot night last night. She couldn't sleep until it became late because it was that hot”

“I see. I am a little reluctant to do so but, it’s time already”

Replying back with an '''''I have no choice''''', she stopped in front of the tent.

(Ah-re? Am I forgetting something………………………………………..)

“------uuuh!! Tac-Tachibana waittttttt!!”

My shout was useless and Tachibana opened the tent entrance.

What could be seen across Tachibana’s shoulder were the color silver, gold and also-----skin color.

“Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!?”

Tachibana froze.

[[File:Absolute Duo Volume 3 Non-Colour 4.jpg|thumb]]

“……………………………………………………………………”

She kept quiet.

[Nuu……..is it morning already, Tooru……..?][Fuwah, ah…………what is it, you sure are noisy…….]

Both of them woke up when the morning sun shined inside and they looked at us with tired eyes.

Tachibana regained her consciousness and----shouted.

“Koko-Kokonoe you, Pe-per-Perverrrrrrrrrrrrrrttttttttttt--------------!!”

===Part 2===

The 5th day of the training had ended.

The training camp with the alias of a seaside school ended today.

It was a completely free day on the 6th day (which is tomorrow) and even though they were still unable to leave the island, the students had been pardoned to do whatever they wanted there.

Heading back to the academy would probably be enough to allow them time to relax, but the reason for giving them a rest day on the island had the same simple meaning as giving candy to a child. Especially for the main school, there were quite a lot of students who had gotten excited when they heard that they were headed to a seaside school located on a southern island.

During the night before the final day everyone was excited for-----

There were several girls gathered in the cafeteria.

Julie, Tomoe, Miyabi, Kibitsu and one more person were from the main school.

Imari and three other girls were from the branch school.

There were a total of 9 girls there snacking on candies while talking.

They were the group that had gotten the closest in those 5 days of training.

The conversation started with what they should do tomorrow, but then it changed to a very ordinary topic.

It was getting late into the night and------

“Neh neh, what do you think about the boys in the main school?”

The moment the branch school girl------the <<Kunai>> user Miwa said that, the students from the main school got excited.

---that’s what she thought but, only one person responded from there.

The people that did not respond-----Julie, Tomoe, and Kibitsu made an expression as if they had no idea what she meant. Miyabi twitched her shoulders for only an instant, but luckily there was no one that noticed that.

“What do you mean by that?”

“It’s about, is there a boy you are thinking about, Tomoe”

The other main school girl guidedthe discussion here and Tomoe nodded as if she understood.

“……………Fumu. If you say it’s just thinking about, then it’s going to be Tora or Kokonoe I guess”

6 girls excluding Julie and Kibitsu reacted to Tomoe’s words.

“Both of them are strong. To me------mu? What’s wrong, everyone?”

6 girls excluding Julie and Kibitsu reacted to Tomoe’s words again------rather, they collapsed.

“Ahaha……….It’s that so-called girl talk and the standards for it are love talks………..”

Tomoe turned red when she realized it was a misunderstanding after hearing Imari’s explanation of the topic while making a wry smile.

“Sorry, I just thought………”

After some of them laughed at Tomoe’s reaction, one girl from the branch school opened her mouth next.

[There are a lot of cool guys in the main school right? Like Izumi-kun. Judging by the failures we have in the branch school, it’s an envious thing] [It’s better to be careful around him since he likes girls]

[Ah, I think I’ll pick Tora-kun. He is small and cute] [But isn’t he kind of scary?] [I will definitely pick Tatsu-kun! Guys with muscles are awesome] [[[No way]]]

When anyone of them brought out a boys' name then, someone would *kya**kya* react back nosily.

“Let’s see…………I guess for me----it would be Tooru”

“----!!”

Several people reacted when Imari said Tooru’s name.

[Like I thought. I kept thinking you were suspicious somehow. But I kind of understand, Kokonoe-kun is quite handsome] [Agree] [He lacks muscles though] [Ignore]

“You’re wrong. It’s not because of his face but rather, I could get along with him. It’s easy to talk with him, and I mean very easy"

Miyabi got worried when she saw Imari smiling while talking.

She listens to the conversation quietly while her heartbeat was increasing.

“Well, us branch school students have no idea when we would meet the main school students again once the seaside school ends, so I will avoid having a serious relationship. More importantly, I have something I have to do no matter what”

“Ah, that’s so cruel. Imari has something more important than me………..”

“Ahaha, don’t worry, I love you the most in this world♪”

Miyabi relaxed seeing Imari replying back to Miwa who was being playful.

Having the appearance that could make her eyes open wide even though she is the same gender, the beauties Julie and Lilith are normally around Tooru. What’s more, Tomoe who was a beauty with an adult atmosphere around her has been closing in the gap using the morning training recently.

Miyabi thought she had no way to oppose if Imari, on top of having an appearance with nothing to criticize, and who has a cheerful and refreshing personality joins into that group.

That is why it was normal for her to relax.

Having completely no faith in herself, Miyabi didn't know she was quite popular with the guys. [The number 1 girl I want to protect ] [The breast of the girl I want to bury my face in Number 1], she has 2 magnificent titles.

“Speaking about Kokonoe-kun. Miyabi-chan likes him too, right?”

“uuuh!?”

Kibitsu was the one that made a devastating comment with a dazed tone.

Naturally, Miyabi became the center of attention.

“Mo-Mo-Momo-chan!? I-I-I-----“

“That’s because, you often talk about Kokonoe-kun. And you’re really close with him right”

Kibitsu had no ill intentions. It was probably because of her absentminded personality that she said the things she was thinking about. There were times good things happened because of that but; the words she said right now did not make Miyabi happy at all.

“He is a f-friend. I-I-it’s true I think he is easier to talk with compared to the others though……….!”

“Is that so?”

“Un, un……….!”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Puun**puun* Miyabi made big nods but-----

“……….Iyah, everyone noticed that already Hotaka. Rather, your attitude is so obvious”

Everyone’s sights moved back to Miyabi immediately when the main school girl mumbled that.

“Fuuee……….!?”

“I-is that so, Miyabi……?”

The person closest to Miyabi at this spot but who at the same time was completely oblivious to Miyabi’s feelings to Tooru------Tomoe asked back with a shocked expression.

“Ah………..ah, uu………..err……… …………….”

At last Miyabi's face turned red, before hanging her head down silently.

That reaction was the same as confessing the truth and even Tomoe figured that out.

“I see, Miyabi likes Kokonoe……”

“Ahaha. I guess I was right”

“U,uu…….errr, Momo-chan. Please keep it a secret from Tooru-kun…….”

“Uun, of course”

“Kokonoe’s <<Duo>> and roommate must not be forgotten in this. Was there anything you wanted to say when you heard that, Julie?”

Everyone’s sights focused on Julie when the main school girl said that.

Julie who became the center of attention-----

“………..*suu*………*suu*……..”

She was sleeping.

Almost everyone there was close to falling off their chairs when they saw her dozing off.

“Ahaha…….it’s about time to go to bed”

Imari made a wry smile. After she continued the sentence by telling everyone to head back to their tents since there was still tomorrow, several of them made unsatisfied and reluctant faces but still nodded.

Tomoe headed out of the cafeteria while pulling Julie who was still in a mid-dreamland state.

After that, Kibitsu, Miwa and the others headed out. Miyabi and Imari were walking behind all of them.

“I somehow felt that was that case, but it’s just like what I guess after all”

“U-unn………..”

“Fufu. I understand those feelings very much. If I managed to go to the main school, I would most likely………..uun, I would probably fall for him"

Miyabi had a startled face when Imari declared that.

“I said this just now too but, I could get along with him and he is easy to talk with, I also think his personality is good……………and, I think this may be unrelated but, it’s true that he is quite cool”

“E-err………….”

“It’s okay; you don’t have to look that uneasy. This was also something I said just now, but I have something I need to do no matter what, compared to love”

Imari felt her chest hurting a bit after finishing her sentence and told herself it can’t be helped and to come to terms with it.

There might be a day when she might regret this choice.

However, Imari decided to end her feelings for Tooru secretly since she had no time to be all lovey-dovey in order to fulfill her wish.

“E-err……Is it okay if I ask what Imari has to do……..?”

“Ahh………Hnnn……….well, I don’t mind I guess. In exchange, please keep it a secret from Tooru okay?”

While wondering why Tooru’s name came up, Miyabi nodded.

“I need money. A lot of it, neh”

Miyabi got shocked at those vulgar words which could not be topped any more.

Although she was shocked, she waited for the next sentence. Even though she had known her for only few days, she thought there should be a reason why someone like Imari would say something like that.

“My family works in a small factory but, how should I say this, managing it is a little tough. We are often told that it’s better to close it, but my father and the workers there are working hard because they don’t want to close the company that my deceased grand-father worked so hard to build up. My sisters and I love our grandfather very much, so we agreed to say no to shutting the company down and often think about ways to help them somehow”

“Ah…… so you became an <<Exceed>> for that……?”

“Bingo♪ Originally I thought of finding a job once I graduated middle school. My parents rejected that but I wanted to do something------and suddenly on a certain day, a member of the Dawn organization came over and told me about the Kouryou academy”

Because of those circumstances, Imari decided to go to Kouryou academy.

If she joined the dawn organization after graduating, it would probably be possible to gain an income large enough to reorganize her family factory. Also, after some negotiation with the academy side, most of the money provided monthly from the academy will be sent back to her house.

“So that’s why………. Now I understand why you told me not to tell Tooru-kun……….”

“Looking at Tooru’s personality, he would probably be very worried about it even though he knows it won’t be a problem since I am in the branch school. So, please keep this a secret between us”

Imari placed her index finger on her lips and smiled.

Miyabi followed her and smiled too.

She smiled while harboring respect for the girl the same age as her with strong beliefs in her heart.

“So with that said, becoming stronger is more important to me than love, which makes me a sad muscle-brain woman………..that’s why Miyabi, there are other people you should be more worried about than me”

Even though 3 faces popped up in Miyabi’s mind, Imari was actually referring to Lilith. That’s because she has seen her show her affections to Tooru several times already regardless of the public gazes.

Tomoe can be said to have a good relationship with Tooru but she looks like a friend and although Imari was shocked about Julie having a <<Duo>> relationship with him at first, she could somehow understand their actual relationship in just a few days.

They believe each other and although their distance was close, her feelings are no different than those of a family’s.

That’s all; leaving Tomoe out, Imari’s judgment at this point could be said to be generally correct.

--Of course, she doesn’t know what kind of changes would happen in the future.

“Well, Tooru is probably the strongest enemy. How should I put it, he is kind of dense or off-topic………….”

After seeing Imari sigh, Miyabi made a wry smile when she thought of several events that came to mind.

“Good luck, Miyabi. He won’t notice if you don’t step in more”

Miyabi nodded, when Imari winked one eye.

“I-I will work harder………….errr, Imari-chan…..Thank you”

“You’re welcome. Miyabi, Fight♪”

“U-un……..!”

Half an hour had passed since the girls headed back to their respective tents after the love talk.

Most of the students had turned off their lights and started sleeping.

Tomoe and Miyabi’s tent was wrapped in darkness too but------

“……..Miyabi. Are you still awake?”

“………….Uun, I am”

“No err……….i-it’s about the conversation just now. Err………..it’s about Mi-miyabi liking Kokonoe……..”

“U-un….it’s real I guess…….”

Miyabi’s nod could be felt in the darkness.

“I see……….”

Tomoe admits that she is not sensitive to love related feelings.

Even so she could only be shocked when she found out that her friend, who she has been eating and sleeping with for 3 months, was having affections for the closest guy-friend she had.

However, now that she has calmed down somewhat since some time has passed since she found out, Tomoe thought of confirming it again.

“Work hard, Miyabi. I’ll cheer for you”

“Eh…………? Ah…………U-un…….I’ll do so, but………”

After hearing Tomoe’s words, Miyabi made a crisp answer-----

“Is it really okay……?”

She asked on the verge of puzzlement.

“About what?”

“U-uun, nothing at all. Ahaha………”

Repling back with a curious tone, Miyabi swung her head despite the darkness.

“------? Well forget it. Anyways, you can call me if there is something you need help with. Although, it has to be within my limits okay”

“Unn………thank you, Tomoe-chan”

“Umu……….however, don’t expect good strategies from me okay? It seems I am also slow regarding love”

Miyabi giggled at Tomoe’s self-evaluation. Tomoe also laughed with her.

Not long later, both of them ended their talk after saying good night until tomorrow.

In the darkness, Miyabi vividly recalled the conversation she had just now.

(Was it just my misunderstanding……..?)

By Miyabi’s judgment, she thought Tomoe should have a considerable amount of affection for Tooru.

But judging by Tomoe’s tone, she could not perceive any of those feelings on her end.

That made Miyabi feel relieved.

That was because she clearly understood the charms the girl Tachibana Tomoe had since she was close to her.

(I shouldn't be relieved yet. There is still Lilith-san and Julie-chan…….I have to step in more, just as Imari-chan said……..Fight on, me……..!)

Miyabi clenched her fist tightly and vowed to work a little harder from tomorrow onward.

Although her eyes were closed, Tomoe’s back was facing Miyabi and was still unable to fall asleep.

(…………..Miyabi likes Kokonoe huh. Why didn’t I notice that before………..)

She could agree in a lot of ways once she recalled some events.

Tooru’s name often comes from Miyabi’s mouth, and she has few memories of her talking with other guys compared to Tooru. Although she did somewhat exchange some words to Tora and Tatsu, Tooru would definitely be around the area when that happens.

(Kokonoe and Miyabi huh……….)

Quiet and shy. Tomoe wished for the love of the hard working girl to come true.

Cheerful and kind, although the boy was a little dense, he would often think about his comrades; she wished that their love would become mutual.
Until Tooru’s face appeared in her mind.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Tokun*…….

(-----what is this?)

Her heartbeat became a little faster.

She also felt her breathing getting rougher.

Tomoe reached a conclusion after thinking about her body condition.

(I might be worried about Miyabi more than I thought………)

But, thinking about such a thing was worthless now.

After Tomoe gave up thinking about it and decided to go to sleep, she released her body to the drowsiness that was gradually getting stronger.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Tokun**Tokun**Tokun*…….

Tomoe did not notice the reason for her fast heartbeat.

<noinclude>

==Translation Notes and References==

{{SimpleNav}}
</noinclude>

Absolute Duo:Volume 3 Chapter 3

2021-03-29T22:49:57Z

SNovah: /* Part 2 */

==Chapter 3 『I Like You Too』==

===Part 1===

The black cloth demon kicked the ground just as I was recovering from the discomposure I got from seeing the <<Blaze>>.

“Kuh………..!!”

It did not give me any time, and the 10 meter gap between us got closed------

The black cloth swung down it’s <<Blaze>>.

My tank top got sliced even though I jumped away.

The black cloth did not stop there and stepped in even more.

“Kuh!------<<Blaze>>!!”

I blocked the non-stop 2nd and 3rd attacks with my manifested <<Shield>>.

It was a heavy and fast attack.

The power and swiftness was same as me----during the time I was a level <<II>>.

It would be a tough opponent if it was me before the Sublimation to <<III>>, but my physical abilities had become really high just because I climbed one <<Level>>. It was so high that it was practically impossible to lose to an opponent who was at that same level as before. It also made me think, constant hard work was meaningless.

However, I was on the defensive now.

I was forced to be on the defensive because of the turmoil in my heart.

(Why does this fellow have a <<Blaze>>……!)

The weapon I blocked was a curved one-sided blade----it is most likely a <<Sword>>.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Gyaariri*…………!! The enemy pushed me. When I pushed back to prevent being pushed over, the black cloth easily jumped back without making any firm contact with the ground.

I asked when we faced each other again after it assumed a 5 meter distance.

“Who are you?”

“……………..”

There was no reply. However, it’s not like I had no idea who it was.

The enemy was unmistakably an <<Exceed>> since it has a <<Blaze>>.

If that is the case then the black cloth is probably Tsukimi’s old comrade or something close to that.

The thought that a betrayer who had been hired by an organization or country that did not like the existence of the <<Exceed>> had infiltrated the staff popped up in my mind.

Different from that, there is one more point I was concerned about.

(This <<Blaze>>. Where have I-----)

“-------!!”

The black cloth kicked the ground as if to interrupt my thoughts. It then closed the gap without caring about the complex landscape in this dark forest.

Different from just now, it lowered its body posture and attempted to make a tackle this time. The moment I reached its <<Sword>> range, the blade came attacking to my lower leg from the left.

The black cloth took one more step and slashed back the same time I took a small jump back. It was a 2 stage attack meant to make me jump mid-air-----but, I had predicted that much already.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Gainnnn*!! I twisted my body while blocking the blade as if I was hitting my <<Shield>> at it.

It seems the impact was unexpected to the black cloth and it stumbled a little before it was my turn to attack.

I did not deal any damage even though my hook scratched the enemy. But, the fist has a greater advantage than the sword now that I had entered the chest area.

Even though it blocked two of my punches with the grip when I punched in rapid succession, the 3rd hit landed on its shoulder and it staggered from it.

“Now!! ------Kuh!?”

I stopped my movements when it kicked me as I was about to make a follow up.

Although the black cloth was staggering, it entered the tree shadows and hid itself.

(Damn it, there goes my chance!!)

The moment I thought it hid behind the tree shadows, I could hear the ground getting kicked and----

The black cloth’s presence disappeared into the darkness.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Zaa*…………!! Some of the trees in my surroundings moved unnaturally and made rustling sounds.

“--------!!”

I could sense its presence behind me suddenly. When I looked back, the black cloth swinging its <<Sword>> down was there.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Jigiin*!! I immediately prepared my <<Shield>> and blocked it. More specifically, my <<Shield>> entered the blade’s path by luck.

(Kuh…….so this is your real battle style huh!!)

The speed and strength did not change. The movement was the thing that changed.

The bewitching jump kicks performed on the tree trunks, branches and of course the ground looked like what Tsukimi used when I fought her last time.

That time it was a 4 cornered classroom, but it was different now. The trees lined up unnaturally were of course not acting as a single body and had become a screen covering my view. The moment I thought it moved left, it kicked the branches and headed upward before kicking the branches again and heading immediately downward. It then jumped to the right and hid behind the trunks, causing me to lose sight of it------before suddenly jumping out from the thicket behind me.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Giin*!! I somehow managed to block it and was about to counter attack immediately but the enemy had already disappeared from that spot.

It jumped back while the blade was swung down, then leaped its body back into the darkness again.

(It's completely going with a hit and run pattern. What an annoying opponent!!)

What’s more it was completely avoiding entering my fist range.

That hit and run fight style was enough to fill in the gap between our physical abilities.

(But, I don’t have the time to play with you……….!!)

I have to go to those 2 girls.

I fixed my rough breathing while clearing out my ears to concentrate on reading the enemy’s presence.

(Alright, come…..!)

Where will the black cloth come from? Right, left, from behind again, or maybe-------

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Zaaaaa*……….!! The sound was close. It was not from the right, left or behind.

“Above!!”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Baki**baki* the sounds of thin branches was produced and the black cloth attacked from above.

The daijoudan<ref group ="3d">Kendo posture-holding the sword above the head</ref> slash with the weight of falling down added into it, probably has very high power in it.

My body would probably get blown away even if I blocked it with my <<Shield>>.

That was why-----I dodged the blade’s path.

I dodged it with the body movements I learned from Tachibana that I had continuously practiced in the 2 months after the <<Survive>> until today, and at the same time I slipped into its chest area after I spun my body.

“------!!”

In the moment of the black cloth's surprise, I was already grabbing hold of the hand holding on to the <<Sword>>----and threw the black cloth down.
The air inside the lungs of the black cloth came out at the same time as the impact. I did not stop the flow there and mounted it by taking the advantage of the throw’s momentum.

“This……….is the end!!”

'''''I pushed the black cloth’s chest down''''' and swung down my fist-----that was supposed to happen but.

“Eh……..?”

I stopped my fist.

Because the hood hiding the black cloth's face came off when I threw it down.

Because I saw the face under the hood.

Because that face----belonged to someone I was familiar with.

“Y-yo-yo-you are……….”

I could not hide my shock when I saw the girl with long ponytail.

She was------

“Imari!?”

She was the opponent I fought with during the Kouryou academy enrollment exam. She looked a little more mature compared to last time. As usual Nagakura Imari------was exactly a lively girl with both cuteness and beauty.

“Ah…………”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Pokan* She made a blank expression at my shout------before making an unconcerned laugh.

“Ahaha, I got found out.”

“E-err…………?”

“We might have met up again in a weird way but-----long time no see, Tooru.”

“A-aah……Long time no see…………”

Because it was a sudden event, I greeted back while maintaining my astonishment.

“Aah, I lose this time too huh. You are strong as I expected.”

“I-iyaa………Imari got a lot stronger too.”

“Fufu, I am happy you said that.”

After she nodded in satisfaction at my comment----

Imari’s expression turned a little awkward.

“………By the way Tooru. Can you let go already?”

“Let go……..?”

Imari moved her sights to show me the reason when she heard my words.

After I followed it, my hand was still pushing her body down.

I was holding tightly onto------her soft breast which could be called the symbol of a woman.

“Tooru………………you pervert.”

Imari stood up before erasing her <<Sword>>.

(No wonder I thought I had seen it before……..)

Although I was thinking why I did not recall back just now, I think the biggest reason why I could not recall back was because I heard that the losers from the <<Qualification ceremony>> had their <<Lucifer>> removed and lost their qualification to become an <<Exceed>>.

“I completely have no idea what is going on. Can you give me an explanation?”

[[File:Absolute Duo Volume 3 Non-Colour 2.jpg|thumb]]

“Of course. But before that-----”

“If it is our side then, we are done.”

The gold girl showed herself from the darkness.

Beside her, there was a girl with {{Furigana|Silver hair|Silver Blonde}} opposite to her hair color.

“Looks like your side ended too, Tooru.”

“A-ahh………Err, what is that?”

Julie was carrying some kind of black person.

“She is the one that attacked first.”

“That’s my <<Duo>>”

As if to add on to Julie’s words, Imari gave an explanation.

“<<Duo>>…………..no seriously what is going on……….”

I replaced Julie in carrying the black cloth and started walking towards the lighted building.

The talk Imari started while we were walking was quite surprising.

“Br-branch school!?”

“Yes, Kouryou academy branch school. That is the school I am affiliated with right now. Incidentally, the building you all are heading to is our lodging place and at the same time the branch school’s school building.”

It was a continuous streak of surprises even though she said that.

3 months ago-------the <<Qualification ceremony>> ended and after the losers left the auditorium, they were brought to the building grounds and were pressed with a choice.

Although there might be some rules, they would either transfer to a normal high school or----maybe transfer to the Kouryou academy branch school to become an <<Exceed>> again but, the environment would be harsh.

It seems Imari picked the path of the branch school without a second thought and brought herself to this island.

During the following 3 months, she received severe training and after she sublimated to <<II>> by the <<Sublimation ceremony>> last semester, she was told that the students from the main school--------meaning us, were coming to visit the island for a seaside school.

Also, they would be conducting a <<Blaze Practice>> of hiding their identity and attacking us.

“So that was what happened……….I don’t know what to say but anyway this is great. It’s really great that Imari’s path did not get cut off……….”

“Fufu, looks like I made you really worried at that time. Thanks, Tooru.”

I kept thinking it was my fault that I cut off her path last time but I felt a load of my chest the moment I heard that it really wasn’t the case.

“However, I told you this before but you really became stronger. If our <<Level>> was the same then, I don’t think I could win.”

“Ahaha, it became a good fight because the terrain advantage was totally mine. Also, my eyes got used to the darkness thanks to the time spent on this island. That’s why the conditions can be said to be fair------uuun, rather I think I was at the advantage……………..nonetheless, judging by the fact that I could not even stand a chance against you last time, I am honestly happy that you told me that I got stronger.”

That smile was the same as the time I first met her.

Different from the ending of the <<Qualification ceremony>>, I relaxed my cheeks from the happiness coming from my heart.

“By the way, Tooru. Can you introduce those two to me? I saw that girl in the entrance ceremony but, I don’t know her name.”

“Hnn? Aah, that’s right. She is called Julie and is my <<Duo>>”

“Ja---. Julie=Sigtuna. I am Tooru’s <<Duo>>. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you Julie. I am Nagakura Imari.”

Julie and Imari exchanged a handshake and---------

“<<Duo>>!?”

She was surprised after some time lag.

“Wait, errr, she is a girl and, Ueee!? Ah……do-don’t tell me the main school is different to the branch school, and the rooms are different, like that………?”

“Same room.”

“To-Tooru……….you didn't do anything behind the scenes, right…….?”

“I didn’t!”

That reaction was quite nostalgic since our classmates had gotten used to the fact that me and Julie were living in the same room and had stopped teasing us………….of course, I still had to retort back with a loud voice though.

“Is that so……..I can only feel it is amazing, in a certain way though……….”

I don’t feel like I was being praised, but she was most likely praising me.

“Err, then about the other girl…………”

“I am Lilith=Bristol. Tooru’s fiancee.”

“Self-proclaimed though.”

After exchanging a handshake with Lilith, Imari------

“Fiancee!?”

“Like I said, self-proclaimed.”

It was already a retort since this was the 2nd time.

“Self-proclaimed huh, how cold of you. Aren't we in a relationship since we kissed?”

“Ki………!?”

Her eyes opened wide and Imari looked shocked.

“That was something you did one-sidedly ignoring Tooru’s will. What’s more, it was on the cheek.”

“Then, I will get Tooru’s permission. Tooru kiss me. Of course the lips are okay too.”

“I'm not going to…………..”

The gold girl placed her finger at her lips. Julie was standing there as if she was protecting me from Lilith.

The ponytail said this while looking at the both of them.

“…………Looks like you are having a fun life, Tooru.”

“How can you get that idea after looking at this situation………”

I changed the topic of conversation after making a sigh towards Imari, who stared at me with eyes carrying a hidden meaning.

“But, now that I think about it again, it really is a coincidence huh? Even if you all were told to attack us, to think that I would be fighting against Imari again.”

Even though it was decided for the branch students to attack the main students in the forest, I would never have thought I would meet up with Imari from the <<Qualification ceremony>> again.

---I brought the conversation there when I thought of it and I got an unexpected reply back.

“Aah, there was a little trick to that. You received an armband when you got off the boat right? Actually, there is a transmitter attached to it, and that is why we were able to identify each individual.”

She then took out a smartphone-looking portable terminal from her pocket and showed it to me. It seems the map shown on the screen belonged to this island. There was a circle shown on the map. There were numbers written inside the circle and the number followed the main school group’s record number.

“So, you are saying that the branch school had complete knowledge of our movements?”

“That’s about it…………..so, I wanted to show Tooru the results I gained during these 3 months and requested everyone to give me the priority to challenge you…………well, thanks to Tooru coming up at a different spot compared to the others, it was easy to make a situation to fight you 1 vs 1.”

Thanks to that Imari made Miwa------the opponent Julie and Lilith fought-----take on a tough role and made a wry smile.

“But, why did you end up at the eastern side?”

“That’s because Julie can’t swim. We drifted away from the others when I went to save her.”

“Hee, Julie can’t huh……….that's somehow kind of unexpected.”

It probably was very unexpected to her because she saw Julie fight during the enrollment ceremony.

“------?”

Julie and Imari’s eyes met and Julie *Chirin* tilted her small head producing a bell ring.

“Now that I think about it, Tooru. I remembered this when the armband topic got brought up, but why didn’t you send out a rescue signal when we were fighting just now?”

“………Now that you mentioned it, there is that function huh?”

“You were attacked by an unidentified enemy, so you have to send the signal out because it includes the meaning of emergency contact too. If we really were enemies targeting the lives of Tooru and the main school students what were you going to do? Lives could be saved just by contacting help.”

“Uu, how strict.”

“Use everything you have in your hand. ………..our instructor slammed that completely into our heads.”

I made an 'understood' nod towards Imari who brought out her tongue playfully.

“Okay, then. We’re here.”

Further up the forest Imari was pointing to, the building was producing outside light.

The western style building looks unfitting for a building in the southern seas, and it was giving out a somewhat similar atmosphere as the dormitory we passed our days in.

Imari ran to the front of the building and turned around.

“Welcome, to Kouryou academy branch school!”

When we entered the western style building, Lilith left telling me she wanted to change and disappeared inside with Sara who came to pick her up.

Even though there was lighting here, Julie and I were being led through the dim wooden corridor by Imari.

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Gishi**gishi* sounds like this were produced and it seems the room we were being brought to was the cafeteria.

When we peeked inside, we saw our classmates from the main school already here.

“Looks like not everyone is here yet.”

“Uun, you all are the last ones. The reason why the numbers aren’t right is because there might be some that are unconscious after getting beaten by the branch school group. They should be sleeping in a different room until they wake up.”

I thought back when she told me that. We took a rest before moving from the beach.

It was only normal for everyone else that got to shore in another spot to reach here a long time ago.

“Okay then, we the branch school group have things to prepare so we are going now. See you later, Tooru, Julie.”

While wondering what kind of preparation it was, Imari said her goodbye and stepped into the cafeteria.

“Julie. Be careful.”

“Ja, Ja---……..”

Our luggage got transported to the cafeteria during the day.

We headed to our luggage located in the corner of the room as fast as possible and got Julie’s underwear.

During that time, I was taking up positions where the surrounding people would be unable to see Julie.

(I never would have thought to test out the things we learn in class like this……..)

This was something that I didn’t realize might be useful somewhere in this world.

………..There should be a limit to how rare this example is.

Julie then headed outside to put on her underwear while in the toilet.

I then fell flat on the table before Tora talked to me.

“Fuun, you sure took your time.”

Tora was smirking and the first words that came out from his mouth was [I got here first so it’s my win].

…………It’s somehow frustrating.

[Kokonoe. Looks like you got here safe][Go-good work, Tooru-kun……….]

Tachibana and Miyabi joined in at that moment.

“Where did Julie-chan go………?”

“She told me she was headed to the toilet.”

That was not a lie.

“By the way, you guys being in this room would mean that you guys fought off the branch school group too?”

“That’s because To-Tomoe-chan protected me.”

“Fufu, it’s not only me. If it weren’t for Tora, who knows what could have happened.”

From what I heard from Tachibana, they acted in a group with 6 people by Tora’s suggestion and arrived to the branch school without leaving anyone behind.

“As expected-------is what I wanted to say but, it’s okay to say that I misheard that Tora suggested to act as a group?”

“It’s true.”

Tachibana became the witness and Miyabi *un**un* nodded.

“……………….Tora, did you catch a fever after getting your body cold in the sea?”

“Hell no!! I suggested it because it would get annoying if the slow one got hurt and told you that I was around her when that happened.”

“Uu………..Sorry for being slow….but, thank you, Tora-kun………..”

“I-I don’t need your thanks anyway!!”

Tora turned away maybe from embarrassment.

“But well, it’s just as Tora says. I would most likely be concerned if someone got hurt. So-----Thanks.”

“------! Fu-funn, thank me as much as you like…….!”

Why is your attitude clearly only different to me.

“Tooru, I am back.”

Julie came back at that moment.

With the familiar faces gathered, they chatted around like usual------

Soon the other classmates who had been resting in another room started popping up.

And just when everyone gathered, Mikuni-sensei followed the chairman into the room.

“Good work all of you for today. Mikuni has something to say about the stay here now, but before that, there is an apology I must make to everyone here.”

The Chairman’s apology-----was about lying to us about the <<Qualification Ceremony>>.

“When a time where you have to fight to open your path comes, you must have a strong will to confront it------in order to accomplish that, I made a lie saying that I wouldn't allow your enrollment unless you did so, and I hereby apologize about it.”

After the chairman took a deep bow, the room turned somewhat noisy.

The rumor that we were guinea pigs for her to test her experiments had been heard by the students in Kouryou academy at least once.

We might not know the truth but we cannot just assume that rumor to be false.

There is a <<Lucifer>> research institute under the academy, and it is a well-known fact to the students that the chairman is the one in charge of it.

A person with that status accepting responsibility for her actions and lowering her head changed the impression I had for her up until now, and I probably was not the only one here that thought that.

It made me think that she was someone with a strong enough will for her to be prepared to be hated; when I was told that the cold-blooded woman that has a teaching policy which could only be described as irrational was actually thinking about the students.

When the chairman’s talk-----apology ended, Mikuni-sensei started talking about the schedule for this next week.

The content was not really new and could be said to be close to the same as usual.

We are to live on this island for one week, we will be participating in training which can’t be executed in the main school with the branch school students, we are not to take off the armbands since the training is somewhat dangerous, we will be free on the last day, etc, etc…………..

“It will be dinner time next, but the people in branch school have already prepared food for you today. Each individual, please move to the hall.”

After hearing the word dinner, a few students (including me) gulped and stood up making noise the same time the talk ended.

“Seriously, your eyes shine when it comes to food, you are one heck of a guy……”

While Tachibana was making a wry smile, she continued her words.

“However………….isn’t it great, Kokonoe?”

“About what?”

“I am talking about the ponytail girl. It might be an unthinkable re-encounter but, aren’t you relieved that she is working hard here?”

“Aah, it’s about Imari huh. That’s true, it really is great.”

3 months ago, I closed off Imari’s path with my own hands. We both agreed with the results, but it was a fact that the guilt became thorns piercing into me.

That was why I felt happy knowing that she was working hard in this branch school like this.

“………Ah, that’s right. Speaking about the Imari event, this might be a little too late but, thank you for trying to cheer me up right after the enrollment. I was really happy thanks to Tachibana’s feelings.”

“Tha-that’s an old talk.”

Tachibana’s cheek, which was turned away, was blushing just a little.

When we headed outside, a heat wave different than the ones from the summer night blew past us. There were several barbecue grills set up and the branch school students were there.

A representative from the branch school came closer to us when they saw us coming out of the western-style building.

“Welcome to Kouryou academy branch school!! A lot happened in the enrollment ceremony and in <<Blaze practice>> today, but just wash those things down with water or with the meat that you are going to swallow. So, nice to meet you all and pleasure working with all of you for this one week!!”

It seemed Imari was the branch school’s representative.

Nonetheless, it was something agreeable if I thought about her sociable personality. *Un**un* one person nodded before a familiar rabbit-eared person voiced out while hanging a skewer with a piece of grilled meat pierced onto it.

“So with that said, we will be having barbecue for dinner while deepening our relationships, everyone♪”

“Hey, Tsukimi-sensei right? Why are you already grilling the meat when we have not toasted yet!?”

“Don’t worry about it, Tail-chan☆”

The main school students made wry smiles when they saw the pace Tsukimi displayed and the panicking Imari; there were some that got tired (Mainly the people around me), and during that time, the paper plates, chopsticks, and paper cups were distributed to everyone.

[How about cola? There is orange juice too] [I want cola]

[I will have oolong] [I-is there milk………..?]

Such conversations were exchanged between the main and branch school for a while-----

And not long after, everyone had their cups filled with drink.

Incidentally during this time, most of the main school students including me were getting restless because of the aroma of meat that was floating around from what Tsukimi was grilling.

“Okay then----Cheers!”

“““Cheers!!”””

After taking a gulp, the hall was filled with noise.

[Don’t push. There is a lot of meat and vegetables] [Hey you! That meat is not cooked yet!] [Shuddap, I like it rare!!] [Onion is something to look forward to♪]

It’s not the level of a little commotion. Hungry teenagers------ what’s more because we were made to swim with our clothes on during the day, and fight with the branch school students in a <<Blaze practice>>, our hunger had reached its peak. Thanks to that, everyone got desperate for the food until it made it hard to get the grilled up meat and vegetables.

“Julie, are you going to eat only vegetables?”

When I headed beside her after getting meat, meat and only meat, I saw the plate Julie was holding only had vegetables on it.

“Nai. I wanted to take some meat but, it disappeared in no time at all……….”

“Ah---………..well, it is a grilled meat contest now.”

It would be quite a fierce battle if it was during the start.

“……………If you are okay with mine, do you want some of mine?”

“Is it okay?”

“Aah, it’s all meat like you see so it isn’t a problem if I share some. As payment, please keep this a secret from Tachibana.”

I took a peek at Tachibana who was talking with a branch school student far away.

Just like me and Imari, it seemed it was her opponent from her <<Qualification ceremony>> battle, and Tachibana was talking to her.

“Ja---. I understand, I will take this and this.”

Julie made a faint smile and *Chirin* the bell rang when she nodded.

I then took a big sausage and one diced steak and transferred it to her plate.

The silver girl took a bite of the sausage with her small mouth and *Byuu* the meat juices came spurting out.

“Hnn………it’s hot……..”

“Are you okay? Be careful not to get burnt okay?”

“Ja----, I will be careful. *Lick*………….*chu**Hnkun*……..it is delicious………..”

Julie scooped up the juice on her cheeks with her finger and licked it.

She then *Fuu**fuu* blew the hot sausage again while putting it into her mouth.

Maybe because it was hot, but she was eating the meat stick while her cheeks were blushing.

“Ahmu……….Hnn…………..Tooru’s sausage is hot and delicious……..*Hamu*, *Chuu*………..”

“A-ahh………….”

Even though I was just looking at her eating the sausage, my heart was *doki**doki* pumping hard for some reason.

It somehow feels that I made her do something which should not have been done or how should I say……….

“Hnkuhnn, Tooru’s is so big……….Hamu, Hnn, fuu…….”

It might have been a fierce fight but I took a big one properly. As expected of me.

However, it seems that it might have been a little too big for Julie’s small mouth.

“Tooru, Julie, are you eating?”

[Yup. A whole bunch] [Ja---]

Imari came with a paper plate filled with a mountain of meat, while I was eating and talking to Julie.

“I see. Then that’s good. There is still more so eat until you are full………….wait, that’s a lot of meat.”

“It’s called, do something while the demon is not around.”

Of course, Tachibana was at the end of my sights when I took a peek.

“I don’t get it but, looks like Tooru is a meat lover huh. Fufu, I am too.”

I noticed this when she said it but, there was a huge amount of meat on Imari’s plate.

[My comrade!!] [Comrade!!]

<nowiki>*</nowiki>GaShii* we lifted our shoulders high up and grabbed our hands together.

“What are you two doing…………..”

Tora came over and made a big sigh when he saw us doing that.

“…………..Ah-re, you are Tooru’s friend, if I am right you’re------”

“I was planning to say you have good memory but, I am not his friend.”

Imari made a [Am I wrong] expression for a moment. However, it seems she recalled back the conversation she had during the enrollment ceremony. After she made a smile and introduced herself, Tora introduced himself back.

She then talked with Tora for a while.

Even if the partner was Julie who talks little or Tora who was blunt with almost everyone, Imari would display her sociability and her natural cheerfulness to connect the conversation skillfully.

That short moment even made me think that she had been in the group since last time.

“And, I am out of meat. Time for seconds.”

I left those words to those three and headed to one of the several grills set up which had less people surrounding it.

We could grill our own meat, and it was okay to take the meat that was placed on the iron grill by the staff responsible for the grilling, so to me who was a greedy fellow, I decided to pick both ways.

While cooking my own meat, I extended my hand to the skewered meat grilled by the staff and------

My hands piled on top of another person who was aiming for the same meat.

[Ah, sorry] [N-no, it’s my fault too-----------To-To-Tooru-kun!?]

It was Miyabi.

“Ah………”

Miyabi moved her gaze from my face to her hand which my hand was piling on and-----

““…………….””

It was approximately 3 seconds of silence.

“Pyaa--------------!?”

Miyabi raised both her hands together with a shout.

Naturally, we became the center of attention.

“So-sorry. A bug flew here………..right, Miyabi.”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Nodnodnodnodnodnodnodnod*

I immediately made an excuse and made Miyabi follow it up. Since the main culprit who shouted said it’s correct, our surroundings returned back to their own conversation immediately.

“So-sorry, for shouting like that…….”

“It’s okay. I'm sorry to scare you too.”

“Uu………..It’s true if you say I got scared though………”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Shunn* When I saw Miyabi getting disheartened, I thought it couldn’t be helped since she was bad with the opposite sex.

In my own opinion, we should have gotten closer in the 3 months since we have known each other.

It was enough for me to put my chest up proudly and say that I am her closest friend in terms of the male condition.

But even so, since she shouted it would mean that------

(This might be my imagination but, judging by the fact that she is friends with Julie and Tachibana, she might be forcing herself to act as my friend even though she dislikes it!?)

It would be a shock for me if it was true but, I felt that it was not something impossible.

(But during that time on the ship, Miyabi did ask me to lend her my shoulder……….)

I don’t get it anymore.

After I took a peek at Miyabi, she regained her composure and put vegetables and meat on to her own plate with the tongs.

“Hey, Miyabi. There is something I want to ask but…………”

“Errr, what is it…….?”

I pondered on how to ask her and just randomly asked her.

“Do you hate me?”

“Uuuh!?”

Miyabi gasped.

Her hands let go of the tongs and it dropped to the ground making a *Gachan* sound.

“Wha-what……..do you mean……..?”

Miyabi opened her eyes wide and asked back.

“Ah…….I guess it was a little too random huh. Oh well, these kind of topics are best asked straightforwardly so, I just wanted to ask if I'm still within the dislike category without any changes?”

“Ah………So-so that is what you meant……….err, that is not true………Really, really…………”

The feeling of asking something I shouldn't have felt very strong and I felt a little regret that I had asked her this.

“Al-also…………..”

Miyabi faced her back to me and crouched down before picking up the tongs while continuing her words.

“I Li-li-lili-lii-li-like Tooru-kun………as a friend, as a friend…………”

She said it twice just in case. But even so, my heart pumped for an instant.

“I see. Thanks, I like you too Miyabi.”

“Pyaa!?”

The tongs got blown away-------if I said that, it felt as if the humid night would turn cold in one go.

“What are you doing, Miyabi?”

“The-there really is a bug this time……Ahaha………..”

She picked up the tongs while making a smile at the disaster and after she did that, I went back to Julie together with Miyabi.

“Tooru, so you are here. Mouu, I have been looking for you.”

When I was continuing my meal with the usual faces excluding Tachibana, Lilith who had finished changing her clothes came and joined us. Behind her like usual, Sara was following her (and was glaring at me).

“You sure took your time to change.”

“I took a shower while I was at it.”

After saying that, Lilith flicked her hair with her hands. The soft-looking {{Furigana|blonde hair|Yellow Topaz}} danced lightly.

Incidentally, a nice smell floated and it tickled my nose.

“Now that I think about it, we did swim in the ocean.”

I completely forgot about it since it was hours ago but, my hair felt a little dried up when I tried touching my hair.

“It feels kind of stiff………….”

Julie touched her own hair like me and leaked out her comments.

“Isn’t it better to take a shower after you finish eating?”

“Ja----, I will do that. Miyabi let’s go together.”

“Ah…….So-sorry. I took one immediately when I got here so…………”

From what I heard, it seems Tora and the others had already taken showers and we were the only ones who had not taken one since we came in late.

“It feels kind of stiff once you get concerned about it.”

“Is it that stiff?”

“Want to try touching, Tooru?”

“Aah, that’s right.”

When I tried touching, it’s true that her {{Furigana|Silver hair|Silver Blonde}} was stiff and it felt completely different than the comfortable silky hair during the afternoon.

“Tooru. Why not touch my hair too while you are at it.”

While saying that, Lilith held a tuft of her hair and showed it to me.

“In this case, I think it is meaningless to touch your hair since you took your shower already-----”

“It’s okay just do it. Incidentally, you can take a whiff.”

“I-I get it……..”

Even though I nodded, I wouldn’t smell her hair as expected…………it somehow feels perverted.

“Okay, I am going to touch it okay?”

“Why are you asking for confirmation for my case.”

While making a reply, I touched Lilith’s hair.

…………I decided to act as if I couldn’t see the butler making a demonic face behind Lilith.

“Uwah. It feels really nice.”

“Fufu, Thank you♪”

It seems she had been taking care of it regularly and it's soft while elastic making it feel nice to touch.

I then understood why she asked me to touch it when I actually touched it and-----

“How nice……….”

Miyabi mumbled.

“What is it. Do you want to touch as well Miyabi?”

“Eh? Errr, th-that’s, ah-no…….!!”

Miyabi panicked when I talked to her. It’s probably because I picked up the mumble which she thought no one could hear.

“Lilith. Looks like Miyabi wants to touch it too. Can she?”

“Miyabi too? Yes, I don’t mind.”

“That’s great, Miyabi.”

“U-un……….”

Miyabi nodded in a complex mood but, her expression changed to surprise when she touched Lilith’s hair.

(She probably thinks it feels nice even though they are both females. Miyabi’s hair is pretty too so, it looks nice to touch too.)

“……………..What were you doing just now, Tooru?”

When I turned around, a girl swinging her ponytail was there.

“We were just asking her to let us touch her hair though?”

“………….I’ll ask this first but, is she your girlfriend?”

“Huh? What’s up with that?”

“Ah, un. Forget it…….”

Imari immediately cut the conversation and what’s more it was her that started the question; she then made a tired sigh.

“Tooru. Can I have a moment?”

When I looked to Lilith when I was called, she gave me a plate with meat on it.

“Can I eat it?”

“You still have some on your own plate. I am telling you to feed me.”

“Why should I……..eat it by yourself.”

“There is no meaning if you don’t feed me.”

“Okay, open wide.”

Julie picked up the meat from the plate and moved it to Lilith’s mouth.

“*Chew**chew*………….Hafuhafuu………..Hnn, not bad………….wait, who asked you to feed me!?”

“…………Both Tooru’s hands are occupied.”

“Isn’t one of his hands holding chopsticks!!”

“…………..Nai, don’t worry about it. So with that said, open wide once more.”

“Hn, Hafuu, Hafuu, *Chew**chew*……….wait, listen to what people have to say!!”

(She is still eating, although she is complaining……….)

Miyabi and Imari burst out laughing at the skit like conversation.

“Okay, then------”

“Ah, Ah-re? Where are you going, Tooru-kun……….?”

Miyabi stopped me when I was about to add more meat since all the meat was gone from my plate.

“It’s not like I am full so, I plan to get a little more.”

“Fufu, you mean meat?”

“Aah. With Tachibana not here now, now is the only chance to eat meat.”

“Fumu. Now is the chance because I am not here huh?”

““………….””

The owner of that dignified voice touched my shoulders and I slowly turned back.

That person-----Tachibana like I predicted was staring at me with a smile.

Tachibana is a beauty and I feel that beauty is enough to entrance me if she smiled.

However at that moment, I could only see the smile of a hannya<ref group ="3d">Grinning noh mask, devil mask</ref>.

“Kokonoe, sit there.”

“Yes……….”

[[File:Absolute Duo Volume 3 Non-Colour 3.jpg|thumb]]

After dinner, Julie and I each took a shower before heading to the cafeteria together.

When we reached there, we received a carry bag from the staff before heading out again.

The hall was completely different from almost an hour ago and there were tents placed here and there.

It had been established that we would be camping during the time we were at the seaside school------of course, together with our <<Duo>>.

Thanks to that, I was warned by Tachibana and Imari to not do anything strange to Julie.

I don’t want to infringe on Julie’s feeling of thinking as me as her father so, I got their trusts in the meantime.

---Because of that, I had to ignore the various jeers coming from the other guys.

“Tooru, should this area be good enough?”

“Ahh, Let’s do that.”

We decided to set up the tent at the corner of the hall and after taking the tent out from the bag, we quickly set it up before Julie entered first and I followed her after that.

The tent we were going to stay in for one week was about the size of a double bed wide, and since there was an inner mat spread out under the tent, we could not feel the hardness of the ground. And since there was a mesh window on the ceiling and sides of the tent to prevent accumulating heat, it looked like the ventilation in here was good. And because there was a cover called a flysheet covering our exterior acting as a double wall for us, our privacy was guaranteed.

When I entered the tent, Julie was performing a Seiza inside.

My eyes met with her {{Furigana|red eyes|Ruby eyes}} and thought this for some reason.

“………….Hey, Julie. Is it my imagination that you look happy?”

<nowiki>*</nowiki>Chirin**Chirin* the bell rang when the silver girl swung her head to the left and right.

My predictions were correct when I saw that posture.

Although there was a lack of change in expressions, it's actually popping out in the atmosphere.

---It might be because the time we have spent together has been long enough that I can understand these things.

However, I still asked her since I am still not at that level where I can perceive what she was happy about.

“Actually, I lied to Imari just now. She asked me how I feel about sleeping with Tooru and I replied to her that I did not mind but-------”

(She said both of them talked about that but, when did that conversation take place?)

However it seems the answer she replied to Imari was a lie and I continued waiting on how that was connected to Julie’s good mood.

“I was really interested in it. I feel very happy when I think about being able to sleep together without caring about the promise for one week.”

“I-I see………..errrr……good for you?”

“Ja---♪”

Although her expression did not change like usual, I felt that the atmosphere around her got *Baaa* one layer livelier.

(…………..I thought about this before but, Julie really does look like some kind of small animal.)

If Julie had a tail, there was no mistake that it would probably be waggling left and right, right now.

And at the same time, I thought it would be very easy for me if she really was a small animal.

When I sleep with Julie, she would cling to me resulting in a soft sensation, a sweet smell, she would also breathe near my neck and I would get nervous on not touching any weird spots so, it was quite a tiring event.

“By the way Tooru. There is something I need to tell you before we sleep. Thank you for today. I will now be careful so I won’t repeat the same mistake.”

She took a deep bow.

“So with that said, I have something I want to request Tooru, although it is embarrassing.”

“Okay. What is it?”

It is most likely a request to teach her how to swim or-------just when I thought that, she handed me something.

“I want Tooru to hold this.”

It was a round cloth ball.

“What is this?”

When I spread open it-----it was a piece of underwear.

“…………….”

“Tooru, spreading it is a little……….”

(I see I see.)

It’s true that this request is embarrassing.

However, she would probably be relaxed if I were to hold onto this, as there would be a change for her if her underwear flies away like today.

But------

“…………..Sorry, give me a break.”

Since my life would end if things go bad, I gave a clear refusal to her.

Just like that, I had a tiring conversation for a finale and the first day of the seaside school reached its end.

===Part 2===

“Our preparations here are done.”

A veteran soldier-like man with several scars on his face reported to the Caucasian teenager.

“Understood. Please start your mission as scheduled…………..please refrain from doing any actions other than the one given to you until the time comes, in order to avoid having that side read our intentions.”

“I understand, sir.”

The man that received his orders turned on his heels and exited the room.

He distorted his mouth while making a vulgar smile.

(Ahh, I will be a good boy and perform the mission……….but it will be different when things start.)

In his mind, the face of the boy who made him drink boiling water two months ago appeared in his mind.

The storm of resentment and anger raged inside the man’s heart.

“Damn brat… I will definitely beat the shit out of you this time…..!!”

<noinclude>

==Translation Notes and References==

<references group="3d" />

{{SimpleNav}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Ending

2020-11-23T19:02:06Z

SNovah: Minor fixes

Hamazura Shiage was propped up on her shoulder.

He finally managed to emerge into the open world with the help of track suit girl Takitsubo Rikou. The track suit boy and the girl who had lent him her jacket had been free to do what they wanted, but they had come with Hamazura and Takitsubo for some reason.

He had chosen not to pass through the Vanishing Tunnel known as ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''.

They had climbed the long, long stairway back into the city.

“Hamazura.”

Anti-Skill was waiting for him.

Fortunately, it was Yomikawa Aiho.

He pulled away from his worried girlfriend and put his hands in the air.

“I realized it wouldn’t work.”

“…”

“I knew I could never escape the dark side if I kept walking through the darkness down there. Even if I left Academy City and found a safe world with a warm house and comfort, I could never escape from the dark side’s shadow. So I came here to break free.”

He looked Yomikawa in the eye.

“I will make up for my crimes.”

It was a simple statement.

He had lost his temporary goal of escaping to safety ever since he threw out the Coin of Nicholas. He had stepped away from the direction defined by the assumption that he could escape as long as he had that coin.

He had chosen a new goal for himself.

“But now it’s my turn to lay out the accusations for the things I was forced to do against my will. I broke the law, but I was a victim too. I’m not giving up. I will use my rights to do what I can in this city. Because I’m never finding freedom otherwise.”

“That’s the right way to do this.” Yomikawa sounded relieved. “I’ve honestly had enough of this myself. Way too much has happened today and I doubt I have the full picture from just my point of view. I would appreciate it if you gave me a hand. I want to cleanse this city.”

“Takitsubo comes first. Can you arrange for her to get dialysis? And if possible, can you help the kids heading outside the city on a train?”

Hamazura Shiage felt like he had found a new beginning here.

''Bang!!

Until a dry sound reached his ears.

He had an odd almost-smile on his face.

His body tilted diagonally. He could not support his own weight any longer, so he collapsed to the wet, snowy ground.

It had come from straight ahead and at point-blank range.

The handgun that smelled like fireworks remained in the Anti-Skill officer’s holster. The safety was even on. No one had touched it, yet the lead bullet had shot out. Yomikawa Aiho herself looked shocked.

Hamazura understood. He recognized this cause of death.

It seemed fitting to him.

The dark side was the dark side. You could not assume you would survive just because you started categorizing yourself as beneficial and the others as harmful.

(I guess this is my punishment for thinking I was a good person after relying on violence.)

Yomikawa had not done this. He understood that immediately. He had simply assumed this was over when it was not. Some unseen force was likely at play. Yomikawa Aiho’s greatest conviction was her refusal to aim her gun at a child, so it was such a cruel irony for her gun to malfunction like this.

He felt bad for doing this to her.

He wanted to say so, but his tongue refused to move.

Takitsubo Rikou was shouting something from nearby, but her voice sounded so distant. He could not feel her shaking him, so he could guess he was in a bad enough state that she was hesitant to move him.

''Good,'' he smiled.

He felt it was a win that ''this'' had not been aimed at his girlfriend or the gym clothes kids.

And…

(Sorry.)

His thoughts turned to something else while time slowed to a crawl for him. He smiled and accepted it. He had never carried out his very first promise in this entire mess. He felt that kind of sloppiness was just like him.

(I never did get that ''charm'' to your sister, did I?)

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume3_Afterword}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter4

2020-11-23T18:38:01Z

SNovah: /* Between the Lines 4 */

==Chapter 4: The Demon Lord’s Young — the_LIGHT.==

===Part 1===

“Where have you been, Risako!?”

“Mister, Risako-chan is back!!”

The gym clothes girl laughed when she saw the other children gathered around.

“Eh heh heh. A doggy and an older girl saved me.”

They must have been preparing for another move because all the trucks had their engines running. But they had waited until they had found the girl with red hair done up like candy. She was relieved. Having a home to return to was a wonderful thing.

“''A doggy,'' huh?” said the artificial ghost called Frillsand #G.

“…”

Her comment made the young researcher fall silent for a bit.

His name was Drencher Kihara Repatri.

That family name was so well known in the dark side that it had become a more powerful classification than beneficial or harmful. The man who bore that name sighed softly to help refocus his mind.

“There is a chance we’ve been located, but we’re faster at the moment. If we move before they catch up, we can reach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' without issue.”

“Do you really think this world will allow any of this to go ‘without issue’?”

“It’s our job to make sure it happens.”

The adults exchanged their views with their voices too low for the excited children to hear.

But a certain boy kept his voice low for a different reason.

“Risako.”

“Oh, Sodate-chan.”

The tall boy in the same kind of gym clothes looked troubled for some reason. In fact, he looked close to tears. Risako tilted her head, thinking he was afraid she would get after him about the ball and chemical soap, but this was different.

“So you came back,” he said.

“Eh?”

“I was hoping maybe you were gone for good.”

He had wanted that? Did he hate her that much? Risako’s face clouded over, but this was again different. He shook his head and explained.

He was the only one of the children who had ''started to question these motion sensors they wore for some kind of experiment.''

“Because then at least you might have been safe.”

===Part 2===

He was afraid of screwing it up, so he started by drawing marks on her back with a marker.

“Hamazura, that tickles.”

“Stay still.”

The old book had a brush-drawn diagram with no perspective or attempt to make it look three-dimensional. The indicated locations of the organs were clearly not right. Maybe it was like the difference between an aerial photograph of the clouds and the isobars on the weather forecast map. He wondered if this was what all traditional Japanese medicine was like as he drew Xs on his girlfriend’s body. She had even removed her bra and was holding her chest in her hands while showing him her smooth back. He thought his heart was going to burst every time she squirmed from the ticklishness. Even he knew that reaction was inappropriate given the circumstances. Once he finished that, it was finally time to start. He faced the girl while she lay face down on the container lab’s work table like she was sunbathing.

The moxa used for the moxibustion was like fluffy cotton, but he actually had to set it on fire.

It felt wrong doing that on her soft skin and he could even permanently scar her if he screwed it up.

“…”

His fear came to the forefront now that it was time to do it, but this was the only way to help her with the fever.

He fought the desire to shut his eyes and placed a small pile of “fuel” on her soft skin. He worked at the lighter with a trembling hand, but he kept failing. Once he finally had a small flame, he slowly moved it in close.

“Nh.”

“A-are you okay, Takitsubo?”

“I’m fine.”

He continued the process a few more times. He had his doubts, but when she wiped the sweat from her brow, no more sweat beaded up. It did seem to be working.

He could not thank the hakama girl enough.

He could not waste this chance she had given them, so they had to approach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''.

That card-sized hard drive had been labelled with the word “Lifeline”.

Aneri must have decided the data would be too small to see on his phone because she displayed it a flat screen monitor in the lab instead. It was a series of numbers.

It looked like a calculation sheet made with spreadsheet software, but even that was enough to make the delinquent boy’s head hurt. Maybe it was important data, but he had no idea what he was supposed to focus on.

“This looks like materials data,” said Takitsubo after peering at it from the side.

“Materials?”

“Whether they’re beneficial or harmful, the dark side does a lot of research.” She pointed at one of the numbers. “They’re also building a lot of military weapons. But doesn’t it seem odd? Academy City is a mass consumer and it only has so much land since it’s surrounded by walls. You can’t just dig into the ground here and find oil or ores. So where do they get all those materials from?”

“Where? Isn’t that what the cooperative institutions around the world are for? They can work out a deal with them.”

“But how can they do that without leaving any record of it?”

She pointed at another number.

If a citizens group monitoring the flow of money and materials could reveal a secret, then it had never been part of the dark side to begin with.

“Look at this. The dark side is using far more materials than the total amount brought in from outside the city. Cutting off the fat and redistributing it to themselves would not be enough for this. The amount the dark side uses is several times larger. This would show up in the records no matter what you did. Important people like the Board of Directors and its Chairman can only cover up so much. This is too much. It’s well past what you could hide by cooking the books.”

“But then…”

He trailed off when Aneri opened a new window. A single point on a map of Academy City was colored in red. There was a secret there.

“They have an entrance and exit that doesn’t leave any records,” said the track suit girl while viewing the screen.

There were several files that appeared to be saved from message boards and social media pages. Reading through them showed a certain point in common.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

Takitsubo pointed at that bizarre statement.

“There is a way of reaching it and we should see hints of it in the rumors told around the city. Like the ‘!’ signs, a deadly train, kidnappers at the amusement park, babies in the coin lockers, or an underground construction zone where you can dump anything you don’t want found. But none of that gets at the real truth.”

“You mean…?”

“Academy City doesn’t promote recycling so much just because it wants to make the most of its limited resources. ''Sending things back to be recycled over and over again masks how much materials are actually being used.'' They can’t have an investigation revealing that we dump out several times more trash than materials we take in, right? That would violate conservation of mass. So they needed to make it hard to compare those two values. It’s a form of laundering.”

Why was that sleight of hand necessary? How did they reach the impossible result of more waste than raw materials? What was this secret that no one wanted getting out?

''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.

This was the identity of that term they had heard so many times today.

“It…isn’t closed off? There’s a secret route through the walls surrounding Academy City!?”

That could not be. For better or for worse, Academy City was cut off from the outside world. Those thick walls prevented their tech from spreading to the world at large because that could lead to disorder and chaos.

Hamazura used to be part of Skill Out. That was a group of the boys and girls who had dropped out of Academy City but had nowhere to go since they could not get out of the city.

They had been trapped. They had dropped out of school, but those walls had kept them here. If you wanted to take a trip outside the city for just a few days, you needed to submit a ton of paperwork and receive a nanodevice injection. Because if you tried leave without using the official gates, you could be killed to prevent a data leak. There had been burglars and muggers in the back alleys, but none of those expert thieves had dared go anywhere near the walls.

If there was a way to freely move in and out, they may not have felt so much pressure. They could have made a place for themselves.

Their former leader, Komaba Ritoku, might not have had to fight and die.

“…”

But the dark side had torn down that number one assumption like it was nothing.

That counterfeiter had stored that information on a card-sized hard drive labeled “Lifeline”. Had he thought he could use that information to get some dark side bigshots to save him?

He must have never imagined he would instead have his brains blown out by a paparazzo. Hamazura was at the center of all this, but he still did not know if that had been planned or a spontaneous decision.

“It’s deep below Academy City.” Takitsubo Rikou calmly read aloud something on such a large scale that talk of an alternate dimension would have sounded more realistic. “The world’s largest particle accelerator is built directly below the city walls, so people are told that digging in that area could break the accelerator’s seal and expose them to radiation and other risks. That was meant to convince everyone that no one would be dumb enough to try it.”

The diagram they found looked like a puzzle ring. It seemed to carefully avoid the circular accelerator facility, but this was a tunnel built by the dark side. There was no chance it met all the proper safety standards.

That was the dark side’s lifeline.

They had built it to continue pumping fuel into their illicit research and its construction showed they did not care at all if they brought chaos to the world. It really was the greatest taboo. It was a dark umbilical cord that could wipe out the Kiharas and everyone else if it was cut off.

“I doubt Anti-Skill knows about this,” said Takitsubo. “So they won’t be able to block it off. We can safely escape the city if we use it.”

“…”

The red light displayed by Aneri was in District 10, the city’s biggest slum. The taboo no one wanted was hidden below the district everyone had abandoned.

It was unclear if it had always had this name. They may have changed the name periodically to help hide the truth. All the scattered information was fragmentary witness accounts and some of it would likely be intentional misinformation.

But that taboo’s gaping mouth had sat deep underground all this time.

Like a nightmarish symbol of freedom.

The dot on the map displayed on the small screen had the following name displayed next to it: Vanishing Tunnel.

That was the name of their final destination. Anyone who arrived there was given a ticket to another world.

===Part 3===

They were deep, deep underground in District 10.

Few people would think too much about the layout of the subway tunnels below the city. They might know a track took an unnatural curve at one point, but no one would question the online news article about them running across some kind of ruins during construction.

An underground passageway was surrounded by cold concrete and supported by the pillars positioned at even intervals.

The few fluorescent lights on the walls were not enough to fully sweep away the darkness.

That underground blind spot had become the biggest hot spot in the world. A great many people had gathered there. They had not all arrived along the same route. They had each gathered the hints scattered around the city and started to question the city’s biggest assumption. Academy City was surrounded by thick walls, but it was not in fact sealed off.

The brawny men in work jumpsuits were a courier group called Secret Express. The men and women in dress clothes were Concierge, a group that provided hideouts to meet a criminal’s demands. The girls in plain clothing and hiding their faces with sunglasses and hunting caps may have been an extremely popular idol group. The parade of scum included Controller, who used personal information and fictitious bills to threaten the girls he targeted until he had them in digital chains, and Flare, who left behind harmless powder identical to the real deal in order to confuse criminal investigations.

A ruler of the back alleys was there.

A major corporation’s lawyer was there.

A university headmaster was there.

A major entertainment producer was there.

And a few Kiharas from different fields were there.

All sorts of people flooded that underground passageway. People did not end up on the dark side because they were low class, poor, stupid, or criminal. It took all types. The dark side had reached every class of person equally. From worlds no one knew existed to industries everyone envied.

Some had fallen before making it this far and others had attempted a different route instead. In a way, finding this tunnel and setting foot inside made them the chosen ones.

And.

Every last one of them were obstructed and crushed by a certain figure.

The woman had long blonde twintails and she wore a skintight light blue dress and a long loose skirt.

Frillsand #G was like an impassable wall.

All who challenged her crashed into that wall with the intensity of their challenge. After seeing a few of them turned to hunks of flesh and splattered blood, the others must have started wondering if she literally was a solid wall because all of those dark side members had come to a stop. They were pushed back even though she had not taken a single step.

Of course, the ghost was not going to spare them just because they gave up now.

“Next stop: skewering. Repeat: skewering.”

With a wet sound, a muscular man in black was destroyed from groin to head. But he may have been one of the lucky ones. He was gone before he even knew what had happened to him.

“Please look out for the burning and severing.”

Screams of pain echoed through the tunnel. Before long, the dark side members were fighting amongst themselves too. They appeared to have begun an ugly struggle over the concrete column they could use as a shield. However…

“We will arrive at gouging soon.”

Just as the ghost silently circled behind the column, a wet sound exploded out. The victors and losers of the struggle were all turned to mincemeat together while Frillsand #G looked on in disinterest.

“Ah…gahh,” someone groaned.

It was one of the idol girls. Her bottom half was gone and the bottom of her torso was sticking to the floor like a slug.

“But…why? We found the taboo…so aren’t we part of the dark side too? Can’t we all use…the path out together?”

“I have children to take care of. A lot of them.” Frillsand #G did not even look in her direction. “Inviting all of you in with us would only put them at risk.”

“Just…” It was already too late for her, but the top half of a girl still clawed at the concrete floor. “Just in case? You took people’s lives for no more than that!?”

“Next stop: running over. I repeat: running over.”

With a wet splat, the complaints were silenced.

The ghost seemed to be rejecting the idea that grudges lacked the power to kill.

“The rear guard is an important job,” she said in a singsong voice. “But I cannot let that crybaby see this. Knowing of it and seeing it are two very different things.”

The artificial ghost glanced over at something else.

But she soon lost interest, turned around, and vanished into the darkness.

A mere ten meters away, Hamazura Shiage was hiding behind a column and holding his hand over the track suit girl’s mouth.

If she noticed them, they were dead. He felt like his heart, his breathing, his body odor, and the slight static electricity on his clothing could all give them away. He could not even wipe the unpleasant sweat from his cheek as he desperately waited for time to pass.

That ghost really was an enemy.

She had some kind of plan of her own and had saved them on a whim before, but that did not mean he could trust her. If she had saved them on a whim, then she could also choose to throw them out on a whim. And they only had the one life.

This was worse than a sea of blood.

Flesh and blood had lost any hint of their original form, fingers extended into empty space, facial skin was frozen in a look of agony while plastered to the wall. At this point, they were only “things”, not people. There was no dignity remaining.

Each of them was a dark side member who had arrived at ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' along a different route than him.

Their endless possibilities had been reduced to zero.

Or so it felt to him.

Was this tunnel really the right path? The further they went, the more likely they were to encounter that ghost woman, so he began to wonder if it would be safer to turn back now and return to the surface.

“Pwah.”

His girlfriend escaped his hand. He was holding her from behind, so she leaned her head back to look him in the eye.

“Hamazura, I don’t sense her presence anymore. We can keep going now.”

“…”

“We can’t give up after coming so far. Blindly returning to the surface won’t save us. We’ll never find peace if we don’t go through here.”

“R-right.”

He would have long since broken if he were alone.

But when she pulled on his hand, he managed to work up some small semblance of courage.

Even with the evenly-spaced fluorescent lights, the tunnel was dark. And they had no idea who was in charge of that sparse lighting. What if the ghost could shut off the power? His phone felt all the more important to him now.

“This is a long tunnel.”

“Yeah.”

They were not speaking much anymore.

This was ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'', but did this tunnel really lead toward hope? No matter how far they went, the darkness never went away. As they trudged deeper and deeper, he felt like they had passed a point of no return. Also, who had built this enormous underground facility? Someone must have drawn up the plans, dug the hole, set the foundation, and brought in the rebar and concrete. This was a far bigger project than a bank robber’s hand-dug tunnel into the vault. Such a vast and well-made underground space could not have been built without the involvement of a major construction company.

Who had done it?

It might be a company whose ads he saw on TV every day.

Would all of this come to light one day? But those meaningless thoughts were cut off by Takitsubo.

She had noticed first because she was not holding the light.

“Hamazura, there’s a door.”

“…”

It was a thick metal door.

Just the one door sat at the end of the long, long tunnel. There may have been another route, but he did not recall seeing any other paths branching off along the way.

He slowly approached.

It did not appear to be locked. He doubted there were any grenades or other “gifts” left for them.

But that was not what scared him. He had seen all of those corpses along the way. The sight had left him so terrified he barely had it in him to keep his heart beating. He had started to view their fallen predecessors as no more than a piece of the scenery. Because otherwise that shadowy murder scene would have overwhelmed him too much to continue on.

The taboos were piling up.

He and Takitsubo had started this simply wanting to survive, but they too had been corrupted along the way.

Hamazura Shiage reached his fingers toward the doorknob.

He touched it. He squeezed it.

He turned it.

===Part 4===

A flood of light revealed a world no one was ever meant to see.

“…”

The other world turned out to be a cavernous pit.

This abyss slept deep below the earth, yet it was filled with much more artificial light than the tunnel. That was thanks to the construction lights set up here and there.

It was easily more than 250 meters across and maybe more than twice as deep. The perfectly circular space made of reinforced concrete at the very bottom may have reminded different people of different things.

Some might see it as a common utility duct, a circular colosseum, a switchyard’s turntable, or an underground temple dedicated to a god one must never offer any prayers.

But there was one crucial piece that helped solidify the proper image.

“A train?” muttered Hamazura while peering down over the railing.

It was a turntable.

Concrete columns were installed at even intervals around the edges, but there were none in the central circle. The flat concrete floor had a smaller circle built into it. That would rotate to change the train’s direction. The tracks outside the circle extended in 12 different directions. That made it all look like something else: a giant metal flower.

Yes, there were tracks, signal lights, transformers, maintenance equipment, a control room, and a fifteen-car train in here. It was a freight train.

“That’s the dark side’s lifeline?”

For him and Takitsubo, it was the plank of Carneades that would save their lives.

He doubted that turntable was all of it. There would be a container yard and maintenance zone hidden further out from the center.

They walked along the narrow catwalk built along the circular wall and descended the stairs. There were no corpses in here. Whoever had gotten here first must have used the ghost woman to eliminate any nuisances before they reached this point.

And since the train was still here, that person would still be here.

They shared this space with the slaughterer.

“Hamazura.”

“Don’t worry. I’m with you no matter what.”

“Not that. There’s someone down there. And they’re not alone.”

That was a shock. Takitsubo Rikou could accurately locate people by sensing their AIM Diffusion Field. She could not use that power as well as she used to, but she could still sense it to an extent.

The tension grew.

A single person with a bizarre power was certainly scary, but having a large group approach you brought a different sort of fear. He mentally switched his priorities to at least allowing Takitsubo to escape if things looked bad.

The only exit was up here.

Leaving that would mean being surrounded by dead ends in every direction.

“…”

After descending the last flight of stairs, they arrived at the deepest depths.

It felt so much different from when they had been looking down from above. But that was not too surprising since 250 meters was larger than a domed stadium. This was the same as a sports field looking so much bigger from the stands than on TV.

Yes, Hamazura Shiage now stood on the stage. He was no longer an outsider looking in.

“Oh, dear. You actually showed up. What a shame.”

He lasted one second.

His knees suddenly dropped to the ground. He could not keep his shoulders at the same height and his lost strength would not return.

“Wha—!?”

It was the ghost woman.

Was she a beneficial or a harmful?

She had left that tunnel far too bloody to claim she was trying to escape Academy City because she disliked conflict. If anything, she felt more like a vengeful spirit that refused to let anyone leave the city.

She looked like a Western doll with her long blonde twintails and light blue dress. She did not actually punch or kick him. Simply seeing her out of the corner of his eye had done critical damage to him.

A rusty-smelling liquid dripped from his eyes and nose.

He was trying to scream and flip over onto his back, but he was actually curled up and unable to move.

Encountering her meant death.

That was far too sinister a thing to be connected with a simple equals sign like that.

“It is no use.”

The ghost woman walked without audible footsteps. She moved herself from the corner of his vision to the center.

“No one is talking about anything as silly as defending against something with a shield or dodging a projectile with super speed. ''From the moment you see my face,'' the attack is complete. If I so much as casually stand in the corner of your vision, I can do continual damage without you even noticing my presence.”

He realized the strange things had always happened when the ghost woman spoke to him. And why had she turned the lights on in that tunnel? Because it was more convenient for her.

If you saw a ghost while driving, you would crash.

If your face, hands, or feet were missing in a ghost photo, you would find unnatural wounds or marks on your body.

Did this mean she even artificially reproduced those aspects of a ghost? He did not want to believe it because it would mean there was nothing he could do.

“Hamazu—!?”

“You noticed? You must have sharper senses.”

The track suit girl quickly pulled him close, but the ghost woman did not seem to care.

Besides, if seeing her really did mean death, then Takitsubo would have been killed too, but she was fine.

“But I am not talking about anything as poorly-defined as a sixth sense for ghosts. Do you have a power related to AIM Diffusion Fields?”

“There’s no AIM Diffusion Field around you? No, some strong but invisible power is scattering that weaker field.”

“It is known as High Voltage Cutting,” said the ghost woman. “The principle may be similar to the shock diamonds seen in a rocket engine’s flame or the cavitation of air bubbles created around a propeller. The constant emission of a powerful energy will create irregular waveforms and images while it interferes with itself.”

“Gh!? What energy???”

“You can find energy everywhere.” Her tone was light, so understanding how it worked must not have helped avoid its effects. “The carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide you thoughtlessly spread around forms acid rain when it bonds with the moisture in the air. You can acquire electricity simply by sticking two electrodes into a fruit, you know? Copper and zinc are such necessities that you can find them anywhere. Using that, you can produce hydrogen gas in addition to electricity. I only need to absorb power from a ''civilization battery'' the size of a city or even greater. That is enough for me to construct a single outlier point within that stable energy.”

“…”

“What are the common types of haunted locations? Old homes full of drafts, cliffs and caves eroded by the waves, and mountain roads late at night. They are always full of ''noise'', such as static electricity, pressure differences, the creaking of rusty doors, or the rustling of the trees in the wind. Have you ever heard a ghostly voice in the crackle of excess electricity or the roar of hydrogen gas being ignited? I can exist as I am wherever human civilization exists. If you wish to kill me, you must destroy your very way of life. On a global scale.”

This was too much.

He could not understand her explanation. And even if he thought he did, it still did not tell him how to destroy her.

Takitsubo gasped and spoke while holding onto him.

“I get that the constant use of a massive amount of unseen energy would eventually create something unnatural. But if seeing you is deadly, how do you choose specific targets to—?”

She trailed off.

She had seen something out of the corner of her eye, but not the artificial ghost this time. A unified set of colors could be seen peeking out of at them from a gap in the door to one of the freight train’s containers.

''They were small children wearing gym clothes and some kind of device. There were more than just ten or twenty of them.

''All of them were a part of the ghost experiment.

The children must have seen the ghost woman as they nervously spied out. And they seemed to be expectantly waiting to see if she would repel these unknown intruders. They did not know. They had not been told what they were being used for. Simply viewing a ghost photo was harmful and the longer you viewed it, the more damage it did. She embodied that power so perfectly that she had eliminated so many dark side elites.

Yet she had managed to accurately select one out of the many candidates.

That was like shooting the apple off someone’s head. Without explaining any of it to the children who had those sensors attached to them.

“…”

The delinquent boy clenched his teeth.

He could barely move, she held his life in her hand, and he had no idea how to fight back. He had to avoid angering her if at all possible. He understood that, but he still shouted up at her.

“You scum!!”

“Call me what you wish. In fact, I see it as a compliment.”

The ghost woman who resembled a fairy tale princess held her palm out toward him. He only had to see her impossible presence for her to attack, so that gesture was meaningless.

But then her eyes turned unnaturally away from him.

To the side.

A spare container sitting near the train was sliced in two. Something had dropped down from far above like a bolt of lightning.

A red figure wielded a thick machete made of heavy metal.

The android wore a racing swimsuit colored the orange and black of an insect. The bangs of her long crimson hair were cut straight across and she had a slender build.

Cartoony flowers were displayed in her mechanical eyes.

“Smug face.”

“Hello, hello,” said a twig of an old man in a blue jumpsuit and lab coat. “I hate to interrupt when you seem so busy, but I must insist.”

The ghost woman shrugged.

“Were you hoping to use the train? I thought you were one of the harmfuls who would remain in the city and resist to the bitter end.”

“I have no interest in those categories forced onto the dark side from the outside. All I care about is continuing my research. Academy City was a wonderful environment for that, but if that has changed, I need to leave and search out a more comfortable place.”

“You can see me, can’t you?”

“You should be able to tell by observing my eye movements.”

“And you know what that means?” She gave a suggestive glance over at the machine that had arrived with him. “In case you were unaware, I am capable of causing malfunctions in mechanical lenses and sensors just as well as in the human body. Ghost photographs are a result of ghosts interfering in optical machinery, are they not? That might be your masterpiece, but isn’t it presumptuous to assume she can wield her full power against me?”

She remained untouchable. She could kill someone just by placing herself in the corner of their vision and machines could not do anything to her either. Did she have no blind spots?

“Yes, I imagine so.”

But the old man did not seem to mind.

That mysterious old man ''known as a Kihara'' was not bothered that she held his life in her hand.

“You are the strongest when it comes to an individual. Looking at deadliness alone, you might outdo the #3 and the #2.”

“…”

Evidently, even ghosts could find something to be ominous.

This world may have been infected with a disease that caused all bad premonitions to come true.

“But in this specific location, I believe you too will find you cannot wield your full power.”

“What are you—gah!!!!????”

He had given her plenty of warning, but she suddenly arched her back and then froze unnaturally in midair. An ominous straining sound continued on and on as her body grew distorted. She bent and stretched, almost like a face pressed against a wall of glass.

Something was happening.

Hamazura had thought the ghost woman was an intangible being, like a mist or apparition. But she was not. She clearly had a spine to strain, muscles to cry out in pain, and organs to writhe unnaturally.

Then a bizarre creaking and cracking noise came from her. Her volume shrank more and more like she was being crushed in from all sides. The old man was holding something up in his special engineering glove. It looked like an empty candy box, but it was not. It had a small pinhole at the very top. The ghost woman was sucked into that small hole like a liquid or a gas. Hamazura did not want to imagine what things were like inside there. He could only say one thing in a daze.

“A pinhole…camera?”

“High Voltage Cutting? I see, a strange theory, but she is still a form of unstable energy. And all energy will move from high to low—unstable to stable. This is enough to break down her form and burn in her image.”

The old man let go of the candy box.

He had the look of a mischievous child who had just realized he could create his own spark show by sticking a metal clip in the microwave.

“This is the appropriate choice for a ghost photo, don’t you think? A digital camera just wouldn’t fit the aesthetic.”

After dropping it to the cold concrete, he crushed it below his heel. He did not even glance down at the flattened box.

“''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.''” He tapped on his lower back. “Surely you didn’t think a construction company building a secret tunnel out of the city was enough to earn a name like that. With something like her around, you really should have thought of a different possibility.”

“Wh-what?”

Hamazura felt like the unnatural “curse” had weakened, but he still could not bring himself to get up from the ground. The old man only now seemed to have realized that there was another person here reaching for the plank of Carneades.

Hamazura knew any attention on him would only lead to disaster.

Kihara Hasuu smiled.

“Let me make one thing clear. There is a member of the Board who built a vast fortune by doing unofficial construction work for the dark side, but he knows nothing of this. This massive underground structure just appeared out of the blue one day.”

“…?”

Out of the blue?

Hamazura had operated construction machinery before, so he knew how absurd that was. Did that old man have any idea how long it would take to dig out a hole of this size?

But the old man appeared to be serious.

Deadly serious.

“''The Vanishing Tunnel does not actually exist.''”

Hamazura had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

It made no sense. If that were true, then where were they now???

The old man gave the answer.

“Kazakiri Hyouka was not just a single individual. She is more like one piece of the Imaginary Number District, an entire city created from the aggregation of AIM Diffusion Fields. …It all began with a project meant to cut out a portion of that territory and extract it as a new resource. Unlike the microscopic alchemy performed in the particle accelerator, this would have been on the macro scale and cost very little. But not even the group of researchers who guided all that power through the city could have predicted it would take this form. ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' is such a dramatic name. In truth, it was a major failure that needed to be covered up. Everyone involved was at their wits’ end.” He tapped his lower back again. “A nonexistent pathway unofficially connected Academy City to the world outside, increasing the risk of the outer world’s collapse through cultural exchange and technological contamination. The entire world very well could have been destroyed from this single point. While the researchers had hoped to extract materials from the Imaginary Number District, whatever came from there might have transformed the outside world into something truly grotesque. …Yes, that the world still exists as it does now was no more than ''dumb luck''. It was nothing we did on our end. Kazakiri Hyouka and the other inhuman monsters simply showed no interest in that. If something had occurred to them and they had tried it, the world would have ended.”

“You mean…” Takitsubo replied since she had a better understanding of things related to AIM. “You were researching the exact opposite of that ghost? A ghost made from powerful energy and an aggregation of weak powers are opposites, so when they came together, it caused the ghost to malfunction… You were trying to extract inorganic materials from that unseen city, weren’t you?”

“Hard to say if that research was a step forward or a step back. Like I said, they failed. They could not control it, so even the remains of their project you see here cannot be erased. I believe the natural half life was about 12,000 years. In the worst case, the Imaginary Number District could have been converted into real numbers, crushing Academy City in the process. I think the project could have found success if they could have cut off a piece at a workable size and found a way to control it. In that sense, that ghost really is the strongest as an individual and an enviable success.”

Now even Hamazura had a vague idea why the ghost woman had suddenly malfunctioned.

They could not be in the same place.

Two ghosts could not coexist. Just like installing two different pieces of security software on the same computer would cause a conflict.

“It was still a risky gamble, though. The odds were low, but if the tunnel ''had lost'', this temporary space itself would have vanished and we would all have become fossils after being buried deep below the surface.”

Hamazura heard a swooshing sound and looked over to see the android swinging her thick machete next to the old man. Those two had won their bet, so now no one could stop them.

Kihara Hasuu looked away from Hamazura and turned to someone else.

“Now, I have eliminated your bodyguard. Isn’t it time we talked this out like adults?”

===Part 5===

“When’s the train going to leave?”

“Oh, mister just left.”

The children dressed up in gym clothes were whispering to each other while peeking out through the cracked-open door of a freight train container.

But among them…

“Ow, that hurts.”

The girl named Risako spoke up in protest.

But Sodate ignored that and continued tugging on her skinny wrist. The bigger boy was kind of scary when he was not saying anything.

“Listen, Risako.” He spoke quickly while walking through the shadows to stay hidden. He seemed to be speaking to himself more than the girl. “You can still escape. It’s not too late. And once you get to the surface, go tell the grownups about this. I know you can do it.”

“Why? The train is about to leave.”

“You still don’t get it!?” He shouted with his hands on her shoulders. “They make us wear these clothes and devices, they keep us separated from the rest of the city, and they don’t let us go to a normal school. We’re Child Errors, so no one will even notice if we just disappear one day. They’re only raising us because they can use us for something. They’re fattening us up to eat us!”

“But…”

“We don’t even have phones to call for help. ''It isn’t normal to be this isolated.'' That’s why I kept leaving behind some sign of our presence: building blocks, picture books, balls, and so on. I left them outside before the trucks moved on and I made sure to write our names, the trucks’ license numbers, and other information on them! But none of it ever reached the grownups. Our efforts never reached anyone!!”

She had thought he kept stealing things because he was selfish. She had thought he would forget those things in his secret bases because he was sloppy. But that was not it.

“They’re relatively peaceful beneficials? Don’t make me laugh. What’s going to change after we board that train and leave Academy City? There won’t be anyone monitoring them anymore!! Once that happens, I just know he’ll stop holding back. He’ll ''take it even further''! So you at least need to escape before that happens!!”

“Sodate-chan…”

“I’ll give you an opening.” He looked the girl in the eye and spoke clearly. “I won’t let him turn you into a guinea pig no matter what!!”

===Part 6===

A somewhat slender man stepped out. He wore a short-sleeved safari jacket and a rash guard, making him look something like an old-fashioned adventurer, but the webcam attached to the side of his head gave him a more modern outdoorsy look. He appeared to be a different sort of researcher from the old mechanic in a lab coat and jumpsuit.

He was an expert at visiting so-called haunted locations around the world and revealing the scientific cause of the strange phenomena there. But he had apparently also artificially recreated such things to use them for his own purposes.

He grinned and raised his hands in a jocular way. Kihara Hasuu asked him a question with the deadly weapon girl still by his side.

“What is your name?”

“Drencher Kihara Repatri.”

“I see. So that’s you.”

The young man’s eyebrows moved slightly in response to the old man’s impressed tone.

“I didn’t expect someone like you to have heard of me.”

“You are rather…well known.”

The way he said that told Hamazura he did not mean that in a positive way.

This was a confrontation between two harmfuls.

The two researchers ignored the boy and girl entirely as they began a verbal rally. Hamazura knew he could not just sit and watch as a referee or spectator, but he had no way of intervening.

“As you can see, we come from different levels of the dark side. If there is no place for us in Academy City anymore, then leaving the city is a valid choice. But is that plank of Carneades really only big enough for the one group? I think it can support both of us just fine.”

That suggestion seemed surprising…but maybe it wasn’t. It was the ghost woman who had been slaughtering all of the other dark side members trying to reach this point. The android may have attacked Anti-Skill, but she had never actively tried to eliminate her fellow dark siders. She had attacked Hamazura near the counterfeiter’s tents, but if she had been trying to slaughter everyone she came across, the ordinary people in the amusement park would not have escaped alive.

The young man shrugged.

“If that means less fighting, it’s okay with me. Not that I really have a choice, do I?”

“Assuming you have no other trump cards.”

“Then I surrender.”

He did not hesitate to respond. Hamazura was actually surprised to see he was willing to back down to save his own life. Hamazura had gotten the impression that the extreme members of the dark side were willing to sacrifice their own life to achieve their goal.

That surprise scared Hamazura. He could tell he had let the dark side influence him too much. He was afraid the damage would be permanent if he went much further. Once he became a harmful, there was no going back.

“She was my prized project, you know? Frillsand #G, I mean. Now, I knew ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' would pose a challenge, but I never imagined it was a giant mass of AIM Diffusion Fields.”

“Everything has its compatibility. In fact, I could never have won if we were not down here. Keep this girl from working and I’m helpless.”

The crimson-haired girl did nothing to fight the wrinkled hand rubbing her head.

The two men were reaching an agreement. That was not good. Hamazura and Takitsubo had nothing they could offer in a negotiation. At this rate, they would probably each get a bullet in the head as a parting gift. The only other option he could imagine was being made into a guinea pig for some bizarre experiment.

“Oh, right,” casually began the old man.

If he said “what should we do about those two lumps of flesh”, they were screwed. And Hamazura could not predict what that Kihara would do. He felt a terrible squeezing at his heart.

Finally, Kihara Hasuu continued.

“While we can share the train, I will be in charge there. So if you want a ride, it’s only natural you pay a small fare, don’t you think?”

“Do you want my research notes on Frillsand #G?”

“I’m no barbarian. A scientist’s research notes are a part of his very soul. Those are the fruits of your labors, so take them to your grave.”

“Then what do you want?”

“A few of them.”

The old man’s voice was as casual as ever as he pointed his engineering glove in a different direction entirely. He pointed at the gym clothes children who were peeking out from behind cover, without a clue what was being discussed.

“''Just select a few at random.'' I intend to restart my research once things have calmed down, but the rules are different outside the city. I can’t start abducting people off the street until I have a proper base set up, so I could use an initial supply for that settling-in period.”

Hamazura froze as he listened in.

This was the dark side. This was how the elites of that stagnant world thought.

“That Frillsand #G is important to your research, but not so with those lab rats, right? How many experimental observers’ lives were lost until you managed to ''properly reproduce'' that artificial ghost? If your research has entered a stable period, I would assume you are not running through those Child Errors as quickly as you once were.”

“Heh,” laughed Drencher Kihara Repatri.

He weakly lowered his raised hands. He must have decided that was no longer necessary. He too had seen the darkness, so he spoke with the same look in his eyes as the old man.

“It’s true those are all Child Errors. And however they would be treated in the ordinary world, we all know exactly what that term means in the dark side. Yes, I gathered them together and invited them into my lab. I made sure to have a plentiful stock of convenient lives that could be spent as I liked if other forms of research were not enough.”

“Then I can have a few?”

“''Go to hell, you son of a bitch.''”

===Part 7===

Several dry gunshots rang out.

===Part 8===

Hamazura Shiage did not understand what had just happened.

“Hamazura!!”

His body still refused to do what it was told, so track suit girl Takitsubo had to push him to the ground.

The young man had pulled out a handgun. It was no more than a small revolver, but he still fired it repeatedly from just a few meters away.

However…

“Ugh…”

“That won’t work,” said the old man.

The android’s crimson hair fluttered while she held her thick machete at the ready with her bare feet planted a step in front of Hasuu. Not only had she deflected all of the bullets, she had used their ricochets as a counterattack.

''No more than a small revolver.

''Something had gone horribly wrong when you started thinking of things in those terms in this country.

The young man had several holes in his upper body and dark red stains spread across his clothes. Doubling over did nothing to help, so he finally collapsed to the ground.

The old man in a jumpsuit and lab coat spoke up in exasperation while the strongest doll protected him.

“They’re just kids. And it’s not like I’m asking for all of them. Just two or three will do.”

“I wanted to…protect them from the dark side scum who think like that,” spat the young man while struggling to breathe down on all fours. He had given up trying to hold his wounds. “But nothing I did above board did anything to help. I couldn’t even get information on where those children were. The only way to fight the dark side…was to become the dark side. I almost laughed when I saw how many people came running to me then, claiming my research was so valuable. When I said I needed children’s lives to do it, they slapped me on the shoulder and agreed to it all. While happily sipping on a glass of the year’s finest red with their other hand. This city is rotten to the core.”

“Aren’t you Drencher Kihara Repatri?”

“Claiming to be a Kihara was the quickest way to get what I wanted. Ha ha. Those VIPs really were terrified of me.”

“Dammit,” spat out Hamazura Shiage.

The young man saw his own condition as of secondary importance.

It was true the ghost woman had used the children. They had been placed in a position where she could crush their lives at any moment. But had Hamazura ever seen her actually kill a child? What if they had been living in a world where they had to take the charade that far to be believed?

The old man had asked how many experimental observers’ lives were lost until he managed to properly reproduce the artificial ghost, but the young man had never answered.

That was in fact the answer. He had not sacrificed anyone. Not one. He had wanted to gather up those children known as Child Errors and drag them up out of the darkness. There ''were'' adults willing to dive into the dark side for no other reason than that.

There really were.

And yet…

“You’re lying.”

Hamazura suddenly rejected that entire premise. Because if he accepted this, he would have to admit to his own ugliness. Even if saying this would mean revealing he was ugly enough to put up a struggle like this.

“I’ve seen you before. You were at that counterfeiter’s place! You were preparing a passport for yourself so you could abandon those kids and leave the city!!”

“This all would have gone so much more smoothly if that had worked.” The young man smiled weakly. “If I had shown off how I escaped with the passport, Anti-Skill and the dark side’s focus would have turned toward District 23’s airport. Then the children would have had a safer escape underground here. I was never supposed to be down here with them.”

“~ ~ ~!!!!!!”

It felt like they lived in two completely different worlds.

And that young man was definitely the one in the right.

Hamazura felt so pathetic and contemptible for only ever acting to protect him and his girlfriend.

“I know I shouldn’t be asking this.”

The young man looked his way. As if to say it did not matter if he really was a Kihara or not.

His eyes knew how to view the light, but for some reason he now looked to someone as corrupted as Hamazura.

“Maybe it’s for the best if the dark side is destroyed, but please take care of those kids. You’re the only person I can leave them with now. When you saw your girlfriend suffering, you panicked and dumped medical supplies across the ground in your haste. I could see the conscience in your eyes. You had no choice but to fall this far, but you should still have some resistance to the dark side left inside you.”

“Wait, I’m not like that for everyone. Don’t shove this onto me! She’s my girlfriend, so of course I’d work to save her!!”

“Ha ha. Thinking that’s an ‘of course’ is what makes you such an oddity in the dark side. Don’t worry, I know you can do it. Because after falling into this shitty world, you still managed to find someone you care for and you decided to find peace instead of another thrill.”

Hamazura and Takitsubo had first heard of ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' from this man.

Hamazura had been cautious because there was no righteousness in the dark side and the man must have had his own reasons.

Was this why?

Had it been some insurance, just in case? Instead of worrying about his own survival, he had wanted some insurance for after he died.

Yet he had also slaughtered the dark sider people rushing toward this exit.

All because he could not let any harm come to the children as those people fought each other. He had rushed down a dark path to prevent a mere possibility.

But on Hamazura and Takitsubo’s way here, hadn’t the ghost woman glanced their way after slaughtering everyone else and then left, as if sparing them?

“Why did you do all this?”

That was the only question Hamazura could find.

That was not something to say to a dying man. He knew that. But after letting the dark side corrupt him while he worked so hard to ensure his and his girlfriend’s survival, this answer was too pure and upright to accept.

“How could you throw away your own life over this!? When you get down to it, those kids are just strangers! How could a goddamn harmful go this far just because you ‘wanted to save them’!? How!? Tell me!?”

The young man smiled.

There was already blood dripping from the corners of his lips.

“Do you need a reason to protect someone? Of course you don’t.”

That was the end of it.

Time stopped for him with the smile still on his lips.

He had no reason. He did not know why. And he had rushed in to save those children without ever finding a reason.

Hamazura Shiage had to admit defeat.

“A…”

The loser boy clenched his teeth. He moved his battered body, swiped the bloody handgun and some ammo from the young man, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

Losers had their own etiquette to follow.

That scummy old man was still here. Hamazura was not going to let him trample on the young man’s victory.

“Aaaneriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!”

A dull kachunk echoed through the circular space.

The support AI had taken control of the train and shifted it out of standby, so it slowly began to move.

The turntable had tracks in twelve directions, but he knew where to send it.

He just had to remember what the card-sized hard drive labeled Lifeline had said.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

In other words…

(Hours and minutes. If I apply that to an analog clock…)

“Send it down the five o’clock track!!”

The train took off with so many children in gym clothes on board.

That had been his top priority.

“Is justice contagious these days?” asked the old man with the look of someone viewing a crazy person.

He had already proven that the gun would not work, so he gave Hamazura a look of partial pity now that he had inherited that defeated weapon.

“You risked your life for this, but to no avail. Look, not all of them were onboard. They must have run in fear from the very person who would have saved them.”

“Hamazura, two of them were left behind. We can’t just leave them here.”

A boy and a girl in gym clothes were holding hands a short distance away.

What had they thought when they learned the truth behind that young man’s satisfied smile?

Especially when their own actions had worked against him.

“Well, those two will suffice. I will be taking them as a souvenir. Any more than this would have been a waste of food anyway.”

“Shut up,” spat out Hamazura.

He really should not have been doing this. He had come here to escape to safety. It had been clear from the very beginning that he could not be a great hero or brave warrior. This selfish choice here might put himself and his girlfriend in danger.

But.

Even so.

A dying man had left this with him. He had been reminded what it meant to do the right thing. There were lives here he could save. He could redo things. And most of all, his girlfriend was watching.

He was done being pathetic. He gathered strength in his sweaty body and stood up under his own power again. He had to.

“Maybe you’re a Kihara and an android.”

His goal was to run away?

No, sometimes a man had to stand up and speak his mind.

“But I’ll take you on, you goddamned dark siders!!!!!!”

He knew it was possible.

He had just seen a man stay true to this way of life.

He could reclaim his humanity. He must have learned something from what he saw here.

===Part 9===

Of course, Hamazura could never actually hit the crimson-haired android by firing the 9mm handgun at random. He knew she would deflect the bullets with her thick machete and fill him with holes.

So he did something else instead.

“Aneri!!”

A giant shape suddenly moved right next to the racing swimsuit girl.

A wheel loader used to stack up the railroad-sized containers was being remotely controlled.

“Move.”

What was that machete even made of? She did not even look in that direction as she swung her weapon and sliced apart the snowplow-looking piece of machinery. Even though she was not using any rapid vibrations or heat.

But Hamazura used that moment to pull on his girlfriend’s hand and move from there.

This was a vast circular space, but it was not an empty colosseum.

It had concrete columns just like an underground common utility duct and it had various equipment needed for operating and maintaining the trains, all located where it would not get in the way of the turntable and the twelve directions of track. Transformers were surrounded by a fence, a prefab hut had been made into a control room, giant jacks and a carwash were prepared for maintenance purposes, and more.

Aneri had directly operated the freight train, so he felt safe assuming she could operate all of the equipment here.

He pulled his girlfriend close while hiding behind a concrete column and whispering to his phone.

“Aneri, can you directly hijack that hunk of junk?”

No response.

He took that as a no. This did not sound like it was an issue of building up to that or setting something up in advance. That android was immune to cyber attacks on some level he did not understand.

(That means the only option is to destroy her the old-fashioned way!!)

“Hamazura, we can’t hide here forever. If she stops focusing on us, she’ll go after those children. Villains always go for the easiest target.”

“I know that.”

Takitsubo kept trying to wipe the sweat from her brow, but something was not right. The moxibustion should have relieved her symptoms to an extent, but that treatment might not be working as much anymore.

He was worried, but he could not stop now. He hated that fact.

“But using ourselves as bait will put us at risk. Are you prepared for that, Takitsubo?”

“Ask any more stupid questions and I’ll slap you.”

“Okay, it’s time to win your heart all over again!!”

They both ran out from behind the concrete column.

Their eyes met the ones with pupils mechanically expanding and contracting, but they stayed strong this time.

===Part 10===

Ladybird had a lock on two targets.

She walked barefoot across the floor and accurately obeyed her instructions, but she also had a question.

Why were the children necessary?

Kihara Hasuu—her Sensei—was researching androids. He had already successfully created one, so he no longer needed to capture biological humans to dissect and observe them. This disagreement appeared to be over ownership of the Child Errors (she failed to realize it was her education by that true Kihara that led her to use the word “ownership” in this context), but why was the old man so insistent on this?

That unfortunate research was a thing of the past.

She was an android built from purely mechanical parts, but she could use an esper power. That meant no more human specimens were needed for esper development experiments. They only had to mess with machines from now on. The Child Errors no longer needed to be captured and used up.

She thought that was a wonderful thing. She could not believe the people who still clung to the old system that required humans to use other humans. Did they wish to protect the status given to them by the current Level system? If they truly believed their fight was just, then they were beyond reasoning with. Machines were not the only ones that could have their memory data rewritten. Humans could have their feelings and thoughts falsified as well.

So she would bring an end to it all.

She was fighting here to end the misfortune and tragedies caused by the esper development program.

“Ohhhh!!”

The boy raised a meaningless battle cry, ran in, and repeatedly fired his handgun. She only had to block those shots with her machete.

But he had apparently learned how she fought.

She tried to hit him with the ricochets, but they refused to hit. When she deflected a bullet back, it would follow the same straight trajectory. Placing a single piece of plywood in the middle would change things. A bullet’s force was determined by its muzzle velocity. The force of the ricochet would generally be lower. That was obvious enough since bullets were not constantly accelerating like a rocket or missile. So he could set it up so he could shoot her through an obstacle, but she could not break through it on the way back.

Her use of ricochets was similar to Accelerator’s reflection, but all her machete did was knock the bullet back. She could not ''include the actual vector in that''.

That said…

(I doubt someone with such a stupid face could do this. He must be receiving assistance with the calculations.)

She considered jumping. Lifting both feet from the ground was usually a bad idea in combat, but not so with her. With her android specs, she could kick off of one column to the next and attack from the air.

She heard the loud roar of an engine while dealing with the bullets.

It appeared to come from a forklift.

“Aneri, surround the kids! I don’t know where that old man got off to, but don’t let him get close!! If he tries it, run him over!!”

“Don’t get distracted.”

He could have gotten a hit in on her by sending the forklift in from the side while firing on her from the front. Not that a blow like that would be enough to destroy her frame.

She swung the thick machete in her right hand while gathering her strength in the space between her eyebrows.

That was how she aimed.

A blast of wind blew away the obstacles between her and Hamazura Shiage. It was more like they were obliterated by an explosion than swept away by wind.

“An esper power!?” shouted the boy.

“It looked to be Level 3 or higher,” said the girl.

She no longer had to worry about the gunfire now that the line of fire was clear. He must have known the risk of ricochets was back because he stopped attacking and hid behind a nearby column, but that was no defense. She could charge in and slice through the column and his torso behind it with a single horizontal sweep of her blade.

She had enough time to reach her other hand to her thigh, pull out the bottle, and take a drink of the discharge machine oil.

A dull boom burst out.

She was only an android modeled after the structure of the human body, but the materials used for her skeleton, muscles, and everything else were bizarre dark side tech. If she wanted to, her horsepower could rival a V12 engine at max RPM.

But even as she chose the correct action, her mechanical head was filled with questions.

She had used a wind power.

But hadn’t she used fire during her previous clash with these people? And what about the time before that?

Androids had the same structure as humans, so a single android should only have a single power. Or could she do what humans could not because she was a machine?

(Sensei?)

===Part 11===

A column of reinforced concrete was sliced through as easily as tofu or thin paper.

Not horizontally or diagonally—vertically and all the way through. After kicking from column to column to gain height, she had apparently dropped down like lightning. She had a human form, but she could perform superhuman movements.

Hamazura Shiage had tried to jump to the side just beforehand, but he ended up tumbling into a roll.

It was not his torso sliced through along with the column. It was a gas drum kept on hand for the facility’s auxiliary power generator.

He grimaced at the pain in his hips as he continued rolling and pulled the trigger repeatedly.

Not even Ladybird could deflect bullets that hit the concrete ground and sent sparks flying.

The vaporizing gasoline ignited into explosive flames that swallowed up the entire racing swimsuit silhouette.

However…

“No, Hamazura! It didn’t work!!”

“Tch!!”

He clicked his tongue while the track suit girl ran over from elsewhere and pulled him to his feet. A black figure was displayed on the other side of that fiery screen. She showed no sign of collapsing or writhing in pain.

Had she used that previous wind power to affect how the flames spread?

He hoped so. If she was simply this tough, he could not imagine how to defeat her.

“How ''do'' you defeat an android anyway? Strangle her or stab her in the heart, she’s still a machine. That won’t stop her!!”

Could he break her motherboard? Or pull out her battery? But he had no idea how many she had or where in her slender body they were located.

The roaring flames were sliced apart. A horizontal sweep of the heavy metal machete conquered the orange barrier. The barefoot android stepped through entirely unscathed. There was no sign of discoloration on her crimson hair, white skin, or orange and black racing swimsuit.

“Something isn’t right,” said Takitsubo Rikou with eyes seemingly more robotic than the machine’s. What was she looking at right now? “An android that uses esper powers is conceivably possible. Mechanical processing may be able to ‘observe’ the waves or particles like a human brain does. And if you developed that far enough, you might be able to purposefully select between different supernatural phenomena. But this wavelength is simpler than that.”

“You mean how she switches between powers?” spat out Hamazura. “That container base in the garbage pile was their lab, right? Then I get why that old man wants those kids so bad. Even if I don’t know exactly ''how'' he would use them.”

Now, why were they able to spend so long discussing this?

The delinquent boy made sure to keep his gun aimed, but the android in question was only tilting her head.

A dark liquid was dripping from her eyes and nose.

He had seen that before. Immediately after she had been hit by the hakama girl and fought back with her fire power.

“Oh, dear.”

Kihara Hasuu’s voice reached them from somewhere, but it was echoing too much to tell where it came from. Hamazura would have shot the man if he saw him.

“Is it that time already? This is why I wanted to stock up sooner rather than later.”

“Hey.” Hamazura shouted at the unseen man. “Isn’t that cheating? You can’t really call her an android if that’s what you’re doing.”

The boy watched as the girl in the orange and black racing swimsuit held her head and doubled over.

A low straining sound came from her.

Then her back opened along the line from her nape to her tailbone.

The clasp holding together the X-shaped band at the center of the swimsuit’s back popped open and the supports were released in four directions.

Then her soft skin opened wide while supported at her nape.

Her opened back almost looked like a steam locomotive’s boiler or a furnace from hell. The fact that it was smooth human skin instead of a thick metal door gave it the sinister appearance of an insect’s shell opening up.

The top half of her swimsuit fell out of place, but her chest was not visible.

Her long red hair dropped down to cover it up.

She had planted her hands and feet on the ground like a beast.

Something translucent crawled out of her. It looked like a long, narrow blade or like a wriggling snake. It would grab something, drag it inside her, and cut it away. It was an automatic extraction organ.

Hamazura knew what it was for.

“I saw the junk those trash collectors were taking back after searching through those piles of abandoned items. A fridge was full of some brownish filth.”

He felt nauseated just remembering it.

He grimaced as he viewed that monster.

“''It was stuffed full of corpses with the contents of their heads removed.'' When those trash collectors were searching out fridges and washing machines, they weren’t selling them to used appliance stores. They were opening up bloodstained boxes packed full of still-usable organs. And they all came from your lab, didn’t they!?”

“Well, the ordinary corpses were apparently disposed of in District 10’s slums, but there are a lot of people willing to buy up ones fresh enough to make use of their parts.”

Ladybird was not an android with esper powers. She was as harmful as they came. She was a machine that would devour people’s brains when necessary. In Hamazura’s opinion, that meant she did not fit the definition of an android.

“This is a completely different approach from the Rensa model of esper cyborg. Instead of a cyborg made by ''giving a brain a body'', Ladybird-kun ''is a body given a brain.''” Hasuu sounded like he was introducing his favorite grandchild. “Cellulose nanofiber is a carbon material gathering attention for its use in making wires and bulletproof materials, but the point is we can create delicate wires even thinner than the cranial nerves. But unlike a biological brain, leaving them in their active state causes them to automatically replicate and they will try to forcibly fold themselves up for space if they run out of room in the skull. The cerebrum’s frontal lobe is especially troublesome. So ''a foreign object'' must be introduced to constantly provide just the right amount of damage to ensure the brain remains the size I want it. Her power changes each time a new ''foreign object'' is introduced, but that is due to the change in the rejection and damage pattern. You can think of that as a simple idiosyncrasy.”

“Sen…sei?”

A grinding sound came from Ladybird while she seemed to be searching for something. However the old researcher described it, a human brain was apparently a necessary part for her to run. Her movements were noticeably stiff and awkward as she pursued that poison on her own.

“Sensei…but you said this research would help. You said the spread of androids would mean no more human specimens were needed for the esper development.”

“The ladybird—another name for the ladybug—might look humorous, but it is in fact a ravenous carnivore. You have heard that they are good to have around because they eat aphids, haven’t you?”

“Gh…kh.”

“And there are a lot of insects that mimic ladybugs. That includes a type of darkling beetle and cockroach, both kinds of bugs people might not normally want around. But that is not actually a type of protective coloration. Ha ha. Instead of trying to blend into their natural surroundings or avoid their predators, that coloration might actually be used to make humans like them.”

How deep did the dark side go?

How disgusting could the dark said get?

“So don’t you see?”

Its attacks were indiscriminate, like a cannibal insect.

The developer spoke to what looked like a lovely girl. And he seemed to be enjoying it immensely.

“''That is the perfect name for you.''”

===Part 12===

text> @I thought there was a problem with the world.

text> @I thought it was wrong for @humans to use @humans for their research in this city.

text> But @I could climb onto the examination table instead.

text> @I can be repaired or remade as many times as necessary.

text> Since my body was made identically to a @human’s, @I would be able to use an esper power as well. Pieces of my body could be freely added or removed, so @I could be examined inside and out more easily than a @human and @I could be modified as they saw fit.

text> No more sacrifices would be necessary for the esper development research.

text> That is why @I fought.

text> @I thought @Sensei’s research was a wonderful thing.

''“You know, Ladybird-kun, the term android signifies an artificial human built with an engineering approach. Based on that definition, it seems appropriate to me for a completed android to behave like a human.”

text> @Sensei’s words were like a shining light of hope.

text> @I wondered if @I really was good enough.

text> But @I was happy as long as @I could be of some use. @I think that kind of feeling is not something a simple machine could feel.

text> Does that mean @I am somehow @human?

text> The @humans that @I have seen are like that. They do not hesitate to make inefficient choices without even considering cost performance.

text> That is why @I find @humans to be so incredible.

text> @I have not spoken much with any other than @Sensei, but @I know that is because @androids cannot be made public yet. But @I love the @humans that @I see from a distance.

text> @I will build a path to a brighter future for them—a path to a happier world—so @I cannot allow someone to destroy all that just because they do not understand. So I will not let anyone interfere. Anyone who claims it is right to harm @people cannot be allowed to trample on the future @I can bring them.

text> So…

text>And yet…

===Part 13===

“Ah, ahh. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

The lovely girl in a racing swimsuit screamed.

All light vanished from her already mechanical eyes. She had fully transformed into a grotesque predator that roared on all fours.

She wanted to reject the idea, but she could not.

The only way to preserve herself was to devour that raw body tissue and bring it to the most important part of her body. Because intentionally introducing that foreign object would trigger a rejection reaction that would continue to damage her head in just the right way. That truth was more horrifying than needing to soak in a bathtub full of rotting corpses every day. Yet she could not stop. She was not allowed to stop. That had been built into her at the design phase, whether she liked it or not. She would always return to it like a drowning person struggling to reach the surface for air.

Tears spilled from her eyes.

Her mechanical face was painted with anger, hatred, and shame.

Why was she designed to do that?

An ordinary person like Hamazura could not figure it out. What logical reason was there? It almost felt like the cruelty of someone who enjoyed to watch others suffer.

At the same time, everything she needed to survive was contained inside her. Or maybe it was more accurate to say she had been built as an autonomous iron maiden. The victim was thrown into her back, the door to that steam locomotive boiler would slam shut, and the rest was completed automatically. She was made to do that and she must have actually done it several times before.

At that point, it was not an issue of good and evil on her part.

Hamazura could not judge her, but he did have to stop her.

No matter what.

“Grahhhhhhhh!!” she roared.

“Hamazura!!”

Takitsubo shouted in a panic because the red figure had vanished.

But the quadrupedal android had not leaped toward Hamazura or Takitsubo. Nor did she leap toward Kihara Hasuu who had made her this way. She went for someone else. She gained height by kicking off the columns and she moved every closer to the smallest and easiest prey: the kids in gym clothes.

Her instincts took precedence over strategy or emotion.

“Aneri!!”

A hacked track inspection car drove in from the side to tear apart an exposed high-voltage power line for the train. The power line whipped like a serpent and tangled around the android.

A great crash followed.

Knocking her to the ground was not going to flatten Ladybird, but it mattered a lot that she had fallen on her right side with the machete still in that hand.

She could not use that to defend with her arm caught between herself and the ground.

Hamazura gripped the small revolver in both hands and fired several times.

Dry gunshots expanded through the enclosed space.

This time, the shots actually hit the android whose back was turned to him. The “mouth” on her back quickly closed before she had even withdrawn the extraction organ that resembled the thin wing of an insect or a giant scalpel, but that was all that happened. It did not seem to do any real damage to her.

She used one arm to tear away the exposed power line wrapped around her like a serpent, freeing herself. At this rate, the forklifts protecting the children would not last long.

There was no time to spare.

“Boy!! Do you want to protect that girl!?” shouted Hamazura from a distance.

He did not wait for a response. The boy’s efforts had backfired badly, but if he did not care about that girl, he would not have gotten her off the train so she could escape.

Hamazura Shiage decided to trust this fellow human being.

“Then be brave and step forward! Falling back only gives her more of a chance to eat you two!!”

When the boy protecting his friend squeezed his eyes shut and stepped forward, Ladybird briefly came to a stop. She needed the soft brains inside those children. That was the poison she needed to damage herself.

But moving up to her was the right choice.

It was just like a cowboy’s lasso. You could swing it overhead to gather strength all you liked, but it would still be hard to throw it around the head of someone who was close enough to hug you. The android’s extraction organ looked like the thin wing of an insect or a transparent sword, but it was very long. That meant it was hard to use against someone right up in front of her.

But this method would only buy a few seconds at most.

Once she moved to the proper distance and tried again, the boy really would be eaten.

Hamazura made his next move before she could do that.

He had picked up a bottle of industrial cleaner presumably used to wash the train and he chucked it over a metal fence to hit a device larger than a refrigerator.

The giant railroad transformer scattered a frightening amount of sparks. And while it was invisible, it also sent out powerful electromagnetic waves.

Those waves’ effect on the human body was unknown, but their effect on a machine would be much more severe.

He heard a scream. That thing shaped like a calm and composed girl was now writhing on the ground in apparent pain.

Hamazura ran over, fired two or three shots at her, and continued on past her. Then he picked up the gym clothes boy still standing in danger and slid along the ground like a baseball player.

He hid behind the concrete column where the gym clothes girl was.

“Well done, boy. It’ll be okay now.”

Maybe someone from Anti-Skill or Judgment should have been saying that.

Maybe someone from the filthy dark side had no right to say it.

But he had taken over for a man who had wanted to say that so very badly.

And while he said that, Hamazura made sure to check his phone where the kids could not see. The screen was dead and Aneri was not responding. He doubted her program had been taken out, but without a device to receive her instructions, he had lost the support AI’s help.

It really would be one-on-one from here on.

But he did not need to let that show on his face.

“Maybe she’s with the dark side and maybe she isn’t, I dunno, but I don’t want to trample on her dignity any longer.” He looked the boy in the eye. “I’m going to end this here. Listen, don’t get yourselves killed. You need to survive if I’m going to save her.”

“What are you going to do?”

The gym clothes boy’s voice was vanishingly quiet, but he still got it out.

Even if he had to suppress the trembling in his body.

“I don’t want to run away anymore. What I did wasn’t brave. If I had faced mister honestly, he wouldn’t have had to get hurt. So…!!”

“Then help me out.”

Hamazura had planned to tell the boy to take the girl’s hand and run as far away as possible on his signal.

But he changed his mind.

Drencher Kihara Repatri, that young man who had wanted to save the children who would be used up by the dark side, was dead and nothing could change that. But this boy’s eyes carried the light the man had instilled in those children. After losing to Drencher, Hamazura could not allow that light to be extinguished.

No matter what.

So he changed his mind.

“I need a few tools to finish this. I’ll buy some time with this gun, so you gather them for me. Can you do that?”

Hamazura recalled the hard sensation in his pocket and clicked his tongue. He tried pulling it out, but its shine was still dull. It was not quite fully charged. The golden shine had yet to make a full circle around the edge of the coin. But that was fine. He threw the coin as far as he could, even though he had no idea if it would draw Ladybird’s attention or not.

He did not regret losing it.

He did not need the Coin of Nicholas.

Everyone already had the ability to switch over the tracks to a different route.

He would take a different route here and he did not need the creepy occult to do it.

He needed something else.

===Part 14===

She had found them.

Ladybird planted her hands and feet on the cold concrete ground while she located her target again.

She did not know how this would help her. If she captured them, her horrific feast would begin. But she could not stop herself.

She could not change this about herself. She could not escape her fate, just like a drowning person would subconsciously swim toward the surface.

…Even though she had wanted to protect the humans.

She would eat them.

This suffering would never end unless she consumed a human brain.

…Even though she was supposed to free those children from the darkness by lying on the dissection table herself.

“Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhh, ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

Her vision blurred.

But even her tears were scattered by the blowing wind of her great speed.

Even during unstable bipedal movement, she could rival a V12 engine at max RPMs, so her top speed had increased even further now that she had abandoned her dignity as a girl and gained the efficiency of a machine.

It did not matter if they were an adult or a child.

Puny human legs could never escape her.

She pursued her target as accurately as a precision-guided weapon. She charged toward those distinctive gym clothes.

Handgun bullets attacked her from the side. Even after all this, she had not let go of the thick machete. And without any obstacles in the way, firing on her was suicide. She could accurately kill the shooter with the ricochet by adjusting the angle of her weapon.

Or so she thought.

Instead, the reaction speed of her right hand had slowed by 0.5 seconds.

“?”

That was a devastating delay.

The storm of lead hit her and she tumbled along the ground. A 9mm round was not enough to destroy her bones or muscles—the problem was her speed. The impact from the side easily knocked her off balance and she broke through two or three concrete columns along the way.

But what was this?

What had happened? She had been moving on all fours, but that had not affected her right arm’s movable range. When she checked, she found no report of her movement performance having dropped.

The problem must have come before that.

She finally realized there had been an error in her targeting.

A whitish smoke was filling the entire circular space.

It was a smokescreen.

(It can’t be.)

More gunfire. She immediately readied her machete, but that did not work when she could only respond after the fact. She could not protect herself and the bullets slipped past the weapon to slam into her body.

“Gahhh!!”

===Part 15===

Hamazura Shiage had seen what happened in that container lab buried in trash. The long silver-haired hakama girl had made a desperate attack to save him and Takitsubo. She had grabbed the android’s face with her palm and shoved burning incense in the android’s mouth.

But how did that make sense? If Ladybird had the reaction speed to deflect every bullet fired at her, how had she overlooked a human hand?

“The dark side is coldhearted to everyone. You don’t get lucky for no good reason.”

The weak were always observant. After going through that sorrowful goodbye and seeing the girl suffering from so much pain, he had decided to at least use what she had taught him.

This was the world’s oldest chemical weapon.

That sounded fancy, but it was easily made with ordinary items.

You could use the hexachloroethane found in commercial bug sprays or make a powder out of the zinc used in all sorts of things in everyday life. Hamazura recalled that Hanzou had been an expert at stuff like this.

“A smokescreen!! It might not stop IR and ultrasound, but your high-speed defenses aren’t a threat if your sensors malfunction for even a moment!!”

===Part 16===

So?

What did that matter?

The intense hunger inside Ladybird continued to grow. It was more like a desire for oxygen than for food or water.

She was going to kill.

Just the one brain would suffice.

Her thoughts focused more and more on that one goal.

…What had she wanted to save again?

She managed to detect something in the powerful smokescreen.

She spotted a small figure in gym clothes.

…What had once been a girl wept as she raised her voice.

“010011101010110001011001101111001011!!”

She could not even get out actual words anymore.

Something inside her had fried.

After rushing toward her target faster than a racecar, she opened up once more. The small size suggested this was the girl. Ladybird’s back opened wide and the thin translucent thing burst out. Several of those predatory organs stuck out like thin insect wings or like long tongues. They wrapped around her target to bind them and then she shoved the heavy mass inside herself.

This was the dark side.

The good were not rewarded and the evil were not punished.

And.

And.

And.

“…?”

When did she notice something was wrong?

The gym clothes had been on a figure small enough to easily lift up in her arms. That much was true. But what was with that weight? Would a child of around ten really weigh more than 200 kilograms?

“It can’t be!?”

In that moment, Ladybird’s heart was filled by a feeling of…

===Part 17===

Ladybird was not the only one with their target in sight.

Hamazura Shiage accurately aimed his handgun.

“You didn’t like it when I fired on you from behind earlier, did you? Almost like you didn’t want a bullet getting inside that ‘mouth’ on your back.”

The weak were always observant.

The only way to make up for the difference in strength was to search out a weakness.

“And when you were engulfed in flames by that gasoline, you extinguished it with a swing of your machete. That was pretty scary at first glance, but if it really couldn’t harm you, you wouldn’t need to put out the flames, would you?”

He had not used the smokescreen to reduce the effectiveness of her sensors just to hit her with a few useless 9mm bullets.

But making that attack had convinced her that was all it was for.

This was the smokescreen’s true purpose.

The curtain of smoke had let her see the gym clothes without realizing they were on a metal drum and he had baited her into trying to eat that.

Plus, he had already proven that the handgun bullets were enough to ignite the contents of those metal drums.

He fired repeatedly toward her back.

Toward the centerline down her back that resembled the zipper on a costume. The oversized target prevented her from fully closing her back, so he only had to fire on that gap as if shoving the bullets on in there.

The metal drum she had taken into herself now expanded within her.

It exploded.

When the intense boom echoed out from her, he knew he had won. The blast and shockwave were enough to blow away the smokescreen.

He wished he had not seen what remained afterwards.

He was the one who had caused those remains to be strewn across the ground here.

“Hamazura!!”

“I’m fine.”

He bit his lip with the small revolver still in hand.

“Her head moved weirdly in the smokescreen there,” he said. “And then that scream. ''Something other than her mechanical thought process kicked in.'' Without that, I don’t think the metal drum would have tricked her.”

Her attack had been running off of a program, so maybe the parameters could be overwritten and the attributes could be switched on and off.

“She must have remembered something.”

He hung his head and looked down instead of at his girlfriend.

Something was lying on the ground there.

“So in that final moment, she did what she could to save those kids.”

The girl’s head had rolled over toward him and it looked to him like she was smiling.

Because now she would never have to kill again.

===Part 18===

This was a surprise.

He had not even considered what he would do if this happened.

Kihara Hasuu stood in a daze after being left all alone. Finally, he looked around the vast circular space.

Takitsubo looked to be in pain. The moxibustion’s effects would not last forever.

“Pant, gasp.”

“Takitsubo.”

A sinister metallic click sounded. It came from a small revolver.

“Get the kids away from here. It’s time for a grownup chat with that man.”

“…Okay.” Takitsubo nodded. “Are you sure, Hamazura?”

“Yeah. We have to do this before we run away.”

Once no one else was around to see this, the delinquent boy approached the old man with the handgun in his grasp.

“Got anything else?” His voice sounded cold and hard, like a machine. “You’re one of those rumored Kiharas, aren’t you? Did you modify your own body with that android tech?”

“…”

“If not, it’s about time we woke up from this nightmare.”

The revolver’s muzzle rose. His cold voice contained a hint of blatant scorn. Like he refused to accept that this man was unharmed after making Ladybird suffer so.

“You will pay for what you did to ''that girl''. I can’t think of any reason why I should forgive you. I doubt I ever could. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stand on the side of justice. But if I don’t do this here, the justice I couldn’t have will die. I might be dumb, but I can tell that much.”

Yes.

The look in the boy’s eyes said he could not let this man live. ''Kihara Hasuu considered that the correct answer.'' He had not felt anger or sorrow upon Ladybird’s defeat. He had seen a problem to solve and improvements to make. If he were freed from here, he would immediately begin development on the next generation. That would mean many more victims. He knew himself well enough to say that.

And now that there was new research to be done, he had something to live for.

That was his fate as a Kihara.

He did not want to die yet.

He could not let himself die.

No matter what.

“You have set a record here. This will make you the new Kihara Killer.”

“This is over.”

“That is a serious crime. You will undoubtedly become the center of the new dark side. And Academy City will always demand more live sacrifices, whether you want it or not!!”

“Don’t try to stall for time. You’re dead and nothing’s changing that.”

This conversation was meaningless.

Would the boy normally have said so much on reflex? Set a record, Kihara Killer, center of the dark side—Kihara Hasuu’s wording was meant to give his opponent a big head. Was there any way—any way at all—to turn the tables on the boy? The old man was racking his brains the entire time he was buying time. It could be anything. As one who bore the name Kihara, he was willing to break all forms of ethics and standards if need be.

Then he saw it. He noticed something out of place—a gold shine on the cold concrete ground.

It was a Coin of Nicholas.

The clockwise shine had filled the outer edge now. It was fully charged.

“!!”

He immediately leaped at it and grabbed it in his special engineering glove.

He raised his voice.

He wanted to get started on his next research even if it meant relying on something very unscientific.

“Make his gun malfunction, Coin of Nicholas!!”

Who was to blame for this? The actual phenomenon occurred a moment later.

The result was perfectly fair.

A bullet flew from Hamazura Shiage’s handgun.

Yes, there were more ways for a gun to malfunction than for the bullet to jam or explode inside, blowing up the gun and the wielder’s hand along with it.

It could also fire the bullet without the trigger being pulled.

“Huh?”

The old man looked down.

He could not believe that he had been hit in the gut, rupturing his stomach of all things. More than the bleeding, his own vomit contaminated his body where a single germ could ultimately be fatal. He collapsed, suffered for more than five full minutes, and finally passed away. Stomach acid was primarily composed of hydrochloric acid. What did it feel like to be placed on the surgical table, have your gut cut open, and have a bunch of that dumped inside? All without anesthetic, of course.

The old man had lost his life to his own prayer.

A believer in science had relied on something beyond the bounds of science.

This was the fate of someone who stopped trying to do his own work. But in a way, this may have been exactly what he deserved.

If he had relied on his own strength from the beginning, he never would have earned such resentment over Ladybird.

[[Image:GT_Index_v03_459.jpg|thumb]]

If he had cut out pieces of his own flesh for his experiments, he never would have gotten into an argument over what to do with the children in gym clothes.

If he had chosen that path, everyone who had arrived here maybe could have worked together to survive.

Hamazura did not think the android was at fault.

Kihara Hasuu might agree, but it would mean something very different coming from him. The old man’s crime and punishment had to be defined by his own nature. Speaking as an expert required earnestly facing what parts of science you wished to preserve.

Was this too a present from heaven?

That coin was a trap that provided obvious miracles but also took away all other options you might try.

Hamazura Shiage spoke quietly while viewing the scum still gripping that gold coin after he had stopped moving.

Was his face blank?

Or was he suppressing an inappropriate smile?

“Merry Christmas. Did you enjoy your miracle, mad scientist?”

===Map===

[[Image:GT_Index_v03_460-461.jpg|thumb]]

Below District 10:

Hamazura Shiage – Beneficial

Takitsubo Rikou – Beneficial

Kihara Hasuu – Harmful

Ladybird – Harmful

Drencher Kihara Repatri – Beneficial

Frillsand #G – Beneficial

===Between the Lines 4===

“It’s over.” Anna Sprengel spoke bluntly behind the cold bars. “That marks the end of the December 25 festivities. I doubt anything more will happen now, so I suppose my entertainment has come to a close. Well, at least I managed to gather up some decent ‘fluctuations’. If everything had gone as planned, I might have been so disgusted I switched it off.”

She received no response from the next cell.

Most likely, no one knew what he was thinking.

The human damage had been far too great to say his silence was the most eloquent answer of all.

“What were you picturing? How did you see Operation Handcuffs ending? I bet your dream wasn’t half bad.”

So only Anna’s voice filled this space.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of. Most any adult can think of some embarrassing disaster from their teenage years. The more you express your dreams, the sooner those dreams will be crushed. That’s why the most effective method is to hide what you want and work to reveal what everyone else wants so you can work against them. Hee hee. ''If you want to accomplish something great, you first need to hide your primary objective.'' You were a little too pure. You need to muddy the waters a little.”

A solid clink echoed through the cold air.

The girl who looked only ten had flicked a gold coin into the air and then caught it in her hand.

“The Coin of Nicholas.”

The Board Chairman had lost control.

He had lost the ability to keep tabs on things.

The number of malicious accidents had been far too great. He had tried to give instructions from his cell, but he had been in no position to stop the snowball once it began rolling down the hill.

Because if he did that, the #1 would have once more become the #1 darkness.

He had sealed away his monstrous side.

He had sworn he would.

So. And yet.

“Adding in this one little foreign element shredded the flowchart you had in your head. You had it set up so the dark side would be dismantled and the people would peacefully surrender no matter how things played out, but that happy ending was torn to pieces and everyone chose for themselves to dive into a free world of high-risk death. …Who got them was random, but in the end ''only one person'' managed to break free of its bonds on their own. He slipped below my radar. I even contacted him during the day, yet I overlooked him. That is highly unusual.”

She sounded amused.

She almost seemed to place more importance on this than the #1 in the neighboring cell.

“I learned just the one thing from this spare time between experiments,” she continued.

Her voice seemed to have gone flat, like she had arrived at exactly the result she had predicted.

“''The freedom of magic wins out over the order of science.'' No matter how carefully you build everything up, I will still tear it down, overwrite it, and crush it.”

After a beat, she added one more thing like a mischievous child revealing a secret.

“Of course, these categories really don’t mean much of anything in the first place.”

She slid the edge of the golden coin along the crossbar of the barred door.

The scraping of metal on metal almost drowned out the click of a mechanism working.

The door had unlocked.

With no regard for how the lock actually worked.

“This is yet another miracle.”

The cell of science could not hold magic.

It was a very blunt metaphor.

She slowly walked out into the corridor and began to pass by the neighboring cell.

“As the name suggests, the Coin of Nicholas is a spiritual item limited to Christmas. Although it absorbs power directly from the ley lines instead of from the magician’s body, so it is technically more like a grimoire than a spiritual item. This chaos is a dream you will wake from come morning. It will not last long, so don’t worry.”

“How dare you!!”

Finally.

Something translucent challenged her from behind the bars. She looked like a lovely girl with marine creature elements and bat wings attached and she wore a dress of English newspapers covered in articles that some might consider profane. Metal bars meant nothing to her. She broke through them with a shower of orange sparks and she grabbed at the little girl covering herself with a thin red cloth.

She was Qliphah Puzzle 545, an artificial demon prepared as a trump card by the Anglican Archbishop who had once tried to overthrow the world.

However…

“I’m trying to talk. Don’t interrupt when you don’t even understand what I mean.”

All of a sudden, something stood next to the little girl.

The translucent being was an angel with a falcon head and a powerful body. As soon as a vertical crack ran through him, the angel mercilessly stripped off his entire body.

He was now a sun.

A dreadful light burst out and filled the space as it attacked the demon girl.

“Kyahhh!!”

Accelerator did not even stir.

The #1 had his reflection.

''Yet a red liquid dripped from the corner of his mouth.

“Think before you speak. Just think about it and you should realize that now is not the time for you to interrupt.”

Anna was not even looking in his direction.

She simply waved goodbye.

“My experiment is complete. Things will go differently next time.”

She never did look through the bars. She was already looking to some other place as she walked away.

But she did give a final parting comment.

“Send ''him'' my regards.”

Accelerator leaned back against the hard wall, let his hips sink to the cold floor, and lowered his head.

He did not speak a word.

One thing had been proven here. His small dream would never come true.

Not as long as she was here.

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume3_Chapter3|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume3_Epilogue}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Epilogue

2020-11-23T18:21:29Z

SNovah: /* Epilogue: Cry of a Newborn Darkness — Over_the_C. Point, Now. */

==Epilogue: Cry of a Newborn Darkness — Over_the_C. Point, Now.==

“Where…?” groaned the twintails middle school girl named Shirai Kuroko.

She was in the hospital and it was well past visiting hours.

She had collapsed at the Anti-Skill Chemical Analysis Center in western District 18, but she had been transported to District 7. She had no idea how that might have happened.

But she was not groaning due to the strange amoeba or bacteria injected into her by Hanatsuyu Kaai the Decomposer.

That was thanks to a test tube with a blue rubber cap.

The fact she had regained consciousness was a sign that she was improving on the inside. She had not met Rakuoka Houfu since he had risked so much to get that antidote to her. She just hoped he had managed to return from the darkness alive.

(I survived.)

She thought in her bed.

(That means it’s time to arrange that internal investigation. I have to face my own righteousness directly, so I need to make the request as soon as possible.)

And.

From the very beginning, hadn’t she hoped that pursuing a major incident would lead her to Misaka Mikoto?

“There you are, Onee-sama!! You might run off from our trash-collecting hell that began on Christmas Eve, but you can never escape from—gh, wait! Wh-what time is it? …Okay, there’s still time. It’s still just barely Christmas, so it’s all good!! Don’t worry, girls can get through their first time in only ten minutes if they put their minds to it!!!!!!”

She had found her target.

She had searched out a single person in a giant city of 2.3 million. That was a miracle in its own right. And it was still just barely the 25th.

But her celebration was short lived.

She found something unusual in the same hospital room: a honey-yellow shine.

“Shokuhou…Misaki?”

“Hmm? Yawn, do you need something???”

“You’re sharing a room with Onee-sama ''and'' wearing a baby doll!? Wait just a second! What is the meaning of this, Onee-sama? I’m supposed to be your see-through lingerie roommate!!”

This was a threat.

Shirai Kuroko learned the true meaning of dread on Christmas of all days.

“Onee-sama, where were you all this time anyway? Why did the two of you end up in the same hospital after being injured at the same time!? Surely—''surely''—you aren’t going to tell me some horrific story about the two of you spending Christmas together!!”

Her beloved Onee-sama, who could control electricity and magnetism, must not have wanted to have this conversation because she began to open the window of the upper floor room. The sleepy #5, however, did not seem so bothered.

“Ehh?” she said while rubbing her eyes. “Oh, come on. I’m not stealing that super-rare advanced class from you. I have my own world separate from Misaka-san, so stop trying to make me a mere accessory to her world.”

“Super-rare…advanced!? Y-you mustn’t say that! Don’t you know the power words carry!? I was specifically avoiding that forbidden phrase and you say it without a second thought? H-how dare you, Shokuhou Misaki!! Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!”

A woman wore a beige habit.

Few would realize that was originally the garb special ordered for the Anglican Archbishop.

Her sparkling blonde hair was cut at shoulder length, but it did not look done at a barbershop. The cut was too violent, so it looked more like a penance than anything.

Shinjuku acted as the entranceway to Academy City’s east gate. Once on the top of the skyscrapers there, you could see the city beyond that outer wall.

The woman stood on one of those rooftops.

“You’re a shell of your former self.”

A voice spoke from behind the woman.

It came from a golden retriever. The large dog shook to scatter the water from his long winter coat.

“You hated the occult so much and here you are relying on it. You’ve fallen.”

“You’re in a pretty sorry state yourself. You look like you were swept down a chilly river this Christmas night. An old dog like you should be more careful.”

That was not inaccurate.

Academy City was surrounded by walls, but it could not cut off the flow of water in the surface rivers or the underground sewers. As long as water welled up at the mountains and flowed down toward the sea, that path would always exist.

Of course, it was built so humans could not pass through that way. The waterways had several barriers made of metal bars or height differences built in.

But Kihara Noukan was not human.

The Kihara category was not so narrowly defined.

That golden retriever would not have been taking a stroll through the sewers for no reason. It was pure chance that he had happened across the gym clothes girl being pursued by a berserk Anti-Skill officer, but that had given him the opportunity he needed.

''He had needed to pretend to be defeated and dive into the filthy river,'' so that mass of muscles had come along at just the right time.

However, he could not rate his performance as all that clever.

(What a pain. I needed a witness to give reality to my faked death, but I still made a child cry. That violates my principle of romance. I owe her one.)

“I believe the rookie you left in charge has failed,” said Noukan.

“So it would seem.”

“Are you going to intervene? Or are you fine with watching Academy City collapse?”

“Failure inspires growth. This was his first step. If the adults took charge now, we would be robbing that promising rookie of a chance to learn.”

The dog sighed and pulled a cigar from a plastic package.

That was no laughing matter coming from the human who had met constant failure. He was probably 100% serious and talking from experience.

But the dog knew there was a part of that human that had never been able to give up. He was now ignoring his own rules by using the occult to hijack this woman’s body and maintain his existence, but that was due to more than just not wanting to die.

He was willing to sacrifice his own and other’s lives for his goal. That was something Kihara Noukan shared.

The golden retriever lit the superb product, put it in his mouth, and asked a question.

“What will you do now?”

“What do you want me to do?”

That was obvious. Kihara Noukan had always had just the one goal.

So he spoke his old friend’s name.

“Destroy all magic. I know all too well that you’re the world’s most undisciplined person, but it’s high time you got to work, ''Aleister''.”

Someone going by the name Unabara Mitsuki viewed the sunrise with two girls.

“Is it over?”

“If so, they failed, Etzali. We should probably prepare for an ''aftershock'' caused by those thugs.”

Kinuhata Saiai brought her hands to her face and produced a ripping sound in front of the large mirror in a music club’s dressing room.

She was tearing off special makeup, not her own face.

“Bweh, my face is all puffy! Cutaneous respiration is super important!! I can see why they prefer to use CG these days. Does convenience always win out?”

Mugino Shizuri leaned back against a graffiti-covered wall, spied out at the pursuers leaving without noticing her, and extinguished the sinister light in her hand.

“What, no sudden death round? And I thought we might actually get to have a little fun.”

The girl in a dress woke up behind the chain link fence and raised her arms to stretch her back.

The dark stains that had been Anti-Skill officers could be seen immediately outside her cell, but that was not enough to faze her. She reached out through a gap in the fence and grabbed a ring of keys lying on the floor. Everyone had completely forgotten about her presence here ''to an unnatural extent'', so she winked over toward the empty cell next to hers.

“See? I told you we would be safest in our cells.”

Kumokawa Seria and her sister stripped off their sweaty mascot costumes.

The maiden stench was too powerful. It was bad enough that only the kind of guy who could get off to girl’s locker rooms would be interested.

“Gwahhh!! That’s it!! I’m never working a job like this again!!”

“We’re not getting paid, you know? We swiped the costumes, remember? Amusement parks are ruthless when it comes to their intellectual property, so they’d take us to court if they knew we used these heads for this.”

Fremea Seivelun was still dreaming while holding onto a white rhinoceros beetle.

The silver-haired little girl named Fraulein Kreutune looked down at her inside an amusement park hotel room filled with character products.

“She’s asleep.”

“I-I can barely breathe,” said the beetle. “But as long as she’s at peace.”

Musujime Awaki crawled out of the morgue’s freezer locker.

The freezer mode was switched off, but it did not have a heater inside. She held her shoulders and shivered before grabbing an electric kettle meant for the workers here.

“Academy City might be in trouble. Anyone could sneak in and mess with the bodies like this.”

And.

A crushed candy box had been left on the cold floor deep in the depths of the darkness. That box swelled out from within and something crawled out.

A human silhouette formed in the middle of the giant circular space of the Vanishing Tunnel known as ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''.

She was an artificially-created ghost.

Her name was Frillsand #G.

Her long blonde hair was worn in twintails and she wore a light blue skintight dress and a long loose skirt. Her curvy figure seemed at odds with her doll-like appearance.

She was looking down at a man whose time had stopped with a happy smile on his face.

She had wanted to protect him more than anything. He had to be by her side.

“Oh.”

There was a sound like the drain plug being pulled from a sink full of sticky filth.

And that was no metaphor. The scene around her really did change. That bizarre space gathered in toward her.

How was it Frillsand #G could exist now that the high energy emission had stopped?

Do not forget.

This space did not actually exist. It was an aggregation of AIM Diffusion Fields that appeared as a result of an experiment and could no longer be erased.

Something impossible happened.

That collection of weak energy was absorbed toward a single point.

“Ohh, oh.”

Pitch black tears ran down her cheeks.

The artificial ghost grew into a very real vengeful spirit.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

The framework known as Academy City’s dark side was destroyed on that holy night.

But that does not mean nothing was born from the rubble and embers left behind.

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter4

2020-11-23T18:16:23Z

SNovah: /* Between the Lines 4 */

==Chapter 4: The Demon Lord’s Young — the_LIGHT.==

===Part 1===

“Where have you been, Risako!?”

“Mister, Risako-chan is back!!”

The gym clothes girl laughed when she saw the other children gathered around.

“Eh heh heh. A doggy and an older girl saved me.”

They must have been preparing for another move because all the trucks had their engines running. But they had waited until they had found the girl with red hair done up like candy. She was relieved. Having a home to return to was a wonderful thing.

“''A doggy,'' huh?” said the artificial ghost called Frillsand #G.

“…”

Her comment made the young researcher fall silent for a bit.

His name was Drencher Kihara Repatri.

That family name was so well known in the dark side that it had become a more powerful classification than beneficial or harmful. The man who bore that name sighed softly to help refocus his mind.

“There is a chance we’ve been located, but we’re faster at the moment. If we move before they catch up, we can reach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' without issue.”

“Do you really think this world will allow any of this to go ‘without issue’?”

“It’s our job to make sure it happens.”

The adults exchanged their views with their voices too low for the excited children to hear.

But a certain boy kept his voice low for a different reason.

“Risako.”

“Oh, Sodate-chan.”

The tall boy in the same kind of gym clothes looked troubled for some reason. In fact, he looked close to tears. Risako tilted her head, thinking he was afraid she would get after him about the ball and chemical soap, but this was different.

“So you came back,” he said.

“Eh?”

“I was hoping maybe you were gone for good.”

He had wanted that? Did he hate her that much? Risako’s face clouded over, but this was again different. He shook his head and explained.

He was the only one of the children who had ''started to question these motion sensors they wore for some kind of experiment.''

“Because then at least you might have been safe.”

===Part 2===

He was afraid of screwing it up, so he started by drawing marks on her back with a marker.

“Hamazura, that tickles.”

“Stay still.”

The old book had a brush-drawn diagram with no perspective or attempt to make it look three-dimensional. The indicated locations of the organs were clearly not right. Maybe it was like the difference between an aerial photograph of the clouds and the isobars on the weather forecast map. He wondered if this was what all traditional Japanese medicine was like as he drew Xs on his girlfriend’s body. She had even removed her bra and was holding her chest in her hands while showing him her smooth back. He thought his heart was going to burst every time she squirmed from the ticklishness. Even he knew that reaction was inappropriate given the circumstances. Once he finished that, it was finally time to start. He faced the girl while she lay face down on the container lab’s work table like she was sunbathing.

The moxa used for the moxibustion was like fluffy cotton, but he actually had to set it on fire.

It felt wrong doing that on her soft skin and he could even permanently scar her if he screwed it up.

“…”

His fear came to the forefront now that it was time to do it, but this was the only way to help her with the fever.

He fought the desire to shut his eyes and placed a small pile of “fuel” on her soft skin. He worked at the lighter with a trembling hand, but he kept failing. Once he finally had a small flame, he slowly moved it in close.

“Nh.”

“A-are you okay, Takitsubo?”

“I’m fine.”

He continued the process a few more times. He had his doubts, but when she wiped the sweat from her brow, no more sweat beaded up. It did seem to be working.

He could not thank the hakama girl enough.

He could not waste this chance she had given them, so they had to approach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''.

That card-sized hard drive had been labelled with the word “Lifeline”.

Aneri must have decided the data would be too small to see on his phone because she displayed it a flat screen monitor in the lab instead. It was a series of numbers.

It looked like a calculation sheet made with spreadsheet software, but even that was enough to make the delinquent boy’s head hurt. Maybe it was important data, but he had no idea what he was supposed to focus on.

“This looks like materials data,” said Takitsubo after peering at it from the side.

“Materials?”

“Whether they’re beneficial or harmful, the dark side does a lot of research.” She pointed at one of the numbers. “They’re also building a lot of military weapons. But doesn’t it seem odd? Academy City is a mass consumer and it only has so much land since it’s surrounded by walls. You can’t just dig into the ground here and find oil or ores. So where do they get all those materials from?”

“Where? Isn’t that what the cooperative institutions around the world are for? They can work out a deal with them.”

“But how can they do that without leaving any record of it?”

She pointed at another number.

If a citizens group monitoring the flow of money and materials could reveal a secret, then it had never been part of the dark side to begin with.

“Look at this. The dark side is using far more materials than the total amount brought in from outside the city. Cutting off the fat and redistributing it to themselves would not be enough for this. The amount the dark side uses is several times larger. This would show up in the records no matter what you did. Important people like the Board of Directors and its Chairman can only cover up so much. This is too much. It’s well past what you could hide by cooking the books.”

“But then…”

He trailed off when Aneri opened a new window. A single point on a map of Academy City was colored in red. There was a secret there.

“They have an entrance and exit that doesn’t leave any records,” said the track suit girl while viewing the screen.

There were several files that appeared to be saved from message boards and social media pages. Reading through them showed a certain point in common.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

Takitsubo pointed at that bizarre statement.

“There is a way of reaching it and we should see hints of it in the rumors told around the city. Like the ‘!’ signs, a deadly train, kidnappers at the amusement park, babies in the coin lockers, or an underground construction zone where you can dump anything you don’t want found. But none of that gets at the real truth.”

“You mean…?”

“Academy City doesn’t promote recycling so much just because it wants to make the most of its limited resources. ''Sending things back to be recycled over and over again masks how much materials are actually being used.'' They can’t have an investigation revealing that we dump out several times more trash than materials we take in, right? That would violate conservation of mass. So they needed to make it hard to compare those two values. It’s a form of laundering.”

Why was that sleight of hand necessary? How did they reach the impossible result of more waste than raw materials? What was this secret that no one wanted getting out?

''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.

This was the identity of that term they had heard so many times today.

“It…isn’t closed off? There’s a secret route through the walls surrounding Academy City!?”

That could not be. For better or for worse, Academy City was cut off from the outside world. Those thick walls prevented their tech from spreading to the world at large because that could lead to disorder and chaos.

Hamazura used to be part of Skill Out. That was a group of the boys and girls who had dropped out of Academy City but had nowhere to go since they could not get out of the city.

They had been trapped. They had dropped out of school, but those walls had kept them here. If you wanted to take a trip outside the city for just a few days, you needed to submit a ton of paperwork and receive a nanodevice injection. Because if you tried leave without using the official gates, you could be killed to prevent a data leak. There had been burglars and muggers in the back alleys, but none of those expert thieves had dared go anywhere near the walls.

If there was a way to freely move in and out, they may not have felt so much pressure. They could have made a place for themselves.

Their former leader, Komaba Ritoku, might not have had to fight and die.

“…”

But the dark side had torn down that number one assumption like it was nothing.

That counterfeiter had stored that information on a card-sized hard drive labeled “Lifeline”. Had he thought he could use that information to get some dark side bigshots to save him?

He must have never imagined he would instead have his brains blown out by a paparazzo. Hamazura was at the center of all this, but he still did not know if that had been planned or a spontaneous decision.

“It’s deep below Academy City.” Takitsubo Rikou calmly read aloud something on such a large scale that talk of an alternate dimension would have sounded more realistic. “The world’s largest particle accelerator is built directly below the city walls, so people are told that digging in that area could break the accelerator’s seal and expose them to radiation and other risks. That was meant to convince everyone that no one would be dumb enough to try it.”

The diagram they found looked like a puzzle ring. It seemed to carefully avoid the circular accelerator facility, but this was a tunnel built by the dark side. There was no chance it met all the proper safety standards.

That was the dark side’s lifeline.

They had built it to continue pumping fuel into their illicit research and its construction showed they did not care at all if they brought chaos to the world. It really was the greatest taboo. It was a dark umbilical cord that could wipe out the Kiharas and everyone else if it was cut off.

“I doubt Anti-Skill knows about this,” said Takitsubo. “So they won’t be able to block it off. We can safely escape the city if we use it.”

“…”

The red light displayed by Aneri was in District 10, the city’s biggest slum. The taboo no one wanted was hidden below the district everyone had abandoned.

It was unclear if it had always had this name. They may have changed the name periodically to help hide the truth. All the scattered information was fragmentary witness accounts and some of it would likely be intentional misinformation.

But that taboo’s gaping mouth had sat deep underground all this time.

Like a nightmarish symbol of freedom.

The dot on the map displayed on the small screen had the following name displayed next to it: Vanishing Tunnel.

That was the name of their final destination. Anyone who arrived there was given a ticket to another world.

===Part 3===

They were deep, deep underground in District 10.

Few people would think too much about the layout of the subway tunnels below the city. They might know a track took an unnatural curve at one point, but no one would question the online news article about them running across some kind of ruins during construction.

An underground passageway was surrounded by cold concrete and supported by the pillars positioned at even intervals.

The few fluorescent lights on the walls were not enough to fully sweep away the darkness.

That underground blind spot had become the biggest hot spot in the world. A great many people had gathered there. They had not all arrived along the same route. They had each gathered the hints scattered around the city and started to question the city’s biggest assumption. Academy City was surrounded by thick walls, but it was not in fact sealed off.

The brawny men in work jumpsuits were a courier group called Secret Express. The men and women in dress clothes were Concierge, a group that provided hideouts to meet a criminal’s demands. The girls in plain clothing and hiding their faces with sunglasses and hunting caps may have been an extremely popular idol group. The parade of scum included Controller, who used personal information and fictitious bills to threaten the girls he targeted until he had them in digital chains, and Flare, who left behind harmless powder identical to the real deal in order to confuse criminal investigations.

A ruler of the back alleys was there.

A major corporation’s lawyer was there.

A university headmaster was there.

A major entertainment producer was there.

And a few Kiharas from different fields were there.

All sorts of people flooded that underground passageway. People did not end up on the dark side because they were low class, poor, stupid, or criminal. It took all types. The dark side had reached every class of person equally. From worlds no one knew existed to industries everyone envied.

Some had fallen before making it this far and others had attempted a different route instead. In a way, finding this tunnel and setting foot inside made them the chosen ones.

And.

Every last one of them were obstructed and crushed by a certain figure.

The woman had long blonde twintails and she wore a skintight light blue dress and a long loose skirt.

Frillsand #G was like an impassable wall.

All who challenged her crashed into that wall with the intensity of their challenge. After seeing a few of them turned to hunks of flesh and splattered blood, the others must have started wondering if she literally was a solid wall because all of those dark side members had come to a stop. They were pushed back even though she had not taken a single step.

Of course, the ghost was not going to spare them just because they gave up now.

“Next stop: skewering. Repeat: skewering.”

With a wet sound, a muscular man in black was destroyed from groin to head. But he may have been one of the lucky ones. He was gone before he even knew what had happened to him.

“Please look out for the burning and severing.”

Screams of pain echoed through the tunnel. Before long, the dark side members were fighting amongst themselves too. They appeared to have begun an ugly struggle over the concrete column they could use as a shield. However…

“We will arrive at gouging soon.”

Just as the ghost silently circled behind the column, a wet sound exploded out. The victors and losers of the struggle were all turned to mincemeat together while Frillsand #G looked on in disinterest.

“Ah…gahh,” someone groaned.

It was one of the idol girls. Her bottom half was gone and the bottom of her torso was sticking to the floor like a slug.

“But…why? We found the taboo…so aren’t we part of the dark side too? Can’t we all use…the path out together?”

“I have children to take care of. A lot of them.” Frillsand #G did not even look in her direction. “Inviting all of you in with us would only put them at risk.”

“Just…” It was already too late for her, but the top half of a girl still clawed at the concrete floor. “Just in case? You took people’s lives for no more than that!?”

“Next stop: running over. I repeat: running over.”

With a wet splat, the complaints were silenced.

The ghost seemed to be rejecting the idea that grudges lacked the power to kill.

“The rear guard is an important job,” she said in a singsong voice. “But I cannot let that crybaby see this. Knowing of it and seeing it are two very different things.”

The artificial ghost glanced over at something else.

But she soon lost interest, turned around, and vanished into the darkness.

A mere ten meters away, Hamazura Shiage was hiding behind a column and holding his hand over the track suit girl’s mouth.

If she noticed them, they were dead. He felt like his heart, his breathing, his body odor, and the slight static electricity on his clothing could all give them away. He could not even wipe the unpleasant sweat from his cheek as he desperately waited for time to pass.

That ghost really was an enemy.

She had some kind of plan of her own and had saved them on a whim before, but that did not mean he could trust her. If she had saved them on a whim, then she could also choose to throw them out on a whim. And they only had the one life.

This was worse than a sea of blood.

Flesh and blood had lost any hint of their original form, fingers extended into empty space, facial skin was frozen in a look of agony while plastered to the wall. At this point, they were only “things”, not people. There was no dignity remaining.

Each of them was a dark side member who had arrived at ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' along a different route than him.

Their endless possibilities had been reduced to zero.

Or so it felt to him.

Was this tunnel really the right path? The further they went, the more likely they were to encounter that ghost woman, so he began to wonder if it would be safer to turn back now and return to the surface.

“Pwah.”

His girlfriend escaped his hand. He was holding her from behind, so she leaned her head back to look him in the eye.

“Hamazura, I don’t sense her presence anymore. We can keep going now.”

“…”

“We can’t give up after coming so far. Blindly returning to the surface won’t save us. We’ll never find peace if we don’t go through here.”

“R-right.”

He would have long since broken if he were alone.

But when she pulled on his hand, he managed to work up some small semblance of courage.

Even with the evenly-spaced fluorescent lights, the tunnel was dark. And they had no idea who was in charge of that sparse lighting. What if the ghost could shut off the power? His phone felt all the more important to him now.

“This is a long tunnel.”

“Yeah.”

They were not speaking much anymore.

This was ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'', but did this tunnel really lead toward hope? No matter how far they went, the darkness never went away. As they trudged deeper and deeper, he felt like they had passed a point of no return. Also, who had built this enormous underground facility? Someone must have drawn up the plans, dug the hole, set the foundation, and brought in the rebar and concrete. This was a far bigger project than a bank robber’s hand-dug tunnel into the vault. Such a vast and well-made underground space could not have been built without the involvement of a major construction company.

Who had done it?

It might be a company whose ads he saw on TV every day.

Would all of this come to light one day? But those meaningless thoughts were cut off by Takitsubo.

She had noticed first because she was not holding the light.

“Hamazura, there’s a door.”

“…”

It was a thick metal door.

Just the one door sat at the end of the long, long tunnel. There may have been another route, but he did not recall seeing any other paths branching off along the way.

He slowly approached.

It did not appear to be locked. He doubted there were any grenades or other “gifts” left for them.

But that was not what scared him. He had seen all of those corpses along the way. The sight had left him so terrified he barely had it in him to keep his heart beating. He had started to view their fallen predecessors as no more than a piece of the scenery. Because otherwise that shadowy murder scene would have overwhelmed him too much to continue on.

The taboos were piling up.

He and Takitsubo had started this simply wanting to survive, but they too had been corrupted along the way.

Hamazura Shiage reached his fingers toward the doorknob.

He touched it. He squeezed it.

He turned it.

===Part 4===

A flood of light revealed a world no one was ever meant to see.

“…”

The other world turned out to be a cavernous pit.

This abyss slept deep below the earth, yet it was filled with much more artificial light than the tunnel. That was thanks to the construction lights set up here and there.

It was easily more than 250 meters across and maybe more than twice as deep. The perfectly circular space made of reinforced concrete at the very bottom may have reminded different people of different things.

Some might see it as a common utility duct, a circular colosseum, a switchyard’s turntable, or an underground temple dedicated to a god one must never offer any prayers.

But there was one crucial piece that helped solidify the proper image.

“A train?” muttered Hamazura while peering down over the railing.

It was a turntable.

Concrete columns were installed at even intervals around the edges, but there were none in the central circle. The flat concrete floor had a smaller circle built into it. That would rotate to change the train’s direction. The tracks outside the circle extended in 12 different directions. That made it all look like something else: a giant metal flower.

Yes, there were tracks, signal lights, transformers, maintenance equipment, a control room, and a fifteen-car train in here. It was a freight train.

“That’s the dark side’s lifeline?”

For him and Takitsubo, it was the plank of Carneades that would save their lives.

He doubted that turntable was all of it. There would be a container yard and maintenance zone hidden further out from the center.

They walked along the narrow catwalk built along the circular wall and descended the stairs. There were no corpses in here. Whoever had gotten here first must have used the ghost woman to eliminate any nuisances before they reached this point.

And since the train was still here, that person would still be here.

They shared this space with the slaughterer.

“Hamazura.”

“Don’t worry. I’m with you no matter what.”

“Not that. There’s someone down there. And they’re not alone.”

That was a shock. Takitsubo Rikou could accurately locate people by sensing their AIM Diffusion Field. She could not use that power as well as she used to, but she could still sense it to an extent.

The tension grew.

A single person with a bizarre power was certainly scary, but having a large group approach you brought a different sort of fear. He mentally switched his priorities to at least allowing Takitsubo to escape if things looked bad.

The only exit was up here.

Leaving that would mean being surrounded by dead ends in every direction.

“…”

After descending the last flight of stairs, they arrived at the deepest depths.

It felt so much different from when they had been looking down from above. But that was not too surprising since 250 meters was larger than a domed stadium. This was the same as a sports field looking so much bigger from the stands than on TV.

Yes, Hamazura Shiage now stood on the stage. He was no longer an outsider looking in.

“Oh, dear. You actually showed up. What a shame.”

He lasted one second.

His knees suddenly dropped to the ground. He could not keep his shoulders at the same height and his lost strength would not return.

“Wha—!?”

It was the ghost woman.

Was she a beneficial or a harmful?

She had left that tunnel far too bloody to claim she was trying to escape Academy City because she disliked conflict. If anything, she felt more like a vengeful spirit that refused to let anyone leave the city.

She looked like a Western doll with her long blonde twintails and light blue dress. She did not actually punch or kick him. Simply seeing her out of the corner of his eye had done critical damage to him.

A rusty-smelling liquid dripped from his eyes and nose.

He was trying to scream and flip over onto his back, but he was actually curled up and unable to move.

Encountering her meant death.

That was far too sinister a thing to be connected with a simple equals sign like that.

“It is no use.”

The ghost woman walked without audible footsteps. She moved herself from the corner of his vision to the center.

“No one is talking about anything as silly as defending against something with a shield or dodging a projectile with super speed. ''From the moment you see my face,'' the attack is complete. If I so much as casually stand in the corner of your vision, I can do continual damage without you even noticing my presence.”

He realized the strange things had always happened when the ghost woman spoke to him. And why had she turned the lights on in that tunnel? Because it was more convenient for her.

If you saw a ghost while driving, you would crash.

If your face, hands, or feet were missing in a ghost photo, you would find unnatural wounds or marks on your body.

Did this mean she even artificially reproduced those aspects of a ghost? He did not want to believe it because it would mean there was nothing he could do.

“Hamazu—!?”

“You noticed? You must have sharper senses.”

The track suit girl quickly pulled him close, but the ghost woman did not seem to care.

Besides, if seeing her really did mean death, then Takitsubo would have been killed too, but she was fine.

“But I am not talking about anything as poorly-defined as a sixth sense for ghosts. Do you have a power related to AIM Diffusion Fields?”

“There’s no AIM Diffusion Field around you? No, some strong but invisible power is scattering that weaker field.”

“It is known as High Voltage Cutting,” said the ghost woman. “The principle may be similar to the shock diamonds seen in a rocket engine’s flame or the cavitation of air bubbles created around a propeller. The constant emission of a powerful energy will create irregular waveforms and images while it interferes with itself.”

“Gh!? What energy???”

“You can find energy everywhere.” Her tone was light, so understanding how it worked must not have helped avoid its effects. “The carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide you thoughtlessly spread around forms acid rain when it bonds with the moisture in the air. You can acquire electricity simply by sticking two electrodes into a fruit, you know? Copper and zinc are such necessities that you can find them anywhere. Using that, you can produce hydrogen gas in addition to electricity. I only need to absorb power from a ''civilization battery'' the size of a city or even greater. That is enough for me to construct a single outlier point within that stable energy.”

“…”

“What are the common types of haunted locations? Old homes full of drafts, cliffs and caves eroded by the waves, and mountain roads late at night. They are always full of ''noise'', such as static electricity, pressure differences, the creaking of rusty doors, or the rustling of the trees in the wind. Have you ever heard a ghostly voice in the crackle of excess electricity or the roar of hydrogen gas being ignited? I can exist as I am wherever human civilization exists. If you wish to kill me, you must destroy your very way of life. On a global scale.”

This was too much.

He could not understand her explanation. And even if he thought he did, it still did not tell him how to destroy her.

Takitsubo gasped and spoke while holding onto him.

“I get that the constant use of a massive amount of unseen energy would eventually create something unnatural. But if seeing you is deadly, how do you choose specific targets to—?”

She trailed off.

She had seen something out of the corner of her eye, but not the artificial ghost this time. A unified set of colors could be seen peeking out of at them from a gap in the door to one of the freight train’s containers.

''They were small children wearing gym clothes and some kind of device. There were more than just ten or twenty of them.

''All of them were a part of the ghost experiment.

The children must have seen the ghost woman as they nervously spied out. And they seemed to be expectantly waiting to see if she would repel these unknown intruders. They did not know. They had not been told what they were being used for. Simply viewing a ghost photo was harmful and the longer you viewed it, the more damage it did. She embodied that power so perfectly that she had eliminated so many dark side elites.

Yet she had managed to accurately select one out of the many candidates.

That was like shooting the apple off someone’s head. Without explaining any of it to the children who had those sensors attached to them.

“…”

The delinquent boy clenched his teeth.

He could barely move, she held his life in her hand, and he had no idea how to fight back. He had to avoid angering her if at all possible. He understood that, but he still shouted up at her.

“You scum!!”

“Call me what you wish. In fact, I see it as a compliment.”

The ghost woman who resembled a fairy tale princess held her palm out toward him. He only had to see her impossible presence for her to attack, so that gesture was meaningless.

But then her eyes turned unnaturally away from him.

To the side.

A spare container sitting near the train was sliced in two. Something had dropped down from far above like a bolt of lightning.

A red figure wielded a thick machete made of heavy metal.

The android wore a racing swimsuit colored the orange and black of an insect. The bangs of her long crimson hair were cut straight across and she had a slender build.

Cartoony flowers were displayed in her mechanical eyes.

“Smug face.”

“Hello, hello,” said a twig of an old man in a blue jumpsuit and lab coat. “I hate to interrupt when you seem so busy, but I must insist.”

The ghost woman shrugged.

“Were you hoping to use the train? I thought you were one of the harmfuls who would remain in the city and resist to the bitter end.”

“I have no interest in those categories forced onto the dark side from the outside. All I care about is continuing my research. Academy City was a wonderful environment for that, but if that has changed, I need to leave and search out a more comfortable place.”

“You can see me, can’t you?”

“You should be able to tell by observing my eye movements.”

“And you know what that means?” She gave a suggestive glance over at the machine that had arrived with him. “In case you were unaware, I am capable of causing malfunctions in mechanical lenses and sensors just as well as in the human body. Ghost photographs are a result of ghosts interfering in optical machinery, are they not? That might be your masterpiece, but isn’t it presumptuous to assume she can wield her full power against me?”

She remained untouchable. She could kill someone just by placing herself in the corner of their vision and machines could not do anything to her either. Did she have no blind spots?

“Yes, I imagine so.”

But the old man did not seem to mind.

That mysterious old man ''known as a Kihara'' was not bothered that she held his life in her hand.

“You are the strongest when it comes to an individual. Looking at deadliness alone, you might outdo the #3 and the #2.”

“…”

Evidently, even ghosts could find something to be ominous.

This world may have been infected with a disease that caused all bad premonitions to come true.

“But in this specific location, I believe you too will find you cannot wield your full power.”

“What are you—gah!!!!????”

He had given her plenty of warning, but she suddenly arched her back and then froze unnaturally in midair. An ominous straining sound continued on and on as her body grew distorted. She bent and stretched, almost like a face pressed against a wall of glass.

Something was happening.

Hamazura had thought the ghost woman was an intangible being, like a mist or apparition. But she was not. She clearly had a spine to strain, muscles to cry out in pain, and organs to writhe unnaturally.

Then a bizarre creaking and cracking noise came from her. Her volume shrank more and more like she was being crushed in from all sides. The old man was holding something up in his special engineering glove. It looked like an empty candy box, but it was not. It had a small pinhole at the very top. The ghost woman was sucked into that small hole like a liquid or a gas. Hamazura did not want to imagine what things were like inside there. He could only say one thing in a daze.

“A pinhole…camera?”

“High Voltage Cutting? I see, a strange theory, but she is still a form of unstable energy. And all energy will move from high to low—unstable to stable. This is enough to break down her form and burn in her image.”

The old man let go of the candy box.

He had the look of a mischievous child who had just realized he could create his own spark show by sticking a metal clip in the microwave.

“This is the appropriate choice for a ghost photo, don’t you think? A digital camera just wouldn’t fit the aesthetic.”

After dropping it to the cold concrete, he crushed it below his heel. He did not even glance down at the flattened box.

“''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.''” He tapped on his lower back. “Surely you didn’t think a construction company building a secret tunnel out of the city was enough to earn a name like that. With something like her around, you really should have thought of a different possibility.”

“Wh-what?”

Hamazura felt like the unnatural “curse” had weakened, but he still could not bring himself to get up from the ground. The old man only now seemed to have realized that there was another person here reaching for the plank of Carneades.

Hamazura knew any attention on him would only lead to disaster.

Kihara Hasuu smiled.

“Let me make one thing clear. There is a member of the Board who built a vast fortune by doing unofficial construction work for the dark side, but he knows nothing of this. This massive underground structure just appeared out of the blue one day.”

“…?”

Out of the blue?

Hamazura had operated construction machinery before, so he knew how absurd that was. Did that old man have any idea how long it would take to dig out a hole of this size?

But the old man appeared to be serious.

Deadly serious.

“''The Vanishing Tunnel does not actually exist.''”

Hamazura had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

It made no sense. If that were true, then where were they now???

The old man gave the answer.

“Kazakiri Hyouka was not just a single individual. She is more like one piece of the Imaginary Number District, an entire city created from the aggregation of AIM Diffusion Fields. …It all began with a project meant to cut out a portion of that territory and extract it as a new resource. Unlike the microscopic alchemy performed in the particle accelerator, this would have been on the macro scale and cost very little. But not even the group of researchers who guided all that power through the city could have predicted it would take this form. ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' is such a dramatic name. In truth, it was a major failure that needed to be covered up. Everyone involved was at their wits’ end.” He tapped his lower back again. “A nonexistent pathway unofficially connected Academy City to the world outside, increasing the risk of the outer world’s collapse through cultural exchange and technological contamination. The entire world very well could have been destroyed from this single point. While the researchers had hoped to extract materials from the Imaginary Number District, whatever came from there might have transformed the outside world into something truly grotesque. …Yes, that the world still exists as it does now was no more than ''dumb luck''. It was nothing we did on our end. Kazakiri Hyouka and the other inhuman monsters simply showed no interest in that. If something had occurred to them and they had tried it, the world would have ended.”

“You mean…” Takitsubo replied since she had a better understanding of things related to AIM. “You were researching the exact opposite of that ghost? A ghost made from powerful energy and an aggregation of weak powers are opposites, so when they came together, it caused the ghost to malfunction… You were trying to extract inorganic materials from that unseen city, weren’t you?”

“Hard to say if that research was a step forward or a step back. Like I said, they failed. They could not control it, so even the remains of their project you see here cannot be erased. I believe the natural half life was about 12,000 years. In the worst case, the Imaginary Number District could have been converted into real numbers, crushing Academy City in the process. I think the project could have found success if they could have cut off a piece at a workable size and found a way to control it. In that sense, that ghost really is the strongest as an individual and an enviable success.”

Now even Hamazura had a vague idea why the ghost woman had suddenly malfunctioned.

They could not be in the same place.

Two ghosts could not coexist. Just like installing two different pieces of security software on the same computer would cause a conflict.

“It was still a risky gamble, though. The odds were low, but if the tunnel ''had lost'', this temporary space itself would have vanished and we would all have become fossils after being buried deep below the surface.”

Hamazura heard a swooshing sound and looked over to see the android swinging her thick machete next to the old man. Those two had won their bet, so now no one could stop them.

Kihara Hasuu looked away from Hamazura and turned to someone else.

“Now, I have eliminated your bodyguard. Isn’t it time we talked this out like adults?”

===Part 5===

“When’s the train going to leave?”

“Oh, mister just left.”

The children dressed up in gym clothes were whispering to each other while peeking out through the cracked-open door of a freight train container.

But among them…

“Ow, that hurts.”

The girl named Risako spoke up in protest.

But Sodate ignored that and continued tugging on her skinny wrist. The bigger boy was kind of scary when he was not saying anything.

“Listen, Risako.” He spoke quickly while walking through the shadows to stay hidden. He seemed to be speaking to himself more than the girl. “You can still escape. It’s not too late. And once you get to the surface, go tell the grownups about this. I know you can do it.”

“Why? The train is about to leave.”

“You still don’t get it!?” He shouted with his hands on her shoulders. “They make us wear these clothes and devices, they keep us separated from the rest of the city, and they don’t let us go to a normal school. We’re Child Errors, so no one will even notice if we just disappear one day. They’re only raising us because they can use us for something. They’re fattening us up to eat us!”

“But…”

“We don’t even have phones to call for help. ''It isn’t normal to be this isolated.'' That’s why I kept leaving behind some sign of our presence: building blocks, picture books, balls, and so on. I left them outside before the trucks moved on and I made sure to write our names, the trucks’ license numbers, and other information on them! But none of it ever reached the grownups. Our efforts never reached anyone!!”

She had thought he kept stealing things because he was selfish. She had thought he would forget those things in his secret bases because he was sloppy. But that was not it.

“They’re relatively peaceful beneficials? Don’t make me laugh. What’s going to change after we board that train and leave Academy City? There won’t be anyone monitoring them anymore!! Once that happens, I just know he’ll stop holding back. He’ll ''take it even further''! So you at least need to escape before that happens!!”

“Sodate-chan…”

“I’ll give you an opening.” He looked the girl in the eye and spoke clearly. “I won’t let him turn you into a guinea pig no matter what!!”

===Part 6===

A somewhat slender man stepped out. He wore a short-sleeved safari jacket and a rash guard, making him look something like an old-fashioned adventurer, but the webcam attached to the side of his head gave him a more modern outdoorsy look. He appeared to be a different sort of researcher from the old mechanic in a lab coat and jumpsuit.

He was an expert at visiting so-called haunted locations around the world and revealing the scientific cause of the strange phenomena there. But he had apparently also artificially recreated such things to use them for his own purposes.

He grinned and raised his hands in a jocular way. Kihara Hasuu asked him a question with the deadly weapon girl still by his side.

“What is your name?”

“Drencher Kihara Repatri.”

“I see. So that’s you.”

The young man’s eyebrows moved slightly in response to the old man’s impressed tone.

“I didn’t expect someone like you to have heard of me.”

“You are rather…well known.”

The way he said that told Hamazura he did not mean that in a positive way.

This was a confrontation between two harmfuls.

The two researchers ignored the boy and girl entirely as they began a verbal rally. Hamazura knew he could not just sit and watch as a referee or spectator, but he had no way of intervening.

“As you can see, we come from different levels of the dark side. If there is no place for us in Academy City anymore, then leaving the city is a valid choice. But is that plank of Carneades really only big enough for the one group? I think it can support both of us just fine.”

That suggestion seemed surprising…but maybe it wasn’t. It was the ghost woman who had been slaughtering all of the other dark side members trying to reach this point. The android may have attacked Anti-Skill, but she had never actively tried to eliminate her fellow dark siders. She had attacked Hamazura near the counterfeiter’s tents, but if she had been trying to slaughter everyone she came across, the ordinary people in the amusement park would not have escaped alive.

The young man shrugged.

“If that means less fighting, it’s okay with me. Not that I really have a choice, do I?”

“Assuming you have no other trump cards.”

“Then I surrender.”

He did not hesitate to respond. Hamazura was actually surprised to see he was willing to back down to save his own life. Hamazura had gotten the impression that the extreme members of the dark side were willing to sacrifice their own life to achieve their goal.

That surprise scared Hamazura. He could tell he had let the dark side influence him too much. He was afraid the damage would be permanent if he went much further. Once he became a harmful, there was no going back.

“She was my prized project, you know? Frillsand #G, I mean. Now, I knew ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' would pose a challenge, but I never imagined it was a giant mass of AIM Diffusion Fields.”

“Everything has its compatibility. In fact, I could never have won if we were not down here. Keep this girl from working and I’m helpless.”

The crimson-haired girl did nothing to fight the wrinkled hand rubbing her head.

The two men were reaching an agreement. That was not good. Hamazura and Takitsubo had nothing they could offer in a negotiation. At this rate, they would probably each get a bullet in the head as a parting gift. The only other option he could imagine was being made into a guinea pig for some bizarre experiment.

“Oh, right,” casually began the old man.

If he said “what should we do about those two lumps of flesh”, they were screwed. And Hamazura could not predict what that Kihara would do. He felt a terrible squeezing at his heart.

Finally, Kihara Hasuu continued.

“While we can share the train, I will be in charge there. So if you want a ride, it’s only natural you pay a small fare, don’t you think?”

“Do you want my research notes on Frillsand #G?”

“I’m no barbarian. A scientist’s research notes are a part of his very soul. Those are the fruits of your labors, so take them to your grave.”

“Then what do you want?”

“A few of them.”

The old man’s voice was as casual as ever as he pointed his engineering glove in a different direction entirely. He pointed at the gym clothes children who were peeking out from behind cover, without a clue what was being discussed.

“''Just select a few at random.'' I intend to restart my research once things have calmed down, but the rules are different outside the city. I can’t start abducting people off the street until I have a proper base set up, so I could use an initial supply for that settling-in period.”

Hamazura froze as he listened in.

This was the dark side. This was how the elites of that stagnant world thought.

“That Frillsand #G is important to your research, but not so with those lab rats, right? How many experimental observers’ lives were lost until you managed to ''properly reproduce'' that artificial ghost? If your research has entered a stable period, I would assume you are not running through those Child Errors as quickly as you once were.”

“Heh,” laughed Drencher Kihara Repatri.

He weakly lowered his raised hands. He must have decided that was no longer necessary. He too had seen the darkness, so he spoke with the same look in his eyes as the old man.

“It’s true those are all Child Errors. And however they would be treated in the ordinary world, we all know exactly what that term means in the dark side. Yes, I gathered them together and invited them into my lab. I made sure to have a plentiful stock of convenient lives that could be spent as I liked if other forms of research were not enough.”

“Then I can have a few?”

“''Go to hell, you son of a bitch.''”

===Part 7===

Several dry gunshots rang out.

===Part 8===

Hamazura Shiage did not understand what had just happened.

“Hamazura!!”

His body still refused to do what it was told, so track suit girl Takitsubo had to push him to the ground.

The young man had pulled out a handgun. It was no more than a small revolver, but he still fired it repeatedly from just a few meters away.

However…

“Ugh…”

“That won’t work,” said the old man.

The android’s crimson hair fluttered while she held her thick machete at the ready with her bare feet planted a step in front of Hasuu. Not only had she deflected all of the bullets, she had used their ricochets as a counterattack.

''No more than a small revolver.

''Something had gone horribly wrong when you started thinking of things in those terms in this country.

The young man had several holes in his upper body and dark red stains spread across his clothes. Doubling over did nothing to help, so he finally collapsed to the ground.

The old man in a jumpsuit and lab coat spoke up in exasperation while the strongest doll protected him.

“They’re just kids. And it’s not like I’m asking for all of them. Just two or three will do.”

“I wanted to…protect them from the dark side scum who think like that,” spat the young man while struggling to breathe down on all fours. He had given up trying to hold his wounds. “But nothing I did above board did anything to help. I couldn’t even get information on where those children were. The only way to fight the dark side…was to become the dark side. I almost laughed when I saw how many people came running to me then, claiming my research was so valuable. When I said I needed children’s lives to do it, they slapped me on the shoulder and agreed to it all. While happily sipping on a glass of the year’s finest red with their other hand. This city is rotten to the core.”

“Aren’t you Drencher Kihara Repatri?”

“Claiming to be a Kihara was the quickest way to get what I wanted. Ha ha. Those VIPs really were terrified of me.”

“Dammit,” spat out Hamazura Shiage.

The young man saw his own condition as of secondary importance.

It was true the ghost woman had used the children. They had been placed in a position where she could crush their lives at any moment. But had Hamazura ever seen her actually kill a child? What if they had been living in a world where they had to take the charade that far to be believed?

The old man had asked how many experimental observers’ lives were lost until he managed to properly reproduce the artificial ghost, but the young man had never answered.

That was in fact the answer. He had not sacrificed anyone. Not one. He had wanted to gather up those children known as Child Errors and drag them up out of the darkness. There ''were'' adults willing to dive into the dark side for no other reason than that.

There really were.

And yet…

“You’re lying.”

Hamazura suddenly rejected that entire premise. Because if he accepted this, he would have to admit to his own ugliness. Even if saying this would mean revealing he was ugly enough to put up a struggle like this.

“I’ve seen you before. You were at that counterfeiter’s place! You were preparing a passport for yourself so you could abandon those kids and leave the city!!”

“This all would have gone so much more smoothly if that had worked.” The young man smiled weakly. “If I had shown off how I escaped with the passport, Anti-Skill and the dark side’s focus would have turned toward District 23’s airport. Then the children would have had a safer escape underground here. I was never supposed to be down here with them.”

“~ ~ ~!!!!!!”

It felt like they lived in two completely different worlds.

And that young man was definitely the one in the right.

Hamazura felt so pathetic and contemptible for only ever acting to protect him and his girlfriend.

“I know I shouldn’t be asking this.”

The young man looked his way. As if to say it did not matter if he really was a Kihara or not.

His eyes knew how to view the light, but for some reason he now looked to someone as corrupted as Hamazura.

“Maybe it’s for the best if the dark side is destroyed, but please take care of those kids. You’re the only person I can leave them with now. When you saw your girlfriend suffering, you panicked and dumped medical supplies across the ground in your haste. I could see the conscience in your eyes. You had no choice but to fall this far, but you should still have some resistance to the dark side left inside you.”

“Wait, I’m not like that for everyone. Don’t shove this onto me! She’s my girlfriend, so of course I’d work to save her!!”

“Ha ha. Thinking that’s an ‘of course’ is what makes you such an oddity in the dark side. Don’t worry, I know you can do it. Because after falling into this shitty world, you still managed to find someone you care for and you decided to find peace instead of another thrill.”

Hamazura and Takitsubo had first heard of ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' from this man.

Hamazura had been cautious because there was no righteousness in the dark side and the man must have had his own reasons.

Was this why?

Had it been some insurance, just in case? Instead of worrying about his own survival, he had wanted some insurance for after he died.

Yet he had also slaughtered the dark sider people rushing toward this exit.

All because he could not let any harm come to the children as those people fought each other. He had rushed down a dark path to prevent a mere possibility.

But on Hamazura and Takitsubo’s way here, hadn’t the ghost woman glanced their way after slaughtering everyone else and then left, as if sparing them?

“Why did you do all this?”

That was the only question Hamazura could find.

That was not something to say to a dying man. He knew that. But after letting the dark side corrupt him while he worked so hard to ensure his and his girlfriend’s survival, this answer was too pure and upright to accept.

“How could you throw away your own life over this!? When you get down to it, those kids are just strangers! How could a goddamn harmful go this far just because you ‘wanted to save them’!? How!? Tell me!?”

The young man smiled.

There was already blood dripping from the corners of his lips.

“Do you need a reason to protect someone? Of course you don’t.”

That was the end of it.

Time stopped for him with the smile still on his lips.

He had no reason. He did not know why. And he had rushed in to save those children without ever finding a reason.

Hamazura Shiage had to admit defeat.

“A…”

The loser boy clenched his teeth. He moved his battered body, swiped the bloody handgun and some ammo from the young man, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

Losers had their own etiquette to follow.

That scummy old man was still here. Hamazura was not going to let him trample on the young man’s victory.

“Aaaneriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!”

A dull kachunk echoed through the circular space.

The support AI had taken control of the train and shifted it out of standby, so it slowly began to move.

The turntable had tracks in twelve directions, but he knew where to send it.

He just had to remember what the card-sized hard drive labeled Lifeline had said.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

In other words…

(Hours and minutes. If I apply that to an analog clock…)

“Send it down the five o’clock track!!”

The train took off with so many children in gym clothes on board.

That had been his top priority.

“Is justice contagious these days?” asked the old man with the look of someone viewing a crazy person.

He had already proven that the gun would not work, so he gave Hamazura a look of partial pity now that he had inherited that defeated weapon.

“You risked your life for this, but to no avail. Look, not all of them were onboard. They must have run in fear from the very person who would have saved them.”

“Hamazura, two of them were left behind. We can’t just leave them here.”

A boy and a girl in gym clothes were holding hands a short distance away.

What had they thought when they learned the truth behind that young man’s satisfied smile?

Especially when their own actions had worked against him.

“Well, those two will suffice. I will be taking them as a souvenir. Any more than this would have been a waste of food anyway.”

“Shut up,” spat out Hamazura.

He really should not have been doing this. He had come here to escape to safety. It had been clear from the very beginning that he could not be a great hero or brave warrior. This selfish choice here might put himself and his girlfriend in danger.

But.

Even so.

A dying man had left this with him. He had been reminded what it meant to do the right thing. There were lives here he could save. He could redo things. And most of all, his girlfriend was watching.

He was done being pathetic. He gathered strength in his sweaty body and stood up under his own power again. He had to.

“Maybe you’re a Kihara and an android.”

His goal was to run away?

No, sometimes a man had to stand up and speak his mind.

“But I’ll take you on, you goddamned dark siders!!!!!!”

He knew it was possible.

He had just seen a man stay true to this way of life.

He could reclaim his humanity. He must have learned something from what he saw here.

===Part 9===

Of course, Hamazura could never actually hit the crimson-haired android by firing the 9mm handgun at random. He knew she would deflect the bullets with her thick machete and fill him with holes.

So he did something else instead.

“Aneri!!”

A giant shape suddenly moved right next to the racing swimsuit girl.

A wheel loader used to stack up the railroad-sized containers was being remotely controlled.

“Move.”

What was that machete even made of? She did not even look in that direction as she swung her weapon and sliced apart the snowplow-looking piece of machinery. Even though she was not using any rapid vibrations or heat.

But Hamazura used that moment to pull on his girlfriend’s hand and move from there.

This was a vast circular space, but it was not an empty colosseum.

It had concrete columns just like an underground common utility duct and it had various equipment needed for operating and maintaining the trains, all located where it would not get in the way of the turntable and the twelve directions of track. Transformers were surrounded by a fence, a prefab hut had been made into a control room, giant jacks and a carwash were prepared for maintenance purposes, and more.

Aneri had directly operated the freight train, so he felt safe assuming she could operate all of the equipment here.

He pulled his girlfriend close while hiding behind a concrete column and whispering to his phone.

“Aneri, can you directly hijack that hunk of junk?”

No response.

He took that as a no. This did not sound like it was an issue of building up to that or setting something up in advance. That android was immune to cyber attacks on some level he did not understand.

(That means the only option is to destroy her the old-fashioned way!!)

“Hamazura, we can’t hide here forever. If she stops focusing on us, she’ll go after those children. Villains always go for the easiest target.”

“I know that.”

Takitsubo kept trying to wipe the sweat from her brow, but something was not right. The moxibustion should have relieved her symptoms to an extent, but that treatment might not be working as much anymore.

He was worried, but he could not stop now. He hated that fact.

“But using ourselves as bait will put us at risk. Are you prepared for that, Takitsubo?”

“Ask any more stupid questions and I’ll slap you.”

“Okay, it’s time to win your heart all over again!!”

They both ran out from behind the concrete column.

Their eyes met the ones with pupils mechanically expanding and contracting, but they stayed strong this time.

===Part 10===

Ladybird had a lock on two targets.

She walked barefoot across the floor and accurately obeyed her instructions, but she also had a question.

Why were the children necessary?

Kihara Hasuu—her Sensei—was researching androids. He had already successfully created one, so he no longer needed to capture biological humans to dissect and observe them. This disagreement appeared to be over ownership of the Child Errors (she failed to realize it was her education by that true Kihara that led her to use the word “ownership” in this context), but why was the old man so insistent on this?

That unfortunate research was a thing of the past.

She was an android built from purely mechanical parts, but she could use an esper power. That meant no more human specimens were needed for esper development experiments. They only had to mess with machines from now on. The Child Errors no longer needed to be captured and used up.

She thought that was a wonderful thing. She could not believe the people who still clung to the old system that required humans to use other humans. Did they wish to protect the status given to them by the current Level system? If they truly believed their fight was just, then they were beyond reasoning with. Machines were not the only ones that could have their memory data rewritten. Humans could have their feelings and thoughts falsified as well.

So she would bring an end to it all.

She was fighting here to end the misfortune and tragedies caused by the esper development program.

“Ohhhh!!”

The boy raised a meaningless battle cry, ran in, and repeatedly fired his handgun. She only had to block those shots with her machete.

But he had apparently learned how she fought.

She tried to hit him with the ricochets, but they refused to hit. When she deflected a bullet back, it would follow the same straight trajectory. Placing a single piece of plywood in the middle would change things. A bullet’s force was determined by its muzzle velocity. The force of the ricochet would generally be lower. That was obvious enough since bullets were not constantly accelerating like a rocket or missile. So he could set it up so he could shoot her through an obstacle, but she could not break through it on the way back.

Her use of ricochets was similar to Accelerator’s reflection, but all her machete did was knock the bullet back. She could not ''include the actual vector in that''.

That said…

(I doubt someone with such a stupid face could do this. He must be receiving assistance with the calculations.)

She considered jumping. Lifting both feet from the ground was usually a bad idea in combat, but not so with her. With her android specs, she could kick off of one column to the next and attack from the air.

She heard the loud roar of an engine while dealing with the bullets.

It appeared to come from a forklift.

“Aneri, surround the kids! I don’t know where that old man got off to, but don’t let him get close!! If he tries it, run him over!!”

“Don’t get distracted.”

He could have gotten a hit in on her by sending the forklift in from the side while firing on her from the front. Not that a blow like that would be enough to destroy her frame.

She swung the thick machete in her right hand while gathering her strength in the space between her eyebrows.

That was how she aimed.

A blast of wind blew away the obstacles between her and Hamazura Shiage. It was more like they were obliterated by an explosion than swept away by wind.

“An esper power!?” shouted the boy.

“It looked to be Level 3 or higher,” said the girl.

She no longer had to worry about the gunfire now that the line of fire was clear. He must have known the risk of ricochets was back because he stopped attacking and hid behind a nearby column, but that was no defense. She could charge in and slice through the column and his torso behind it with a single horizontal sweep of her blade.

She had enough time to reach her other hand to her thigh, pull out the bottle, and take a drink of the discharge machine oil.

A dull boom burst out.

She was only an android modeled after the structure of the human body, but the materials used for her skeleton, muscles, and everything else were bizarre dark side tech. If she wanted to, her horsepower could rival a V12 engine at max RPM.

But even as she chose the correct action, her mechanical head was filled with questions.

She had used a wind power.

But hadn’t she used fire during her previous clash with these people? And what about the time before that?

Androids had the same structure as humans, so a single android should only have a single power. Or could she do what humans could not because she was a machine?

(Sensei?)

===Part 11===

A column of reinforced concrete was sliced through as easily as tofu or thin paper.

Not horizontally or diagonally—vertically and all the way through. After kicking from column to column to gain height, she had apparently dropped down like lightning. She had a human form, but she could perform superhuman movements.

Hamazura Shiage had tried to jump to the side just beforehand, but he ended up tumbling into a roll.

It was not his torso sliced through along with the column. It was a gas drum kept on hand for the facility’s auxiliary power generator.

He grimaced at the pain in his hips as he continued rolling and pulled the trigger repeatedly.

Not even Ladybird could deflect bullets that hit the concrete ground and sent sparks flying.

The vaporizing gasoline ignited into explosive flames that swallowed up the entire racing swimsuit silhouette.

However…

“No, Hamazura! It didn’t work!!”

“Tch!!”

He clicked his tongue while the track suit girl ran over from elsewhere and pulled him to his feet. A black figure was displayed on the other side of that fiery screen. She showed no sign of collapsing or writhing in pain.

Had she used that previous wind power to affect how the flames spread?

He hoped so. If she was simply this tough, he could not imagine how to defeat her.

“How ''do'' you defeat an android anyway? Strangle her or stab her in the heart, she’s still a machine. That won’t stop her!!”

Could he break her motherboard? Or pull out her battery? But he had no idea how many she had or where in her slender body they were located.

The roaring flames were sliced apart. A horizontal sweep of the heavy metal machete conquered the orange barrier. The barefoot android stepped through entirely unscathed. There was no sign of discoloration on her crimson hair, white skin, or orange and black racing swimsuit.

“Something isn’t right,” said Takitsubo Rikou with eyes seemingly more robotic than the machine’s. What was she looking at right now? “An android that uses esper powers is conceivably possible. Mechanical processing may be able to ‘observe’ the waves or particles like a human brain does. And if you developed that far enough, you might be able to purposefully select between different supernatural phenomena. But this wavelength is simpler than that.”

“You mean how she switches between powers?” spat out Hamazura. “That container base in the garbage pile was their lab, right? Then I get why that old man wants those kids so bad. Even if I don’t know exactly ''how'' he would use them.”

Now, why were they able to spend so long discussing this?

The delinquent boy made sure to keep his gun aimed, but the android in question was only tilting her head.

A dark liquid was dripping from her eyes and nose.

He had seen that before. Immediately after she had been hit by the hakama girl and fought back with her fire power.

“Oh, dear.”

Kihara Hasuu’s voice reached them from somewhere, but it was echoing too much to tell where it came from. Hamazura would have shot the man if he saw him.

“Is it that time already? This is why I wanted to stock up sooner rather than later.”

“Hey.” Hamazura shouted at the unseen man. “Isn’t that cheating? You can’t really call her an android if that’s what you’re doing.”

The boy watched as the girl in the orange and black racing swimsuit held her head and doubled over.

A low straining sound came from her.

Then her back opened along the line from her nape to her tailbone.

The clasp holding together the X-shaped band at the center of the swimsuit’s back popped open and the supports were released in four directions.

Then her soft skin opened wide while supported at her nape.

Her opened back almost looked like a steam locomotive’s boiler or a furnace from hell. The fact that it was smooth human skin instead of a thick metal door gave it the sinister appearance of an insect’s shell opening up.

The top half of her swimsuit fell out of place, but her chest was not visible.

Her long red hair dropped down to cover it up.

She had planted her hands and feet on the ground like a beast.

Something translucent crawled out of her. It looked like a long, narrow blade or like a wriggling snake. It would grab something, drag it inside her, and cut it away. It was an automatic extraction organ.

Hamazura knew what it was for.

“I saw the junk those trash collectors were taking back after searching through those piles of abandoned items. A fridge was full of some brownish filth.”

He felt nauseated just remembering it.

He grimaced as he viewed that monster.

“''It was stuffed full of corpses with the contents of their heads removed.'' When those trash collectors were searching out fridges and washing machines, they weren’t selling them to used appliance stores. They were opening up bloodstained boxes packed full of still-usable organs. And they all came from your lab, didn’t they!?”

“Well, the ordinary corpses were apparently disposed of in District 10’s slums, but there are a lot of people willing to buy up ones fresh enough to make use of their parts.”

Ladybird was not an android with esper powers. She was as harmful as they came. She was a machine that would devour people’s brains when necessary. In Hamazura’s opinion, that meant she did not fit the definition of an android.

“This is a completely different approach from the Rensa model of esper cyborg. Instead of a cyborg made by ''giving a brain a body'', Ladybird-kun ''is a body given a brain.''” Hasuu sounded like he was introducing his favorite grandchild. “Cellulose nanofiber is a carbon material gathering attention for its use in making wires and bulletproof materials, but the point is we can create delicate wires even thinner than the cranial nerves. But unlike a biological brain, leaving them in their active state causes them to automatically replicate and they will try to forcibly fold themselves up for space if they run out of room in the skull. The cerebrum’s frontal lobe is especially troublesome. So ''a foreign object'' must be introduced to constantly provide just the right amount of damage to ensure the brain remains the size I want it. Her power changes each time a new ''foreign object'' is introduced, but that is due to the change in the rejection and damage pattern. You can think of that as a simple idiosyncrasy.”

“Sen…sei?”

A grinding sound came from Ladybird while she seemed to be searching for something. However the old researcher described it, a human brain was apparently a necessary part for her to run. Her movements were noticeably stiff and awkward as she pursued that poison on her own.

“Sensei…but you said this research would help. You said the spread of androids would mean no more human specimens were needed for the esper development.”

“The ladybird—another name for the ladybug—might look humorous, but it is in fact a ravenous carnivore. You have heard that they are good to have around because they eat aphids, haven’t you?”

“Gh…kh.”

“And there are a lot of insects that mimic ladybugs. That includes a type of darkling beetle and cockroach, both kinds of bugs people might not normally want around. But that is not actually a type of protective coloration. Ha ha. Instead of trying to blend into their natural surroundings or avoid their predators, that coloration might actually be used to make humans like them.”

How deep did the dark side go?

How disgusting could the dark said get?

“So don’t you see?”

Its attacks were indiscriminate, like a cannibal insect.

The developer spoke to what looked like a lovely girl. And he seemed to be enjoying it immensely.

“''That is the perfect name for you.''”

===Part 12===

text> @I thought there was a problem with the world.

text> @I thought it was wrong for @humans to use @humans for their research in this city.

text> But @I could climb onto the examination table instead.

text> @I can be repaired or remade as many times as necessary.

text> Since my body was made identically to a @human’s, @I would be able to use an esper power as well. Pieces of my body could be freely added or removed, so @I could be examined inside and out more easily than a @human and @I could be modified as they saw fit.

text> No more sacrifices would be necessary for the esper development research.

text> That is why @I fought.

text> @I thought @Sensei’s research was a wonderful thing.

''“You know, Ladybird-kun, the term android signifies an artificial human built with an engineering approach. Based on that definition, it seems appropriate to me for a completed android to behave like a human.”

text> @Sensei’s words were like a shining light of hope.

text> @I wondered if @I really was good enough.

text> But @I was happy as long as @I could be of some use. @I think that kind of feeling is not something a simple machine could feel.

text> Does that mean @I am somehow @human?

text> The @humans that @I have seen are like that. They do not hesitate to make inefficient choices without even considering cost performance.

text> That is why @I find @humans to be so incredible.

text> @I have not spoken much with any other than @Sensei, but @I know that is because @androids cannot be made public yet. But @I love the @humans that @I see from a distance.

text> @I will build a path to a brighter future for them—a path to a happier world—so @I cannot allow someone to destroy all that just because they do not understand. So I will not let anyone interfere. Anyone who claims it is right to harm @people cannot be allowed to trample on the future @I can bring them.

text> So…

text>And yet…

===Part 13===

“Ah, ahh. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

The lovely girl in a racing swimsuit screamed.

All light vanished from her already mechanical eyes. She had fully transformed into a grotesque predator that roared on all fours.

She wanted to reject the idea, but she could not.

The only way to preserve herself was to devour that raw body tissue and bring it to the most important part of her body. Because intentionally introducing that foreign object would trigger a rejection reaction that would continue to damage her head in just the right way. That truth was more horrifying than needing to soak in a bathtub full of rotting corpses every day. Yet she could not stop. She was not allowed to stop. That had been built into her at the design phase, whether she liked it or not. She would always return to it like a drowning person struggling to reach the surface for air.

Tears spilled from her eyes.

Her mechanical face was painted with anger, hatred, and shame.

Why was she designed to do that?

An ordinary person like Hamazura could not figure it out. What logical reason was there? It almost felt like the cruelty of someone who enjoyed to watch others suffer.

At the same time, everything she needed to survive was contained inside her. Or maybe it was more accurate to say she had been built as an autonomous iron maiden. The victim was thrown into her back, the door to that steam locomotive boiler would slam shut, and the rest was completed automatically. She was made to do that and she must have actually done it several times before.

At that point, it was not an issue of good and evil on her part.

Hamazura could not judge her, but he did have to stop her.

No matter what.

“Grahhhhhhhh!!” she roared.

“Hamazura!!”

Takitsubo shouted in a panic because the red figure had vanished.

But the quadrupedal android had not leaped toward Hamazura or Takitsubo. Nor did she leap toward Kihara Hasuu who had made her this way. She went for someone else. She gained height by kicking off the columns and she moved every closer to the smallest and easiest prey: the kids in gym clothes.

Her instincts took precedence over strategy or emotion.

“Aneri!!”

A hacked track inspection car drove in from the side to tear apart an exposed high-voltage power line for the train. The power line whipped like a serpent and tangled around the android.

A great crash followed.

Knocking her to the ground was not going to flatten Ladybird, but it mattered a lot that she had fallen on her right side with the machete still in that hand.

She could not use that to defend with her arm caught between herself and the ground.

Hamazura gripped the small revolver in both hands and fired several times.

Dry gunshots expanded through the enclosed space.

This time, the shots actually hit the android whose back was turned to him. The “mouth” on her back quickly closed before she had even withdrawn the extraction organ that resembled the thin wing of an insect or a giant scalpel, but that was all that happened. It did not seem to do any real damage to her.

She used one arm to tear away the exposed power line wrapped around her like a serpent, freeing herself. At this rate, the forklifts protecting the children would not last long.

There was no time to spare.

“Boy!! Do you want to protect that girl!?” shouted Hamazura from a distance.

He did not wait for a response. The boy’s efforts had backfired badly, but if he did not care about that girl, he would not have gotten her off the train so she could escape.

Hamazura Shiage decided to trust this fellow human being.

“Then be brave and step forward! Falling back only gives her more of a chance to eat you two!!”

When the boy protecting his friend squeezed his eyes shut and stepped forward, Ladybird briefly came to a stop. She needed the soft brains inside those children. That was the poison she needed to damage herself.

But moving up to her was the right choice.

It was just like a cowboy’s lasso. You could swing it overhead to gather strength all you liked, but it would still be hard to throw it around the head of someone who was close enough to hug you. The android’s extraction organ looked like the thin wing of an insect or a transparent sword, but it was very long. That meant it was hard to use against someone right up in front of her.

But this method would only buy a few seconds at most.

Once she moved to the proper distance and tried again, the boy really would be eaten.

Hamazura made his next move before she could do that.

He had picked up a bottle of industrial cleaner presumably used to wash the train and he chucked it over a metal fence to hit a device larger than a refrigerator.

The giant railroad transformer scattered a frightening amount of sparks. And while it was invisible, it also sent out powerful electromagnetic waves.

Those waves’ effect on the human body was unknown, but their effect on a machine would be much more severe.

He heard a scream. That thing shaped like a calm and composed girl was now writhing on the ground in apparent pain.

Hamazura ran over, fired two or three shots at her, and continued on past her. Then he picked up the gym clothes boy still standing in danger and slid along the ground like a baseball player.

He hid behind the concrete column where the gym clothes girl was.

“Well done, boy. It’ll be okay now.”

Maybe someone from Anti-Skill or Judgment should have been saying that.

Maybe someone from the filthy dark side had no right to say it.

But he had taken over for a man who had wanted to say that so very badly.

And while he said that, Hamazura made sure to check his phone where the kids could not see. The screen was dead and Aneri was not responding. He doubted her program had been taken out, but without a device to receive her instructions, he had lost the support AI’s help.

It really would be one-on-one from here on.

But he did not need to let that show on his face.

“Maybe she’s with the dark side and maybe she isn’t, I dunno, but I don’t want to trample on her dignity any longer.” He looked the boy in the eye. “I’m going to end this here. Listen, don’t get yourselves killed. You need to survive if I’m going to save her.”

“What are you going to do?”

The gym clothes boy’s voice was vanishingly quiet, but he still got it out.

Even if he had to suppress the trembling in his body.

“I don’t want to run away anymore. What I did wasn’t brave. If I had faced mister honestly, he wouldn’t have had to get hurt. So…!!”

“Then help me out.”

Hamazura had planned to tell the boy to take the girl’s hand and run as far away as possible on his signal.

But he changed his mind.

Drencher Kihara Repatri, that young man who had wanted to save the children who would be used up by the dark side, was dead and nothing could change that. But this boy’s eyes carried the light the man had instilled in those children. After losing to Drencher, Hamazura could not allow that light to be extinguished.

No matter what.

So he changed his mind.

“I need a few tools to finish this. I’ll buy some time with this gun, so you gather them for me. Can you do that?”

Hamazura recalled the hard sensation in his pocket and clicked his tongue. He tried pulling it out, but its shine was still dull. It was not quite fully charged. The golden shine had yet to make a full circle around the edge of the coin. But that was fine. He threw the coin as far as he could, even though he had no idea if it would draw Ladybird’s attention or not.

He did not regret losing it.

He did not need the Coin of Nicholas.

Everyone already had the ability to switch over the tracks to a different route.

He would take a different route here and he did not need the creepy occult to do it.

He needed something else.

===Part 14===

She had found them.

Ladybird planted her hands and feet on the cold concrete ground while she located her target again.

She did not know how this would help her. If she captured them, her horrific feast would begin. But she could not stop herself.

She could not change this about herself. She could not escape her fate, just like a drowning person would subconsciously swim toward the surface.

…Even though she had wanted to protect the humans.

She would eat them.

This suffering would never end unless she consumed a human brain.

…Even though she was supposed to free those children from the darkness by lying on the dissection table herself.

“Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhh, ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

Her vision blurred.

But even her tears were scattered by the blowing wind of her great speed.

Even during unstable bipedal movement, she could rival a V12 engine at max RPMs, so her top speed had increased even further now that she had abandoned her dignity as a girl and gained the efficiency of a machine.

It did not matter if they were an adult or a child.

Puny human legs could never escape her.

She pursued her target as accurately as a precision-guided weapon. She charged toward those distinctive gym clothes.

Handgun bullets attacked her from the side. Even after all this, she had not let go of the thick machete. And without any obstacles in the way, firing on her was suicide. She could accurately kill the shooter with the ricochet by adjusting the angle of her weapon.

Or so she thought.

Instead, the reaction speed of her right hand had slowed by 0.5 seconds.

“?”

That was a devastating delay.

The storm of lead hit her and she tumbled along the ground. A 9mm round was not enough to destroy her bones or muscles—the problem was her speed. The impact from the side easily knocked her off balance and she broke through two or three concrete columns along the way.

But what was this?

What had happened? She had been moving on all fours, but that had not affected her right arm’s movable range. When she checked, she found no report of her movement performance having dropped.

The problem must have come before that.

She finally realized there had been an error in her targeting.

A whitish smoke was filling the entire circular space.

It was a smokescreen.

(It can’t be.)

More gunfire. She immediately readied her machete, but that did not work when she could only respond after the fact. She could not protect herself and the bullets slipped past the weapon to slam into her body.

“Gahhh!!”

===Part 15===

Hamazura Shiage had seen what happened in that container lab buried in trash. The long silver-haired hakama girl had made a desperate attack to save him and Takitsubo. She had grabbed the android’s face with her palm and shoved burning incense in the android’s mouth.

But how did that make sense? If Ladybird had the reaction speed to deflect every bullet fired at her, how had she overlooked a human hand?

“The dark side is coldhearted to everyone. You don’t get lucky for no good reason.”

The weak were always observant. After going through that sorrowful goodbye and seeing the girl suffering from so much pain, he had decided to at least use what she had taught him.

This was the world’s oldest chemical weapon.

That sounded fancy, but it was easily made with ordinary items.

You could use the hexachloroethane found in commercial bug sprays or make a powder out of the zinc used in all sorts of things in everyday life. Hamazura recalled that Hanzou had been an expert at stuff like this.

“A smokescreen!! It might not stop IR and ultrasound, but your high-speed defenses aren’t a threat if your sensors malfunction for even a moment!!”

===Part 16===

So?

What did that matter?

The intense hunger inside Ladybird continued to grow. It was more like a desire for oxygen than for food or water.

She was going to kill.

Just the one brain would suffice.

Her thoughts focused more and more on that one goal.

…What had she wanted to save again?

She managed to detect something in the powerful smokescreen.

She spotted a small figure in gym clothes.

…What had once been a girl wept as she raised her voice.

“010011101010110001011001101111001011!!”

She could not even get out actual words anymore.

Something inside her had fried.

After rushing toward her target faster than a racecar, she opened up once more. The small size suggested this was the girl. Ladybird’s back opened wide and the thin translucent thing burst out. Several of those predatory organs stuck out like thin insect wings or like long tongues. They wrapped around her target to bind them and then she shoved the heavy mass inside herself.

This was the dark side.

The good were not rewarded and the evil were not punished.

And.

And.

And.

“…?”

When did she notice something was wrong?

The gym clothes had been on a figure small enough to easily lift up in her arms. That much was true. But what was with that weight? Would a child of around ten really weigh more than 200 kilograms?

“It can’t be!?”

In that moment, Ladybird’s heart was filled by a feeling of…

===Part 17===

Ladybird was not the only one with their target in sight.

Hamazura Shiage accurately aimed his handgun.

“You didn’t like it when I fired on you from behind earlier, did you? Almost like you didn’t want a bullet getting inside that ‘mouth’ on your back.”

The weak were always observant.

The only way to make up for the difference in strength was to search out a weakness.

“And when you were engulfed in flames by that gasoline, you extinguished it with a swing of your machete. That was pretty scary at first glance, but if it really couldn’t harm you, you wouldn’t need to put out the flames, would you?”

He had not used the smokescreen to reduce the effectiveness of her sensors just to hit her with a few useless 9mm bullets.

But making that attack had convinced her that was all it was for.

This was the smokescreen’s true purpose.

The curtain of smoke had let her see the gym clothes without realizing they were on a metal drum and he had baited her into trying to eat that.

Plus, he had already proven that the handgun bullets were enough to ignite the contents of those metal drums.

He fired repeatedly toward her back.

Toward the centerline down her back that resembled the zipper on a costume. The oversized target prevented her from fully closing her back, so he only had to fire on that gap as if shoving the bullets on in there.

The metal drum she had taken into herself now expanded within her.

It exploded.

When the intense boom echoed out from her, he knew he had won. The blast and shockwave were enough to blow away the smokescreen.

He wished he had not seen what remained afterwards.

He was the one who had caused those remains to be strewn across the ground here.

“Hamazura!!”

“I’m fine.”

He bit his lip with the small revolver still in hand.

“Her head moved weirdly in the smokescreen there,” he said. “And then that scream. ''Something other than her mechanical thought process kicked in.'' Without that, I don’t think the metal drum would have tricked her.”

Her attack had been running off of a program, so maybe the parameters could be overwritten and the attributes could be switched on and off.

“She must have remembered something.”

He hung his head and looked down instead of at his girlfriend.

Something was lying on the ground there.

“So in that final moment, she did what she could to save those kids.”

The girl’s head had rolled over toward him and it looked to him like she was smiling.

Because now she would never have to kill again.

===Part 18===

This was a surprise.

He had not even considered what he would do if this happened.

Kihara Hasuu stood in a daze after being left all alone. Finally, he looked around the vast circular space.

Takitsubo looked to be in pain. The moxibustion’s effects would not last forever.

“Pant, gasp.”

“Takitsubo.”

A sinister metallic click sounded. It came from a small revolver.

“Get the kids away from here. It’s time for a grownup chat with that man.”

“…Okay.” Takitsubo nodded. “Are you sure, Hamazura?”

“Yeah. We have to do this before we run away.”

Once no one else was around to see this, the delinquent boy approached the old man with the handgun in his grasp.

“Got anything else?” His voice sounded cold and hard, like a machine. “You’re one of those rumored Kiharas, aren’t you? Did you modify your own body with that android tech?”

“…”

“If not, it’s about time we woke up from this nightmare.”

The revolver’s muzzle rose. His cold voice contained a hint of blatant scorn. Like he refused to accept that this man was unharmed after making Ladybird suffer so.

“You will pay for what you did to ''that girl''. I can’t think of any reason why I should forgive you. I doubt I ever could. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stand on the side of justice. But if I don’t do this here, the justice I couldn’t have will die. I might be dumb, but I can tell that much.”

Yes.

The look in the boy’s eyes said he could not let this man live. ''Kihara Hasuu considered that the correct answer.'' He had not felt anger or sorrow upon Ladybird’s defeat. He had seen a problem to solve and improvements to make. If he were freed from here, he would immediately begin development on the next generation. That would mean many more victims. He knew himself well enough to say that.

And now that there was new research to be done, he had something to live for.

That was his fate as a Kihara.

He did not want to die yet.

He could not let himself die.

No matter what.

“You have set a record here. This will make you the new Kihara Killer.”

“This is over.”

“That is a serious crime. You will undoubtedly become the center of the new dark side. And Academy City will always demand more live sacrifices, whether you want it or not!!”

“Don’t try to stall for time. You’re dead and nothing’s changing that.”

This conversation was meaningless.

Would the boy normally have said so much on reflex? Set a record, Kihara Killer, center of the dark side—Kihara Hasuu’s wording was meant to give his opponent a big head. Was there any way—any way at all—to turn the tables on the boy? The old man was racking his brains the entire time he was buying time. It could be anything. As one who bore the name Kihara, he was willing to break all forms of ethics and standards if need be.

Then he saw it. He noticed something out of place—a gold shine on the cold concrete ground.

It was a Coin of Nicholas.

The clockwise shine had filled the outer edge now. It was fully charged.

“!!”

He immediately leaped at it and grabbed it in his special engineering glove.

He raised his voice.

He wanted to get started on his next research even if it meant relying on something very unscientific.

“Make his gun malfunction, Coin of Nicholas!!”

Who was to blame for this? The actual phenomenon occurred a moment later.

The result was perfectly fair.

A bullet flew from Hamazura Shiage’s handgun.

Yes, there were more ways for a gun to malfunction than for the bullet to jam or explode inside, blowing up the gun and the wielder’s hand along with it.

It could also fire the bullet without the trigger being pulled.

“Huh?”

The old man looked down.

He could not believe that he had been hit in the gut, rupturing his stomach of all things. More than the bleeding, his own vomit contaminated his body where a single germ could ultimately be fatal. He collapsed, suffered for more than five full minutes, and finally passed away. Stomach acid was primarily composed of hydrochloric acid. What did it feel like to be placed on the surgical table, have your gut cut open, and have a bunch of that dumped inside? All without anesthetic, of course.

The old man had lost his life to his own prayer.

A believer in science had relied on something beyond the bounds of science.

This was the fate of someone who stopped trying to do his own work. But in a way, this may have been exactly what he deserved.

If he had relied on his own strength from the beginning, he never would have earned such resentment over Ladybird.

[[Image:GT_Index_v03_459.jpg|thumb]]

If he had cut out pieces of his own flesh for his experiments, he never would have gotten into an argument over what to do with the children in gym clothes.

If he had chosen that path, everyone who had arrived here maybe could have worked together to survive.

Hamazura did not think the android was at fault.

Kihara Hasuu might agree, but it would mean something very different coming from him. The old man’s crime and punishment had to be defined by his own nature. Speaking as an expert required earnestly facing what parts of science you wished to preserve.

Was this too a present from heaven?

That coin was a trap that provided obvious miracles but also took away all other options you might try.

Hamazura Shiage spoke quietly while viewing the scum still gripping that gold coin after he had stopped moving.

Was his face blank?

Or was he suppressing an inappropriate smile?

“Merry Christmas. Did you enjoy your miracle, mad scientist?”

===Map===

[[Image:GT_Index_v03_460-461.jpg|thumb]]

Below District 10:

Hamazura Shiage – Beneficial

Takitsubo Rikou – Beneficial

Kihara Hasuu – Harmful

Ladybird – Harmful

Drencher Kihara Repatri – Beneficial

Frillsand #G – Beneficial

===Between the Lines 4===

“It’s over.” Anna Sprengel spoke bluntly behind the cold bars. “That marks the end of the December 25 festivities. I doubt anything more will happen now, so I suppose my entertainment has come to a close. Well, at least I managed to gather up some decent ‘fluctuations’. If everything had gone as planned, I might have been so disgusted I switched it off.”

She received no response from the next cell.

Most likely, no one knew what he was thinking.

The human damage had been far too great to say his silence was the most eloquent answer of all.

“What were you picturing? How did you see Operation Handcuffs ending? I bet your dream wasn’t half bad.”

So only Anna’s voice filled this space.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of. Most any adult can think of some embarrassing disaster from their teenage years. The more you express your dreams, the sooner those dreams will be crushed. That’s why the most effective method is to hide what you want and work to reveal what everyone else wants so you can work against them. Hee hee. ''If you want to accomplish something great, you first need to hide your primary objective.'' You were a little too pure. You need to muddy the waters a little.”

A solid clink echoed through the cold air.

The girl who looked only ten had flicked a gold coin into the air and then caught it in her hand.

“The Coin of Nicholas.”

The Board Chairman had lost control.

He had lost the ability to keep tabs on things.

The number of malicious accidents had been far too great. He had tried to give instructions from his cell, but he had been in no position to stop the snowball once it began rolling down the hill.

Because if he did that, the #1 would have once more become the #1 darkness.

He had sealed away his monstrous side.

He had sworn he would.

So. And yet.

“Adding in this one little foreign element shredded the flowchart you had in your head. You had it set up so the dark side would be dismantled and the people would peacefully surrender no matter how things played out, but that happy ending was torn to pieces and everyone chose for themselves to dive into a free world of high-risk death. …Who got them was random, but in the end ''only one person'' managed to break free of its bonds on their own. He slipped below my radar. I even contacted him during the day, yet I overlooked him. That is highly unusual.”

She sounded amused.

She almost seemed to place more importance on this than the #1 in the neighboring cell.

“I learned just the one thing from this spare time between experiments,” she continued.

Her voice seemed to have gone flat, like she had arrived at exactly the result she had predicted.

“''The freedom of magic wins out over the order of science.'' No matter how carefully you build everything up, I will still tear it down, overwrite it, and crush it.”

After a beat, she added one more thing like a mischievous child revealing a secret.

“Of course, these categories really don’t mean much of anything in the first place.”

She slid the edge of the golden coin along the crossbar of the barred door.

The scraping of metal on metal almost drowned out the click of a mechanism working.

The door had unlocked.

With no regard for how the lock actually worked.

“This is yet another miracle.”

The cell of science could not hold magic.

It was a very blunt metaphor.

She slowly walked out into the corridor and began to pass by the neighboring cell.

“As the name suggests, the Coin of Nicholas is a spiritual item limited to Christmas. Although it absorbs power directly from the ley lines instead of from the magician’s body, so it is technically more like a grimoire than a spiritual item. This chaos is a dream you will wake from come morning. It will not last long, so don’t worry.”

“How dare you!!”

Finally.

Something translucent challenged her from behind the bars. She looked like a lovely girl with marine creature elements and bat wings attached and she wore a dress of English newspapers covered in articles that some might consider profane. Metal bars meant nothing to her. She broke through them with a shower of orange sparks and she grabbed at the little girl covering herself with a thin red cloth.

She was Qliphah Puzzle 545, an artificial demon prepared as a trump card by the Anglican Archbishop who had once tried to overthrow the world.

However…

“I’m trying to talk. Don’t interrupt when you don’t even understand what I mean.”

All of a sudden, something stood next to the little girl.

The translucent being was an angel with a falcon head and a powerful body. As soon as a vertical crack ran through him, the angel mercilessly stripped off his entire body.

He was now a sun.

A dreadful light burst out and filled the space as it attacked the demon girl.

“Kyahhh!!”

Accelerator did not even stir.

The #1 had his reflection.

''Yet a red liquid dripped from the corner of his mouth.

“Think before you speak. Just think about it and you should realize that now is not the time for you to interrupt.”

Anna was not even looking in his direction.

She simply waved goodbye.

“My experiment is complete. Things will go differently next time.”

She never did look through the bars. She was already looking to some other place as she walked away.

But she did give a final parting comment.

“Send ''him'' my regards.”

Accelerator leaned back against the hard wall, let his hips sink to the cold floor, and lowered his head.

He did not speak a word.

One thing had been proven here. His small dream would never come true

Not as long as she was here.

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter4

2020-11-23T17:58:51Z

SNovah: /* Part 18 */ Mostly minor fixes; Hamazura's "justice" line is a bit weird, but I can't figure out a better way to do it without a partial rewrite of the sentence

==Chapter 4: The Demon Lord’s Young — the_LIGHT.==

===Part 1===

“Where have you been, Risako!?”

“Mister, Risako-chan is back!!”

The gym clothes girl laughed when she saw the other children gathered around.

“Eh heh heh. A doggy and an older girl saved me.”

They must have been preparing for another move because all the trucks had their engines running. But they had waited until they had found the girl with red hair done up like candy. She was relieved. Having a home to return to was a wonderful thing.

“''A doggy,'' huh?” said the artificial ghost called Frillsand #G.

“…”

Her comment made the young researcher fall silent for a bit.

His name was Drencher Kihara Repatri.

That family name was so well known in the dark side that it had become a more powerful classification than beneficial or harmful. The man who bore that name sighed softly to help refocus his mind.

“There is a chance we’ve been located, but we’re faster at the moment. If we move before they catch up, we can reach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' without issue.”

“Do you really think this world will allow any of this to go ‘without issue’?”

“It’s our job to make sure it happens.”

The adults exchanged their views with their voices too low for the excited children to hear.

But a certain boy kept his voice low for a different reason.

“Risako.”

“Oh, Sodate-chan.”

The tall boy in the same kind of gym clothes looked troubled for some reason. In fact, he looked close to tears. Risako tilted her head, thinking he was afraid she would get after him about the ball and chemical soap, but this was different.

“So you came back,” he said.

“Eh?”

“I was hoping maybe you were gone for good.”

He had wanted that? Did he hate her that much? Risako’s face clouded over, but this was again different. He shook his head and explained.

He was the only one of the children who had ''started to question these motion sensors they wore for some kind of experiment.''

“Because then at least you might have been safe.”

===Part 2===

He was afraid of screwing it up, so he started by drawing marks on her back with a marker.

“Hamazura, that tickles.”

“Stay still.”

The old book had a brush-drawn diagram with no perspective or attempt to make it look three-dimensional. The indicated locations of the organs were clearly not right. Maybe it was like the difference between an aerial photograph of the clouds and the isobars on the weather forecast map. He wondered if this was what all traditional Japanese medicine was like as he drew Xs on his girlfriend’s body. She had even removed her bra and was holding her chest in her hands while showing him her smooth back. He thought his heart was going to burst every time she squirmed from the ticklishness. Even he knew that reaction was inappropriate given the circumstances. Once he finished that, it was finally time to start. He faced the girl while she lay face down on the container lab’s work table like she was sunbathing.

The moxa used for the moxibustion was like fluffy cotton, but he actually had to set it on fire.

It felt wrong doing that on her soft skin and he could even permanently scar her if he screwed it up.

“…”

His fear came to the forefront now that it was time to do it, but this was the only way to help her with the fever.

He fought the desire to shut his eyes and placed a small pile of “fuel” on her soft skin. He worked at the lighter with a trembling hand, but he kept failing. Once he finally had a small flame, he slowly moved it in close.

“Nh.”

“A-are you okay, Takitsubo?”

“I’m fine.”

He continued the process a few more times. He had his doubts, but when she wiped the sweat from her brow, no more sweat beaded up. It did seem to be working.

He could not thank the hakama girl enough.

He could not waste this chance she had given them, so they had to approach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''.

That card-sized hard drive had been labelled with the word “Lifeline”.

Aneri must have decided the data would be too small to see on his phone because she displayed it a flat screen monitor in the lab instead. It was a series of numbers.

It looked like a calculation sheet made with spreadsheet software, but even that was enough to make the delinquent boy’s head hurt. Maybe it was important data, but he had no idea what he was supposed to focus on.

“This looks like materials data,” said Takitsubo after peering at it from the side.

“Materials?”

“Whether they’re beneficial or harmful, the dark side does a lot of research.” She pointed at one of the numbers. “They’re also building a lot of military weapons. But doesn’t it seem odd? Academy City is a mass consumer and it only has so much land since it’s surrounded by walls. You can’t just dig into the ground here and find oil or ores. So where do they get all those materials from?”

“Where? Isn’t that what the cooperative institutions around the world are for? They can work out a deal with them.”

“But how can they do that without leaving any record of it?”

She pointed at another number.

If a citizens group monitoring the flow of money and materials could reveal a secret, then it had never been part of the dark side to begin with.

“Look at this. The dark side is using far more materials than the total amount brought in from outside the city. Cutting off the fat and redistributing it to themselves would not be enough for this. The amount the dark side uses is several times larger. This would show up in the records no matter what you did. Important people like the Board of Directors and its Chairman can only cover up so much. This is too much. It’s well past what you could hide by cooking the books.”

“But then…”

He trailed off when Aneri opened a new window. A single point on a map of Academy City was colored in red. There was a secret there.

“They have an entrance and exit that doesn’t leave any records,” said the track suit girl while viewing the screen.

There were several files that appeared to be saved from message boards and social media pages. Reading through them showed a certain point in common.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

Takitsubo pointed at that bizarre statement.

“There is a way of reaching it and we should see hints of it in the rumors told around the city. Like the ‘!’ signs, a deadly train, kidnappers at the amusement park, babies in the coin lockers, or an underground construction zone where you can dump anything you don’t want found. But none of that gets at the real truth.”

“You mean…?”

“Academy City doesn’t promote recycling so much just because it wants to make the most of its limited resources. ''Sending things back to be recycled over and over again masks how much materials are actually being used.'' They can’t have an investigation revealing that we dump out several times more trash than materials we take in, right? That would violate conservation of mass. So they needed to make it hard to compare those two values. It’s a form of laundering.”

Why was that sleight of hand necessary? How did they reach the impossible result of more waste than raw materials? What was this secret that no one wanted getting out?

''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.

This was the identity of that term they had heard so many times today.

“It…isn’t closed off? There’s a secret route through the walls surrounding Academy City!?”

That could not be. For better or for worse, Academy City was cut off from the outside world. Those thick walls prevented their tech from spreading to the world at large because that could lead to disorder and chaos.

Hamazura used to be part of Skill Out. That was a group of the boys and girls who had dropped out of Academy City but had nowhere to go since they could not get out of the city.

They had been trapped. They had dropped out of school, but those walls had kept them here. If you wanted to take a trip outside the city for just a few days, you needed to submit a ton of paperwork and receive a nanodevice injection. Because if you tried leave without using the official gates, you could be killed to prevent a data leak. There had been burglars and muggers in the back alleys, but none of those expert thieves had dared go anywhere near the walls.

If there was a way to freely move in and out, they may not have felt so much pressure. They could have made a place for themselves.

Their former leader, Komaba Ritoku, might not have had to fight and die.

“…”

But the dark side had torn down that number one assumption like it was nothing.

That counterfeiter had stored that information on a card-sized hard drive labeled “Lifeline”. Had he thought he could use that information to get some dark side bigshots to save him?

He must have never imagined he would instead have his brains blown out by a paparazzo. Hamazura was at the center of all this, but he still did not know if that had been planned or a spontaneous decision.

“It’s deep below Academy City.” Takitsubo Rikou calmly read aloud something on such a large scale that talk of an alternate dimension would have sounded more realistic. “The world’s largest particle accelerator is built directly below the city walls, so people are told that digging in that area could break the accelerator’s seal and expose them to radiation and other risks. That was meant to convince everyone that no one would be dumb enough to try it.”

The diagram they found looked like a puzzle ring. It seemed to carefully avoid the circular accelerator facility, but this was a tunnel built by the dark side. There was no chance it met all the proper safety standards.

That was the dark side’s lifeline.

They had built it to continue pumping fuel into their illicit research and its construction showed they did not care at all if they brought chaos to the world. It really was the greatest taboo. It was a dark umbilical cord that could wipe out the Kiharas and everyone else if it was cut off.

“I doubt Anti-Skill knows about this,” said Takitsubo. “So they won’t be able to block it off. We can safely escape the city if we use it.”

“…”

The red light displayed by Aneri was in District 10, the city’s biggest slum. The taboo no one wanted was hidden below the district everyone had abandoned.

It was unclear if it had always had this name. They may have changed the name periodically to help hide the truth. All the scattered information was fragmentary witness accounts and some of it would likely be intentional misinformation.

But that taboo’s gaping mouth had sat deep underground all this time.

Like a nightmarish symbol of freedom.

The dot on the map displayed on the small screen had the following name displayed next to it: Vanishing Tunnel.

That was the name of their final destination. Anyone who arrived there was given a ticket to another world.

===Part 3===

They were deep, deep underground in District 10.

Few people would think too much about the layout of the subway tunnels below the city. They might know a track took an unnatural curve at one point, but no one would question the online news article about them running across some kind of ruins during construction.

An underground passageway was surrounded by cold concrete and supported by the pillars positioned at even intervals.

The few fluorescent lights on the walls were not enough to fully sweep away the darkness.

That underground blind spot had become the biggest hot spot in the world. A great many people had gathered there. They had not all arrived along the same route. They had each gathered the hints scattered around the city and started to question the city’s biggest assumption. Academy City was surrounded by thick walls, but it was not in fact sealed off.

The brawny men in work jumpsuits were a courier group called Secret Express. The men and women in dress clothes were Concierge, a group that provided hideouts to meet a criminal’s demands. The girls in plain clothing and hiding their faces with sunglasses and hunting caps may have been an extremely popular idol group. The parade of scum included Controller, who used personal information and fictitious bills to threaten the girls he targeted until he had them in digital chains, and Flare, who left behind harmless powder identical to the real deal in order to confuse criminal investigations.

A ruler of the back alleys was there.

A major corporation’s lawyer was there.

A university headmaster was there.

A major entertainment producer was there.

And a few Kiharas from different fields were there.

All sorts of people flooded that underground passageway. People did not end up on the dark side because they were low class, poor, stupid, or criminal. It took all types. The dark side had reached every class of person equally. From worlds no one knew existed to industries everyone envied.

Some had fallen before making it this far and others had attempted a different route instead. In a way, finding this tunnel and setting foot inside made them the chosen ones.

And.

Every last one of them were obstructed and crushed by a certain figure.

The woman had long blonde twintails and she wore a skintight light blue dress and a long loose skirt.

Frillsand #G was like an impassable wall.

All who challenged her crashed into that wall with the intensity of their challenge. After seeing a few of them turned to hunks of flesh and splattered blood, the others must have started wondering if she literally was a solid wall because all of those dark side members had come to a stop. They were pushed back even though she had not taken a single step.

Of course, the ghost was not going to spare them just because they gave up now.

“Next stop: skewering. Repeat: skewering.”

With a wet sound, a muscular man in black was destroyed from groin to head. But he may have been one of the lucky ones. He was gone before he even knew what had happened to him.

“Please look out for the burning and severing.”

Screams of pain echoed through the tunnel. Before long, the dark side members were fighting amongst themselves too. They appeared to have begun an ugly struggle over the concrete column they could use as a shield. However…

“We will arrive at gouging soon.”

Just as the ghost silently circled behind the column, a wet sound exploded out. The victors and losers of the struggle were all turned to mincemeat together while Frillsand #G looked on in disinterest.

“Ah…gahh,” someone groaned.

It was one of the idol girls. Her bottom half was gone and the bottom of her torso was sticking to the floor like a slug.

“But…why? We found the taboo…so aren’t we part of the dark side too? Can’t we all use…the path out together?”

“I have children to take care of. A lot of them.” Frillsand #G did not even look in her direction. “Inviting all of you in with us would only put them at risk.”

“Just…” It was already too late for her, but the top half of a girl still clawed at the concrete floor. “Just in case? You took people’s lives for no more than that!?”

“Next stop: running over. I repeat: running over.”

With a wet splat, the complaints were silenced.

The ghost seemed to be rejecting the idea that grudges lacked the power to kill.

“The rear guard is an important job,” she said in a singsong voice. “But I cannot let that crybaby see this. Knowing of it and seeing it are two very different things.”

The artificial ghost glanced over at something else.

But she soon lost interest, turned around, and vanished into the darkness.

A mere ten meters away, Hamazura Shiage was hiding behind a column and holding his hand over the track suit girl’s mouth.

If she noticed them, they were dead. He felt like his heart, his breathing, his body odor, and the slight static electricity on his clothing could all give them away. He could not even wipe the unpleasant sweat from his cheek as he desperately waited for time to pass.

That ghost really was an enemy.

She had some kind of plan of her own and had saved them on a whim before, but that did not mean he could trust her. If she had saved them on a whim, then she could also choose to throw them out on a whim. And they only had the one life.

This was worse than a sea of blood.

Flesh and blood had lost any hint of their original form, fingers extended into empty space, facial skin was frozen in a look of agony while plastered to the wall. At this point, they were only “things”, not people. There was no dignity remaining.

Each of them was a dark side member who had arrived at ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' along a different route than him.

Their endless possibilities had been reduced to zero.

Or so it felt to him.

Was this tunnel really the right path? The further they went, the more likely they were to encounter that ghost woman, so he began to wonder if it would be safer to turn back now and return to the surface.

“Pwah.”

His girlfriend escaped his hand. He was holding her from behind, so she leaned her head back to look him in the eye.

“Hamazura, I don’t sense her presence anymore. We can keep going now.”

“…”

“We can’t give up after coming so far. Blindly returning to the surface won’t save us. We’ll never find peace if we don’t go through here.”

“R-right.”

He would have long since broken if he were alone.

But when she pulled on his hand, he managed to work up some small semblance of courage.

Even with the evenly-spaced fluorescent lights, the tunnel was dark. And they had no idea who was in charge of that sparse lighting. What if the ghost could shut off the power? His phone felt all the more important to him now.

“This is a long tunnel.”

“Yeah.”

They were not speaking much anymore.

This was ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'', but did this tunnel really lead toward hope? No matter how far they went, the darkness never went away. As they trudged deeper and deeper, he felt like they had passed a point of no return. Also, who had built this enormous underground facility? Someone must have drawn up the plans, dug the hole, set the foundation, and brought in the rebar and concrete. This was a far bigger project than a bank robber’s hand-dug tunnel into the vault. Such a vast and well-made underground space could not have been built without the involvement of a major construction company.

Who had done it?

It might be a company whose ads he saw on TV every day.

Would all of this come to light one day? But those meaningless thoughts were cut off by Takitsubo.

She had noticed first because she was not holding the light.

“Hamazura, there’s a door.”

“…”

It was a thick metal door.

Just the one door sat at the end of the long, long tunnel. There may have been another route, but he did not recall seeing any other paths branching off along the way.

He slowly approached.

It did not appear to be locked. He doubted there were any grenades or other “gifts” left for them.

But that was not what scared him. He had seen all of those corpses along the way. The sight had left him so terrified he barely had it in him to keep his heart beating. He had started to view their fallen predecessors as no more than a piece of the scenery. Because otherwise that shadowy murder scene would have overwhelmed him too much to continue on.

The taboos were piling up.

He and Takitsubo had started this simply wanting to survive, but they too had been corrupted along the way.

Hamazura Shiage reached his fingers toward the doorknob.

He touched it. He squeezed it.

He turned it.

===Part 4===

A flood of light revealed a world no one was ever meant to see.

“…”

The other world turned out to be a cavernous pit.

This abyss slept deep below the earth, yet it was filled with much more artificial light than the tunnel. That was thanks to the construction lights set up here and there.

It was easily more than 250 meters across and maybe more than twice as deep. The perfectly circular space made of reinforced concrete at the very bottom may have reminded different people of different things.

Some might see it as a common utility duct, a circular colosseum, a switchyard’s turntable, or an underground temple dedicated to a god one must never offer any prayers.

But there was one crucial piece that helped solidify the proper image.

“A train?” muttered Hamazura while peering down over the railing.

It was a turntable.

Concrete columns were installed at even intervals around the edges, but there were none in the central circle. The flat concrete floor had a smaller circle built into it. That would rotate to change the train’s direction. The tracks outside the circle extended in 12 different directions. That made it all look like something else: a giant metal flower.

Yes, there were tracks, signal lights, transformers, maintenance equipment, a control room, and a fifteen-car train in here. It was a freight train.

“That’s the dark side’s lifeline?”

For him and Takitsubo, it was the plank of Carneades that would save their lives.

He doubted that turntable was all of it. There would be a container yard and maintenance zone hidden further out from the center.

They walked along the narrow catwalk built along the circular wall and descended the stairs. There were no corpses in here. Whoever had gotten here first must have used the ghost woman to eliminate any nuisances before they reached this point.

And since the train was still here, that person would still be here.

They shared this space with the slaughterer.

“Hamazura.”

“Don’t worry. I’m with you no matter what.”

“Not that. There’s someone down there. And they’re not alone.”

That was a shock. Takitsubo Rikou could accurately locate people by sensing their AIM Diffusion Field. She could not use that power as well as she used to, but she could still sense it to an extent.

The tension grew.

A single person with a bizarre power was certainly scary, but having a large group approach you brought a different sort of fear. He mentally switched his priorities to at least allowing Takitsubo to escape if things looked bad.

The only exit was up here.

Leaving that would mean being surrounded by dead ends in every direction.

“…”

After descending the last flight of stairs, they arrived at the deepest depths.

It felt so much different from when they had been looking down from above. But that was not too surprising since 250 meters was larger than a domed stadium. This was the same as a sports field looking so much bigger from the stands than on TV.

Yes, Hamazura Shiage now stood on the stage. He was no longer an outsider looking in.

“Oh, dear. You actually showed up. What a shame.”

He lasted one second.

His knees suddenly dropped to the ground. He could not keep his shoulders at the same height and his lost strength would not return.

“Wha—!?”

It was the ghost woman.

Was she a beneficial or a harmful?

She had left that tunnel far too bloody to claim she was trying to escape Academy City because she disliked conflict. If anything, she felt more like a vengeful spirit that refused to let anyone leave the city.

She looked like a Western doll with her long blonde twintails and light blue dress. She did not actually punch or kick him. Simply seeing her out of the corner of his eye had done critical damage to him.

A rusty-smelling liquid dripped from his eyes and nose.

He was trying to scream and flip over onto his back, but he was actually curled up and unable to move.

Encountering her meant death.

That was far too sinister a thing to be connected with a simple equals sign like that.

“It is no use.”

The ghost woman walked without audible footsteps. She moved herself from the corner of his vision to the center.

“No one is talking about anything as silly as defending against something with a shield or dodging a projectile with super speed. ''From the moment you see my face,'' the attack is complete. If I so much as casually stand in the corner of your vision, I can do continual damage without you even noticing my presence.”

He realized the strange things had always happened when the ghost woman spoke to him. And why had she turned the lights on in that tunnel? Because it was more convenient for her.

If you saw a ghost while driving, you would crash.

If your face, hands, or feet were missing in a ghost photo, you would find unnatural wounds or marks on your body.

Did this mean she even artificially reproduced those aspects of a ghost? He did not want to believe it because it would mean there was nothing he could do.

“Hamazu—!?”

“You noticed? You must have sharper senses.”

The track suit girl quickly pulled him close, but the ghost woman did not seem to care.

Besides, if seeing her really did mean death, then Takitsubo would have been killed too, but she was fine.

“But I am not talking about anything as poorly-defined as a sixth sense for ghosts. Do you have a power related to AIM Diffusion Fields?”

“There’s no AIM Diffusion Field around you? No, some strong but invisible power is scattering that weaker field.”

“It is known as High Voltage Cutting,” said the ghost woman. “The principle may be similar to the shock diamonds seen in a rocket engine’s flame or the cavitation of air bubbles created around a propeller. The constant emission of a powerful energy will create irregular waveforms and images while it interferes with itself.”

“Gh!? What energy???”

“You can find energy everywhere.” Her tone was light, so understanding how it worked must not have helped avoid its effects. “The carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide you thoughtlessly spread around forms acid rain when it bonds with the moisture in the air. You can acquire electricity simply by sticking two electrodes into a fruit, you know? Copper and zinc are such necessities that you can find them anywhere. Using that, you can produce hydrogen gas in addition to electricity. I only need to absorb power from a ''civilization battery'' the size of a city or even greater. That is enough for me to construct a single outlier point within that stable energy.”

“…”

“What are the common types of haunted locations? Old homes full of drafts, cliffs and caves eroded by the waves, and mountain roads late at night. They are always full of ''noise'', such as static electricity, pressure differences, the creaking of rusty doors, or the rustling of the trees in the wind. Have you ever heard a ghostly voice in the crackle of excess electricity or the roar of hydrogen gas being ignited? I can exist as I am wherever human civilization exists. If you wish to kill me, you must destroy your very way of life. On a global scale.”

This was too much.

He could not understand her explanation. And even if he thought he did, it still did not tell him how to destroy her.

Takitsubo gasped and spoke while holding onto him.

“I get that the constant use of a massive amount of unseen energy would eventually create something unnatural. But if seeing you is deadly, how do you choose specific targets to—?”

She trailed off.

She had seen something out of the corner of her eye, but not the artificial ghost this time. A unified set of colors could be seen peeking out of at them from a gap in the door to one of the freight train’s containers.

''They were small children wearing gym clothes and some kind of device. There were more than just ten or twenty of them.

''All of them were a part of the ghost experiment.

The children must have seen the ghost woman as they nervously spied out. And they seemed to be expectantly waiting to see if she would repel these unknown intruders. They did not know. They had not been told what they were being used for. Simply viewing a ghost photo was harmful and the longer you viewed it, the more damage it did. She embodied that power so perfectly that she had eliminated so many dark side elites.

Yet she had managed to accurately select one out of the many candidates.

That was like shooting the apple off someone’s head. Without explaining any of it to the children who had those sensors attached to them.

“…”

The delinquent boy clenched his teeth.

He could barely move, she held his life in her hand, and he had no idea how to fight back. He had to avoid angering her if at all possible. He understood that, but he still shouted up at her.

“You scum!!”

“Call me what you wish. In fact, I see it as a compliment.”

The ghost woman who resembled a fairy tale princess held her palm out toward him. He only had to see her impossible presence for her to attack, so that gesture was meaningless.

But then her eyes turned unnaturally away from him.

To the side.

A spare container sitting near the train was sliced in two. Something had dropped down from far above like a bolt of lightning.

A red figure wielded a thick machete made of heavy metal.

The android wore a racing swimsuit colored the orange and black of an insect. The bangs of her long crimson hair were cut straight across and she had a slender build.

Cartoony flowers were displayed in her mechanical eyes.

“Smug face.”

“Hello, hello,” said a twig of an old man in a blue jumpsuit and lab coat. “I hate to interrupt when you seem so busy, but I must insist.”

The ghost woman shrugged.

“Were you hoping to use the train? I thought you were one of the harmfuls who would remain in the city and resist to the bitter end.”

“I have no interest in those categories forced onto the dark side from the outside. All I care about is continuing my research. Academy City was a wonderful environment for that, but if that has changed, I need to leave and search out a more comfortable place.”

“You can see me, can’t you?”

“You should be able to tell by observing my eye movements.”

“And you know what that means?” She gave a suggestive glance over at the machine that had arrived with him. “In case you were unaware, I am capable of causing malfunctions in mechanical lenses and sensors just as well as in the human body. Ghost photographs are a result of ghosts interfering in optical machinery, are they not? That might be your masterpiece, but isn’t it presumptuous to assume she can wield her full power against me?”

She remained untouchable. She could kill someone just by placing herself in the corner of their vision and machines could not do anything to her either. Did she have no blind spots?

“Yes, I imagine so.”

But the old man did not seem to mind.

That mysterious old man ''known as a Kihara'' was not bothered that she held his life in her hand.

“You are the strongest when it comes to an individual. Looking at deadliness alone, you might outdo the #3 and the #2.”

“…”

Evidently, even ghosts could find something to be ominous.

This world may have been infected with a disease that caused all bad premonitions to come true.

“But in this specific location, I believe you too will find you cannot wield your full power.”

“What are you—gah!!!!????”

He had given her plenty of warning, but she suddenly arched her back and then froze unnaturally in midair. An ominous straining sound continued on and on as her body grew distorted. She bent and stretched, almost like a face pressed against a wall of glass.

Something was happening.

Hamazura had thought the ghost woman was an intangible being, like a mist or apparition. But she was not. She clearly had a spine to strain, muscles to cry out in pain, and organs to writhe unnaturally.

Then a bizarre creaking and cracking noise came from her. Her volume shrank more and more like she was being crushed in from all sides. The old man was holding something up in his special engineering glove. It looked like an empty candy box, but it was not. It had a small pinhole at the very top. The ghost woman was sucked into that small hole like a liquid or a gas. Hamazura did not want to imagine what things were like inside there. He could only say one thing in a daze.

“A pinhole…camera?”

“High Voltage Cutting? I see, a strange theory, but she is still a form of unstable energy. And all energy will move from high to low—unstable to stable. This is enough to break down her form and burn in her image.”

The old man let go of the candy box.

He had the look of a mischievous child who had just realized he could create his own spark show by sticking a metal clip in the microwave.

“This is the appropriate choice for a ghost photo, don’t you think? A digital camera just wouldn’t fit the aesthetic.”

After dropping it to the cold concrete, he crushed it below his heel. He did not even glance down at the flattened box.

“''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.''” He tapped on his lower back. “Surely you didn’t think a construction company building a secret tunnel out of the city was enough to earn a name like that. With something like her around, you really should have thought of a different possibility.”

“Wh-what?”

Hamazura felt like the unnatural “curse” had weakened, but he still could not bring himself to get up from the ground. The old man only now seemed to have realized that there was another person here reaching for the plank of Carneades.

Hamazura knew any attention on him would only lead to disaster.

Kihara Hasuu smiled.

“Let me make one thing clear. There is a member of the Board who built a vast fortune by doing unofficial construction work for the dark side, but he knows nothing of this. This massive underground structure just appeared out of the blue one day.”

“…?”

Out of the blue?

Hamazura had operated construction machinery before, so he knew how absurd that was. Did that old man have any idea how long it would take to dig out a hole of this size?

But the old man appeared to be serious.

Deadly serious.

“''The Vanishing Tunnel does not actually exist.''”

Hamazura had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

It made no sense. If that were true, then where were they now???

The old man gave the answer.

“Kazakiri Hyouka was not just a single individual. She is more like one piece of the Imaginary Number District, an entire city created from the aggregation of AIM Diffusion Fields. …It all began with a project meant to cut out a portion of that territory and extract it as a new resource. Unlike the microscopic alchemy performed in the particle accelerator, this would have been on the macro scale and cost very little. But not even the group of researchers who guided all that power through the city could have predicted it would take this form. ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' is such a dramatic name. In truth, it was a major failure that needed to be covered up. Everyone involved was at their wits’ end.” He tapped his lower back again. “A nonexistent pathway unofficially connected Academy City to the world outside, increasing the risk of the outer world’s collapse through cultural exchange and technological contamination. The entire world very well could have been destroyed from this single point. While the researchers had hoped to extract materials from the Imaginary Number District, whatever came from there might have transformed the outside world into something truly grotesque. …Yes, that the world still exists as it does now was no more than ''dumb luck''. It was nothing we did on our end. Kazakiri Hyouka and the other inhuman monsters simply showed no interest in that. If something had occurred to them and they had tried it, the world would have ended.”

“You mean…” Takitsubo replied since she had a better understanding of things related to AIM. “You were researching the exact opposite of that ghost? A ghost made from powerful energy and an aggregation of weak powers are opposites, so when they came together, it caused the ghost to malfunction… You were trying to extract inorganic materials from that unseen city, weren’t you?”

“Hard to say if that research was a step forward or a step back. Like I said, they failed. They could not control it, so even the remains of their project you see here cannot be erased. I believe the natural half life was about 12,000 years. In the worst case, the Imaginary Number District could have been converted into real numbers, crushing Academy City in the process. I think the project could have found success if they could have cut off a piece at a workable size and found a way to control it. In that sense, that ghost really is the strongest as an individual and an enviable success.”

Now even Hamazura had a vague idea why the ghost woman had suddenly malfunctioned.

They could not be in the same place.

Two ghosts could not coexist. Just like installing two different pieces of security software on the same computer would cause a conflict.

“It was still a risky gamble, though. The odds were low, but if the tunnel ''had lost'', this temporary space itself would have vanished and we would all have become fossils after being buried deep below the surface.”

Hamazura heard a swooshing sound and looked over to see the android swinging her thick machete next to the old man. Those two had won their bet, so now no one could stop them.

Kihara Hasuu looked away from Hamazura and turned to someone else.

“Now, I have eliminated your bodyguard. Isn’t it time we talked this out like adults?”

===Part 5===

“When’s the train going to leave?”

“Oh, mister just left.”

The children dressed up in gym clothes were whispering to each other while peeking out through the cracked-open door of a freight train container.

But among them…

“Ow, that hurts.”

The girl named Risako spoke up in protest.

But Sodate ignored that and continued tugging on her skinny wrist. The bigger boy was kind of scary when he was not saying anything.

“Listen, Risako.” He spoke quickly while walking through the shadows to stay hidden. He seemed to be speaking to himself more than the girl. “You can still escape. It’s not too late. And once you get to the surface, go tell the grownups about this. I know you can do it.”

“Why? The train is about to leave.”

“You still don’t get it!?” He shouted with his hands on her shoulders. “They make us wear these clothes and devices, they keep us separated from the rest of the city, and they don’t let us go to a normal school. We’re Child Errors, so no one will even notice if we just disappear one day. They’re only raising us because they can use us for something. They’re fattening us up to eat us!”

“But…”

“We don’t even have phones to call for help. ''It isn’t normal to be this isolated.'' That’s why I kept leaving behind some sign of our presence: building blocks, picture books, balls, and so on. I left them outside before the trucks moved on and I made sure to write our names, the trucks’ license numbers, and other information on them! But none of it ever reached the grownups. Our efforts never reached anyone!!”

She had thought he kept stealing things because he was selfish. She had thought he would forget those things in his secret bases because he was sloppy. But that was not it.

“They’re relatively peaceful beneficials? Don’t make me laugh. What’s going to change after we board that train and leave Academy City? There won’t be anyone monitoring them anymore!! Once that happens, I just know he’ll stop holding back. He’ll ''take it even further''! So you at least need to escape before that happens!!”

“Sodate-chan…”

“I’ll give you an opening.” He looked the girl in the eye and spoke clearly. “I won’t let him turn you into a guinea pig no matter what!!”

===Part 6===

A somewhat slender man stepped out. He wore a short-sleeved safari jacket and a rash guard, making him look something like an old-fashioned adventurer, but the webcam attached to the side of his head gave him a more modern outdoorsy look. He appeared to be a different sort of researcher from the old mechanic in a lab coat and jumpsuit.

He was an expert at visiting so-called haunted locations around the world and revealing the scientific cause of the strange phenomena there. But he had apparently also artificially recreated such things to use them for his own purposes.

He grinned and raised his hands in a jocular way. Kihara Hasuu asked him a question with the deadly weapon girl still by his side.

“What is your name?”

“Drencher Kihara Repatri.”

“I see. So that’s you.”

The young man’s eyebrows moved slightly in response to the old man’s impressed tone.

“I didn’t expect someone like you to have heard of me.”

“You are rather…well known.”

The way he said that told Hamazura he did not mean that in a positive way.

This was a confrontation between two harmfuls.

The two researchers ignored the boy and girl entirely as they began a verbal rally. Hamazura knew he could not just sit and watch as a referee or spectator, but he had no way of intervening.

“As you can see, we come from different levels of the dark side. If there is no place for us in Academy City anymore, then leaving the city is a valid choice. But is that plank of Carneades really only big enough for the one group? I think it can support both of us just fine.”

That suggestion seemed surprising…but maybe it wasn’t. It was the ghost woman who had been slaughtering all of the other dark side members trying to reach this point. The android may have attacked Anti-Skill, but she had never actively tried to eliminate her fellow dark siders. She had attacked Hamazura near the counterfeiter’s tents, but if she had been trying to slaughter everyone she came across, the ordinary people in the amusement park would not have escaped alive.

The young man shrugged.

“If that means less fighting, it’s okay with me. Not that I really have a choice, do I?”

“Assuming you have no other trump cards.”

“Then I surrender.”

He did not hesitate to respond. Hamazura was actually surprised to see he was willing to back down to save his own life. Hamazura had gotten the impression that the extreme members of the dark side were willing to sacrifice their own life to achieve their goal.

That surprise scared Hamazura. He could tell he had let the dark side influence him too much. He was afraid the damage would be permanent if he went much further. Once he became a harmful, there was no going back.

“She was my prized project, you know? Frillsand #G, I mean. Now, I knew ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' would pose a challenge, but I never imagined it was a giant mass of AIM Diffusion Fields.”

“Everything has its compatibility. In fact, I could never have won if we were not down here. Keep this girl from working and I’m helpless.”

The crimson-haired girl did nothing to fight the wrinkled hand rubbing her head.

The two men were reaching an agreement. That was not good. Hamazura and Takitsubo had nothing they could offer in a negotiation. At this rate, they would probably each get a bullet in the head as a parting gift. The only other option he could imagine was being made into a guinea pig for some bizarre experiment.

“Oh, right,” casually began the old man.

If he said “what should we do about those two lumps of flesh”, they were screwed. And Hamazura could not predict what that Kihara would do. He felt a terrible squeezing at his heart.

Finally, Kihara Hasuu continued.

“While we can share the train, I will be in charge there. So if you want a ride, it’s only natural you pay a small fare, don’t you think?”

“Do you want my research notes on Frillsand #G?”

“I’m no barbarian. A scientist’s research notes are a part of his very soul. Those are the fruits of your labors, so take them to your grave.”

“Then what do you want?”

“A few of them.”

The old man’s voice was as casual as ever as he pointed his engineering glove in a different direction entirely. He pointed at the gym clothes children who were peeking out from behind cover, without a clue what was being discussed.

“''Just select a few at random.'' I intend to restart my research once things have calmed down, but the rules are different outside the city. I can’t start abducting people off the street until I have a proper base set up, so I could use an initial supply for that settling-in period.”

Hamazura froze as he listened in.

This was the dark side. This was how the elites of that stagnant world thought.

“That Frillsand #G is important to your research, but not so with those lab rats, right? How many experimental observers’ lives were lost until you managed to ''properly reproduce'' that artificial ghost? If your research has entered a stable period, I would assume you are not running through those Child Errors as quickly as you once were.”

“Heh,” laughed Drencher Kihara Repatri.

He weakly lowered his raised hands. He must have decided that was no longer necessary. He too had seen the darkness, so he spoke with the same look in his eyes as the old man.

“It’s true those are all Child Errors. And however they would be treated in the ordinary world, we all know exactly what that term means in the dark side. Yes, I gathered them together and invited them into my lab. I made sure to have a plentiful stock of convenient lives that could be spent as I liked if other forms of research were not enough.”

“Then I can have a few?”

“''Go to hell, you son of a bitch.''”

===Part 7===

Several dry gunshots rang out.

===Part 8===

Hamazura Shiage did not understand what had just happened.

“Hamazura!!”

His body still refused to do what it was told, so track suit girl Takitsubo had to push him to the ground.

The young man had pulled out a handgun. It was no more than a small revolver, but he still fired it repeatedly from just a few meters away.

However…

“Ugh…”

“That won’t work,” said the old man.

The android’s crimson hair fluttered while she held her thick machete at the ready with her bare feet planted a step in front of Hasuu. Not only had she deflected all of the bullets, she had used their ricochets as a counterattack.

''No more than a small revolver.

''Something had gone horribly wrong when you started thinking of things in those terms in this country.

The young man had several holes in his upper body and dark red stains spread across his clothes. Doubling over did nothing to help, so he finally collapsed to the ground.

The old man in a jumpsuit and lab coat spoke up in exasperation while the strongest doll protected him.

“They’re just kids. And it’s not like I’m asking for all of them. Just two or three will do.”

“I wanted to…protect them from the dark side scum who think like that,” spat the young man while struggling to breathe down on all fours. He had given up trying to hold his wounds. “But nothing I did above board did anything to help. I couldn’t even get information on where those children were. The only way to fight the dark side…was to become the dark side. I almost laughed when I saw how many people came running to me then, claiming my research was so valuable. When I said I needed children’s lives to do it, they slapped me on the shoulder and agreed to it all. While happily sipping on a glass of the year’s finest red with their other hand. This city is rotten to the core.”

“Aren’t you Drencher Kihara Repatri?”

“Claiming to be a Kihara was the quickest way to get what I wanted. Ha ha. Those VIPs really were terrified of me.”

“Dammit,” spat out Hamazura Shiage.

The young man saw his own condition as of secondary importance.

It was true the ghost woman had used the children. They had been placed in a position where she could crush their lives at any moment. But had Hamazura ever seen her actually kill a child? What if they had been living in a world where they had to take the charade that far to be believed?

The old man had asked how many experimental observers’ lives were lost until he managed to properly reproduce the artificial ghost, but the young man had never answered.

That was in fact the answer. He had not sacrificed anyone. Not one. He had wanted to gather up those children known as Child Errors and drag them up out of the darkness. There ''were'' adults willing to dive into the dark side for no other reason than that.

There really were.

And yet…

“You’re lying.”

Hamazura suddenly rejected that entire premise. Because if he accepted this, he would have to admit to his own ugliness. Even if saying this would mean revealing he was ugly enough to put up a struggle like this.

“I’ve seen you before. You were at that counterfeiter’s place! You were preparing a passport for yourself so you could abandon those kids and leave the city!!”

“This all would have gone so much more smoothly if that had worked.” The young man smiled weakly. “If I had shown off how I escaped with the passport, Anti-Skill and the dark side’s focus would have turned toward District 23’s airport. Then the children would have had a safer escape underground here. I was never supposed to be down here with them.”

“~ ~ ~!!!!!!”

It felt like they lived in two completely different worlds.

And that young man was definitely the one in the right.

Hamazura felt so pathetic and contemptible for only ever acting to protect him and his girlfriend.

“I know I shouldn’t be asking this.”

The young man looked his way. As if to say it did not matter if he really was a Kihara or not.

His eyes knew how to view the light, but for some reason he now looked to someone as corrupted as Hamazura.

“Maybe it’s for the best if the dark side is destroyed, but please take care of those kids. You’re the only person I can leave them with now. When you saw your girlfriend suffering, you panicked and dumped medical supplies across the ground in your haste. I could see the conscience in your eyes. You had no choice but to fall this far, but you should still have some resistance to the dark side left inside you.”

“Wait, I’m not like that for everyone. Don’t shove this onto me! She’s my girlfriend, so of course I’d work to save her!!”

“Ha ha. Thinking that’s an ‘of course’ is what makes you such an oddity in the dark side. Don’t worry, I know you can do it. Because after falling into this shitty world, you still managed to find someone you care for and you decided to find peace instead of another thrill.”

Hamazura and Takitsubo had first heard of ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' from this man.

Hamazura had been cautious because there was no righteousness in the dark side and the man must have had his own reasons.

Was this why?

Had it been some insurance, just in case? Instead of worrying about his own survival, he had wanted some insurance for after he died.

Yet he had also slaughtered the dark sider people rushing toward this exit.

All because he could not let any harm come to the children as those people fought each other. He had rushed down a dark path to prevent a mere possibility.

But on Hamazura and Takitsubo’s way here, hadn’t the ghost woman glanced their way after slaughtering everyone else and then left, as if sparing them?

“Why did you do all this?”

That was the only question Hamazura could find.

That was not something to say to a dying man. He knew that. But after letting the dark side corrupt him while he worked so hard to ensure his and his girlfriend’s survival, this answer was too pure and upright to accept.

“How could you throw away your own life over this!? When you get down to it, those kids are just strangers! How could a goddamn harmful go this far just because you ‘wanted to save them’!? How!? Tell me!?”

The young man smiled.

There was already blood dripping from the corners of his lips.

“Do you need a reason to protect someone? Of course you don’t.”

That was the end of it.

Time stopped for him with the smile still on his lips.

He had no reason. He did not know why. And he had rushed in to save those children without ever finding a reason.

Hamazura Shiage had to admit defeat.

“A…”

The loser boy clenched his teeth. He moved his battered body, swiped the bloody handgun and some ammo from the young man, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

Losers had their own etiquette to follow.

That scummy old man was still here. Hamazura was not going to let him trample on the young man’s victory.

“Aaaneriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!”

A dull kachunk echoed through the circular space.

The support AI had taken control of the train and shifted it out of standby, so it slowly began to move.

The turntable had tracks in twelve directions, but he knew where to send it.

He just had to remember what the card-sized hard drive labeled Lifeline had said.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

In other words…

(Hours and minutes. If I apply that to an analog clock…)

“Send it down the five o’clock track!!”

The train took off with so many children in gym clothes on board.

That had been his top priority.

“Is justice contagious these days?” asked the old man with the look of someone viewing a crazy person.

He had already proven that the gun would not work, so he gave Hamazura a look of partial pity now that he had inherited that defeated weapon.

“You risked your life for this, but to no avail. Look, not all of them were onboard. They must have run in fear from the very person who would have saved them.”

“Hamazura, two of them were left behind. We can’t just leave them here.”

A boy and a girl in gym clothes were holding hands a short distance away.

What had they thought when they learned the truth behind that young man’s satisfied smile?

Especially when their own actions had worked against him.

“Well, those two will suffice. I will be taking them as a souvenir. Any more than this would have been a waste of food anyway.”

“Shut up,” spat out Hamazura.

He really should not have been doing this. He had come here to escape to safety. It had been clear from the very beginning that he could not be a great hero or brave warrior. This selfish choice here might put himself and his girlfriend in danger.

But.

Even so.

A dying man had left this with him. He had been reminded what it meant to do the right thing. There were lives here he could save. He could redo things. And most of all, his girlfriend was watching.

He was done being pathetic. He gathered strength in his sweaty body and stood up under his own power again. He had to.

“Maybe you’re a Kihara and an android.”

His goal was to run away?

No, sometimes a man had to stand up and speak his mind.

“But I’ll take you on, you goddamned dark siders!!!!!!”

He knew it was possible.

He had just seen a man stay true to this way of life.

He could reclaim his humanity. He must have learned something from what he saw here.

===Part 9===

Of course, Hamazura could never actually hit the crimson-haired android by firing the 9mm handgun at random. He knew she would deflect the bullets with her thick machete and fill him with holes.

So he did something else instead.

“Aneri!!”

A giant shape suddenly moved right next to the racing swimsuit girl.

A wheel loader used to stack up the railroad-sized containers was being remotely controlled.

“Move.”

What was that machete even made of? She did not even look in that direction as she swung her weapon and sliced apart the snowplow-looking piece of machinery. Even though she was not using any rapid vibrations or heat.

But Hamazura used that moment to pull on his girlfriend’s hand and move from there.

This was a vast circular space, but it was not an empty colosseum.

It had concrete columns just like an underground common utility duct and it had various equipment needed for operating and maintaining the trains, all located where it would not get in the way of the turntable and the twelve directions of track. Transformers were surrounded by a fence, a prefab hut had been made into a control room, giant jacks and a carwash were prepared for maintenance purposes, and more.

Aneri had directly operated the freight train, so he felt safe assuming she could operate all of the equipment here.

He pulled his girlfriend close while hiding behind a concrete column and whispering to his phone.

“Aneri, can you directly hijack that hunk of junk?”

No response.

He took that as a no. This did not sound like it was an issue of building up to that or setting something up in advance. That android was immune to cyber attacks on some level he did not understand.

(That means the only option is to destroy her the old-fashioned way!!)

“Hamazura, we can’t hide here forever. If she stops focusing on us, she’ll go after those children. Villains always go for the easiest target.”

“I know that.”

Takitsubo kept trying to wipe the sweat from her brow, but something was not right. The moxibustion should have relieved her symptoms to an extent, but that treatment might not be working as much anymore.

He was worried, but he could not stop now. He hated that fact.

“But using ourselves as bait will put us at risk. Are you prepared for that, Takitsubo?”

“Ask any more stupid questions and I’ll slap you.”

“Okay, it’s time to win your heart all over again!!”

They both ran out from behind the concrete column.

Their eyes met the ones with pupils mechanically expanding and contracting, but they stayed strong this time.

===Part 10===

Ladybird had a lock on two targets.

She walked barefoot across the floor and accurately obeyed her instructions, but she also had a question.

Why were the children necessary?

Kihara Hasuu—her Sensei—was researching androids. He had already successfully created one, so he no longer needed to capture biological humans to dissect and observe them. This disagreement appeared to be over ownership of the Child Errors (she failed to realize it was her education by that true Kihara that led her to use the word “ownership” in this context), but why was the old man so insistent on this?

That unfortunate research was a thing of the past.

She was an android built from purely mechanical parts, but she could use an esper power. That meant no more human specimens were needed for esper development experiments. They only had to mess with machines from now on. The Child Errors no longer needed to be captured and used up.

She thought that was a wonderful thing. She could not believe the people who still clung to the old system that required humans to use other humans. Did they wish to protect the status given to them by the current Level system? If they truly believed their fight was just, then they were beyond reasoning with. Machines were not the only ones that could have their memory data rewritten. Humans could have their feelings and thoughts falsified as well.

So she would bring an end to it all.

She was fighting here to end the misfortune and tragedies caused by the esper development program.

“Ohhhh!!”

The boy raised a meaningless battle cry, ran in, and repeatedly fired his handgun. She only had to block those shots with her machete.

But he had apparently learned how she fought.

She tried to hit him with the ricochets, but they refused to hit. When she deflected a bullet back, it would follow the same straight trajectory. Placing a single piece of plywood in the middle would change things. A bullet’s force was determined by its muzzle velocity. The force of the ricochet would generally be lower. That was obvious enough since bullets were not constantly accelerating like a rocket or missile. So he could set it up so he could shoot her through an obstacle, but she could not break through it on the way back.

Her use of ricochets was similar to Accelerator’s reflection, but all her machete did was knock the bullet back. She could not ''include the actual vector in that''.

That said…

(I doubt someone with such a stupid face could do this. He must be receiving assistance with the calculations.)

She considered jumping. Lifting both feet from the ground was usually a bad idea in combat, but not so with her. With her android specs, she could kick off of one column to the next and attack from the air.

She heard the loud roar of an engine while dealing with the bullets.

It appeared to come from a forklift.

“Aneri, surround the kids! I don’t know where that old man got off to, but don’t let him get close!! If he tries it, run him over!!”

“Don’t get distracted.”

He could have gotten a hit in on her by sending the forklift in from the side while firing on her from the front. Not that a blow like that would be enough to destroy her frame.

She swung the thick machete in her right hand while gathering her strength in the space between her eyebrows.

That was how she aimed.

A blast of wind blew away the obstacles between her and Hamazura Shiage. It was more like they were obliterated by an explosion than swept away by wind.

“An esper power!?” shouted the boy.

“It looked to be Level 3 or higher,” said the girl.

She no longer had to worry about the gunfire now that the line of fire was clear. He must have known the risk of ricochets was back because he stopped attacking and hid behind a nearby column, but that was no defense. She could charge in and slice through the column and his torso behind it with a single horizontal sweep of her blade.

She had enough time to reach her other hand to her thigh, pull out the bottle, and take a drink of the discharge machine oil.

A dull boom burst out.

She was only an android modeled after the structure of the human body, but the materials used for her skeleton, muscles, and everything else were bizarre dark side tech. If she wanted to, her horsepower could rival a V12 engine at max RPM.

But even as she chose the correct action, her mechanical head was filled with questions.

She had used a wind power.

But hadn’t she used fire during her previous clash with these people? And what about the time before that?

Androids had the same structure as humans, so a single android should only have a single power. Or could she do what humans could not because she was a machine?

(Sensei?)

===Part 11===

A column of reinforced concrete was sliced through as easily as tofu or thin paper.

Not horizontally or diagonally—vertically and all the way through. After kicking from column to column to gain height, she had apparently dropped down like lightning. She had a human form, but she could perform superhuman movements.

Hamazura Shiage had tried to jump to the side just beforehand, but he ended up tumbling into a roll.

It was not his torso sliced through along with the column. It was a gas drum kept on hand for the facility’s auxiliary power generator.

He grimaced at the pain in his hips as he continued rolling and pulled the trigger repeatedly.

Not even Ladybird could deflect bullets that hit the concrete ground and sent sparks flying.

The vaporizing gasoline ignited into explosive flames that swallowed up the entire racing swimsuit silhouette.

However…

“No, Hamazura! It didn’t work!!”

“Tch!!”

He clicked his tongue while the track suit girl ran over from elsewhere and pulled him to his feet. A black figure was displayed on the other side of that fiery screen. She showed no sign of collapsing or writhing in pain.

Had she used that previous wind power to affect how the flames spread?

He hoped so. If she was simply this tough, he could not imagine how to defeat her.

“How ''do'' you defeat an android anyway? Strangle her or stab her in the heart, she’s still a machine. That won’t stop her!!”

Could he break her motherboard? Or pull out her battery? But he had no idea how many she had or where in her slender body they were located.

The roaring flames were sliced apart. A horizontal sweep of the heavy metal machete conquered the orange barrier. The barefoot android stepped through entirely unscathed. There was no sign of discoloration on her crimson hair, white skin, or orange and black racing swimsuit.

“Something isn’t right,” said Takitsubo Rikou with eyes seemingly more robotic than the machine’s. What was she looking at right now? “An android that uses esper powers is conceivably possible. Mechanical processing may be able to ‘observe’ the waves or particles like a human brain does. And if you developed that far enough, you might be able to purposefully select between different supernatural phenomena. But this wavelength is simpler than that.”

“You mean how she switches between powers?” spat out Hamazura. “That container base in the garbage pile was their lab, right? Then I get why that old man wants those kids so bad. Even if I don’t know exactly ''how'' he would use them.”

Now, why were they able to spend so long discussing this?

The delinquent boy made sure to keep his gun aimed, but the android in question was only tilting her head.

A dark liquid was dripping from her eyes and nose.

He had seen that before. Immediately after she had been hit by the hakama girl and fought back with her fire power.

“Oh, dear.”

Kihara Hasuu’s voice reached them from somewhere, but it was echoing too much to tell where it came from. Hamazura would have shot the man if he saw him.

“Is it that time already? This is why I wanted to stock up sooner rather than later.”

“Hey.” Hamazura shouted at the unseen man. “Isn’t that cheating? You can’t really call her an android if that’s what you’re doing.”

The boy watched as the girl in the orange and black racing swimsuit held her head and doubled over.

A low straining sound came from her.

Then her back opened along the line from her nape to her tailbone.

The clasp holding together the X-shaped band at the center of the swimsuit’s back popped open and the supports were released in four directions.

Then her soft skin opened wide while supported at her nape.

Her opened back almost looked like a steam locomotive’s boiler or a furnace from hell. The fact that it was smooth human skin instead of a thick metal door gave it the sinister appearance of an insect’s shell opening up.

The top half of her swimsuit fell out of place, but her chest was not visible.

Her long red hair dropped down to cover it up.

She had planted her hands and feet on the ground like a beast.

Something translucent crawled out of her. It looked like a long, narrow blade or like a wriggling snake. It would grab something, drag it inside her, and cut it away. It was an automatic extraction organ.

Hamazura knew what it was for.

“I saw the junk those trash collectors were taking back after searching through those piles of abandoned items. A fridge was full of some brownish filth.”

He felt nauseated just remembering it.

He grimaced as he viewed that monster.

“''It was stuffed full of corpses with the contents of their heads removed.'' When those trash collectors were searching out fridges and washing machines, they weren’t selling them to used appliance stores. They were opening up bloodstained boxes packed full of still-usable organs. And they all came from your lab, didn’t they!?”

“Well, the ordinary corpses were apparently disposed of in District 10’s slums, but there are a lot of people willing to buy up ones fresh enough to make use of their parts.”

Ladybird was not an android with esper powers. She was as harmful as they came. She was a machine that would devour people’s brains when necessary. In Hamazura’s opinion, that meant she did not fit the definition of an android.

“This is a completely different approach from the Rensa model of esper cyborg. Instead of a cyborg made by ''giving a brain a body'', Ladybird-kun ''is a body given a brain.''” Hasuu sounded like he was introducing his favorite grandchild. “Cellulose nanofiber is a carbon material gathering attention for its use in making wires and bulletproof materials, but the point is we can create delicate wires even thinner than the cranial nerves. But unlike a biological brain, leaving them in their active state causes them to automatically replicate and they will try to forcibly fold themselves up for space if they run out of room in the skull. The cerebrum’s frontal lobe is especially troublesome. So ''a foreign object'' must be introduced to constantly provide just the right amount of damage to ensure the brain remains the size I want it. Her power changes each time a new ''foreign object'' is introduced, but that is due to the change in the rejection and damage pattern. You can think of that as a simple idiosyncrasy.”

“Sen…sei?”

A grinding sound came from Ladybird while she seemed to be searching for something. However the old researcher described it, a human brain was apparently a necessary part for her to run. Her movements were noticeably stiff and awkward as she pursued that poison on her own.

“Sensei…but you said this research would help. You said the spread of androids would mean no more human specimens were needed for the esper development.”

“The ladybird—another name for the ladybug—might look humorous, but it is in fact a ravenous carnivore. You have heard that they are good to have around because they eat aphids, haven’t you?”

“Gh…kh.”

“And there are a lot of insects that mimic ladybugs. That includes a type of darkling beetle and cockroach, both kinds of bugs people might not normally want around. But that is not actually a type of protective coloration. Ha ha. Instead of trying to blend into their natural surroundings or avoid their predators, that coloration might actually be used to make humans like them.”

How deep did the dark side go?

How disgusting could the dark said get?

“So don’t you see?”

Its attacks were indiscriminate, like a cannibal insect.

The developer spoke to what looked like a lovely girl. And he seemed to be enjoying it immensely.

“''That is the perfect name for you.''”

===Part 12===

text> @I thought there was a problem with the world.

text> @I thought it was wrong for @humans to use @humans for their research in this city.

text> But @I could climb onto the examination table instead.

text> @I can be repaired or remade as many times as necessary.

text> Since my body was made identically to a @human’s, @I would be able to use an esper power as well. Pieces of my body could be freely added or removed, so @I could be examined inside and out more easily than a @human and @I could be modified as they saw fit.

text> No more sacrifices would be necessary for the esper development research.

text> That is why @I fought.

text> @I thought @Sensei’s research was a wonderful thing.

''“You know, Ladybird-kun, the term android signifies an artificial human built with an engineering approach. Based on that definition, it seems appropriate to me for a completed android to behave like a human.”

text> @Sensei’s words were like a shining light of hope.

text> @I wondered if @I really was good enough.

text> But @I was happy as long as @I could be of some use. @I think that kind of feeling is not something a simple machine could feel.

text> Does that mean @I am somehow @human?

text> The @humans that @I have seen are like that. They do not hesitate to make inefficient choices without even considering cost performance.

text> That is why @I find @humans to be so incredible.

text> @I have not spoken much with any other than @Sensei, but @I know that is because @androids cannot be made public yet. But @I love the @humans that @I see from a distance.

text> @I will build a path to a brighter future for them—a path to a happier world—so @I cannot allow someone to destroy all that just because they do not understand. So I will not let anyone interfere. Anyone who claims it is right to harm @people cannot be allowed to trample on the future @I can bring them.

text> So…

text>And yet…

===Part 13===

“Ah, ahh. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

The lovely girl in a racing swimsuit screamed.

All light vanished from her already mechanical eyes. She had fully transformed into a grotesque predator that roared on all fours.

She wanted to reject the idea, but she could not.

The only way to preserve herself was to devour that raw body tissue and bring it to the most important part of her body. Because intentionally introducing that foreign object would trigger a rejection reaction that would continue to damage her head in just the right way. That truth was more horrifying than needing to soak in a bathtub full of rotting corpses every day. Yet she could not stop. She was not allowed to stop. That had been built into her at the design phase, whether she liked it or not. She would always return to it like a drowning person struggling to reach the surface for air.

Tears spilled from her eyes.

Her mechanical face was painted with anger, hatred, and shame.

Why was she designed to do that?

An ordinary person like Hamazura could not figure it out. What logical reason was there? It almost felt like the cruelty of someone who enjoyed to watch others suffer.

At the same time, everything she needed to survive was contained inside her. Or maybe it was more accurate to say she had been built as an autonomous iron maiden. The victim was thrown into her back, the door to that steam locomotive boiler would slam shut, and the rest was completed automatically. She was made to do that and she must have actually done it several times before.

At that point, it was not an issue of good and evil on her part.

Hamazura could not judge her, but he did have to stop her.

No matter what.

“Grahhhhhhhh!!” she roared.

“Hamazura!!”

Takitsubo shouted in a panic because the red figure had vanished.

But the quadrupedal android had not leaped toward Hamazura or Takitsubo. Nor did she leap toward Kihara Hasuu who had made her this way. She went for someone else. She gained height by kicking off the columns and she moved every closer to the smallest and easiest prey: the kids in gym clothes.

Her instincts took precedence over strategy or emotion.

“Aneri!!”

A hacked track inspection car drove in from the side to tear apart an exposed high-voltage power line for the train. The power line whipped like a serpent and tangled around the android.

A great crash followed.

Knocking her to the ground was not going to flatten Ladybird, but it mattered a lot that she had fallen on her right side with the machete still in that hand.

She could not use that to defend with her arm caught between herself and the ground.

Hamazura gripped the small revolver in both hands and fired several times.

Dry gunshots expanded through the enclosed space.

This time, the shots actually hit the android whose back was turned to him. The “mouth” on her back quickly closed before she had even withdrawn the extraction organ that resembled the thin wing of an insect or a giant scalpel, but that was all that happened. It did not seem to do any real damage to her.

She used one arm to tear away the exposed power line wrapped around her like a serpent, freeing herself. At this rate, the forklifts protecting the children would not last long.

There was no time to spare.

“Boy!! Do you want to protect that girl!?” shouted Hamazura from a distance.

He did not wait for a response. The boy’s efforts had backfired badly, but if he did not care about that girl, he would not have gotten her off the train so she could escape.

Hamazura Shiage decided to trust this fellow human being.

“Then be brave and step forward! Falling back only gives her more of a chance to eat you two!!”

When the boy protecting his friend squeezed his eyes shut and stepped forward, Ladybird briefly came to a stop. She needed the soft brains inside those children. That was the poison she needed to damage herself.

But moving up to her was the right choice.

It was just like a cowboy’s lasso. You could swing it overhead to gather strength all you liked, but it would still be hard to throw it around the head of someone who was close enough to hug you. The android’s extraction organ looked like the thin wing of an insect or a transparent sword, but it was very long. That meant it was hard to use against someone right up in front of her.

But this method would only buy a few seconds at most.

Once she moved to the proper distance and tried again, the boy really would be eaten.

Hamazura made his next move before she could do that.

He had picked up a bottle of industrial cleaner presumably used to wash the train and he chucked it over a metal fence to hit a device larger than a refrigerator.

The giant railroad transformer scattered a frightening amount of sparks. And while it was invisible, it also sent out powerful electromagnetic waves.

Those waves’ effect on the human body was unknown, but their effect on a machine would be much more severe.

He heard a scream. That thing shaped like a calm and composed girl was now writhing on the ground in apparent pain.

Hamazura ran over, fired two or three shots at her, and continued on past her. Then he picked up the gym clothes boy still standing in danger and slid along the ground like a baseball player.

He hid behind the concrete column where the gym clothes girl was.

“Well done, boy. It’ll be okay now.”

Maybe someone from Anti-Skill or Judgment should have been saying that.

Maybe someone from the filthy dark side had no right to say it.

But he had taken over for a man who had wanted to say that so very badly.

And while he said that, Hamazura made sure to check his phone where the kids could not see. The screen was dead and Aneri was not responding. He doubted her program had been taken out, but without a device to receive her instructions, he had lost the support AI’s help.

It really would be one-on-one from here on.

But he did not need to let that show on his face.

“Maybe she’s with the dark side and maybe she isn’t, I dunno, but I don’t want to trample on her dignity any longer.” He looked the boy in the eye. “I’m going to end this here. Listen, don’t get yourselves killed. You need to survive if I’m going to save her.”

“What are you going to do?”

The gym clothes boy’s voice was vanishingly quiet, but he still got it out.

Even if he had to suppress the trembling in his body.

“I don’t want to run away anymore. What I did wasn’t brave. If I had faced mister honestly, he wouldn’t have had to get hurt. So…!!”

“Then help me out.”

Hamazura had planned to tell the boy to take the girl’s hand and run as far away as possible on his signal.

But he changed his mind.

Drencher Kihara Repatri, that young man who had wanted to save the children who would be used up by the dark side, was dead and nothing could change that. But this boy’s eyes carried the light the man had instilled in those children. After losing to Drencher, Hamazura could not allow that light to be extinguished.

No matter what.

So he changed his mind.

“I need a few tools to finish this. I’ll buy some time with this gun, so you gather them for me. Can you do that?”

Hamazura recalled the hard sensation in his pocket and clicked his tongue. He tried pulling it out, but its shine was still dull. It was not quite fully charged. The golden shine had yet to make a full circle around the edge of the coin. But that was fine. He threw the coin as far as he could, even though he had no idea if it would draw Ladybird’s attention or not.

He did not regret losing it.

He did not need the Coin of Nicholas.

Everyone already had the ability to switch over the tracks to a different route.

He would take a different route here and he did not need the creepy occult to do it.

He needed something else.

===Part 14===

She had found them.

Ladybird planted her hands and feet on the cold concrete ground while she located her target again.

She did not know how this would help her. If she captured them, her horrific feast would begin. But she could not stop herself.

She could not change this about herself. She could not escape her fate, just like a drowning person would subconsciously swim toward the surface.

…Even though she had wanted to protect the humans.

She would eat them.

This suffering would never end unless she consumed a human brain.

…Even though she was supposed to free those children from the darkness by lying on the dissection table herself.

“Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhh, ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

Her vision blurred.

But even her tears were scattered by the blowing wind of her great speed.

Even during unstable bipedal movement, she could rival a V12 engine at max RPMs, so her top speed had increased even further now that she had abandoned her dignity as a girl and gained the efficiency of a machine.

It did not matter if they were an adult or a child.

Puny human legs could never escape her.

She pursued her target as accurately as a precision-guided weapon. She charged toward those distinctive gym clothes.

Handgun bullets attacked her from the side. Even after all this, she had not let go of the thick machete. And without any obstacles in the way, firing on her was suicide. She could accurately kill the shooter with the ricochet by adjusting the angle of her weapon.

Or so she thought.

Instead, the reaction speed of her right hand had slowed by 0.5 seconds.

“?”

That was a devastating delay.

The storm of lead hit her and she tumbled along the ground. A 9mm round was not enough to destroy her bones or muscles—the problem was her speed. The impact from the side easily knocked her off balance and she broke through two or three concrete columns along the way.

But what was this?

What had happened? She had been moving on all fours, but that had not affected her right arm’s movable range. When she checked, she found no report of her movement performance having dropped.

The problem must have come before that.

She finally realized there had been an error in her targeting.

A whitish smoke was filling the entire circular space.

It was a smokescreen.

(It can’t be.)

More gunfire. She immediately readied her machete, but that did not work when she could only respond after the fact. She could not protect herself and the bullets slipped past the weapon to slam into her body.

“Gahhh!!”

===Part 15===

Hamazura Shiage had seen what happened in that container lab buried in trash. The long silver-haired hakama girl had made a desperate attack to save him and Takitsubo. She had grabbed the android’s face with her palm and shoved burning incense in the android’s mouth.

But how did that make sense? If Ladybird had the reaction speed to deflect every bullet fired at her, how had she overlooked a human hand?

“The dark side is coldhearted to everyone. You don’t get lucky for no good reason.”

The weak were always observant. After going through that sorrowful goodbye and seeing the girl suffering from so much pain, he had decided to at least use what she had taught him.

This was the world’s oldest chemical weapon.

That sounded fancy, but it was easily made with ordinary items.

You could use the hexachloroethane found in commercial bug sprays or make a powder out of the zinc used in all sorts of things in everyday life. Hamazura recalled that Hanzou had been an expert at stuff like this.

“A smokescreen!! It might not stop IR and ultrasound, but your high-speed defenses aren’t a threat if your sensors malfunction for even a moment!!”

===Part 16===

So?

What did that matter?

The intense hunger inside Ladybird continued to grow. It was more like a desire for oxygen than for food or water.

She was going to kill.

Just the one brain would suffice.

Her thoughts focused more and more on that one goal.

…What had she wanted to save again?

She managed to detect something in the powerful smokescreen.

She spotted a small figure in gym clothes.

…What had once been a girl wept as she raised her voice.

“010011101010110001011001101111001011!!”

She could not even get out actual words anymore.

Something inside her had fried.

After rushing toward her target faster than a racecar, she opened up once more. The small size suggested this was the girl. Ladybird’s back opened wide and the thin translucent thing burst out. Several of those predatory organs stuck out like thin insect wings or like long tongues. They wrapped around her target to bind them and then she shoved the heavy mass inside herself.

This was the dark side.

The good were not rewarded and the evil were not punished.

And.

And.

And.

“…?”

When did she notice something was wrong?

The gym clothes had been on a figure small enough to easily lift up in her arms. That much was true. But what was with that weight? Would a child of around ten really weigh more than 200 kilograms?

“It can’t be!?”

In that moment, Ladybird’s heart was filled by a feeling of…

===Part 17===

Ladybird was not the only one with their target in sight.

Hamazura Shiage accurately aimed his handgun.

“You didn’t like it when I fired on you from behind earlier, did you? Almost like you didn’t want a bullet getting inside that ‘mouth’ on your back.”

The weak were always observant.

The only way to make up for the difference in strength was to search out a weakness.

“And when you were engulfed in flames by that gasoline, you extinguished it with a swing of your machete. That was pretty scary at first glance, but if it really couldn’t harm you, you wouldn’t need to put out the flames, would you?”

He had not used the smokescreen to reduce the effectiveness of her sensors just to hit her with a few useless 9mm bullets.

But making that attack had convinced her that was all it was for.

This was the smokescreen’s true purpose.

The curtain of smoke had let her see the gym clothes without realizing they were on a metal drum and he had baited her into trying to eat that.

Plus, he had already proven that the handgun bullets were enough to ignite the contents of those metal drums.

He fired repeatedly toward her back.

Toward the centerline down her back that resembled the zipper on a costume. The oversized target prevented her from fully closing her back, so he only had to fire on that gap as if shoving the bullets on in there.

The metal drum she had taken into herself now expanded within her.

It exploded.

When the intense boom echoed out from her, he knew he had won. The blast and shockwave were enough to blow away the smokescreen.

He wished he had not seen what remained afterwards.

He was the one who had caused those remains to be strewn across the ground here.

“Hamazura!!”

“I’m fine.”

He bit his lip with the small revolver still in hand.

“Her head moved weirdly in the smokescreen there,” he said. “And then that scream. ''Something other than her mechanical thought process kicked in.'' Without that, I don’t think the metal drum would have tricked her.”

Her attack had been running off of a program, so maybe the parameters could be overwritten and the attributes could be switched on and off.

“She must have remembered something.”

He hung his head and looked down instead of at his girlfriend.

Something was lying on the ground there.

“So in that final moment, she did what she could to save those kids.”

The girl’s head had rolled over toward him and it looked to him like she was smiling.

Because now she would never have to kill again.

===Part 18===

This was a surprise.

He had not even considered what he would do if this happened.

Kihara Hasuu stood in a daze after being left all alone. Finally, he looked around the vast circular space.

Takitsubo looked to be in pain. The moxibustion’s effects would not last forever.

“Pant, gasp.”

“Takitsubo.”

A sinister metallic click sounded. It came from a small revolver.

“Get the kids away from here. It’s time for a grownup chat with that man.”

“…Okay.” Takitsubo nodded. “Are you sure, Hamazura?”

“Yeah. We have to do this before we run away.”

Once no one else was around to see this, the delinquent boy approached the old man with the handgun in his grasp.

“Got anything else?” His voice sounded cold and hard, like a machine. “You’re one of those rumored Kiharas, aren’t you? Did you modify your own body with that android tech?”

“…”

“If not, it’s about time we woke up from this nightmare.”

The revolver’s muzzle rose. His cold voice contained a hint of blatant scorn. Like he refused to accept that this man was unharmed after making Ladybird suffer so.

“You will pay for what you did to ''that girl''. I can’t think of any reason why I should forgive you. I doubt I ever could. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stand on the side of justice. But if I don’t do this here, the justice I couldn’t have will die. I might be dumb, but I can tell that much.”

Yes.

The look in the boy’s eyes said he could not let this man live. ''Kihara Hasuu considered that the correct answer.'' He had not felt anger or sorrow upon Ladybird’s defeat. He had seen a problem to solve and improvements to make. If he were freed from here, he would immediately begin development on the next generation. That would mean many more victims. He knew himself well enough to say that.

And now that there was new research to be done, he had something to live for.

That was his fate as a Kihara.

He did not want to die yet.

He could not let himself die.

No matter what.

“You have set a record here. This will make you the new Kihara Killer.”

“This is over.”

“That is a serious crime. You will undoubtedly become the center of the new dark side. And Academy City will always demand more live sacrifices, whether you want it or not!!”

“Don’t try to stall for time. You’re dead and nothing’s changing that.”

This conversation was meaningless.

Would the boy normally have said so much on reflex? Set a record, Kihara Killer, center of the dark side—Kihara Hasuu’s wording was meant to give his opponent a big head. Was there any way—any way at all—to turn the tables on the boy? The old man was racking his brains the entire time he was buying time. It could be anything. As one who bore the name Kihara, he was willing to break all forms of ethics and standards if need be.

Then he saw it. He noticed something out of place—a gold shine on the cold concrete ground.

It was a Coin of Nicholas.

The clockwise shine had filled the outer edge now. It was fully charged.

“!!”

He immediately leaped at it and grabbed it in his special engineering glove.

He raised his voice.

He wanted to get started on his next research even if it meant relying on something very unscientific.

“Make his gun malfunction, Coin of Nicholas!!”

Who was to blame for this? The actual phenomenon occurred a moment later.

The result was perfectly fair.

A bullet flew from Hamazura Shiage’s handgun.

Yes, there were more ways for a gun to malfunction than for the bullet to jam or explode inside, blowing up the gun and the wielder’s hand along with it.

It could also fire the bullet without the trigger being pulled.

“Huh?”

The old man looked down.

He could not believe that he had been hit in the gut, rupturing his stomach of all things. More than the bleeding, his own vomit contaminated his body where a single germ could ultimately be fatal. He collapsed, suffered for more than five full minutes, and finally passed away. Stomach acid was primarily composed of hydrochloric acid. What did it feel like to be placed on the surgical table, have your gut cut open, and have a bunch of that dumped inside? All without anesthetic, of course.

The old man had lost his life to his own prayer.

A believer in science had relied on something beyond the bounds of science.

This was the fate of someone who stopped trying to do his own work. But in a way, this may have been exactly what he deserved.

If he had relied on his own strength from the beginning, he never would have earned such resentment over Ladybird.

[[Image:GT_Index_v03_459.jpg|thumb]]

If he had cut out pieces of his own flesh for his experiments, he never would have gotten into an argument over what to do with the children in gym clothes.

If he had chosen that path, everyone who had arrived here maybe could have worked together to survive.

Hamazura did not think the android was at fault.

Kihara Hasuu might agree, but it would mean something very different coming from him. The old man’s crime and punishment had to be defined by his own nature. Speaking as an expert required earnestly facing what parts of science you wished to preserve.

Was this too a present from heaven?

That coin was a trap that provided obvious miracles but also took away all other options you might try.

Hamazura Shiage spoke quietly while viewing the scum still gripping that gold coin after he had stopped moving.

Was his face blank?

Or was he suppressing an inappropriate smile?

“Merry Christmas. Did you enjoy your miracle, mad scientist?”

===Map===

[[Image:GT_Index_v03_460-461.jpg|thumb]]

Below District 10:

Hamazura Shiage – Beneficial

Takitsubo Rikou – Beneficial

Kihara Hasuu – Harmful

Ladybird – Harmful

Drencher Kihara Repatri – Beneficial

Frillsand #G – Beneficial

===Between the Lines 4===

“It’s over.” Anna Sprengel spoke bluntly behind the cold bars. “That marks the end of the December 25 festivities. I doubt anything more will happen now, so I suppose my entertainment has come to a close. Well, at least I managed to gather up some decent ‘fluctuations’. If everything had gone as planned, I might have been so disgusted I switched it off.”

She received no response from the next cell.

Most likely, no one knew what he was thinking.

The human damage had been far too great to say his silence was the most eloquent answer of all.

“What were you picturing? How did you see Operation Handcuffs ending? I bet your dream wasn’t half bad.”

So only Anna’s voice filled this space.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of. Most any adult can think of some embarrassing disaster from their teenage years. The more you express your dreams, the sooner those dreams will be crushed. That’s why the most effective method is to hide what you want and work to reveal what everyone else wants so you can work against them. Hee hee. ''If you want to accomplish something great, you first need to hide your primary objective.'' You were a little too pure. You need to muddy the waters a little.”

A solid clink echoed through the cold air.

The girl who looked only 10 had flicked a gold coin into the air and then caught it in her hand.

“The Coin of Nicholas.”

The Board Chairman had lost control.

He had lost the ability to keep tabs on things.

The number of malicious accidents had been far too great. He had tried to give instructions from his cell, but he had been in no position to stop the snowball once it began rolling down the hill.

Because if he did that, the #1 would have once more become the #1 darkness.

He had sealed away his monstrous side.

He had sworn he would.

So. And yet.

“Adding in this one little foreign element shredded the flowchart you had in your head. You had it set up so the dark side would be dismantled and the people would peacefully surrender no matter how things played out, but that happy ending was torn to pieces and everyone chose for themselves to dive into a free world of high-risk death. …Who got them was random, but in the end ''only one person'' managed to break free of its bonds on their own. He slipped below my radar. I even contacted him during the day, yet I overlooked him. That is highly unusual.”

She sounded amused.

She almost seemed to place more importance on this than the #1 in the neighboring cell.

“I learned just the one thing from this spare time between experiments,” she continued.

Her voice seemed to have gone flat, like she had arrived at exactly the result she had predicted.

“''The freedom of magic wins out over the order of science.'' No matter how carefully you build everything up, I will still tear it down, overwrite it, and crush it.”

After a beat, she added one more thing like a mischievous child revealing a secret.

“Of course, these categories really don’t mean much of anything in the first place.”

She slid the edge of the golden coin along the crossbar of the barred door.

The scraping of metal on metal almost drowned out the click of a mechanism working.

The door had unlocked.

With no regard for how the lock actually worked.

“This is yet another miracle.”

The cell of science could not hold magic.

It was a very blunt metaphor.

She slowly walked out into the corridor and began to pass by the neighboring cell.

“As the name suggests, the Coin of Nicholas is a spiritual item limited to Christmas. Although it absorbs power directly from the ley lines instead of from the magician’s body, so it is technically more like a grimoire than a spiritual item. This chaos is a dream you will wake from come morning. It will not last long, so don’t worry.”

“How dare you!!”

Finally.

Something translucent challenged her from behind the bars. She looked like a lovely girl with marine creature elements and bat wings attached and she wore a dress of English newspapers covered in articles that some might consider profane. Metal bars meant nothing to her. She broke through them with a shower of orange sparks and she grabbed at the little girl covering herself with a thin red cloth.

She was Qliphah Puzzle 545, an artificial demon prepared as a trump card by the Anglican Archbishop who had once tried to overthrow the world.

However…

“I’m trying to talk. Don’t interrupt when you don’t even understand what I mean.”

All of a sudden, something stood next to the little girl.

The translucent being was an angel with a falcon head and a powerful body. As soon as a vertical crack ran through him, the angel mercilessly stripped off his entire body.

He was now a sun.

A dreadful light burst out and filled the space as it attacked the demon girl.

“Kyahhh!!”

Accelerator did not even stir.

The #1 had his reflection.

''Yet a red liquid dripped from the corner of his mouth.

“Think before you speak. Just think about it and you should realize that now is not the time for you to interrupt.”

Anna was not even looking in his direction.

She simply waved goodbye.

“My experiment is complete. Things will go differently next time.”

She never did look through the bars. She was already looking to some other place as she walked away.

But she did give a final parting comment.

“Send ''him'' my regards.”

Accelerator leaned back against the hard wall, let his hips sink to the cold floor, and lowered his head.

He did not speak a word.

One thing had been proven here. His small dream would never come true

Not as long as she was here.

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter4

2020-11-23T17:48:52Z

SNovah: /* Part 16 */

==Chapter 4: The Demon Lord’s Young — the_LIGHT.==

===Part 1===

“Where have you been, Risako!?”

“Mister, Risako-chan is back!!”

The gym clothes girl laughed when she saw the other children gathered around.

“Eh heh heh. A doggy and an older girl saved me.”

They must have been preparing for another move because all the trucks had their engines running. But they had waited until they had found the girl with red hair done up like candy. She was relieved. Having a home to return to was a wonderful thing.

“''A doggy,'' huh?” said the artificial ghost called Frillsand #G.

“…”

Her comment made the young researcher fall silent for a bit.

His name was Drencher Kihara Repatri.

That family name was so well known in the dark side that it had become a more powerful classification than beneficial or harmful. The man who bore that name sighed softly to help refocus his mind.

“There is a chance we’ve been located, but we’re faster at the moment. If we move before they catch up, we can reach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' without issue.”

“Do you really think this world will allow any of this to go ‘without issue’?”

“It’s our job to make sure it happens.”

The adults exchanged their views with their voices too low for the excited children to hear.

But a certain boy kept his voice low for a different reason.

“Risako.”

“Oh, Sodate-chan.”

The tall boy in the same kind of gym clothes looked troubled for some reason. In fact, he looked close to tears. Risako tilted her head, thinking he was afraid she would get after him about the ball and chemical soap, but this was different.

“So you came back,” he said.

“Eh?”

“I was hoping maybe you were gone for good.”

He had wanted that? Did he hate her that much? Risako’s face clouded over, but this was again different. He shook his head and explained.

He was the only one of the children who had ''started to question these motion sensors they wore for some kind of experiment.''

“Because then at least you might have been safe.”

===Part 2===

He was afraid of screwing it up, so he started by drawing marks on her back with a marker.

“Hamazura, that tickles.”

“Stay still.”

The old book had a brush-drawn diagram with no perspective or attempt to make it look three-dimensional. The indicated locations of the organs were clearly not right. Maybe it was like the difference between an aerial photograph of the clouds and the isobars on the weather forecast map. He wondered if this was what all traditional Japanese medicine was like as he drew Xs on his girlfriend’s body. She had even removed her bra and was holding her chest in her hands while showing him her smooth back. He thought his heart was going to burst every time she squirmed from the ticklishness. Even he knew that reaction was inappropriate given the circumstances. Once he finished that, it was finally time to start. He faced the girl while she lay face down on the container lab’s work table like she was sunbathing.

The moxa used for the moxibustion was like fluffy cotton, but he actually had to set it on fire.

It felt wrong doing that on her soft skin and he could even permanently scar her if he screwed it up.

“…”

His fear came to the forefront now that it was time to do it, but this was the only way to help her with the fever.

He fought the desire to shut his eyes and placed a small pile of “fuel” on her soft skin. He worked at the lighter with a trembling hand, but he kept failing. Once he finally had a small flame, he slowly moved it in close.

“Nh.”

“A-are you okay, Takitsubo?”

“I’m fine.”

He continued the process a few more times. He had his doubts, but when she wiped the sweat from her brow, no more sweat beaded up. It did seem to be working.

He could not thank the hakama girl enough.

He could not waste this chance she had given them, so they had to approach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''.

That card-sized hard drive had been labelled with the word “Lifeline”.

Aneri must have decided the data would be too small to see on his phone because she displayed it a flat screen monitor in the lab instead. It was a series of numbers.

It looked like a calculation sheet made with spreadsheet software, but even that was enough to make the delinquent boy’s head hurt. Maybe it was important data, but he had no idea what he was supposed to focus on.

“This looks like materials data,” said Takitsubo after peering at it from the side.

“Materials?”

“Whether they’re beneficial or harmful, the dark side does a lot of research.” She pointed at one of the numbers. “They’re also building a lot of military weapons. But doesn’t it seem odd? Academy City is a mass consumer and it only has so much land since it’s surrounded by walls. You can’t just dig into the ground here and find oil or ores. So where do they get all those materials from?”

“Where? Isn’t that what the cooperative institutions around the world are for? They can work out a deal with them.”

“But how can they do that without leaving any record of it?”

She pointed at another number.

If a citizens group monitoring the flow of money and materials could reveal a secret, then it had never been part of the dark side to begin with.

“Look at this. The dark side is using far more materials than the total amount brought in from outside the city. Cutting off the fat and redistributing it to themselves would not be enough for this. The amount the dark side uses is several times larger. This would show up in the records no matter what you did. Important people like the Board of Directors and its Chairman can only cover up so much. This is too much. It’s well past what you could hide by cooking the books.”

“But then…”

He trailed off when Aneri opened a new window. A single point on a map of Academy City was colored in red. There was a secret there.

“They have an entrance and exit that doesn’t leave any records,” said the track suit girl while viewing the screen.

There were several files that appeared to be saved from message boards and social media pages. Reading through them showed a certain point in common.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

Takitsubo pointed at that bizarre statement.

“There is a way of reaching it and we should see hints of it in the rumors told around the city. Like the ‘!’ signs, a deadly train, kidnappers at the amusement park, babies in the coin lockers, or an underground construction zone where you can dump anything you don’t want found. But none of that gets at the real truth.”

“You mean…?”

“Academy City doesn’t promote recycling so much just because it wants to make the most of its limited resources. ''Sending things back to be recycled over and over again masks how much materials are actually being used.'' They can’t have an investigation revealing that we dump out several times more trash than materials we take in, right? That would violate conservation of mass. So they needed to make it hard to compare those two values. It’s a form of laundering.”

Why was that sleight of hand necessary? How did they reach the impossible result of more waste than raw materials? What was this secret that no one wanted getting out?

''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.

This was the identity of that term they had heard so many times today.

“It…isn’t closed off? There’s a secret route through the walls surrounding Academy City!?”

That could not be. For better or for worse, Academy City was cut off from the outside world. Those thick walls prevented their tech from spreading to the world at large because that could lead to disorder and chaos.

Hamazura used to be part of Skill Out. That was a group of the boys and girls who had dropped out of Academy City but had nowhere to go since they could not get out of the city.

They had been trapped. They had dropped out of school, but those walls had kept them here. If you wanted to take a trip outside the city for just a few days, you needed to submit a ton of paperwork and receive a nanodevice injection. Because if you tried leave without using the official gates, you could be killed to prevent a data leak. There had been burglars and muggers in the back alleys, but none of those expert thieves had dared go anywhere near the walls.

If there was a way to freely move in and out, they may not have felt so much pressure. They could have made a place for themselves.

Their former leader, Komaba Ritoku, might not have had to fight and die.

“…”

But the dark side had torn down that number one assumption like it was nothing.

That counterfeiter had stored that information on a card-sized hard drive labeled “Lifeline”. Had he thought he could use that information to get some dark side bigshots to save him?

He must have never imagined he would instead have his brains blown out by a paparazzo. Hamazura was at the center of all this, but he still did not know if that had been planned or a spontaneous decision.

“It’s deep below Academy City.” Takitsubo Rikou calmly read aloud something on such a large scale that talk of an alternate dimension would have sounded more realistic. “The world’s largest particle accelerator is built directly below the city walls, so people are told that digging in that area could break the accelerator’s seal and expose them to radiation and other risks. That was meant to convince everyone that no one would be dumb enough to try it.”

The diagram they found looked like a puzzle ring. It seemed to carefully avoid the circular accelerator facility, but this was a tunnel built by the dark side. There was no chance it met all the proper safety standards.

That was the dark side’s lifeline.

They had built it to continue pumping fuel into their illicit research and its construction showed they did not care at all if they brought chaos to the world. It really was the greatest taboo. It was a dark umbilical cord that could wipe out the Kiharas and everyone else if it was cut off.

“I doubt Anti-Skill knows about this,” said Takitsubo. “So they won’t be able to block it off. We can safely escape the city if we use it.”

“…”

The red light displayed by Aneri was in District 10, the city’s biggest slum. The taboo no one wanted was hidden below the district everyone had abandoned.

It was unclear if it had always had this name. They may have changed the name periodically to help hide the truth. All the scattered information was fragmentary witness accounts and some of it would likely be intentional misinformation.

But that taboo’s gaping mouth had sat deep underground all this time.

Like a nightmarish symbol of freedom.

The dot on the map displayed on the small screen had the following name displayed next to it: Vanishing Tunnel.

That was the name of their final destination. Anyone who arrived there was given a ticket to another world.

===Part 3===

They were deep, deep underground in District 10.

Few people would think too much about the layout of the subway tunnels below the city. They might know a track took an unnatural curve at one point, but no one would question the online news article about them running across some kind of ruins during construction.

An underground passageway was surrounded by cold concrete and supported by the pillars positioned at even intervals.

The few fluorescent lights on the walls were not enough to fully sweep away the darkness.

That underground blind spot had become the biggest hot spot in the world. A great many people had gathered there. They had not all arrived along the same route. They had each gathered the hints scattered around the city and started to question the city’s biggest assumption. Academy City was surrounded by thick walls, but it was not in fact sealed off.

The brawny men in work jumpsuits were a courier group called Secret Express. The men and women in dress clothes were Concierge, a group that provided hideouts to meet a criminal’s demands. The girls in plain clothing and hiding their faces with sunglasses and hunting caps may have been an extremely popular idol group. The parade of scum included Controller, who used personal information and fictitious bills to threaten the girls he targeted until he had them in digital chains, and Flare, who left behind harmless powder identical to the real deal in order to confuse criminal investigations.

A ruler of the back alleys was there.

A major corporation’s lawyer was there.

A university headmaster was there.

A major entertainment producer was there.

And a few Kiharas from different fields were there.

All sorts of people flooded that underground passageway. People did not end up on the dark side because they were low class, poor, stupid, or criminal. It took all types. The dark side had reached every class of person equally. From worlds no one knew existed to industries everyone envied.

Some had fallen before making it this far and others had attempted a different route instead. In a way, finding this tunnel and setting foot inside made them the chosen ones.

And.

Every last one of them were obstructed and crushed by a certain figure.

The woman had long blonde twintails and she wore a skintight light blue dress and a long loose skirt.

Frillsand #G was like an impassable wall.

All who challenged her crashed into that wall with the intensity of their challenge. After seeing a few of them turned to hunks of flesh and splattered blood, the others must have started wondering if she literally was a solid wall because all of those dark side members had come to a stop. They were pushed back even though she had not taken a single step.

Of course, the ghost was not going to spare them just because they gave up now.

“Next stop: skewering. Repeat: skewering.”

With a wet sound, a muscular man in black was destroyed from groin to head. But he may have been one of the lucky ones. He was gone before he even knew what had happened to him.

“Please look out for the burning and severing.”

Screams of pain echoed through the tunnel. Before long, the dark side members were fighting amongst themselves too. They appeared to have begun an ugly struggle over the concrete column they could use as a shield. However…

“We will arrive at gouging soon.”

Just as the ghost silently circled behind the column, a wet sound exploded out. The victors and losers of the struggle were all turned to mincemeat together while Frillsand #G looked on in disinterest.

“Ah…gahh,” someone groaned.

It was one of the idol girls. Her bottom half was gone and the bottom of her torso was sticking to the floor like a slug.

“But…why? We found the taboo…so aren’t we part of the dark side too? Can’t we all use…the path out together?”

“I have children to take care of. A lot of them.” Frillsand #G did not even look in her direction. “Inviting all of you in with us would only put them at risk.”

“Just…” It was already too late for her, but the top half of a girl still clawed at the concrete floor. “Just in case? You took people’s lives for no more than that!?”

“Next stop: running over. I repeat: running over.”

With a wet splat, the complaints were silenced.

The ghost seemed to be rejecting the idea that grudges lacked the power to kill.

“The rear guard is an important job,” she said in a singsong voice. “But I cannot let that crybaby see this. Knowing of it and seeing it are two very different things.”

The artificial ghost glanced over at something else.

But she soon lost interest, turned around, and vanished into the darkness.

A mere ten meters away, Hamazura Shiage was hiding behind a column and holding his hand over the track suit girl’s mouth.

If she noticed them, they were dead. He felt like his heart, his breathing, his body odor, and the slight static electricity on his clothing could all give them away. He could not even wipe the unpleasant sweat from his cheek as he desperately waited for time to pass.

That ghost really was an enemy.

She had some kind of plan of her own and had saved them on a whim before, but that did not mean he could trust her. If she had saved them on a whim, then she could also choose to throw them out on a whim. And they only had the one life.

This was worse than a sea of blood.

Flesh and blood had lost any hint of their original form, fingers extended into empty space, facial skin was frozen in a look of agony while plastered to the wall. At this point, they were only “things”, not people. There was no dignity remaining.

Each of them was a dark side member who had arrived at ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' along a different route than him.

Their endless possibilities had been reduced to zero.

Or so it felt to him.

Was this tunnel really the right path? The further they went, the more likely they were to encounter that ghost woman, so he began to wonder if it would be safer to turn back now and return to the surface.

“Pwah.”

His girlfriend escaped his hand. He was holding her from behind, so she leaned her head back to look him in the eye.

“Hamazura, I don’t sense her presence anymore. We can keep going now.”

“…”

“We can’t give up after coming so far. Blindly returning to the surface won’t save us. We’ll never find peace if we don’t go through here.”

“R-right.”

He would have long since broken if he were alone.

But when she pulled on his hand, he managed to work up some small semblance of courage.

Even with the evenly-spaced fluorescent lights, the tunnel was dark. And they had no idea who was in charge of that sparse lighting. What if the ghost could shut off the power? His phone felt all the more important to him now.

“This is a long tunnel.”

“Yeah.”

They were not speaking much anymore.

This was ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'', but did this tunnel really lead toward hope? No matter how far they went, the darkness never went away. As they trudged deeper and deeper, he felt like they had passed a point of no return. Also, who had built this enormous underground facility? Someone must have drawn up the plans, dug the hole, set the foundation, and brought in the rebar and concrete. This was a far bigger project than a bank robber’s hand-dug tunnel into the vault. Such a vast and well-made underground space could not have been built without the involvement of a major construction company.

Who had done it?

It might be a company whose ads he saw on TV every day.

Would all of this come to light one day? But those meaningless thoughts were cut off by Takitsubo.

She had noticed first because she was not holding the light.

“Hamazura, there’s a door.”

“…”

It was a thick metal door.

Just the one door sat at the end of the long, long tunnel. There may have been another route, but he did not recall seeing any other paths branching off along the way.

He slowly approached.

It did not appear to be locked. He doubted there were any grenades or other “gifts” left for them.

But that was not what scared him. He had seen all of those corpses along the way. The sight had left him so terrified he barely had it in him to keep his heart beating. He had started to view their fallen predecessors as no more than a piece of the scenery. Because otherwise that shadowy murder scene would have overwhelmed him too much to continue on.

The taboos were piling up.

He and Takitsubo had started this simply wanting to survive, but they too had been corrupted along the way.

Hamazura Shiage reached his fingers toward the doorknob.

He touched it. He squeezed it.

He turned it.

===Part 4===

A flood of light revealed a world no one was ever meant to see.

“…”

The other world turned out to be a cavernous pit.

This abyss slept deep below the earth, yet it was filled with much more artificial light than the tunnel. That was thanks to the construction lights set up here and there.

It was easily more than 250 meters across and maybe more than twice as deep. The perfectly circular space made of reinforced concrete at the very bottom may have reminded different people of different things.

Some might see it as a common utility duct, a circular colosseum, a switchyard’s turntable, or an underground temple dedicated to a god one must never offer any prayers.

But there was one crucial piece that helped solidify the proper image.

“A train?” muttered Hamazura while peering down over the railing.

It was a turntable.

Concrete columns were installed at even intervals around the edges, but there were none in the central circle. The flat concrete floor had a smaller circle built into it. That would rotate to change the train’s direction. The tracks outside the circle extended in 12 different directions. That made it all look like something else: a giant metal flower.

Yes, there were tracks, signal lights, transformers, maintenance equipment, a control room, and a fifteen-car train in here. It was a freight train.

“That’s the dark side’s lifeline?”

For him and Takitsubo, it was the plank of Carneades that would save their lives.

He doubted that turntable was all of it. There would be a container yard and maintenance zone hidden further out from the center.

They walked along the narrow catwalk built along the circular wall and descended the stairs. There were no corpses in here. Whoever had gotten here first must have used the ghost woman to eliminate any nuisances before they reached this point.

And since the train was still here, that person would still be here.

They shared this space with the slaughterer.

“Hamazura.”

“Don’t worry. I’m with you no matter what.”

“Not that. There’s someone down there. And they’re not alone.”

That was a shock. Takitsubo Rikou could accurately locate people by sensing their AIM Diffusion Field. She could not use that power as well as she used to, but she could still sense it to an extent.

The tension grew.

A single person with a bizarre power was certainly scary, but having a large group approach you brought a different sort of fear. He mentally switched his priorities to at least allowing Takitsubo to escape if things looked bad.

The only exit was up here.

Leaving that would mean being surrounded by dead ends in every direction.

“…”

After descending the last flight of stairs, they arrived at the deepest depths.

It felt so much different from when they had been looking down from above. But that was not too surprising since 250 meters was larger than a domed stadium. This was the same as a sports field looking so much bigger from the stands than on TV.

Yes, Hamazura Shiage now stood on the stage. He was no longer an outsider looking in.

“Oh, dear. You actually showed up. What a shame.”

He lasted one second.

His knees suddenly dropped to the ground. He could not keep his shoulders at the same height and his lost strength would not return.

“Wha—!?”

It was the ghost woman.

Was she a beneficial or a harmful?

She had left that tunnel far too bloody to claim she was trying to escape Academy City because she disliked conflict. If anything, she felt more like a vengeful spirit that refused to let anyone leave the city.

She looked like a Western doll with her long blonde twintails and light blue dress. She did not actually punch or kick him. Simply seeing her out of the corner of his eye had done critical damage to him.

A rusty-smelling liquid dripped from his eyes and nose.

He was trying to scream and flip over onto his back, but he was actually curled up and unable to move.

Encountering her meant death.

That was far too sinister a thing to be connected with a simple equals sign like that.

“It is no use.”

The ghost woman walked without audible footsteps. She moved herself from the corner of his vision to the center.

“No one is talking about anything as silly as defending against something with a shield or dodging a projectile with super speed. ''From the moment you see my face,'' the attack is complete. If I so much as casually stand in the corner of your vision, I can do continual damage without you even noticing my presence.”

He realized the strange things had always happened when the ghost woman spoke to him. And why had she turned the lights on in that tunnel? Because it was more convenient for her.

If you saw a ghost while driving, you would crash.

If your face, hands, or feet were missing in a ghost photo, you would find unnatural wounds or marks on your body.

Did this mean she even artificially reproduced those aspects of a ghost? He did not want to believe it because it would mean there was nothing he could do.

“Hamazu—!?”

“You noticed? You must have sharper senses.”

The track suit girl quickly pulled him close, but the ghost woman did not seem to care.

Besides, if seeing her really did mean death, then Takitsubo would have been killed too, but she was fine.

“But I am not talking about anything as poorly-defined as a sixth sense for ghosts. Do you have a power related to AIM Diffusion Fields?”

“There’s no AIM Diffusion Field around you? No, some strong but invisible power is scattering that weaker field.”

“It is known as High Voltage Cutting,” said the ghost woman. “The principle may be similar to the shock diamonds seen in a rocket engine’s flame or the cavitation of air bubbles created around a propeller. The constant emission of a powerful energy will create irregular waveforms and images while it interferes with itself.”

“Gh!? What energy???”

“You can find energy everywhere.” Her tone was light, so understanding how it worked must not have helped avoid its effects. “The carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide you thoughtlessly spread around forms acid rain when it bonds with the moisture in the air. You can acquire electricity simply by sticking two electrodes into a fruit, you know? Copper and zinc are such necessities that you can find them anywhere. Using that, you can produce hydrogen gas in addition to electricity. I only need to absorb power from a ''civilization battery'' the size of a city or even greater. That is enough for me to construct a single outlier point within that stable energy.”

“…”

“What are the common types of haunted locations? Old homes full of drafts, cliffs and caves eroded by the waves, and mountain roads late at night. They are always full of ''noise'', such as static electricity, pressure differences, the creaking of rusty doors, or the rustling of the trees in the wind. Have you ever heard a ghostly voice in the crackle of excess electricity or the roar of hydrogen gas being ignited? I can exist as I am wherever human civilization exists. If you wish to kill me, you must destroy your very way of life. On a global scale.”

This was too much.

He could not understand her explanation. And even if he thought he did, it still did not tell him how to destroy her.

Takitsubo gasped and spoke while holding onto him.

“I get that the constant use of a massive amount of unseen energy would eventually create something unnatural. But if seeing you is deadly, how do you choose specific targets to—?”

She trailed off.

She had seen something out of the corner of her eye, but not the artificial ghost this time. A unified set of colors could be seen peeking out of at them from a gap in the door to one of the freight train’s containers.

''They were small children wearing gym clothes and some kind of device. There were more than just ten or twenty of them.

''All of them were a part of the ghost experiment.

The children must have seen the ghost woman as they nervously spied out. And they seemed to be expectantly waiting to see if she would repel these unknown intruders. They did not know. They had not been told what they were being used for. Simply viewing a ghost photo was harmful and the longer you viewed it, the more damage it did. She embodied that power so perfectly that she had eliminated so many dark side elites.

Yet she had managed to accurately select one out of the many candidates.

That was like shooting the apple off someone’s head. Without explaining any of it to the children who had those sensors attached to them.

“…”

The delinquent boy clenched his teeth.

He could barely move, she held his life in her hand, and he had no idea how to fight back. He had to avoid angering her if at all possible. He understood that, but he still shouted up at her.

“You scum!!”

“Call me what you wish. In fact, I see it as a compliment.”

The ghost woman who resembled a fairy tale princess held her palm out toward him. He only had to see her impossible presence for her to attack, so that gesture was meaningless.

But then her eyes turned unnaturally away from him.

To the side.

A spare container sitting near the train was sliced in two. Something had dropped down from far above like a bolt of lightning.

A red figure wielded a thick machete made of heavy metal.

The android wore a racing swimsuit colored the orange and black of an insect. The bangs of her long crimson hair were cut straight across and she had a slender build.

Cartoony flowers were displayed in her mechanical eyes.

“Smug face.”

“Hello, hello,” said a twig of an old man in a blue jumpsuit and lab coat. “I hate to interrupt when you seem so busy, but I must insist.”

The ghost woman shrugged.

“Were you hoping to use the train? I thought you were one of the harmfuls who would remain in the city and resist to the bitter end.”

“I have no interest in those categories forced onto the dark side from the outside. All I care about is continuing my research. Academy City was a wonderful environment for that, but if that has changed, I need to leave and search out a more comfortable place.”

“You can see me, can’t you?”

“You should be able to tell by observing my eye movements.”

“And you know what that means?” She gave a suggestive glance over at the machine that had arrived with him. “In case you were unaware, I am capable of causing malfunctions in mechanical lenses and sensors just as well as in the human body. Ghost photographs are a result of ghosts interfering in optical machinery, are they not? That might be your masterpiece, but isn’t it presumptuous to assume she can wield her full power against me?”

She remained untouchable. She could kill someone just by placing herself in the corner of their vision and machines could not do anything to her either. Did she have no blind spots?

“Yes, I imagine so.”

But the old man did not seem to mind.

That mysterious old man ''known as a Kihara'' was not bothered that she held his life in her hand.

“You are the strongest when it comes to an individual. Looking at deadliness alone, you might outdo the #3 and the #2.”

“…”

Evidently, even ghosts could find something to be ominous.

This world may have been infected with a disease that caused all bad premonitions to come true.

“But in this specific location, I believe you too will find you cannot wield your full power.”

“What are you—gah!!!!????”

He had given her plenty of warning, but she suddenly arched her back and then froze unnaturally in midair. An ominous straining sound continued on and on as her body grew distorted. She bent and stretched, almost like a face pressed against a wall of glass.

Something was happening.

Hamazura had thought the ghost woman was an intangible being, like a mist or apparition. But she was not. She clearly had a spine to strain, muscles to cry out in pain, and organs to writhe unnaturally.

Then a bizarre creaking and cracking noise came from her. Her volume shrank more and more like she was being crushed in from all sides. The old man was holding something up in his special engineering glove. It looked like an empty candy box, but it was not. It had a small pinhole at the very top. The ghost woman was sucked into that small hole like a liquid or a gas. Hamazura did not want to imagine what things were like inside there. He could only say one thing in a daze.

“A pinhole…camera?”

“High Voltage Cutting? I see, a strange theory, but she is still a form of unstable energy. And all energy will move from high to low—unstable to stable. This is enough to break down her form and burn in her image.”

The old man let go of the candy box.

He had the look of a mischievous child who had just realized he could create his own spark show by sticking a metal clip in the microwave.

“This is the appropriate choice for a ghost photo, don’t you think? A digital camera just wouldn’t fit the aesthetic.”

After dropping it to the cold concrete, he crushed it below his heel. He did not even glance down at the flattened box.

“''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.''” He tapped on his lower back. “Surely you didn’t think a construction company building a secret tunnel out of the city was enough to earn a name like that. With something like her around, you really should have thought of a different possibility.”

“Wh-what?”

Hamazura felt like the unnatural “curse” had weakened, but he still could not bring himself to get up from the ground. The old man only now seemed to have realized that there was another person here reaching for the plank of Carneades.

Hamazura knew any attention on him would only lead to disaster.

Kihara Hasuu smiled.

“Let me make one thing clear. There is a member of the Board who built a vast fortune by doing unofficial construction work for the dark side, but he knows nothing of this. This massive underground structure just appeared out of the blue one day.”

“…?”

Out of the blue?

Hamazura had operated construction machinery before, so he knew how absurd that was. Did that old man have any idea how long it would take to dig out a hole of this size?

But the old man appeared to be serious.

Deadly serious.

“''The Vanishing Tunnel does not actually exist.''”

Hamazura had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

It made no sense. If that were true, then where were they now???

The old man gave the answer.

“Kazakiri Hyouka was not just a single individual. She is more like one piece of the Imaginary Number District, an entire city created from the aggregation of AIM Diffusion Fields. …It all began with a project meant to cut out a portion of that territory and extract it as a new resource. Unlike the microscopic alchemy performed in the particle accelerator, this would have been on the macro scale and cost very little. But not even the group of researchers who guided all that power through the city could have predicted it would take this form. ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' is such a dramatic name. In truth, it was a major failure that needed to be covered up. Everyone involved was at their wits’ end.” He tapped his lower back again. “A nonexistent pathway unofficially connected Academy City to the world outside, increasing the risk of the outer world’s collapse through cultural exchange and technological contamination. The entire world very well could have been destroyed from this single point. While the researchers had hoped to extract materials from the Imaginary Number District, whatever came from there might have transformed the outside world into something truly grotesque. …Yes, that the world still exists as it does now was no more than ''dumb luck''. It was nothing we did on our end. Kazakiri Hyouka and the other inhuman monsters simply showed no interest in that. If something had occurred to them and they had tried it, the world would have ended.”

“You mean…” Takitsubo replied since she had a better understanding of things related to AIM. “You were researching the exact opposite of that ghost? A ghost made from powerful energy and an aggregation of weak powers are opposites, so when they came together, it caused the ghost to malfunction… You were trying to extract inorganic materials from that unseen city, weren’t you?”

“Hard to say if that research was a step forward or a step back. Like I said, they failed. They could not control it, so even the remains of their project you see here cannot be erased. I believe the natural half life was about 12,000 years. In the worst case, the Imaginary Number District could have been converted into real numbers, crushing Academy City in the process. I think the project could have found success if they could have cut off a piece at a workable size and found a way to control it. In that sense, that ghost really is the strongest as an individual and an enviable success.”

Now even Hamazura had a vague idea why the ghost woman had suddenly malfunctioned.

They could not be in the same place.

Two ghosts could not coexist. Just like installing two different pieces of security software on the same computer would cause a conflict.

“It was still a risky gamble, though. The odds were low, but if the tunnel ''had lost'', this temporary space itself would have vanished and we would all have become fossils after being buried deep below the surface.”

Hamazura heard a swooshing sound and looked over to see the android swinging her thick machete next to the old man. Those two had won their bet, so now no one could stop them.

Kihara Hasuu looked away from Hamazura and turned to someone else.

“Now, I have eliminated your bodyguard. Isn’t it time we talked this out like adults?”

===Part 5===

“When’s the train going to leave?”

“Oh, mister just left.”

The children dressed up in gym clothes were whispering to each other while peeking out through the cracked-open door of a freight train container.

But among them…

“Ow, that hurts.”

The girl named Risako spoke up in protest.

But Sodate ignored that and continued tugging on her skinny wrist. The bigger boy was kind of scary when he was not saying anything.

“Listen, Risako.” He spoke quickly while walking through the shadows to stay hidden. He seemed to be speaking to himself more than the girl. “You can still escape. It’s not too late. And once you get to the surface, go tell the grownups about this. I know you can do it.”

“Why? The train is about to leave.”

“You still don’t get it!?” He shouted with his hands on her shoulders. “They make us wear these clothes and devices, they keep us separated from the rest of the city, and they don’t let us go to a normal school. We’re Child Errors, so no one will even notice if we just disappear one day. They’re only raising us because they can use us for something. They’re fattening us up to eat us!”

“But…”

“We don’t even have phones to call for help. ''It isn’t normal to be this isolated.'' That’s why I kept leaving behind some sign of our presence: building blocks, picture books, balls, and so on. I left them outside before the trucks moved on and I made sure to write our names, the trucks’ license numbers, and other information on them! But none of it ever reached the grownups. Our efforts never reached anyone!!”

She had thought he kept stealing things because he was selfish. She had thought he would forget those things in his secret bases because he was sloppy. But that was not it.

“They’re relatively peaceful beneficials? Don’t make me laugh. What’s going to change after we board that train and leave Academy City? There won’t be anyone monitoring them anymore!! Once that happens, I just know he’ll stop holding back. He’ll ''take it even further''! So you at least need to escape before that happens!!”

“Sodate-chan…”

“I’ll give you an opening.” He looked the girl in the eye and spoke clearly. “I won’t let him turn you into a guinea pig no matter what!!”

===Part 6===

A somewhat slender man stepped out. He wore a short-sleeved safari jacket and a rash guard, making him look something like an old-fashioned adventurer, but the webcam attached to the side of his head gave him a more modern outdoorsy look. He appeared to be a different sort of researcher from the old mechanic in a lab coat and jumpsuit.

He was an expert at visiting so-called haunted locations around the world and revealing the scientific cause of the strange phenomena there. But he had apparently also artificially recreated such things to use them for his own purposes.

He grinned and raised his hands in a jocular way. Kihara Hasuu asked him a question with the deadly weapon girl still by his side.

“What is your name?”

“Drencher Kihara Repatri.”

“I see. So that’s you.”

The young man’s eyebrows moved slightly in response to the old man’s impressed tone.

“I didn’t expect someone like you to have heard of me.”

“You are rather…well known.”

The way he said that told Hamazura he did not mean that in a positive way.

This was a confrontation between two harmfuls.

The two researchers ignored the boy and girl entirely as they began a verbal rally. Hamazura knew he could not just sit and watch as a referee or spectator, but he had no way of intervening.

“As you can see, we come from different levels of the dark side. If there is no place for us in Academy City anymore, then leaving the city is a valid choice. But is that plank of Carneades really only big enough for the one group? I think it can support both of us just fine.”

That suggestion seemed surprising…but maybe it wasn’t. It was the ghost woman who had been slaughtering all of the other dark side members trying to reach this point. The android may have attacked Anti-Skill, but she had never actively tried to eliminate her fellow dark siders. She had attacked Hamazura near the counterfeiter’s tents, but if she had been trying to slaughter everyone she came across, the ordinary people in the amusement park would not have escaped alive.

The young man shrugged.

“If that means less fighting, it’s okay with me. Not that I really have a choice, do I?”

“Assuming you have no other trump cards.”

“Then I surrender.”

He did not hesitate to respond. Hamazura was actually surprised to see he was willing to back down to save his own life. Hamazura had gotten the impression that the extreme members of the dark side were willing to sacrifice their own life to achieve their goal.

That surprise scared Hamazura. He could tell he had let the dark side influence him too much. He was afraid the damage would be permanent if he went much further. Once he became a harmful, there was no going back.

“She was my prized project, you know? Frillsand #G, I mean. Now, I knew ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' would pose a challenge, but I never imagined it was a giant mass of AIM Diffusion Fields.”

“Everything has its compatibility. In fact, I could never have won if we were not down here. Keep this girl from working and I’m helpless.”

The crimson-haired girl did nothing to fight the wrinkled hand rubbing her head.

The two men were reaching an agreement. That was not good. Hamazura and Takitsubo had nothing they could offer in a negotiation. At this rate, they would probably each get a bullet in the head as a parting gift. The only other option he could imagine was being made into a guinea pig for some bizarre experiment.

“Oh, right,” casually began the old man.

If he said “what should we do about those two lumps of flesh”, they were screwed. And Hamazura could not predict what that Kihara would do. He felt a terrible squeezing at his heart.

Finally, Kihara Hasuu continued.

“While we can share the train, I will be in charge there. So if you want a ride, it’s only natural you pay a small fare, don’t you think?”

“Do you want my research notes on Frillsand #G?”

“I’m no barbarian. A scientist’s research notes are a part of his very soul. Those are the fruits of your labors, so take them to your grave.”

“Then what do you want?”

“A few of them.”

The old man’s voice was as casual as ever as he pointed his engineering glove in a different direction entirely. He pointed at the gym clothes children who were peeking out from behind cover, without a clue what was being discussed.

“''Just select a few at random.'' I intend to restart my research once things have calmed down, but the rules are different outside the city. I can’t start abducting people off the street until I have a proper base set up, so I could use an initial supply for that settling-in period.”

Hamazura froze as he listened in.

This was the dark side. This was how the elites of that stagnant world thought.

“That Frillsand #G is important to your research, but not so with those lab rats, right? How many experimental observers’ lives were lost until you managed to ''properly reproduce'' that artificial ghost? If your research has entered a stable period, I would assume you are not running through those Child Errors as quickly as you once were.”

“Heh,” laughed Drencher Kihara Repatri.

He weakly lowered his raised hands. He must have decided that was no longer necessary. He too had seen the darkness, so he spoke with the same look in his eyes as the old man.

“It’s true those are all Child Errors. And however they would be treated in the ordinary world, we all know exactly what that term means in the dark side. Yes, I gathered them together and invited them into my lab. I made sure to have a plentiful stock of convenient lives that could be spent as I liked if other forms of research were not enough.”

“Then I can have a few?”

“''Go to hell, you son of a bitch.''”

===Part 7===

Several dry gunshots rang out.

===Part 8===

Hamazura Shiage did not understand what had just happened.

“Hamazura!!”

His body still refused to do what it was told, so track suit girl Takitsubo had to push him to the ground.

The young man had pulled out a handgun. It was no more than a small revolver, but he still fired it repeatedly from just a few meters away.

However…

“Ugh…”

“That won’t work,” said the old man.

The android’s crimson hair fluttered while she held her thick machete at the ready with her bare feet planted a step in front of Hasuu. Not only had she deflected all of the bullets, she had used their ricochets as a counterattack.

''No more than a small revolver.

''Something had gone horribly wrong when you started thinking of things in those terms in this country.

The young man had several holes in his upper body and dark red stains spread across his clothes. Doubling over did nothing to help, so he finally collapsed to the ground.

The old man in a jumpsuit and lab coat spoke up in exasperation while the strongest doll protected him.

“They’re just kids. And it’s not like I’m asking for all of them. Just two or three will do.”

“I wanted to…protect them from the dark side scum who think like that,” spat the young man while struggling to breathe down on all fours. He had given up trying to hold his wounds. “But nothing I did above board did anything to help. I couldn’t even get information on where those children were. The only way to fight the dark side…was to become the dark side. I almost laughed when I saw how many people came running to me then, claiming my research was so valuable. When I said I needed children’s lives to do it, they slapped me on the shoulder and agreed to it all. While happily sipping on a glass of the year’s finest red with their other hand. This city is rotten to the core.”

“Aren’t you Drencher Kihara Repatri?”

“Claiming to be a Kihara was the quickest way to get what I wanted. Ha ha. Those VIPs really were terrified of me.”

“Dammit,” spat out Hamazura Shiage.

The young man saw his own condition as of secondary importance.

It was true the ghost woman had used the children. They had been placed in a position where she could crush their lives at any moment. But had Hamazura ever seen her actually kill a child? What if they had been living in a world where they had to take the charade that far to be believed?

The old man had asked how many experimental observers’ lives were lost until he managed to properly reproduce the artificial ghost, but the young man had never answered.

That was in fact the answer. He had not sacrificed anyone. Not one. He had wanted to gather up those children known as Child Errors and drag them up out of the darkness. There ''were'' adults willing to dive into the dark side for no other reason than that.

There really were.

And yet…

“You’re lying.”

Hamazura suddenly rejected that entire premise. Because if he accepted this, he would have to admit to his own ugliness. Even if saying this would mean revealing he was ugly enough to put up a struggle like this.

“I’ve seen you before. You were at that counterfeiter’s place! You were preparing a passport for yourself so you could abandon those kids and leave the city!!”

“This all would have gone so much more smoothly if that had worked.” The young man smiled weakly. “If I had shown off how I escaped with the passport, Anti-Skill and the dark side’s focus would have turned toward District 23’s airport. Then the children would have had a safer escape underground here. I was never supposed to be down here with them.”

“~ ~ ~!!!!!!”

It felt like they lived in two completely different worlds.

And that young man was definitely the one in the right.

Hamazura felt so pathetic and contemptible for only ever acting to protect him and his girlfriend.

“I know I shouldn’t be asking this.”

The young man looked his way. As if to say it did not matter if he really was a Kihara or not.

His eyes knew how to view the light, but for some reason he now looked to someone as corrupted as Hamazura.

“Maybe it’s for the best if the dark side is destroyed, but please take care of those kids. You’re the only person I can leave them with now. When you saw your girlfriend suffering, you panicked and dumped medical supplies across the ground in your haste. I could see the conscience in your eyes. You had no choice but to fall this far, but you should still have some resistance to the dark side left inside you.”

“Wait, I’m not like that for everyone. Don’t shove this onto me! She’s my girlfriend, so of course I’d work to save her!!”

“Ha ha. Thinking that’s an ‘of course’ is what makes you such an oddity in the dark side. Don’t worry, I know you can do it. Because after falling into this shitty world, you still managed to find someone you care for and you decided to find peace instead of another thrill.”

Hamazura and Takitsubo had first heard of ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' from this man.

Hamazura had been cautious because there was no righteousness in the dark side and the man must have had his own reasons.

Was this why?

Had it been some insurance, just in case? Instead of worrying about his own survival, he had wanted some insurance for after he died.

Yet he had also slaughtered the dark sider people rushing toward this exit.

All because he could not let any harm come to the children as those people fought each other. He had rushed down a dark path to prevent a mere possibility.

But on Hamazura and Takitsubo’s way here, hadn’t the ghost woman glanced their way after slaughtering everyone else and then left, as if sparing them?

“Why did you do all this?”

That was the only question Hamazura could find.

That was not something to say to a dying man. He knew that. But after letting the dark side corrupt him while he worked so hard to ensure his and his girlfriend’s survival, this answer was too pure and upright to accept.

“How could you throw away your own life over this!? When you get down to it, those kids are just strangers! How could a goddamn harmful go this far just because you ‘wanted to save them’!? How!? Tell me!?”

The young man smiled.

There was already blood dripping from the corners of his lips.

“Do you need a reason to protect someone? Of course you don’t.”

That was the end of it.

Time stopped for him with the smile still on his lips.

He had no reason. He did not know why. And he had rushed in to save those children without ever finding a reason.

Hamazura Shiage had to admit defeat.

“A…”

The loser boy clenched his teeth. He moved his battered body, swiped the bloody handgun and some ammo from the young man, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

Losers had their own etiquette to follow.

That scummy old man was still here. Hamazura was not going to let him trample on the young man’s victory.

“Aaaneriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!”

A dull kachunk echoed through the circular space.

The support AI had taken control of the train and shifted it out of standby, so it slowly began to move.

The turntable had tracks in twelve directions, but he knew where to send it.

He just had to remember what the card-sized hard drive labeled Lifeline had said.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

In other words…

(Hours and minutes. If I apply that to an analog clock…)

“Send it down the five o’clock track!!”

The train took off with so many children in gym clothes on board.

That had been his top priority.

“Is justice contagious these days?” asked the old man with the look of someone viewing a crazy person.

He had already proven that the gun would not work, so he gave Hamazura a look of partial pity now that he had inherited that defeated weapon.

“You risked your life for this, but to no avail. Look, not all of them were onboard. They must have run in fear from the very person who would have saved them.”

“Hamazura, two of them were left behind. We can’t just leave them here.”

A boy and a girl in gym clothes were holding hands a short distance away.

What had they thought when they learned the truth behind that young man’s satisfied smile?

Especially when their own actions had worked against him.

“Well, those two will suffice. I will be taking them as a souvenir. Any more than this would have been a waste of food anyway.”

“Shut up,” spat out Hamazura.

He really should not have been doing this. He had come here to escape to safety. It had been clear from the very beginning that he could not be a great hero or brave warrior. This selfish choice here might put himself and his girlfriend in danger.

But.

Even so.

A dying man had left this with him. He had been reminded what it meant to do the right thing. There were lives here he could save. He could redo things. And most of all, his girlfriend was watching.

He was done being pathetic. He gathered strength in his sweaty body and stood up under his own power again. He had to.

“Maybe you’re a Kihara and an android.”

His goal was to run away?

No, sometimes a man had to stand up and speak his mind.

“But I’ll take you on, you goddamned dark siders!!!!!!”

He knew it was possible.

He had just seen a man stay true to this way of life.

He could reclaim his humanity. He must have learned something from what he saw here.

===Part 9===

Of course, Hamazura could never actually hit the crimson-haired android by firing the 9mm handgun at random. He knew she would deflect the bullets with her thick machete and fill him with holes.

So he did something else instead.

“Aneri!!”

A giant shape suddenly moved right next to the racing swimsuit girl.

A wheel loader used to stack up the railroad-sized containers was being remotely controlled.

“Move.”

What was that machete even made of? She did not even look in that direction as she swung her weapon and sliced apart the snowplow-looking piece of machinery. Even though she was not using any rapid vibrations or heat.

But Hamazura used that moment to pull on his girlfriend’s hand and move from there.

This was a vast circular space, but it was not an empty colosseum.

It had concrete columns just like an underground common utility duct and it had various equipment needed for operating and maintaining the trains, all located where it would not get in the way of the turntable and the twelve directions of track. Transformers were surrounded by a fence, a prefab hut had been made into a control room, giant jacks and a carwash were prepared for maintenance purposes, and more.

Aneri had directly operated the freight train, so he felt safe assuming she could operate all of the equipment here.

He pulled his girlfriend close while hiding behind a concrete column and whispering to his phone.

“Aneri, can you directly hijack that hunk of junk?”

No response.

He took that as a no. This did not sound like it was an issue of building up to that or setting something up in advance. That android was immune to cyber attacks on some level he did not understand.

(That means the only option is to destroy her the old-fashioned way!!)

“Hamazura, we can’t hide here forever. If she stops focusing on us, she’ll go after those children. Villains always go for the easiest target.”

“I know that.”

Takitsubo kept trying to wipe the sweat from her brow, but something was not right. The moxibustion should have relieved her symptoms to an extent, but that treatment might not be working as much anymore.

He was worried, but he could not stop now. He hated that fact.

“But using ourselves as bait will put us at risk. Are you prepared for that, Takitsubo?”

“Ask any more stupid questions and I’ll slap you.”

“Okay, it’s time to win your heart all over again!!”

They both ran out from behind the concrete column.

Their eyes met the ones with pupils mechanically expanding and contracting, but they stayed strong this time.

===Part 10===

Ladybird had a lock on two targets.

She walked barefoot across the floor and accurately obeyed her instructions, but she also had a question.

Why were the children necessary?

Kihara Hasuu—her Sensei—was researching androids. He had already successfully created one, so he no longer needed to capture biological humans to dissect and observe them. This disagreement appeared to be over ownership of the Child Errors (she failed to realize it was her education by that true Kihara that led her to use the word “ownership” in this context), but why was the old man so insistent on this?

That unfortunate research was a thing of the past.

She was an android built from purely mechanical parts, but she could use an esper power. That meant no more human specimens were needed for esper development experiments. They only had to mess with machines from now on. The Child Errors no longer needed to be captured and used up.

She thought that was a wonderful thing. She could not believe the people who still clung to the old system that required humans to use other humans. Did they wish to protect the status given to them by the current Level system? If they truly believed their fight was just, then they were beyond reasoning with. Machines were not the only ones that could have their memory data rewritten. Humans could have their feelings and thoughts falsified as well.

So she would bring an end to it all.

She was fighting here to end the misfortune and tragedies caused by the esper development program.

“Ohhhh!!”

The boy raised a meaningless battle cry, ran in, and repeatedly fired his handgun. She only had to block those shots with her machete.

But he had apparently learned how she fought.

She tried to hit him with the ricochets, but they refused to hit. When she deflected a bullet back, it would follow the same straight trajectory. Placing a single piece of plywood in the middle would change things. A bullet’s force was determined by its muzzle velocity. The force of the ricochet would generally be lower. That was obvious enough since bullets were not constantly accelerating like a rocket or missile. So he could set it up so he could shoot her through an obstacle, but she could not break through it on the way back.

Her use of ricochets was similar to Accelerator’s reflection, but all her machete did was knock the bullet back. She could not ''include the actual vector in that''.

That said…

(I doubt someone with such a stupid face could do this. He must be receiving assistance with the calculations.)

She considered jumping. Lifting both feet from the ground was usually a bad idea in combat, but not so with her. With her android specs, she could kick off of one column to the next and attack from the air.

She heard the loud roar of an engine while dealing with the bullets.

It appeared to come from a forklift.

“Aneri, surround the kids! I don’t know where that old man got off to, but don’t let him get close!! If he tries it, run him over!!”

“Don’t get distracted.”

He could have gotten a hit in on her by sending the forklift in from the side while firing on her from the front. Not that a blow like that would be enough to destroy her frame.

She swung the thick machete in her right hand while gathering her strength in the space between her eyebrows.

That was how she aimed.

A blast of wind blew away the obstacles between her and Hamazura Shiage. It was more like they were obliterated by an explosion than swept away by wind.

“An esper power!?” shouted the boy.

“It looked to be Level 3 or higher,” said the girl.

She no longer had to worry about the gunfire now that the line of fire was clear. He must have known the risk of ricochets was back because he stopped attacking and hid behind a nearby column, but that was no defense. She could charge in and slice through the column and his torso behind it with a single horizontal sweep of her blade.

She had enough time to reach her other hand to her thigh, pull out the bottle, and take a drink of the discharge machine oil.

A dull boom burst out.

She was only an android modeled after the structure of the human body, but the materials used for her skeleton, muscles, and everything else were bizarre dark side tech. If she wanted to, her horsepower could rival a V12 engine at max RPM.

But even as she chose the correct action, her mechanical head was filled with questions.

She had used a wind power.

But hadn’t she used fire during her previous clash with these people? And what about the time before that?

Androids had the same structure as humans, so a single android should only have a single power. Or could she do what humans could not because she was a machine?

(Sensei?)

===Part 11===

A column of reinforced concrete was sliced through as easily as tofu or thin paper.

Not horizontally or diagonally—vertically and all the way through. After kicking from column to column to gain height, she had apparently dropped down like lightning. She had a human form, but she could perform superhuman movements.

Hamazura Shiage had tried to jump to the side just beforehand, but he ended up tumbling into a roll.

It was not his torso sliced through along with the column. It was a gas drum kept on hand for the facility’s auxiliary power generator.

He grimaced at the pain in his hips as he continued rolling and pulled the trigger repeatedly.

Not even Ladybird could deflect bullets that hit the concrete ground and sent sparks flying.

The vaporizing gasoline ignited into explosive flames that swallowed up the entire racing swimsuit silhouette.

However…

“No, Hamazura! It didn’t work!!”

“Tch!!”

He clicked his tongue while the track suit girl ran over from elsewhere and pulled him to his feet. A black figure was displayed on the other side of that fiery screen. She showed no sign of collapsing or writhing in pain.

Had she used that previous wind power to affect how the flames spread?

He hoped so. If she was simply this tough, he could not imagine how to defeat her.

“How ''do'' you defeat an android anyway? Strangle her or stab her in the heart, she’s still a machine. That won’t stop her!!”

Could he break her motherboard? Or pull out her battery? But he had no idea how many she had or where in her slender body they were located.

The roaring flames were sliced apart. A horizontal sweep of the heavy metal machete conquered the orange barrier. The barefoot android stepped through entirely unscathed. There was no sign of discoloration on her crimson hair, white skin, or orange and black racing swimsuit.

“Something isn’t right,” said Takitsubo Rikou with eyes seemingly more robotic than the machine’s. What was she looking at right now? “An android that uses esper powers is conceivably possible. Mechanical processing may be able to ‘observe’ the waves or particles like a human brain does. And if you developed that far enough, you might be able to purposefully select between different supernatural phenomena. But this wavelength is simpler than that.”

“You mean how she switches between powers?” spat out Hamazura. “That container base in the garbage pile was their lab, right? Then I get why that old man wants those kids so bad. Even if I don’t know exactly ''how'' he would use them.”

Now, why were they able to spend so long discussing this?

The delinquent boy made sure to keep his gun aimed, but the android in question was only tilting her head.

A dark liquid was dripping from her eyes and nose.

He had seen that before. Immediately after she had been hit by the hakama girl and fought back with her fire power.

“Oh, dear.”

Kihara Hasuu’s voice reached them from somewhere, but it was echoing too much to tell where it came from. Hamazura would have shot the man if he saw him.

“Is it that time already? This is why I wanted to stock up sooner rather than later.”

“Hey.” Hamazura shouted at the unseen man. “Isn’t that cheating? You can’t really call her an android if that’s what you’re doing.”

The boy watched as the girl in the orange and black racing swimsuit held her head and doubled over.

A low straining sound came from her.

Then her back opened along the line from her nape to her tailbone.

The clasp holding together the X-shaped band at the center of the swimsuit’s back popped open and the supports were released in four directions.

Then her soft skin opened wide while supported at her nape.

Her opened back almost looked like a steam locomotive’s boiler or a furnace from hell. The fact that it was smooth human skin instead of a thick metal door gave it the sinister appearance of an insect’s shell opening up.

The top half of her swimsuit fell out of place, but her chest was not visible.

Her long red hair dropped down to cover it up.

She had planted her hands and feet on the ground like a beast.

Something translucent crawled out of her. It looked like a long, narrow blade or like a wriggling snake. It would grab something, drag it inside her, and cut it away. It was an automatic extraction organ.

Hamazura knew what it was for.

“I saw the junk those trash collectors were taking back after searching through those piles of abandoned items. A fridge was full of some brownish filth.”

He felt nauseated just remembering it.

He grimaced as he viewed that monster.

“''It was stuffed full of corpses with the contents of their heads removed.'' When those trash collectors were searching out fridges and washing machines, they weren’t selling them to used appliance stores. They were opening up bloodstained boxes packed full of still-usable organs. And they all came from your lab, didn’t they!?”

“Well, the ordinary corpses were apparently disposed of in District 10’s slums, but there are a lot of people willing to buy up ones fresh enough to make use of their parts.”

Ladybird was not an android with esper powers. She was as harmful as they came. She was a machine that would devour people’s brains when necessary. In Hamazura’s opinion, that meant she did not fit the definition of an android.

“This is a completely different approach from the Rensa model of esper cyborg. Instead of a cyborg made by ''giving a brain a body'', Ladybird-kun ''is a body given a brain.''” Hasuu sounded like he was introducing his favorite grandchild. “Cellulose nanofiber is a carbon material gathering attention for its use in making wires and bulletproof materials, but the point is we can create delicate wires even thinner than the cranial nerves. But unlike a biological brain, leaving them in their active state causes them to automatically replicate and they will try to forcibly fold themselves up for space if they run out of room in the skull. The cerebrum’s frontal lobe is especially troublesome. So ''a foreign object'' must be introduced to constantly provide just the right amount of damage to ensure the brain remains the size I want it. Her power changes each time a new ''foreign object'' is introduced, but that is due to the change in the rejection and damage pattern. You can think of that as a simple idiosyncrasy.”

“Sen…sei?”

A grinding sound came from Ladybird while she seemed to be searching for something. However the old researcher described it, a human brain was apparently a necessary part for her to run. Her movements were noticeably stiff and awkward as she pursued that poison on her own.

“Sensei…but you said this research would help. You said the spread of androids would mean no more human specimens were needed for the esper development.”

“The ladybird—another name for the ladybug—might look humorous, but it is in fact a ravenous carnivore. You have heard that they are good to have around because they eat aphids, haven’t you?”

“Gh…kh.”

“And there are a lot of insects that mimic ladybugs. That includes a type of darkling beetle and cockroach, both kinds of bugs people might not normally want around. But that is not actually a type of protective coloration. Ha ha. Instead of trying to blend into their natural surroundings or avoid their predators, that coloration might actually be used to make humans like them.”

How deep did the dark side go?

How disgusting could the dark said get?

“So don’t you see?”

Its attacks were indiscriminate, like a cannibal insect.

The developer spoke to what looked like a lovely girl. And he seemed to be enjoying it immensely.

“''That is the perfect name for you.''”

===Part 12===

text> @I thought there was a problem with the world.

text> @I thought it was wrong for @humans to use @humans for their research in this city.

text> But @I could climb onto the examination table instead.

text> @I can be repaired or remade as many times as necessary.

text> Since my body was made identically to a @human’s, @I would be able to use an esper power as well. Pieces of my body could be freely added or removed, so @I could be examined inside and out more easily than a @human and @I could be modified as they saw fit.

text> No more sacrifices would be necessary for the esper development research.

text> That is why @I fought.

text> @I thought @Sensei’s research was a wonderful thing.

''“You know, Ladybird-kun, the term android signifies an artificial human built with an engineering approach. Based on that definition, it seems appropriate to me for a completed android to behave like a human.”

text> @Sensei’s words were like a shining light of hope.

text> @I wondered if @I really was good enough.

text> But @I was happy as long as @I could be of some use. @I think that kind of feeling is not something a simple machine could feel.

text> Does that mean @I am somehow @human?

text> The @humans that @I have seen are like that. They do not hesitate to make inefficient choices without even considering cost performance.

text> That is why @I find @humans to be so incredible.

text> @I have not spoken much with any other than @Sensei, but @I know that is because @androids cannot be made public yet. But @I love the @humans that @I see from a distance.

text> @I will build a path to a brighter future for them—a path to a happier world—so @I cannot allow someone to destroy all that just because they do not understand. So I will not let anyone interfere. Anyone who claims it is right to harm @people cannot be allowed to trample on the future @I can bring them.

text> So…

text>And yet…

===Part 13===

“Ah, ahh. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

The lovely girl in a racing swimsuit screamed.

All light vanished from her already mechanical eyes. She had fully transformed into a grotesque predator that roared on all fours.

She wanted to reject the idea, but she could not.

The only way to preserve herself was to devour that raw body tissue and bring it to the most important part of her body. Because intentionally introducing that foreign object would trigger a rejection reaction that would continue to damage her head in just the right way. That truth was more horrifying than needing to soak in a bathtub full of rotting corpses every day. Yet she could not stop. She was not allowed to stop. That had been built into her at the design phase, whether she liked it or not. She would always return to it like a drowning person struggling to reach the surface for air.

Tears spilled from her eyes.

Her mechanical face was painted with anger, hatred, and shame.

Why was she designed to do that?

An ordinary person like Hamazura could not figure it out. What logical reason was there? It almost felt like the cruelty of someone who enjoyed to watch others suffer.

At the same time, everything she needed to survive was contained inside her. Or maybe it was more accurate to say she had been built as an autonomous iron maiden. The victim was thrown into her back, the door to that steam locomotive boiler would slam shut, and the rest was completed automatically. She was made to do that and she must have actually done it several times before.

At that point, it was not an issue of good and evil on her part.

Hamazura could not judge her, but he did have to stop her.

No matter what.

“Grahhhhhhhh!!” she roared.

“Hamazura!!”

Takitsubo shouted in a panic because the red figure had vanished.

But the quadrupedal android had not leaped toward Hamazura or Takitsubo. Nor did she leap toward Kihara Hasuu who had made her this way. She went for someone else. She gained height by kicking off the columns and she moved every closer to the smallest and easiest prey: the kids in gym clothes.

Her instincts took precedence over strategy or emotion.

“Aneri!!”

A hacked track inspection car drove in from the side to tear apart an exposed high-voltage power line for the train. The power line whipped like a serpent and tangled around the android.

A great crash followed.

Knocking her to the ground was not going to flatten Ladybird, but it mattered a lot that she had fallen on her right side with the machete still in that hand.

She could not use that to defend with her arm caught between herself and the ground.

Hamazura gripped the small revolver in both hands and fired several times.

Dry gunshots expanded through the enclosed space.

This time, the shots actually hit the android whose back was turned to him. The “mouth” on her back quickly closed before she had even withdrawn the extraction organ that resembled the thin wing of an insect or a giant scalpel, but that was all that happened. It did not seem to do any real damage to her.

She used one arm to tear away the exposed power line wrapped around her like a serpent, freeing herself. At this rate, the forklifts protecting the children would not last long.

There was no time to spare.

“Boy!! Do you want to protect that girl!?” shouted Hamazura from a distance.

He did not wait for a response. The boy’s efforts had backfired badly, but if he did not care about that girl, he would not have gotten her off the train so she could escape.

Hamazura Shiage decided to trust this fellow human being.

“Then be brave and step forward! Falling back only gives her more of a chance to eat you two!!”

When the boy protecting his friend squeezed his eyes shut and stepped forward, Ladybird briefly came to a stop. She needed the soft brains inside those children. That was the poison she needed to damage herself.

But moving up to her was the right choice.

It was just like a cowboy’s lasso. You could swing it overhead to gather strength all you liked, but it would still be hard to throw it around the head of someone who was close enough to hug you. The android’s extraction organ looked like the thin wing of an insect or a transparent sword, but it was very long. That meant it was hard to use against someone right up in front of her.

But this method would only buy a few seconds at most.

Once she moved to the proper distance and tried again, the boy really would be eaten.

Hamazura made his next move before she could do that.

He had picked up a bottle of industrial cleaner presumably used to wash the train and he chucked it over a metal fence to hit a device larger than a refrigerator.

The giant railroad transformer scattered a frightening amount of sparks. And while it was invisible, it also sent out powerful electromagnetic waves.

Those waves’ effect on the human body was unknown, but their effect on a machine would be much more severe.

He heard a scream. That thing shaped like a calm and composed girl was now writhing on the ground in apparent pain.

Hamazura ran over, fired two or three shots at her, and continued on past her. Then he picked up the gym clothes boy still standing in danger and slid along the ground like a baseball player.

He hid behind the concrete column where the gym clothes girl was.

“Well done, boy. It’ll be okay now.”

Maybe someone from Anti-Skill or Judgment should have been saying that.

Maybe someone from the filthy dark side had no right to say it.

But he had taken over for a man who had wanted to say that so very badly.

And while he said that, Hamazura made sure to check his phone where the kids could not see. The screen was dead and Aneri was not responding. He doubted her program had been taken out, but without a device to receive her instructions, he had lost the support AI’s help.

It really would be one-on-one from here on.

But he did not need to let that show on his face.

“Maybe she’s with the dark side and maybe she isn’t, I dunno, but I don’t want to trample on her dignity any longer.” He looked the boy in the eye. “I’m going to end this here. Listen, don’t get yourselves killed. You need to survive if I’m going to save her.”

“What are you going to do?”

The gym clothes boy’s voice was vanishingly quiet, but he still got it out.

Even if he had to suppress the trembling in his body.

“I don’t want to run away anymore. What I did wasn’t brave. If I had faced mister honestly, he wouldn’t have had to get hurt. So…!!”

“Then help me out.”

Hamazura had planned to tell the boy to take the girl’s hand and run as far away as possible on his signal.

But he changed his mind.

Drencher Kihara Repatri, that young man who had wanted to save the children who would be used up by the dark side, was dead and nothing could change that. But this boy’s eyes carried the light the man had instilled in those children. After losing to Drencher, Hamazura could not allow that light to be extinguished.

No matter what.

So he changed his mind.

“I need a few tools to finish this. I’ll buy some time with this gun, so you gather them for me. Can you do that?”

Hamazura recalled the hard sensation in his pocket and clicked his tongue. He tried pulling it out, but its shine was still dull. It was not quite fully charged. The golden shine had yet to make a full circle around the edge of the coin. But that was fine. He threw the coin as far as he could, even though he had no idea if it would draw Ladybird’s attention or not.

He did not regret losing it.

He did not need the Coin of Nicholas.

Everyone already had the ability to switch over the tracks to a different route.

He would take a different route here and he did not need the creepy occult to do it.

He needed something else.

===Part 14===

She had found them.

Ladybird planted her hands and feet on the cold concrete ground while she located her target again.

She did not know how this would help her. If she captured them, her horrific feast would begin. But she could not stop herself.

She could not change this about herself. She could not escape her fate, just like a drowning person would subconsciously swim toward the surface.

…Even though she had wanted to protect the humans.

She would eat them.

This suffering would never end unless she consumed a human brain.

…Even though she was supposed to free those children from the darkness by lying on the dissection table herself.

“Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhh, ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

Her vision blurred.

But even her tears were scattered by the blowing wind of her great speed.

Even during unstable bipedal movement, she could rival a V12 engine at max RPMs, so her top speed had increased even further now that she had abandoned her dignity as a girl and gained the efficiency of a machine.

It did not matter if they were an adult or a child.

Puny human legs could never escape her.

She pursued her target as accurately as a precision-guided weapon. She charged toward those distinctive gym clothes.

Handgun bullets attacked her from the side. Even after all this, she had not let go of the thick machete. And without any obstacles in the way, firing on her was suicide. She could accurately kill the shooter with the ricochet by adjusting the angle of her weapon.

Or so she thought.

Instead, the reaction speed of her right hand had slowed by 0.5 seconds.

“?”

That was a devastating delay.

The storm of lead hit her and she tumbled along the ground. A 9mm round was not enough to destroy her bones or muscles—the problem was her speed. The impact from the side easily knocked her off balance and she broke through two or three concrete columns along the way.

But what was this?

What had happened? She had been moving on all fours, but that had not affected her right arm’s movable range. When she checked, she found no report of her movement performance having dropped.

The problem must have come before that.

She finally realized there had been an error in her targeting.

A whitish smoke was filling the entire circular space.

It was a smokescreen.

(It can’t be.)

More gunfire. She immediately readied her machete, but that did not work when she could only respond after the fact. She could not protect herself and the bullets slipped past the weapon to slam into her body.

“Gahhh!!”

===Part 15===

Hamazura Shiage had seen what happened in that container lab buried in trash. The long silver-haired hakama girl had made a desperate attack to save him and Takitsubo. She had grabbed the android’s face with her palm and shoved burning incense in the android’s mouth.

But how did that make sense? If Ladybird had the reaction speed to deflect every bullet fired at her, how had she overlooked a human hand?

“The dark side is coldhearted to everyone. You don’t get lucky for no good reason.”

The weak were always observant. After going through that sorrowful goodbye and seeing the girl suffering from so much pain, he had decided to at least use what she had taught him.

This was the world’s oldest chemical weapon.

That sounded fancy, but it was easily made with ordinary items.

You could use the hexachloroethane found in commercial bug sprays or make a powder out of the zinc used in all sorts of things in everyday life. Hamazura recalled that Hanzou had been an expert at stuff like this.

“A smokescreen!! It might not stop IR and ultrasound, but your high-speed defenses aren’t a threat if your sensors malfunction for even a moment!!”

===Part 16===

So?

What did that matter?

The intense hunger inside Ladybird continued to grow. It was more like a desire for oxygen than for food or water.

She was going to kill.

Just the one brain would suffice.

Her thoughts focused more and more on that one goal.

…What had she wanted to save again?

She managed to detect something in the powerful smokescreen.

She spotted a small figure in gym clothes.

…What had once been a girl wept as she raised her voice.

“010011101010110001011001101111001011!!”

She could not even get out actual words anymore.

Something inside her had fried.

After rushing toward her target faster than a racecar, she opened up once more. The small size suggested this was the girl. Ladybird’s back opened wide and the thin translucent thing burst out. Several of those predatory organs stuck out like thin insect wings or like long tongues. They wrapped around her target to bind them and then she shoved the heavy mass inside herself.

This was the dark side.

The good were not rewarded and the evil were not punished.

And.

And.

And.

“…?”

When did she notice something was wrong?

The gym clothes had been on a figure small enough to easily lift up in her arms. That much was true. But what was with that weight? Would a child of around ten really weigh more than 200 kilograms?

“It can’t be!?”

In that moment, Ladybird’s heart was filled by a feeling of…

===Part 17===

Ladybird was not the only one with their target in sight.

Hamazura Shiage accurately aimed his handgun.

“You didn’t like it when I fired on you from behind earlier, did you? Almost like you didn’t want a bullet getting inside that ‘mouth’ on your back.”

The weak were always observant.

The only way to make up for the difference in strength was to search out a weakness.

“And when you were engulfed in flames by that gasoline, you extinguished it with a swing of your machete. That was pretty scary at first glance, but if it really couldn’t harm you, you wouldn’t need to put out the flames, would you?”

He had not used the smokescreen to reduce the effectiveness of her sensors just to hit her with a few useless 9mm bullets.

But making that attack had convinced her that was all it was for.

This was the smokescreen’s true purpose.

The curtain of smoke had let her see the gym clothes without realizing they were on a metal drum and he had baited her into trying to eat that.

Plus, he had already proven that the handgun bullets were enough to ignite the contents of those metal drums.

He fired repeatedly toward her back.

Toward the centerline down her back that resembled the zipper on a costume. The oversized target prevented her from fully closing her back, so he only had to fire on that gap as if shoving the bullets on in there.

The metal drum she had taken into herself now expanded within her.

It exploded.

When the intense boom echoed out from her, he knew he had won. The blast and shockwave were enough to blow away the smokescreen.

He wished he had not seen what remained afterwards.

He was the one who had caused those remains to be strewn across the ground here.

“Hamazura!!”

“I’m fine.”

He bit his lip with the small revolver still in hand.

“Her head moved weirdly in the smokescreen there,” he said. “And then that scream. ''Something other than her mechanical thought process kicked in.'' Without that, I don’t think the metal drum would have tricked her.”

Her attack had been running off of a program, so maybe the parameters could be overwritten and the attributes could be switched on and off.

“She must have remembered something.”

He hung his head and looked down instead of at his girlfriend.

Something was lying on the ground there.

“So in that final moment, she did what she could to save those kids.”

The girl’s head had rolled over toward him and it looked to him like she was smiling.

Because now she would never have to kill again.

===Part 18===

This was a surprise.

He had not even considered what he would do if this happened.

Kihara Hasuu stood in a daze after being left all alone. Finally, he looked around the vast circular space.

Takitsubo looked to be in pain. The moxibustion’s effects would not last forever.

“Pant, gasp.”

“Takitsubo.”

A sinister metallic click sounded. It came from a small revolver.

“Get the kids away from here. It’s time for a grownup chat with that man.”

“…Okay.” Takitsubo nodded. “Are you sure, Hamazura?”

“Yeah. We have to do this before we run away.”

Once no one else was around to see this, the delinquent boy approached the old man with the handgun in his grasp.

“Got anything else?” His voice sounded cold and hard, like a machine. “You’re one of those rumored Kiharas, aren’t you? Did you modify your own body with that android tech?”

“…”

“If not, it’s about time we woke up from this nightmare.”

The revolver’s muzzle rose. His cold voice contained a hint of blatant scorn. Like he refused to accept that this man was unharmed after making Ladybird suffer so.

“You will pay for what you did to ''that girl''. I can’t think of any reason why I should forgive you. I doubt I ever could. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stand on the side of justice. But if I don’t do this here, the justice I couldn’t be will die. I might be dumb, but I can tell that much.”

Yes.

The look in the boy’s eyes said he could not let this man live. ''Kihara Hasuu considered that the correct answer.'' He had not felt anger or sorrow upon Ladybird’s defeat. He had seen a problem to solve and improvements to make. If he were freed from here, he would immediately begin development on the next generation. That would mean many more victims. He knew himself well enough to say that.

And now that there was new research to be done, he had something to live for.

That was his fate as a Kihara.

He did not want to die yet.

He could not let himself die.

No matter what.

“You have set a record here. This will make you the new Kihara Killer.”

“This is over.”

“That is a serious crime. You will undoubtedly become the center of the new dark side. And Academy City will always demand more live sacrifices, whether you want it or not!!”

“Don’t try to stall for time. You’re dead and nothing’s changing that.”

This conversation was meaningless.

Would the boy normally have said so much on reflex? Set a record, Kihara Killer, center of the dark side – Kihara Hasuu’s wording was meant to give his opponent a big head. Was there any way – any way at all – to turn the tables on the boy? The old man was racking his brains the entire time he was buying time. It could be anything. As one who bore the name Kihara, he was willing to break all forms of ethics and standards if need be.

Then he saw it. He noticed something out of place – a gold shine on the cold concrete ground.

It was a Coin of Nicholas.

The clockwise shine had filled the outer edge now. It was fully charged.

“!!”

He immediately leaped at it and grabbed it in his special engineering glove.

He raised his voice.

He wanted to get started on his next research even if it meant relying on something very unscientific.

“Make his gun malfunction, Coin of Nicholas!!”

Who was to blame for this? The actual phenomenon occurred a moment later.

The result was perfectly fair.

A bullet flew from Hamazura Shiage’s handgun.

Yes, there were more ways for a gun to malfunction than for the bullet to jam or even to explode inside, blowing up the gun and the wielder’s hand along with it.

It could also fire the bullet without the trigger being pulled.

“Huh?”

The old man looked down.

He could not believe that he had been hit in the gut, rupturing his stomach of all things. More than the bleeding, his own vomit contaminated his body where a single germ could ultimately be fatal. He collapsed, suffered for more than 5 full minutes, and finally passed away. Stomach acid was primarily composed of hydrochloric acid. What did it feel like to be placed on the surgical table, have your gut cut open, and have a bunch of that dumped inside? All without anesthetic, of course.

The old man had lost his life to his own prayer.

A believer in science had relied on something beyond the bounds of science.

This was the fate of someone who stopped trying to do his own work. But in a way, this may have been exactly what he deserved.

If he had relied on his own strength from the beginning, he never would have earned such resentment over Ladybird.

[[Image:GT_Index_v03_459.jpg|thumb]]

If he had cut out pieces of his own flesh for his experiments, he never would have gotten into an argument over what to do with the children in gym clothes.

If he had chosen that path, everyone who had arrived here maybe could have worked together to survive.

Hamazura did not think the android was at fault.

Kihara Hasuu might agree, but it would mean something very different coming from him. The old man’s crime and punishment had to be defined by his own nature. Speaking as an expert required earnestly facing what parts of science you wished to preserve.

Was this too a present from heaven?

That coin was a trap that provided obvious miracles but also took away all other options you might try.

Hamazura Shiage spoke quietly while viewing the scum still gripping that gold coin after he had stopped moving.

Was his face blank?

Or was he suppressing an inappropriate smile?

“Merry Christmas. Did you enjoy your miracle, mad scientist?”

===Map===

[[Image:GT_Index_v03_460-461.jpg|thumb]]

Below District 10:

Hamazura Shiage – Beneficial

Takitsubo Rikou – Beneficial

Kihara Hasuu – Harmful

Ladybird – Harmful

Drencher Kihara Repatri – Beneficial

Frillsand #G – Beneficial

===Between the Lines 4===

“It’s over.” Anna Sprengel spoke bluntly behind the cold bars. “That marks the end of the December 25 festivities. I doubt anything more will happen now, so I suppose my entertainment has come to a close. Well, at least I managed to gather up some decent ‘fluctuations’. If everything had gone as planned, I might have been so disgusted I switched it off.”

She received no response from the next cell.

Most likely, no one knew what he was thinking.

The human damage had been far too great to say his silence was the most eloquent answer of all.

“What were you picturing? How did you see Operation Handcuffs ending? I bet your dream wasn’t half bad.”

So only Anna’s voice filled this space.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of. Most any adult can think of some embarrassing disaster from their teenage years. The more you express your dreams, the sooner those dreams will be crushed. That’s why the most effective method is to hide what you want and work to reveal what everyone else wants so you can work against them. Hee hee. ''If you want to accomplish something great, you first need to hide your primary objective.'' You were a little too pure. You need to muddy the waters a little.”

A solid clink echoed through the cold air.

The girl who looked only 10 had flicked a gold coin into the air and then caught it in her hand.

“The Coin of Nicholas.”

The Board Chairman had lost control.

He had lost the ability to keep tabs on things.

The number of malicious accidents had been far too great. He had tried to give instructions from his cell, but he had been in no position to stop the snowball once it began rolling down the hill.

Because if he did that, the #1 would have once more become the #1 darkness.

He had sealed away his monstrous side.

He had sworn he would.

So. And yet.

“Adding in this one little foreign element shredded the flowchart you had in your head. You had it set up so the dark side would be dismantled and the people would peacefully surrender no matter how things played out, but that happy ending was torn to pieces and everyone chose for themselves to dive into a free world of high-risk death. …Who got them was random, but in the end ''only one person'' managed to break free of its bonds on their own. He slipped below my radar. I even contacted him during the day, yet I overlooked him. That is highly unusual.”

She sounded amused.

She almost seemed to place more importance on this than the #1 in the neighboring cell.

“I learned just the one thing from this spare time between experiments,” she continued.

Her voice seemed to have gone flat, like she had arrived at exactly the result she had predicted.

“''The freedom of magic wins out over the order of science.'' No matter how carefully you build everything up, I will still tear it down, overwrite it, and crush it.”

After a beat, she added one more thing like a mischievous child revealing a secret.

“Of course, these categories really don’t mean much of anything in the first place.”

She slid the edge of the golden coin along the crossbar of the barred door.

The scraping of metal on metal almost drowned out the click of a mechanism working.

The door had unlocked.

With no regard for how the lock actually worked.

“This is yet another miracle.”

The cell of science could not hold magic.

It was a very blunt metaphor.

She slowly walked out into the corridor and began to pass by the neighboring cell.

“As the name suggests, the Coin of Nicholas is a spiritual item limited to Christmas. Although it absorbs power directly from the ley lines instead of from the magician’s body, so it is technically more like a grimoire than a spiritual item. This chaos is a dream you will wake from come morning. It will not last long, so don’t worry.”

“How dare you!!”

Finally.

Something translucent challenged her from behind the bars. She looked like a lovely girl with marine creature elements and bat wings attached and she wore a dress of English newspapers covered in articles that some might consider profane. Metal bars meant nothing to her. She broke through them with a shower of orange sparks and she grabbed at the little girl covering herself with a thin red cloth.

She was Qliphah Puzzle 545, an artificial demon prepared as a trump card by the Anglican Archbishop who had once tried to overthrow the world.

However…

“I’m trying to talk. Don’t interrupt when you don’t even understand what I mean.”

All of a sudden, something stood next to the little girl.

The translucent being was an angel with a falcon head and a powerful body. As soon as a vertical crack ran through him, the angel mercilessly stripped off his entire body.

He was now a sun.

A dreadful light burst out and filled the space as it attacked the demon girl.

“Kyahhh!!”

Accelerator did not even stir.

The #1 had his reflection.

''Yet a red liquid dripped from the corner of his mouth.

“Think before you speak. Just think about it and you should realize that now is not the time for you to interrupt.”

Anna was not even looking in his direction.

She simply waved goodbye.

“My experiment is complete. Things will go differently next time.”

She never did look through the bars. She was already looking to some other place as she walked away.

But she did give a final parting comment.

“Send ''him'' my regards.”

Accelerator leaned back against the hard wall, let his hips sink to the cold floor, and lowered his head.

He did not speak a word.

One thing had been proven here. His small dream would never come true

Not as long as she was here.

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter4

2020-11-23T17:44:27Z

SNovah: /* Part 14 */

==Chapter 4: The Demon Lord’s Young — the_LIGHT.==

===Part 1===

“Where have you been, Risako!?”

“Mister, Risako-chan is back!!”

The gym clothes girl laughed when she saw the other children gathered around.

“Eh heh heh. A doggy and an older girl saved me.”

They must have been preparing for another move because all the trucks had their engines running. But they had waited until they had found the girl with red hair done up like candy. She was relieved. Having a home to return to was a wonderful thing.

“''A doggy,'' huh?” said the artificial ghost called Frillsand #G.

“…”

Her comment made the young researcher fall silent for a bit.

His name was Drencher Kihara Repatri.

That family name was so well known in the dark side that it had become a more powerful classification than beneficial or harmful. The man who bore that name sighed softly to help refocus his mind.

“There is a chance we’ve been located, but we’re faster at the moment. If we move before they catch up, we can reach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' without issue.”

“Do you really think this world will allow any of this to go ‘without issue’?”

“It’s our job to make sure it happens.”

The adults exchanged their views with their voices too low for the excited children to hear.

But a certain boy kept his voice low for a different reason.

“Risako.”

“Oh, Sodate-chan.”

The tall boy in the same kind of gym clothes looked troubled for some reason. In fact, he looked close to tears. Risako tilted her head, thinking he was afraid she would get after him about the ball and chemical soap, but this was different.

“So you came back,” he said.

“Eh?”

“I was hoping maybe you were gone for good.”

He had wanted that? Did he hate her that much? Risako’s face clouded over, but this was again different. He shook his head and explained.

He was the only one of the children who had ''started to question these motion sensors they wore for some kind of experiment.''

“Because then at least you might have been safe.”

===Part 2===

He was afraid of screwing it up, so he started by drawing marks on her back with a marker.

“Hamazura, that tickles.”

“Stay still.”

The old book had a brush-drawn diagram with no perspective or attempt to make it look three-dimensional. The indicated locations of the organs were clearly not right. Maybe it was like the difference between an aerial photograph of the clouds and the isobars on the weather forecast map. He wondered if this was what all traditional Japanese medicine was like as he drew Xs on his girlfriend’s body. She had even removed her bra and was holding her chest in her hands while showing him her smooth back. He thought his heart was going to burst every time she squirmed from the ticklishness. Even he knew that reaction was inappropriate given the circumstances. Once he finished that, it was finally time to start. He faced the girl while she lay face down on the container lab’s work table like she was sunbathing.

The moxa used for the moxibustion was like fluffy cotton, but he actually had to set it on fire.

It felt wrong doing that on her soft skin and he could even permanently scar her if he screwed it up.

“…”

His fear came to the forefront now that it was time to do it, but this was the only way to help her with the fever.

He fought the desire to shut his eyes and placed a small pile of “fuel” on her soft skin. He worked at the lighter with a trembling hand, but he kept failing. Once he finally had a small flame, he slowly moved it in close.

“Nh.”

“A-are you okay, Takitsubo?”

“I’m fine.”

He continued the process a few more times. He had his doubts, but when she wiped the sweat from her brow, no more sweat beaded up. It did seem to be working.

He could not thank the hakama girl enough.

He could not waste this chance she had given them, so they had to approach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''.

That card-sized hard drive had been labelled with the word “Lifeline”.

Aneri must have decided the data would be too small to see on his phone because she displayed it a flat screen monitor in the lab instead. It was a series of numbers.

It looked like a calculation sheet made with spreadsheet software, but even that was enough to make the delinquent boy’s head hurt. Maybe it was important data, but he had no idea what he was supposed to focus on.

“This looks like materials data,” said Takitsubo after peering at it from the side.

“Materials?”

“Whether they’re beneficial or harmful, the dark side does a lot of research.” She pointed at one of the numbers. “They’re also building a lot of military weapons. But doesn’t it seem odd? Academy City is a mass consumer and it only has so much land since it’s surrounded by walls. You can’t just dig into the ground here and find oil or ores. So where do they get all those materials from?”

“Where? Isn’t that what the cooperative institutions around the world are for? They can work out a deal with them.”

“But how can they do that without leaving any record of it?”

She pointed at another number.

If a citizens group monitoring the flow of money and materials could reveal a secret, then it had never been part of the dark side to begin with.

“Look at this. The dark side is using far more materials than the total amount brought in from outside the city. Cutting off the fat and redistributing it to themselves would not be enough for this. The amount the dark side uses is several times larger. This would show up in the records no matter what you did. Important people like the Board of Directors and its Chairman can only cover up so much. This is too much. It’s well past what you could hide by cooking the books.”

“But then…”

He trailed off when Aneri opened a new window. A single point on a map of Academy City was colored in red. There was a secret there.

“They have an entrance and exit that doesn’t leave any records,” said the track suit girl while viewing the screen.

There were several files that appeared to be saved from message boards and social media pages. Reading through them showed a certain point in common.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

Takitsubo pointed at that bizarre statement.

“There is a way of reaching it and we should see hints of it in the rumors told around the city. Like the ‘!’ signs, a deadly train, kidnappers at the amusement park, babies in the coin lockers, or an underground construction zone where you can dump anything you don’t want found. But none of that gets at the real truth.”

“You mean…?”

“Academy City doesn’t promote recycling so much just because it wants to make the most of its limited resources. ''Sending things back to be recycled over and over again masks how much materials are actually being used.'' They can’t have an investigation revealing that we dump out several times more trash than materials we take in, right? That would violate conservation of mass. So they needed to make it hard to compare those two values. It’s a form of laundering.”

Why was that sleight of hand necessary? How did they reach the impossible result of more waste than raw materials? What was this secret that no one wanted getting out?

''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.

This was the identity of that term they had heard so many times today.

“It…isn’t closed off? There’s a secret route through the walls surrounding Academy City!?”

That could not be. For better or for worse, Academy City was cut off from the outside world. Those thick walls prevented their tech from spreading to the world at large because that could lead to disorder and chaos.

Hamazura used to be part of Skill Out. That was a group of the boys and girls who had dropped out of Academy City but had nowhere to go since they could not get out of the city.

They had been trapped. They had dropped out of school, but those walls had kept them here. If you wanted to take a trip outside the city for just a few days, you needed to submit a ton of paperwork and receive a nanodevice injection. Because if you tried leave without using the official gates, you could be killed to prevent a data leak. There had been burglars and muggers in the back alleys, but none of those expert thieves had dared go anywhere near the walls.

If there was a way to freely move in and out, they may not have felt so much pressure. They could have made a place for themselves.

Their former leader, Komaba Ritoku, might not have had to fight and die.

“…”

But the dark side had torn down that number one assumption like it was nothing.

That counterfeiter had stored that information on a card-sized hard drive labeled “Lifeline”. Had he thought he could use that information to get some dark side bigshots to save him?

He must have never imagined he would instead have his brains blown out by a paparazzo. Hamazura was at the center of all this, but he still did not know if that had been planned or a spontaneous decision.

“It’s deep below Academy City.” Takitsubo Rikou calmly read aloud something on such a large scale that talk of an alternate dimension would have sounded more realistic. “The world’s largest particle accelerator is built directly below the city walls, so people are told that digging in that area could break the accelerator’s seal and expose them to radiation and other risks. That was meant to convince everyone that no one would be dumb enough to try it.”

The diagram they found looked like a puzzle ring. It seemed to carefully avoid the circular accelerator facility, but this was a tunnel built by the dark side. There was no chance it met all the proper safety standards.

That was the dark side’s lifeline.

They had built it to continue pumping fuel into their illicit research and its construction showed they did not care at all if they brought chaos to the world. It really was the greatest taboo. It was a dark umbilical cord that could wipe out the Kiharas and everyone else if it was cut off.

“I doubt Anti-Skill knows about this,” said Takitsubo. “So they won’t be able to block it off. We can safely escape the city if we use it.”

“…”

The red light displayed by Aneri was in District 10, the city’s biggest slum. The taboo no one wanted was hidden below the district everyone had abandoned.

It was unclear if it had always had this name. They may have changed the name periodically to help hide the truth. All the scattered information was fragmentary witness accounts and some of it would likely be intentional misinformation.

But that taboo’s gaping mouth had sat deep underground all this time.

Like a nightmarish symbol of freedom.

The dot on the map displayed on the small screen had the following name displayed next to it: Vanishing Tunnel.

That was the name of their final destination. Anyone who arrived there was given a ticket to another world.

===Part 3===

They were deep, deep underground in District 10.

Few people would think too much about the layout of the subway tunnels below the city. They might know a track took an unnatural curve at one point, but no one would question the online news article about them running across some kind of ruins during construction.

An underground passageway was surrounded by cold concrete and supported by the pillars positioned at even intervals.

The few fluorescent lights on the walls were not enough to fully sweep away the darkness.

That underground blind spot had become the biggest hot spot in the world. A great many people had gathered there. They had not all arrived along the same route. They had each gathered the hints scattered around the city and started to question the city’s biggest assumption. Academy City was surrounded by thick walls, but it was not in fact sealed off.

The brawny men in work jumpsuits were a courier group called Secret Express. The men and women in dress clothes were Concierge, a group that provided hideouts to meet a criminal’s demands. The girls in plain clothing and hiding their faces with sunglasses and hunting caps may have been an extremely popular idol group. The parade of scum included Controller, who used personal information and fictitious bills to threaten the girls he targeted until he had them in digital chains, and Flare, who left behind harmless powder identical to the real deal in order to confuse criminal investigations.

A ruler of the back alleys was there.

A major corporation’s lawyer was there.

A university headmaster was there.

A major entertainment producer was there.

And a few Kiharas from different fields were there.

All sorts of people flooded that underground passageway. People did not end up on the dark side because they were low class, poor, stupid, or criminal. It took all types. The dark side had reached every class of person equally. From worlds no one knew existed to industries everyone envied.

Some had fallen before making it this far and others had attempted a different route instead. In a way, finding this tunnel and setting foot inside made them the chosen ones.

And.

Every last one of them were obstructed and crushed by a certain figure.

The woman had long blonde twintails and she wore a skintight light blue dress and a long loose skirt.

Frillsand #G was like an impassable wall.

All who challenged her crashed into that wall with the intensity of their challenge. After seeing a few of them turned to hunks of flesh and splattered blood, the others must have started wondering if she literally was a solid wall because all of those dark side members had come to a stop. They were pushed back even though she had not taken a single step.

Of course, the ghost was not going to spare them just because they gave up now.

“Next stop: skewering. Repeat: skewering.”

With a wet sound, a muscular man in black was destroyed from groin to head. But he may have been one of the lucky ones. He was gone before he even knew what had happened to him.

“Please look out for the burning and severing.”

Screams of pain echoed through the tunnel. Before long, the dark side members were fighting amongst themselves too. They appeared to have begun an ugly struggle over the concrete column they could use as a shield. However…

“We will arrive at gouging soon.”

Just as the ghost silently circled behind the column, a wet sound exploded out. The victors and losers of the struggle were all turned to mincemeat together while Frillsand #G looked on in disinterest.

“Ah…gahh,” someone groaned.

It was one of the idol girls. Her bottom half was gone and the bottom of her torso was sticking to the floor like a slug.

“But…why? We found the taboo…so aren’t we part of the dark side too? Can’t we all use…the path out together?”

“I have children to take care of. A lot of them.” Frillsand #G did not even look in her direction. “Inviting all of you in with us would only put them at risk.”

“Just…” It was already too late for her, but the top half of a girl still clawed at the concrete floor. “Just in case? You took people’s lives for no more than that!?”

“Next stop: running over. I repeat: running over.”

With a wet splat, the complaints were silenced.

The ghost seemed to be rejecting the idea that grudges lacked the power to kill.

“The rear guard is an important job,” she said in a singsong voice. “But I cannot let that crybaby see this. Knowing of it and seeing it are two very different things.”

The artificial ghost glanced over at something else.

But she soon lost interest, turned around, and vanished into the darkness.

A mere ten meters away, Hamazura Shiage was hiding behind a column and holding his hand over the track suit girl’s mouth.

If she noticed them, they were dead. He felt like his heart, his breathing, his body odor, and the slight static electricity on his clothing could all give them away. He could not even wipe the unpleasant sweat from his cheek as he desperately waited for time to pass.

That ghost really was an enemy.

She had some kind of plan of her own and had saved them on a whim before, but that did not mean he could trust her. If she had saved them on a whim, then she could also choose to throw them out on a whim. And they only had the one life.

This was worse than a sea of blood.

Flesh and blood had lost any hint of their original form, fingers extended into empty space, facial skin was frozen in a look of agony while plastered to the wall. At this point, they were only “things”, not people. There was no dignity remaining.

Each of them was a dark side member who had arrived at ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' along a different route than him.

Their endless possibilities had been reduced to zero.

Or so it felt to him.

Was this tunnel really the right path? The further they went, the more likely they were to encounter that ghost woman, so he began to wonder if it would be safer to turn back now and return to the surface.

“Pwah.”

His girlfriend escaped his hand. He was holding her from behind, so she leaned her head back to look him in the eye.

“Hamazura, I don’t sense her presence anymore. We can keep going now.”

“…”

“We can’t give up after coming so far. Blindly returning to the surface won’t save us. We’ll never find peace if we don’t go through here.”

“R-right.”

He would have long since broken if he were alone.

But when she pulled on his hand, he managed to work up some small semblance of courage.

Even with the evenly-spaced fluorescent lights, the tunnel was dark. And they had no idea who was in charge of that sparse lighting. What if the ghost could shut off the power? His phone felt all the more important to him now.

“This is a long tunnel.”

“Yeah.”

They were not speaking much anymore.

This was ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'', but did this tunnel really lead toward hope? No matter how far they went, the darkness never went away. As they trudged deeper and deeper, he felt like they had passed a point of no return. Also, who had built this enormous underground facility? Someone must have drawn up the plans, dug the hole, set the foundation, and brought in the rebar and concrete. This was a far bigger project than a bank robber’s hand-dug tunnel into the vault. Such a vast and well-made underground space could not have been built without the involvement of a major construction company.

Who had done it?

It might be a company whose ads he saw on TV every day.

Would all of this come to light one day? But those meaningless thoughts were cut off by Takitsubo.

She had noticed first because she was not holding the light.

“Hamazura, there’s a door.”

“…”

It was a thick metal door.

Just the one door sat at the end of the long, long tunnel. There may have been another route, but he did not recall seeing any other paths branching off along the way.

He slowly approached.

It did not appear to be locked. He doubted there were any grenades or other “gifts” left for them.

But that was not what scared him. He had seen all of those corpses along the way. The sight had left him so terrified he barely had it in him to keep his heart beating. He had started to view their fallen predecessors as no more than a piece of the scenery. Because otherwise that shadowy murder scene would have overwhelmed him too much to continue on.

The taboos were piling up.

He and Takitsubo had started this simply wanting to survive, but they too had been corrupted along the way.

Hamazura Shiage reached his fingers toward the doorknob.

He touched it. He squeezed it.

He turned it.

===Part 4===

A flood of light revealed a world no one was ever meant to see.

“…”

The other world turned out to be a cavernous pit.

This abyss slept deep below the earth, yet it was filled with much more artificial light than the tunnel. That was thanks to the construction lights set up here and there.

It was easily more than 250 meters across and maybe more than twice as deep. The perfectly circular space made of reinforced concrete at the very bottom may have reminded different people of different things.

Some might see it as a common utility duct, a circular colosseum, a switchyard’s turntable, or an underground temple dedicated to a god one must never offer any prayers.

But there was one crucial piece that helped solidify the proper image.

“A train?” muttered Hamazura while peering down over the railing.

It was a turntable.

Concrete columns were installed at even intervals around the edges, but there were none in the central circle. The flat concrete floor had a smaller circle built into it. That would rotate to change the train’s direction. The tracks outside the circle extended in 12 different directions. That made it all look like something else: a giant metal flower.

Yes, there were tracks, signal lights, transformers, maintenance equipment, a control room, and a fifteen-car train in here. It was a freight train.

“That’s the dark side’s lifeline?”

For him and Takitsubo, it was the plank of Carneades that would save their lives.

He doubted that turntable was all of it. There would be a container yard and maintenance zone hidden further out from the center.

They walked along the narrow catwalk built along the circular wall and descended the stairs. There were no corpses in here. Whoever had gotten here first must have used the ghost woman to eliminate any nuisances before they reached this point.

And since the train was still here, that person would still be here.

They shared this space with the slaughterer.

“Hamazura.”

“Don’t worry. I’m with you no matter what.”

“Not that. There’s someone down there. And they’re not alone.”

That was a shock. Takitsubo Rikou could accurately locate people by sensing their AIM Diffusion Field. She could not use that power as well as she used to, but she could still sense it to an extent.

The tension grew.

A single person with a bizarre power was certainly scary, but having a large group approach you brought a different sort of fear. He mentally switched his priorities to at least allowing Takitsubo to escape if things looked bad.

The only exit was up here.

Leaving that would mean being surrounded by dead ends in every direction.

“…”

After descending the last flight of stairs, they arrived at the deepest depths.

It felt so much different from when they had been looking down from above. But that was not too surprising since 250 meters was larger than a domed stadium. This was the same as a sports field looking so much bigger from the stands than on TV.

Yes, Hamazura Shiage now stood on the stage. He was no longer an outsider looking in.

“Oh, dear. You actually showed up. What a shame.”

He lasted one second.

His knees suddenly dropped to the ground. He could not keep his shoulders at the same height and his lost strength would not return.

“Wha—!?”

It was the ghost woman.

Was she a beneficial or a harmful?

She had left that tunnel far too bloody to claim she was trying to escape Academy City because she disliked conflict. If anything, she felt more like a vengeful spirit that refused to let anyone leave the city.

She looked like a Western doll with her long blonde twintails and light blue dress. She did not actually punch or kick him. Simply seeing her out of the corner of his eye had done critical damage to him.

A rusty-smelling liquid dripped from his eyes and nose.

He was trying to scream and flip over onto his back, but he was actually curled up and unable to move.

Encountering her meant death.

That was far too sinister a thing to be connected with a simple equals sign like that.

“It is no use.”

The ghost woman walked without audible footsteps. She moved herself from the corner of his vision to the center.

“No one is talking about anything as silly as defending against something with a shield or dodging a projectile with super speed. ''From the moment you see my face,'' the attack is complete. If I so much as casually stand in the corner of your vision, I can do continual damage without you even noticing my presence.”

He realized the strange things had always happened when the ghost woman spoke to him. And why had she turned the lights on in that tunnel? Because it was more convenient for her.

If you saw a ghost while driving, you would crash.

If your face, hands, or feet were missing in a ghost photo, you would find unnatural wounds or marks on your body.

Did this mean she even artificially reproduced those aspects of a ghost? He did not want to believe it because it would mean there was nothing he could do.

“Hamazu—!?”

“You noticed? You must have sharper senses.”

The track suit girl quickly pulled him close, but the ghost woman did not seem to care.

Besides, if seeing her really did mean death, then Takitsubo would have been killed too, but she was fine.

“But I am not talking about anything as poorly-defined as a sixth sense for ghosts. Do you have a power related to AIM Diffusion Fields?”

“There’s no AIM Diffusion Field around you? No, some strong but invisible power is scattering that weaker field.”

“It is known as High Voltage Cutting,” said the ghost woman. “The principle may be similar to the shock diamonds seen in a rocket engine’s flame or the cavitation of air bubbles created around a propeller. The constant emission of a powerful energy will create irregular waveforms and images while it interferes with itself.”

“Gh!? What energy???”

“You can find energy everywhere.” Her tone was light, so understanding how it worked must not have helped avoid its effects. “The carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide you thoughtlessly spread around forms acid rain when it bonds with the moisture in the air. You can acquire electricity simply by sticking two electrodes into a fruit, you know? Copper and zinc are such necessities that you can find them anywhere. Using that, you can produce hydrogen gas in addition to electricity. I only need to absorb power from a ''civilization battery'' the size of a city or even greater. That is enough for me to construct a single outlier point within that stable energy.”

“…”

“What are the common types of haunted locations? Old homes full of drafts, cliffs and caves eroded by the waves, and mountain roads late at night. They are always full of ''noise'', such as static electricity, pressure differences, the creaking of rusty doors, or the rustling of the trees in the wind. Have you ever heard a ghostly voice in the crackle of excess electricity or the roar of hydrogen gas being ignited? I can exist as I am wherever human civilization exists. If you wish to kill me, you must destroy your very way of life. On a global scale.”

This was too much.

He could not understand her explanation. And even if he thought he did, it still did not tell him how to destroy her.

Takitsubo gasped and spoke while holding onto him.

“I get that the constant use of a massive amount of unseen energy would eventually create something unnatural. But if seeing you is deadly, how do you choose specific targets to—?”

She trailed off.

She had seen something out of the corner of her eye, but not the artificial ghost this time. A unified set of colors could be seen peeking out of at them from a gap in the door to one of the freight train’s containers.

''They were small children wearing gym clothes and some kind of device. There were more than just ten or twenty of them.

''All of them were a part of the ghost experiment.

The children must have seen the ghost woman as they nervously spied out. And they seemed to be expectantly waiting to see if she would repel these unknown intruders. They did not know. They had not been told what they were being used for. Simply viewing a ghost photo was harmful and the longer you viewed it, the more damage it did. She embodied that power so perfectly that she had eliminated so many dark side elites.

Yet she had managed to accurately select one out of the many candidates.

That was like shooting the apple off someone’s head. Without explaining any of it to the children who had those sensors attached to them.

“…”

The delinquent boy clenched his teeth.

He could barely move, she held his life in her hand, and he had no idea how to fight back. He had to avoid angering her if at all possible. He understood that, but he still shouted up at her.

“You scum!!”

“Call me what you wish. In fact, I see it as a compliment.”

The ghost woman who resembled a fairy tale princess held her palm out toward him. He only had to see her impossible presence for her to attack, so that gesture was meaningless.

But then her eyes turned unnaturally away from him.

To the side.

A spare container sitting near the train was sliced in two. Something had dropped down from far above like a bolt of lightning.

A red figure wielded a thick machete made of heavy metal.

The android wore a racing swimsuit colored the orange and black of an insect. The bangs of her long crimson hair were cut straight across and she had a slender build.

Cartoony flowers were displayed in her mechanical eyes.

“Smug face.”

“Hello, hello,” said a twig of an old man in a blue jumpsuit and lab coat. “I hate to interrupt when you seem so busy, but I must insist.”

The ghost woman shrugged.

“Were you hoping to use the train? I thought you were one of the harmfuls who would remain in the city and resist to the bitter end.”

“I have no interest in those categories forced onto the dark side from the outside. All I care about is continuing my research. Academy City was a wonderful environment for that, but if that has changed, I need to leave and search out a more comfortable place.”

“You can see me, can’t you?”

“You should be able to tell by observing my eye movements.”

“And you know what that means?” She gave a suggestive glance over at the machine that had arrived with him. “In case you were unaware, I am capable of causing malfunctions in mechanical lenses and sensors just as well as in the human body. Ghost photographs are a result of ghosts interfering in optical machinery, are they not? That might be your masterpiece, but isn’t it presumptuous to assume she can wield her full power against me?”

She remained untouchable. She could kill someone just by placing herself in the corner of their vision and machines could not do anything to her either. Did she have no blind spots?

“Yes, I imagine so.”

But the old man did not seem to mind.

That mysterious old man ''known as a Kihara'' was not bothered that she held his life in her hand.

“You are the strongest when it comes to an individual. Looking at deadliness alone, you might outdo the #3 and the #2.”

“…”

Evidently, even ghosts could find something to be ominous.

This world may have been infected with a disease that caused all bad premonitions to come true.

“But in this specific location, I believe you too will find you cannot wield your full power.”

“What are you—gah!!!!????”

He had given her plenty of warning, but she suddenly arched her back and then froze unnaturally in midair. An ominous straining sound continued on and on as her body grew distorted. She bent and stretched, almost like a face pressed against a wall of glass.

Something was happening.

Hamazura had thought the ghost woman was an intangible being, like a mist or apparition. But she was not. She clearly had a spine to strain, muscles to cry out in pain, and organs to writhe unnaturally.

Then a bizarre creaking and cracking noise came from her. Her volume shrank more and more like she was being crushed in from all sides. The old man was holding something up in his special engineering glove. It looked like an empty candy box, but it was not. It had a small pinhole at the very top. The ghost woman was sucked into that small hole like a liquid or a gas. Hamazura did not want to imagine what things were like inside there. He could only say one thing in a daze.

“A pinhole…camera?”

“High Voltage Cutting? I see, a strange theory, but she is still a form of unstable energy. And all energy will move from high to low—unstable to stable. This is enough to break down her form and burn in her image.”

The old man let go of the candy box.

He had the look of a mischievous child who had just realized he could create his own spark show by sticking a metal clip in the microwave.

“This is the appropriate choice for a ghost photo, don’t you think? A digital camera just wouldn’t fit the aesthetic.”

After dropping it to the cold concrete, he crushed it below his heel. He did not even glance down at the flattened box.

“''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.''” He tapped on his lower back. “Surely you didn’t think a construction company building a secret tunnel out of the city was enough to earn a name like that. With something like her around, you really should have thought of a different possibility.”

“Wh-what?”

Hamazura felt like the unnatural “curse” had weakened, but he still could not bring himself to get up from the ground. The old man only now seemed to have realized that there was another person here reaching for the plank of Carneades.

Hamazura knew any attention on him would only lead to disaster.

Kihara Hasuu smiled.

“Let me make one thing clear. There is a member of the Board who built a vast fortune by doing unofficial construction work for the dark side, but he knows nothing of this. This massive underground structure just appeared out of the blue one day.”

“…?”

Out of the blue?

Hamazura had operated construction machinery before, so he knew how absurd that was. Did that old man have any idea how long it would take to dig out a hole of this size?

But the old man appeared to be serious.

Deadly serious.

“''The Vanishing Tunnel does not actually exist.''”

Hamazura had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

It made no sense. If that were true, then where were they now???

The old man gave the answer.

“Kazakiri Hyouka was not just a single individual. She is more like one piece of the Imaginary Number District, an entire city created from the aggregation of AIM Diffusion Fields. …It all began with a project meant to cut out a portion of that territory and extract it as a new resource. Unlike the microscopic alchemy performed in the particle accelerator, this would have been on the macro scale and cost very little. But not even the group of researchers who guided all that power through the city could have predicted it would take this form. ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' is such a dramatic name. In truth, it was a major failure that needed to be covered up. Everyone involved was at their wits’ end.” He tapped his lower back again. “A nonexistent pathway unofficially connected Academy City to the world outside, increasing the risk of the outer world’s collapse through cultural exchange and technological contamination. The entire world very well could have been destroyed from this single point. While the researchers had hoped to extract materials from the Imaginary Number District, whatever came from there might have transformed the outside world into something truly grotesque. …Yes, that the world still exists as it does now was no more than ''dumb luck''. It was nothing we did on our end. Kazakiri Hyouka and the other inhuman monsters simply showed no interest in that. If something had occurred to them and they had tried it, the world would have ended.”

“You mean…” Takitsubo replied since she had a better understanding of things related to AIM. “You were researching the exact opposite of that ghost? A ghost made from powerful energy and an aggregation of weak powers are opposites, so when they came together, it caused the ghost to malfunction… You were trying to extract inorganic materials from that unseen city, weren’t you?”

“Hard to say if that research was a step forward or a step back. Like I said, they failed. They could not control it, so even the remains of their project you see here cannot be erased. I believe the natural half life was about 12,000 years. In the worst case, the Imaginary Number District could have been converted into real numbers, crushing Academy City in the process. I think the project could have found success if they could have cut off a piece at a workable size and found a way to control it. In that sense, that ghost really is the strongest as an individual and an enviable success.”

Now even Hamazura had a vague idea why the ghost woman had suddenly malfunctioned.

They could not be in the same place.

Two ghosts could not coexist. Just like installing two different pieces of security software on the same computer would cause a conflict.

“It was still a risky gamble, though. The odds were low, but if the tunnel ''had lost'', this temporary space itself would have vanished and we would all have become fossils after being buried deep below the surface.”

Hamazura heard a swooshing sound and looked over to see the android swinging her thick machete next to the old man. Those two had won their bet, so now no one could stop them.

Kihara Hasuu looked away from Hamazura and turned to someone else.

“Now, I have eliminated your bodyguard. Isn’t it time we talked this out like adults?”

===Part 5===

“When’s the train going to leave?”

“Oh, mister just left.”

The children dressed up in gym clothes were whispering to each other while peeking out through the cracked-open door of a freight train container.

But among them…

“Ow, that hurts.”

The girl named Risako spoke up in protest.

But Sodate ignored that and continued tugging on her skinny wrist. The bigger boy was kind of scary when he was not saying anything.

“Listen, Risako.” He spoke quickly while walking through the shadows to stay hidden. He seemed to be speaking to himself more than the girl. “You can still escape. It’s not too late. And once you get to the surface, go tell the grownups about this. I know you can do it.”

“Why? The train is about to leave.”

“You still don’t get it!?” He shouted with his hands on her shoulders. “They make us wear these clothes and devices, they keep us separated from the rest of the city, and they don’t let us go to a normal school. We’re Child Errors, so no one will even notice if we just disappear one day. They’re only raising us because they can use us for something. They’re fattening us up to eat us!”

“But…”

“We don’t even have phones to call for help. ''It isn’t normal to be this isolated.'' That’s why I kept leaving behind some sign of our presence: building blocks, picture books, balls, and so on. I left them outside before the trucks moved on and I made sure to write our names, the trucks’ license numbers, and other information on them! But none of it ever reached the grownups. Our efforts never reached anyone!!”

She had thought he kept stealing things because he was selfish. She had thought he would forget those things in his secret bases because he was sloppy. But that was not it.

“They’re relatively peaceful beneficials? Don’t make me laugh. What’s going to change after we board that train and leave Academy City? There won’t be anyone monitoring them anymore!! Once that happens, I just know he’ll stop holding back. He’ll ''take it even further''! So you at least need to escape before that happens!!”

“Sodate-chan…”

“I’ll give you an opening.” He looked the girl in the eye and spoke clearly. “I won’t let him turn you into a guinea pig no matter what!!”

===Part 6===

A somewhat slender man stepped out. He wore a short-sleeved safari jacket and a rash guard, making him look something like an old-fashioned adventurer, but the webcam attached to the side of his head gave him a more modern outdoorsy look. He appeared to be a different sort of researcher from the old mechanic in a lab coat and jumpsuit.

He was an expert at visiting so-called haunted locations around the world and revealing the scientific cause of the strange phenomena there. But he had apparently also artificially recreated such things to use them for his own purposes.

He grinned and raised his hands in a jocular way. Kihara Hasuu asked him a question with the deadly weapon girl still by his side.

“What is your name?”

“Drencher Kihara Repatri.”

“I see. So that’s you.”

The young man’s eyebrows moved slightly in response to the old man’s impressed tone.

“I didn’t expect someone like you to have heard of me.”

“You are rather…well known.”

The way he said that told Hamazura he did not mean that in a positive way.

This was a confrontation between two harmfuls.

The two researchers ignored the boy and girl entirely as they began a verbal rally. Hamazura knew he could not just sit and watch as a referee or spectator, but he had no way of intervening.

“As you can see, we come from different levels of the dark side. If there is no place for us in Academy City anymore, then leaving the city is a valid choice. But is that plank of Carneades really only big enough for the one group? I think it can support both of us just fine.”

That suggestion seemed surprising…but maybe it wasn’t. It was the ghost woman who had been slaughtering all of the other dark side members trying to reach this point. The android may have attacked Anti-Skill, but she had never actively tried to eliminate her fellow dark siders. She had attacked Hamazura near the counterfeiter’s tents, but if she had been trying to slaughter everyone she came across, the ordinary people in the amusement park would not have escaped alive.

The young man shrugged.

“If that means less fighting, it’s okay with me. Not that I really have a choice, do I?”

“Assuming you have no other trump cards.”

“Then I surrender.”

He did not hesitate to respond. Hamazura was actually surprised to see he was willing to back down to save his own life. Hamazura had gotten the impression that the extreme members of the dark side were willing to sacrifice their own life to achieve their goal.

That surprise scared Hamazura. He could tell he had let the dark side influence him too much. He was afraid the damage would be permanent if he went much further. Once he became a harmful, there was no going back.

“She was my prized project, you know? Frillsand #G, I mean. Now, I knew ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' would pose a challenge, but I never imagined it was a giant mass of AIM Diffusion Fields.”

“Everything has its compatibility. In fact, I could never have won if we were not down here. Keep this girl from working and I’m helpless.”

The crimson-haired girl did nothing to fight the wrinkled hand rubbing her head.

The two men were reaching an agreement. That was not good. Hamazura and Takitsubo had nothing they could offer in a negotiation. At this rate, they would probably each get a bullet in the head as a parting gift. The only other option he could imagine was being made into a guinea pig for some bizarre experiment.

“Oh, right,” casually began the old man.

If he said “what should we do about those two lumps of flesh”, they were screwed. And Hamazura could not predict what that Kihara would do. He felt a terrible squeezing at his heart.

Finally, Kihara Hasuu continued.

“While we can share the train, I will be in charge there. So if you want a ride, it’s only natural you pay a small fare, don’t you think?”

“Do you want my research notes on Frillsand #G?”

“I’m no barbarian. A scientist’s research notes are a part of his very soul. Those are the fruits of your labors, so take them to your grave.”

“Then what do you want?”

“A few of them.”

The old man’s voice was as casual as ever as he pointed his engineering glove in a different direction entirely. He pointed at the gym clothes children who were peeking out from behind cover, without a clue what was being discussed.

“''Just select a few at random.'' I intend to restart my research once things have calmed down, but the rules are different outside the city. I can’t start abducting people off the street until I have a proper base set up, so I could use an initial supply for that settling-in period.”

Hamazura froze as he listened in.

This was the dark side. This was how the elites of that stagnant world thought.

“That Frillsand #G is important to your research, but not so with those lab rats, right? How many experimental observers’ lives were lost until you managed to ''properly reproduce'' that artificial ghost? If your research has entered a stable period, I would assume you are not running through those Child Errors as quickly as you once were.”

“Heh,” laughed Drencher Kihara Repatri.

He weakly lowered his raised hands. He must have decided that was no longer necessary. He too had seen the darkness, so he spoke with the same look in his eyes as the old man.

“It’s true those are all Child Errors. And however they would be treated in the ordinary world, we all know exactly what that term means in the dark side. Yes, I gathered them together and invited them into my lab. I made sure to have a plentiful stock of convenient lives that could be spent as I liked if other forms of research were not enough.”

“Then I can have a few?”

“''Go to hell, you son of a bitch.''”

===Part 7===

Several dry gunshots rang out.

===Part 8===

Hamazura Shiage did not understand what had just happened.

“Hamazura!!”

His body still refused to do what it was told, so track suit girl Takitsubo had to push him to the ground.

The young man had pulled out a handgun. It was no more than a small revolver, but he still fired it repeatedly from just a few meters away.

However…

“Ugh…”

“That won’t work,” said the old man.

The android’s crimson hair fluttered while she held her thick machete at the ready with her bare feet planted a step in front of Hasuu. Not only had she deflected all of the bullets, she had used their ricochets as a counterattack.

''No more than a small revolver.

''Something had gone horribly wrong when you started thinking of things in those terms in this country.

The young man had several holes in his upper body and dark red stains spread across his clothes. Doubling over did nothing to help, so he finally collapsed to the ground.

The old man in a jumpsuit and lab coat spoke up in exasperation while the strongest doll protected him.

“They’re just kids. And it’s not like I’m asking for all of them. Just two or three will do.”

“I wanted to…protect them from the dark side scum who think like that,” spat the young man while struggling to breathe down on all fours. He had given up trying to hold his wounds. “But nothing I did above board did anything to help. I couldn’t even get information on where those children were. The only way to fight the dark side…was to become the dark side. I almost laughed when I saw how many people came running to me then, claiming my research was so valuable. When I said I needed children’s lives to do it, they slapped me on the shoulder and agreed to it all. While happily sipping on a glass of the year’s finest red with their other hand. This city is rotten to the core.”

“Aren’t you Drencher Kihara Repatri?”

“Claiming to be a Kihara was the quickest way to get what I wanted. Ha ha. Those VIPs really were terrified of me.”

“Dammit,” spat out Hamazura Shiage.

The young man saw his own condition as of secondary importance.

It was true the ghost woman had used the children. They had been placed in a position where she could crush their lives at any moment. But had Hamazura ever seen her actually kill a child? What if they had been living in a world where they had to take the charade that far to be believed?

The old man had asked how many experimental observers’ lives were lost until he managed to properly reproduce the artificial ghost, but the young man had never answered.

That was in fact the answer. He had not sacrificed anyone. Not one. He had wanted to gather up those children known as Child Errors and drag them up out of the darkness. There ''were'' adults willing to dive into the dark side for no other reason than that.

There really were.

And yet…

“You’re lying.”

Hamazura suddenly rejected that entire premise. Because if he accepted this, he would have to admit to his own ugliness. Even if saying this would mean revealing he was ugly enough to put up a struggle like this.

“I’ve seen you before. You were at that counterfeiter’s place! You were preparing a passport for yourself so you could abandon those kids and leave the city!!”

“This all would have gone so much more smoothly if that had worked.” The young man smiled weakly. “If I had shown off how I escaped with the passport, Anti-Skill and the dark side’s focus would have turned toward District 23’s airport. Then the children would have had a safer escape underground here. I was never supposed to be down here with them.”

“~ ~ ~!!!!!!”

It felt like they lived in two completely different worlds.

And that young man was definitely the one in the right.

Hamazura felt so pathetic and contemptible for only ever acting to protect him and his girlfriend.

“I know I shouldn’t be asking this.”

The young man looked his way. As if to say it did not matter if he really was a Kihara or not.

His eyes knew how to view the light, but for some reason he now looked to someone as corrupted as Hamazura.

“Maybe it’s for the best if the dark side is destroyed, but please take care of those kids. You’re the only person I can leave them with now. When you saw your girlfriend suffering, you panicked and dumped medical supplies across the ground in your haste. I could see the conscience in your eyes. You had no choice but to fall this far, but you should still have some resistance to the dark side left inside you.”

“Wait, I’m not like that for everyone. Don’t shove this onto me! She’s my girlfriend, so of course I’d work to save her!!”

“Ha ha. Thinking that’s an ‘of course’ is what makes you such an oddity in the dark side. Don’t worry, I know you can do it. Because after falling into this shitty world, you still managed to find someone you care for and you decided to find peace instead of another thrill.”

Hamazura and Takitsubo had first heard of ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' from this man.

Hamazura had been cautious because there was no righteousness in the dark side and the man must have had his own reasons.

Was this why?

Had it been some insurance, just in case? Instead of worrying about his own survival, he had wanted some insurance for after he died.

Yet he had also slaughtered the dark sider people rushing toward this exit.

All because he could not let any harm come to the children as those people fought each other. He had rushed down a dark path to prevent a mere possibility.

But on Hamazura and Takitsubo’s way here, hadn’t the ghost woman glanced their way after slaughtering everyone else and then left, as if sparing them?

“Why did you do all this?”

That was the only question Hamazura could find.

That was not something to say to a dying man. He knew that. But after letting the dark side corrupt him while he worked so hard to ensure his and his girlfriend’s survival, this answer was too pure and upright to accept.

“How could you throw away your own life over this!? When you get down to it, those kids are just strangers! How could a goddamn harmful go this far just because you ‘wanted to save them’!? How!? Tell me!?”

The young man smiled.

There was already blood dripping from the corners of his lips.

“Do you need a reason to protect someone? Of course you don’t.”

That was the end of it.

Time stopped for him with the smile still on his lips.

He had no reason. He did not know why. And he had rushed in to save those children without ever finding a reason.

Hamazura Shiage had to admit defeat.

“A…”

The loser boy clenched his teeth. He moved his battered body, swiped the bloody handgun and some ammo from the young man, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

Losers had their own etiquette to follow.

That scummy old man was still here. Hamazura was not going to let him trample on the young man’s victory.

“Aaaneriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!”

A dull kachunk echoed through the circular space.

The support AI had taken control of the train and shifted it out of standby, so it slowly began to move.

The turntable had tracks in twelve directions, but he knew where to send it.

He just had to remember what the card-sized hard drive labeled Lifeline had said.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

In other words…

(Hours and minutes. If I apply that to an analog clock…)

“Send it down the five o’clock track!!”

The train took off with so many children in gym clothes on board.

That had been his top priority.

“Is justice contagious these days?” asked the old man with the look of someone viewing a crazy person.

He had already proven that the gun would not work, so he gave Hamazura a look of partial pity now that he had inherited that defeated weapon.

“You risked your life for this, but to no avail. Look, not all of them were onboard. They must have run in fear from the very person who would have saved them.”

“Hamazura, two of them were left behind. We can’t just leave them here.”

A boy and a girl in gym clothes were holding hands a short distance away.

What had they thought when they learned the truth behind that young man’s satisfied smile?

Especially when their own actions had worked against him.

“Well, those two will suffice. I will be taking them as a souvenir. Any more than this would have been a waste of food anyway.”

“Shut up,” spat out Hamazura.

He really should not have been doing this. He had come here to escape to safety. It had been clear from the very beginning that he could not be a great hero or brave warrior. This selfish choice here might put himself and his girlfriend in danger.

But.

Even so.

A dying man had left this with him. He had been reminded what it meant to do the right thing. There were lives here he could save. He could redo things. And most of all, his girlfriend was watching.

He was done being pathetic. He gathered strength in his sweaty body and stood up under his own power again. He had to.

“Maybe you’re a Kihara and an android.”

His goal was to run away?

No, sometimes a man had to stand up and speak his mind.

“But I’ll take you on, you goddamned dark siders!!!!!!”

He knew it was possible.

He had just seen a man stay true to this way of life.

He could reclaim his humanity. He must have learned something from what he saw here.

===Part 9===

Of course, Hamazura could never actually hit the crimson-haired android by firing the 9mm handgun at random. He knew she would deflect the bullets with her thick machete and fill him with holes.

So he did something else instead.

“Aneri!!”

A giant shape suddenly moved right next to the racing swimsuit girl.

A wheel loader used to stack up the railroad-sized containers was being remotely controlled.

“Move.”

What was that machete even made of? She did not even look in that direction as she swung her weapon and sliced apart the snowplow-looking piece of machinery. Even though she was not using any rapid vibrations or heat.

But Hamazura used that moment to pull on his girlfriend’s hand and move from there.

This was a vast circular space, but it was not an empty colosseum.

It had concrete columns just like an underground common utility duct and it had various equipment needed for operating and maintaining the trains, all located where it would not get in the way of the turntable and the twelve directions of track. Transformers were surrounded by a fence, a prefab hut had been made into a control room, giant jacks and a carwash were prepared for maintenance purposes, and more.

Aneri had directly operated the freight train, so he felt safe assuming she could operate all of the equipment here.

He pulled his girlfriend close while hiding behind a concrete column and whispering to his phone.

“Aneri, can you directly hijack that hunk of junk?”

No response.

He took that as a no. This did not sound like it was an issue of building up to that or setting something up in advance. That android was immune to cyber attacks on some level he did not understand.

(That means the only option is to destroy her the old-fashioned way!!)

“Hamazura, we can’t hide here forever. If she stops focusing on us, she’ll go after those children. Villains always go for the easiest target.”

“I know that.”

Takitsubo kept trying to wipe the sweat from her brow, but something was not right. The moxibustion should have relieved her symptoms to an extent, but that treatment might not be working as much anymore.

He was worried, but he could not stop now. He hated that fact.

“But using ourselves as bait will put us at risk. Are you prepared for that, Takitsubo?”

“Ask any more stupid questions and I’ll slap you.”

“Okay, it’s time to win your heart all over again!!”

They both ran out from behind the concrete column.

Their eyes met the ones with pupils mechanically expanding and contracting, but they stayed strong this time.

===Part 10===

Ladybird had a lock on two targets.

She walked barefoot across the floor and accurately obeyed her instructions, but she also had a question.

Why were the children necessary?

Kihara Hasuu—her Sensei—was researching androids. He had already successfully created one, so he no longer needed to capture biological humans to dissect and observe them. This disagreement appeared to be over ownership of the Child Errors (she failed to realize it was her education by that true Kihara that led her to use the word “ownership” in this context), but why was the old man so insistent on this?

That unfortunate research was a thing of the past.

She was an android built from purely mechanical parts, but she could use an esper power. That meant no more human specimens were needed for esper development experiments. They only had to mess with machines from now on. The Child Errors no longer needed to be captured and used up.

She thought that was a wonderful thing. She could not believe the people who still clung to the old system that required humans to use other humans. Did they wish to protect the status given to them by the current Level system? If they truly believed their fight was just, then they were beyond reasoning with. Machines were not the only ones that could have their memory data rewritten. Humans could have their feelings and thoughts falsified as well.

So she would bring an end to it all.

She was fighting here to end the misfortune and tragedies caused by the esper development program.

“Ohhhh!!”

The boy raised a meaningless battle cry, ran in, and repeatedly fired his handgun. She only had to block those shots with her machete.

But he had apparently learned how she fought.

She tried to hit him with the ricochets, but they refused to hit. When she deflected a bullet back, it would follow the same straight trajectory. Placing a single piece of plywood in the middle would change things. A bullet’s force was determined by its muzzle velocity. The force of the ricochet would generally be lower. That was obvious enough since bullets were not constantly accelerating like a rocket or missile. So he could set it up so he could shoot her through an obstacle, but she could not break through it on the way back.

Her use of ricochets was similar to Accelerator’s reflection, but all her machete did was knock the bullet back. She could not ''include the actual vector in that''.

That said…

(I doubt someone with such a stupid face could do this. He must be receiving assistance with the calculations.)

She considered jumping. Lifting both feet from the ground was usually a bad idea in combat, but not so with her. With her android specs, she could kick off of one column to the next and attack from the air.

She heard the loud roar of an engine while dealing with the bullets.

It appeared to come from a forklift.

“Aneri, surround the kids! I don’t know where that old man got off to, but don’t let him get close!! If he tries it, run him over!!”

“Don’t get distracted.”

He could have gotten a hit in on her by sending the forklift in from the side while firing on her from the front. Not that a blow like that would be enough to destroy her frame.

She swung the thick machete in her right hand while gathering her strength in the space between her eyebrows.

That was how she aimed.

A blast of wind blew away the obstacles between her and Hamazura Shiage. It was more like they were obliterated by an explosion than swept away by wind.

“An esper power!?” shouted the boy.

“It looked to be Level 3 or higher,” said the girl.

She no longer had to worry about the gunfire now that the line of fire was clear. He must have known the risk of ricochets was back because he stopped attacking and hid behind a nearby column, but that was no defense. She could charge in and slice through the column and his torso behind it with a single horizontal sweep of her blade.

She had enough time to reach her other hand to her thigh, pull out the bottle, and take a drink of the discharge machine oil.

A dull boom burst out.

She was only an android modeled after the structure of the human body, but the materials used for her skeleton, muscles, and everything else were bizarre dark side tech. If she wanted to, her horsepower could rival a V12 engine at max RPM.

But even as she chose the correct action, her mechanical head was filled with questions.

She had used a wind power.

But hadn’t she used fire during her previous clash with these people? And what about the time before that?

Androids had the same structure as humans, so a single android should only have a single power. Or could she do what humans could not because she was a machine?

(Sensei?)

===Part 11===

A column of reinforced concrete was sliced through as easily as tofu or thin paper.

Not horizontally or diagonally—vertically and all the way through. After kicking from column to column to gain height, she had apparently dropped down like lightning. She had a human form, but she could perform superhuman movements.

Hamazura Shiage had tried to jump to the side just beforehand, but he ended up tumbling into a roll.

It was not his torso sliced through along with the column. It was a gas drum kept on hand for the facility’s auxiliary power generator.

He grimaced at the pain in his hips as he continued rolling and pulled the trigger repeatedly.

Not even Ladybird could deflect bullets that hit the concrete ground and sent sparks flying.

The vaporizing gasoline ignited into explosive flames that swallowed up the entire racing swimsuit silhouette.

However…

“No, Hamazura! It didn’t work!!”

“Tch!!”

He clicked his tongue while the track suit girl ran over from elsewhere and pulled him to his feet. A black figure was displayed on the other side of that fiery screen. She showed no sign of collapsing or writhing in pain.

Had she used that previous wind power to affect how the flames spread?

He hoped so. If she was simply this tough, he could not imagine how to defeat her.

“How ''do'' you defeat an android anyway? Strangle her or stab her in the heart, she’s still a machine. That won’t stop her!!”

Could he break her motherboard? Or pull out her battery? But he had no idea how many she had or where in her slender body they were located.

The roaring flames were sliced apart. A horizontal sweep of the heavy metal machete conquered the orange barrier. The barefoot android stepped through entirely unscathed. There was no sign of discoloration on her crimson hair, white skin, or orange and black racing swimsuit.

“Something isn’t right,” said Takitsubo Rikou with eyes seemingly more robotic than the machine’s. What was she looking at right now? “An android that uses esper powers is conceivably possible. Mechanical processing may be able to ‘observe’ the waves or particles like a human brain does. And if you developed that far enough, you might be able to purposefully select between different supernatural phenomena. But this wavelength is simpler than that.”

“You mean how she switches between powers?” spat out Hamazura. “That container base in the garbage pile was their lab, right? Then I get why that old man wants those kids so bad. Even if I don’t know exactly ''how'' he would use them.”

Now, why were they able to spend so long discussing this?

The delinquent boy made sure to keep his gun aimed, but the android in question was only tilting her head.

A dark liquid was dripping from her eyes and nose.

He had seen that before. Immediately after she had been hit by the hakama girl and fought back with her fire power.

“Oh, dear.”

Kihara Hasuu’s voice reached them from somewhere, but it was echoing too much to tell where it came from. Hamazura would have shot the man if he saw him.

“Is it that time already? This is why I wanted to stock up sooner rather than later.”

“Hey.” Hamazura shouted at the unseen man. “Isn’t that cheating? You can’t really call her an android if that’s what you’re doing.”

The boy watched as the girl in the orange and black racing swimsuit held her head and doubled over.

A low straining sound came from her.

Then her back opened along the line from her nape to her tailbone.

The clasp holding together the X-shaped band at the center of the swimsuit’s back popped open and the supports were released in four directions.

Then her soft skin opened wide while supported at her nape.

Her opened back almost looked like a steam locomotive’s boiler or a furnace from hell. The fact that it was smooth human skin instead of a thick metal door gave it the sinister appearance of an insect’s shell opening up.

The top half of her swimsuit fell out of place, but her chest was not visible.

Her long red hair dropped down to cover it up.

She had planted her hands and feet on the ground like a beast.

Something translucent crawled out of her. It looked like a long, narrow blade or like a wriggling snake. It would grab something, drag it inside her, and cut it away. It was an automatic extraction organ.

Hamazura knew what it was for.

“I saw the junk those trash collectors were taking back after searching through those piles of abandoned items. A fridge was full of some brownish filth.”

He felt nauseated just remembering it.

He grimaced as he viewed that monster.

“''It was stuffed full of corpses with the contents of their heads removed.'' When those trash collectors were searching out fridges and washing machines, they weren’t selling them to used appliance stores. They were opening up bloodstained boxes packed full of still-usable organs. And they all came from your lab, didn’t they!?”

“Well, the ordinary corpses were apparently disposed of in District 10’s slums, but there are a lot of people willing to buy up ones fresh enough to make use of their parts.”

Ladybird was not an android with esper powers. She was as harmful as they came. She was a machine that would devour people’s brains when necessary. In Hamazura’s opinion, that meant she did not fit the definition of an android.

“This is a completely different approach from the Rensa model of esper cyborg. Instead of a cyborg made by ''giving a brain a body'', Ladybird-kun ''is a body given a brain.''” Hasuu sounded like he was introducing his favorite grandchild. “Cellulose nanofiber is a carbon material gathering attention for its use in making wires and bulletproof materials, but the point is we can create delicate wires even thinner than the cranial nerves. But unlike a biological brain, leaving them in their active state causes them to automatically replicate and they will try to forcibly fold themselves up for space if they run out of room in the skull. The cerebrum’s frontal lobe is especially troublesome. So ''a foreign object'' must be introduced to constantly provide just the right amount of damage to ensure the brain remains the size I want it. Her power changes each time a new ''foreign object'' is introduced, but that is due to the change in the rejection and damage pattern. You can think of that as a simple idiosyncrasy.”

“Sen…sei?”

A grinding sound came from Ladybird while she seemed to be searching for something. However the old researcher described it, a human brain was apparently a necessary part for her to run. Her movements were noticeably stiff and awkward as she pursued that poison on her own.

“Sensei…but you said this research would help. You said the spread of androids would mean no more human specimens were needed for the esper development.”

“The ladybird—another name for the ladybug—might look humorous, but it is in fact a ravenous carnivore. You have heard that they are good to have around because they eat aphids, haven’t you?”

“Gh…kh.”

“And there are a lot of insects that mimic ladybugs. That includes a type of darkling beetle and cockroach, both kinds of bugs people might not normally want around. But that is not actually a type of protective coloration. Ha ha. Instead of trying to blend into their natural surroundings or avoid their predators, that coloration might actually be used to make humans like them.”

How deep did the dark side go?

How disgusting could the dark said get?

“So don’t you see?”

Its attacks were indiscriminate, like a cannibal insect.

The developer spoke to what looked like a lovely girl. And he seemed to be enjoying it immensely.

“''That is the perfect name for you.''”

===Part 12===

text> @I thought there was a problem with the world.

text> @I thought it was wrong for @humans to use @humans for their research in this city.

text> But @I could climb onto the examination table instead.

text> @I can be repaired or remade as many times as necessary.

text> Since my body was made identically to a @human’s, @I would be able to use an esper power as well. Pieces of my body could be freely added or removed, so @I could be examined inside and out more easily than a @human and @I could be modified as they saw fit.

text> No more sacrifices would be necessary for the esper development research.

text> That is why @I fought.

text> @I thought @Sensei’s research was a wonderful thing.

''“You know, Ladybird-kun, the term android signifies an artificial human built with an engineering approach. Based on that definition, it seems appropriate to me for a completed android to behave like a human.”

text> @Sensei’s words were like a shining light of hope.

text> @I wondered if @I really was good enough.

text> But @I was happy as long as @I could be of some use. @I think that kind of feeling is not something a simple machine could feel.

text> Does that mean @I am somehow @human?

text> The @humans that @I have seen are like that. They do not hesitate to make inefficient choices without even considering cost performance.

text> That is why @I find @humans to be so incredible.

text> @I have not spoken much with any other than @Sensei, but @I know that is because @androids cannot be made public yet. But @I love the @humans that @I see from a distance.

text> @I will build a path to a brighter future for them—a path to a happier world—so @I cannot allow someone to destroy all that just because they do not understand. So I will not let anyone interfere. Anyone who claims it is right to harm @people cannot be allowed to trample on the future @I can bring them.

text> So…

text>And yet…

===Part 13===

“Ah, ahh. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

The lovely girl in a racing swimsuit screamed.

All light vanished from her already mechanical eyes. She had fully transformed into a grotesque predator that roared on all fours.

She wanted to reject the idea, but she could not.

The only way to preserve herself was to devour that raw body tissue and bring it to the most important part of her body. Because intentionally introducing that foreign object would trigger a rejection reaction that would continue to damage her head in just the right way. That truth was more horrifying than needing to soak in a bathtub full of rotting corpses every day. Yet she could not stop. She was not allowed to stop. That had been built into her at the design phase, whether she liked it or not. She would always return to it like a drowning person struggling to reach the surface for air.

Tears spilled from her eyes.

Her mechanical face was painted with anger, hatred, and shame.

Why was she designed to do that?

An ordinary person like Hamazura could not figure it out. What logical reason was there? It almost felt like the cruelty of someone who enjoyed to watch others suffer.

At the same time, everything she needed to survive was contained inside her. Or maybe it was more accurate to say she had been built as an autonomous iron maiden. The victim was thrown into her back, the door to that steam locomotive boiler would slam shut, and the rest was completed automatically. She was made to do that and she must have actually done it several times before.

At that point, it was not an issue of good and evil on her part.

Hamazura could not judge her, but he did have to stop her.

No matter what.

“Grahhhhhhhh!!” she roared.

“Hamazura!!”

Takitsubo shouted in a panic because the red figure had vanished.

But the quadrupedal android had not leaped toward Hamazura or Takitsubo. Nor did she leap toward Kihara Hasuu who had made her this way. She went for someone else. She gained height by kicking off the columns and she moved every closer to the smallest and easiest prey: the kids in gym clothes.

Her instincts took precedence over strategy or emotion.

“Aneri!!”

A hacked track inspection car drove in from the side to tear apart an exposed high-voltage power line for the train. The power line whipped like a serpent and tangled around the android.

A great crash followed.

Knocking her to the ground was not going to flatten Ladybird, but it mattered a lot that she had fallen on her right side with the machete still in that hand.

She could not use that to defend with her arm caught between herself and the ground.

Hamazura gripped the small revolver in both hands and fired several times.

Dry gunshots expanded through the enclosed space.

This time, the shots actually hit the android whose back was turned to him. The “mouth” on her back quickly closed before she had even withdrawn the extraction organ that resembled the thin wing of an insect or a giant scalpel, but that was all that happened. It did not seem to do any real damage to her.

She used one arm to tear away the exposed power line wrapped around her like a serpent, freeing herself. At this rate, the forklifts protecting the children would not last long.

There was no time to spare.

“Boy!! Do you want to protect that girl!?” shouted Hamazura from a distance.

He did not wait for a response. The boy’s efforts had backfired badly, but if he did not care about that girl, he would not have gotten her off the train so she could escape.

Hamazura Shiage decided to trust this fellow human being.

“Then be brave and step forward! Falling back only gives her more of a chance to eat you two!!”

When the boy protecting his friend squeezed his eyes shut and stepped forward, Ladybird briefly came to a stop. She needed the soft brains inside those children. That was the poison she needed to damage herself.

But moving up to her was the right choice.

It was just like a cowboy’s lasso. You could swing it overhead to gather strength all you liked, but it would still be hard to throw it around the head of someone who was close enough to hug you. The android’s extraction organ looked like the thin wing of an insect or a transparent sword, but it was very long. That meant it was hard to use against someone right up in front of her.

But this method would only buy a few seconds at most.

Once she moved to the proper distance and tried again, the boy really would be eaten.

Hamazura made his next move before she could do that.

He had picked up a bottle of industrial cleaner presumably used to wash the train and he chucked it over a metal fence to hit a device larger than a refrigerator.

The giant railroad transformer scattered a frightening amount of sparks. And while it was invisible, it also sent out powerful electromagnetic waves.

Those waves’ effect on the human body was unknown, but their effect on a machine would be much more severe.

He heard a scream. That thing shaped like a calm and composed girl was now writhing on the ground in apparent pain.

Hamazura ran over, fired two or three shots at her, and continued on past her. Then he picked up the gym clothes boy still standing in danger and slid along the ground like a baseball player.

He hid behind the concrete column where the gym clothes girl was.

“Well done, boy. It’ll be okay now.”

Maybe someone from Anti-Skill or Judgment should have been saying that.

Maybe someone from the filthy dark side had no right to say it.

But he had taken over for a man who had wanted to say that so very badly.

And while he said that, Hamazura made sure to check his phone where the kids could not see. The screen was dead and Aneri was not responding. He doubted her program had been taken out, but without a device to receive her instructions, he had lost the support AI’s help.

It really would be one-on-one from here on.

But he did not need to let that show on his face.

“Maybe she’s with the dark side and maybe she isn’t, I dunno, but I don’t want to trample on her dignity any longer.” He looked the boy in the eye. “I’m going to end this here. Listen, don’t get yourselves killed. You need to survive if I’m going to save her.”

“What are you going to do?”

The gym clothes boy’s voice was vanishingly quiet, but he still got it out.

Even if he had to suppress the trembling in his body.

“I don’t want to run away anymore. What I did wasn’t brave. If I had faced mister honestly, he wouldn’t have had to get hurt. So…!!”

“Then help me out.”

Hamazura had planned to tell the boy to take the girl’s hand and run as far away as possible on his signal.

But he changed his mind.

Drencher Kihara Repatri, that young man who had wanted to save the children who would be used up by the dark side, was dead and nothing could change that. But this boy’s eyes carried the light the man had instilled in those children. After losing to Drencher, Hamazura could not allow that light to be extinguished.

No matter what.

So he changed his mind.

“I need a few tools to finish this. I’ll buy some time with this gun, so you gather them for me. Can you do that?”

Hamazura recalled the hard sensation in his pocket and clicked his tongue. He tried pulling it out, but its shine was still dull. It was not quite fully charged. The golden shine had yet to make a full circle around the edge of the coin. But that was fine. He threw the coin as far as he could, even though he had no idea if it would draw Ladybird’s attention or not.

He did not regret losing it.

He did not need the Coin of Nicholas.

Everyone already had the ability to switch over the tracks to a different route.

He would take a different route here and he did not need the creepy occult to do it.

He needed something else.

===Part 14===

She had found them.

Ladybird planted her hands and feet on the cold concrete ground while she located her target again.

She did not know how this would help her. If she captured them, her horrific feast would begin. But she could not stop herself.

She could not change this about herself. She could not escape her fate, just like a drowning person would subconsciously swim toward the surface.

…Even though she had wanted to protect the humans.

She would eat them.

This suffering would never end unless she consumed a human brain.

…Even though she was supposed to free those children from the darkness by lying on the dissection table herself.

“Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhh, ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

Her vision blurred.

But even her tears were scattered by the blowing wind of her great speed.

Even during unstable bipedal movement, she could rival a V12 engine at max RPMs, so her top speed had increased even further now that she had abandoned her dignity as a girl and gained the efficiency of a machine.

It did not matter if they were an adult or a child.

Puny human legs could never escape her.

She pursued her target as accurately as a precision-guided weapon. She charged toward those distinctive gym clothes.

Handgun bullets attacked her from the side. Even after all this, she had not let go of the thick machete. And without any obstacles in the way, firing on her was suicide. She could accurately kill the shooter with the ricochet by adjusting the angle of her weapon.

Or so she thought.

Instead, the reaction speed of her right hand had slowed by 0.5 seconds.

“?”

That was a devastating delay.

The storm of lead hit her and she tumbled along the ground. A 9mm round was not enough to destroy her bones or muscles—the problem was her speed. The impact from the side easily knocked her off balance and she broke through two or three concrete columns along the way.

But what was this?

What had happened? She had been moving on all fours, but that had not affected her right arm’s movable range. When she checked, she found no report of her movement performance having dropped.

The problem must have come before that.

She finally realized there had been an error in her targeting.

A whitish smoke was filling the entire circular space.

It was a smokescreen.

(It can’t be.)

More gunfire. She immediately readied her machete, but that did not work when she could only respond after the fact. She could not protect herself and the bullets slipped past the weapon to slam into her body.

“Gahhh!!”

===Part 15===

Hamazura Shiage had seen what happened in that container lab buried in trash. The long silver-haired hakama girl had made a desperate attack to save him and Takitsubo. She had grabbed the android’s face with her palm and shoved burning incense in the android’s mouth.

But how did that make sense? If Ladybird had the reaction speed to deflect every bullet fired at her, how had she overlooked a human hand?

“The dark side is coldhearted to everyone. You don’t get lucky for no good reason.”

The weak were always observant. After going through that sorrowful goodbye and seeing the girl suffering from so much pain, he had decided to at least use what she had taught him.

This was the world’s oldest chemical weapon.

That sounded fancy, but it was easily made with ordinary items.

You could use the hexachloroethane found in commercial bug sprays or make a powder out of the zinc used in all sorts of things in everyday life. Hamazura recalled that Hanzou had been an expert at stuff like this.

“A smokescreen!! It might not stop IR and ultrasound, but your high-speed defenses aren’t a threat if your sensors malfunction for even a moment!!”

===Part 16===

So?

What did that matter?

The intense hunger inside Ladybird continued to grow. It was more like a desire for oxygen than for food or water.

She was going to kill.

Just the one brain would suffice.

Her thoughts focused more and more on that one goal.

…What had she wanted to save again?

She managed to detect something in the powerful smokescreen.

She spotted a small figure in gym clothes.

…What had once been a girl wept as she raised her voice.

“010011101010110001011001101111001011!!”

She could not even get out actual words anymore.

Something inside her had fried.

After rushing toward her target faster than a racecar, she opened up once more. The small size suggested this was the girl. Ladybird’s back opened wide and the thin translucent thing burst out. Several of those predatory organs stuck out like thin insect wings or like long tongues. They wrapped around her target to bind them and then she shoved the heavy mass inside herself.

This was the dark side.

The good were not rewarded and the evil were not punished.

And.

And.

And.

“…?”

When did she notice something was wrong?

The gym clothes had been on a figure small enough to easily lift up in her arms. That much was true. But what was with that weight? Would a child of around 10 really weigh more than 200kg?

“It can’t be!?”

In that moment, Ladybird’s heart was filled by a feeling of…

===Part 17===

Ladybird was not the only one with their target in sight.

Hamazura Shiage accurately aimed his handgun.

“You didn’t like it when I fired on you from behind earlier, did you? Almost like you didn’t want a bullet getting inside that ‘mouth’ on your back.”

The weak were always observant.

The only way to make up for the difference in strength was to search out a weakness.

“And when you were engulfed in flames by that gasoline, you extinguished it with a swing of your machete. That was pretty scary at first glance, but if it really couldn’t harm you, you wouldn’t need to put out the flames, would you?”

He had not used the smokescreen to reduce the effectiveness of her sensors just to hit her with a few useless 9mm bullets.

But making that attack had convinced her that was all it was for.

This was the smokescreen’s true purpose.

The curtain of smoke had let her see the gym clothes without realizing they were on a metal drum and he had baited her into trying to eat that.

Plus, he had already proven that the handgun bullets were enough to ignite the contents of those metal drums.

He fired repeatedly toward her back.

Toward the centerline down her back that resembled the zipper on a costume. The oversized target prevented her from fully closing her back, so he only had to fire on that gap as if shoving the bullets on in there.

The metal drum she had taken into herself now expanded within her.

It exploded.

When the intense boom echoed out from her, he knew he had won. The blast and shockwave were enough to blow away the smokescreen.

He wished he had not seen what remained afterwards.

He was the one who had caused those remains to be strewn across the ground here.

“Hamazura!!”

“I’m fine.”

He bit his lip with the small revolver still in hand.

“Her head moved weirdly in the smokescreen there,” he said. “And then that scream. ''Something other than her mechanical thought process kicked in.'' Without that, I don’t think the metal drum would have tricked her.”

Her attack had been running off of a program, so maybe the parameters could be overwritten and the attributes could be switched on and off.

“She must have remembered something.”

He hung his head and looked down instead of at his girlfriend.

Something was lying on the ground there.

“So in that final moment, she did what she could to save those kids.”

The girl’s head had rolled over toward him and it looked to him like she was smiling.

Because now she would never have to kill again.

===Part 18===

This was a surprise.

He had not even considered what he would do if this happened.

Kihara Hasuu stood in a daze after being left all alone. Finally, he looked around the vast circular space.

Takitsubo looked to be in pain. The moxibustion’s effects would not last forever.

“Pant, gasp.”

“Takitsubo.”

A sinister metallic click sounded. It came from a small revolver.

“Get the kids away from here. It’s time for a grownup chat with that man.”

“…Okay.” Takitsubo nodded. “Are you sure, Hamazura?”

“Yeah. We have to do this before we run away.”

Once no one else was around to see this, the delinquent boy approached the old man with the handgun in his grasp.

“Got anything else?” His voice sounded cold and hard, like a machine. “You’re one of those rumored Kiharas, aren’t you? Did you modify your own body with that android tech?”

“…”

“If not, it’s about time we woke up from this nightmare.”

The revolver’s muzzle rose. His cold voice contained a hint of blatant scorn. Like he refused to accept that this man was unharmed after making Ladybird suffer so.

“You will pay for what you did to ''that girl''. I can’t think of any reason why I should forgive you. I doubt I ever could. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stand on the side of justice. But if I don’t do this here, the justice I couldn’t be will die. I might be dumb, but I can tell that much.”

Yes.

The look in the boy’s eyes said he could not let this man live. ''Kihara Hasuu considered that the correct answer.'' He had not felt anger or sorrow upon Ladybird’s defeat. He had seen a problem to solve and improvements to make. If he were freed from here, he would immediately begin development on the next generation. That would mean many more victims. He knew himself well enough to say that.

And now that there was new research to be done, he had something to live for.

That was his fate as a Kihara.

He did not want to die yet.

He could not let himself die.

No matter what.

“You have set a record here. This will make you the new Kihara Killer.”

“This is over.”

“That is a serious crime. You will undoubtedly become the center of the new dark side. And Academy City will always demand more live sacrifices, whether you want it or not!!”

“Don’t try to stall for time. You’re dead and nothing’s changing that.”

This conversation was meaningless.

Would the boy normally have said so much on reflex? Set a record, Kihara Killer, center of the dark side – Kihara Hasuu’s wording was meant to give his opponent a big head. Was there any way – any way at all – to turn the tables on the boy? The old man was racking his brains the entire time he was buying time. It could be anything. As one who bore the name Kihara, he was willing to break all forms of ethics and standards if need be.

Then he saw it. He noticed something out of place – a gold shine on the cold concrete ground.

It was a Coin of Nicholas.

The clockwise shine had filled the outer edge now. It was fully charged.

“!!”

He immediately leaped at it and grabbed it in his special engineering glove.

He raised his voice.

He wanted to get started on his next research even if it meant relying on something very unscientific.

“Make his gun malfunction, Coin of Nicholas!!”

Who was to blame for this? The actual phenomenon occurred a moment later.

The result was perfectly fair.

A bullet flew from Hamazura Shiage’s handgun.

Yes, there were more ways for a gun to malfunction than for the bullet to jam or even to explode inside, blowing up the gun and the wielder’s hand along with it.

It could also fire the bullet without the trigger being pulled.

“Huh?”

The old man looked down.

He could not believe that he had been hit in the gut, rupturing his stomach of all things. More than the bleeding, his own vomit contaminated his body where a single germ could ultimately be fatal. He collapsed, suffered for more than 5 full minutes, and finally passed away. Stomach acid was primarily composed of hydrochloric acid. What did it feel like to be placed on the surgical table, have your gut cut open, and have a bunch of that dumped inside? All without anesthetic, of course.

The old man had lost his life to his own prayer.

A believer in science had relied on something beyond the bounds of science.

This was the fate of someone who stopped trying to do his own work. But in a way, this may have been exactly what he deserved.

If he had relied on his own strength from the beginning, he never would have earned such resentment over Ladybird.

[[Image:GT_Index_v03_459.jpg|thumb]]

If he had cut out pieces of his own flesh for his experiments, he never would have gotten into an argument over what to do with the children in gym clothes.

If he had chosen that path, everyone who had arrived here maybe could have worked together to survive.

Hamazura did not think the android was at fault.

Kihara Hasuu might agree, but it would mean something very different coming from him. The old man’s crime and punishment had to be defined by his own nature. Speaking as an expert required earnestly facing what parts of science you wished to preserve.

Was this too a present from heaven?

That coin was a trap that provided obvious miracles but also took away all other options you might try.

Hamazura Shiage spoke quietly while viewing the scum still gripping that gold coin after he had stopped moving.

Was his face blank?

Or was he suppressing an inappropriate smile?

“Merry Christmas. Did you enjoy your miracle, mad scientist?”

===Map===

[[Image:GT_Index_v03_460-461.jpg|thumb]]

Below District 10:

Hamazura Shiage – Beneficial

Takitsubo Rikou – Beneficial

Kihara Hasuu – Harmful

Ladybird – Harmful

Drencher Kihara Repatri – Beneficial

Frillsand #G – Beneficial

===Between the Lines 4===

“It’s over.” Anna Sprengel spoke bluntly behind the cold bars. “That marks the end of the December 25 festivities. I doubt anything more will happen now, so I suppose my entertainment has come to a close. Well, at least I managed to gather up some decent ‘fluctuations’. If everything had gone as planned, I might have been so disgusted I switched it off.”

She received no response from the next cell.

Most likely, no one knew what he was thinking.

The human damage had been far too great to say his silence was the most eloquent answer of all.

“What were you picturing? How did you see Operation Handcuffs ending? I bet your dream wasn’t half bad.”

So only Anna’s voice filled this space.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of. Most any adult can think of some embarrassing disaster from their teenage years. The more you express your dreams, the sooner those dreams will be crushed. That’s why the most effective method is to hide what you want and work to reveal what everyone else wants so you can work against them. Hee hee. ''If you want to accomplish something great, you first need to hide your primary objective.'' You were a little too pure. You need to muddy the waters a little.”

A solid clink echoed through the cold air.

The girl who looked only 10 had flicked a gold coin into the air and then caught it in her hand.

“The Coin of Nicholas.”

The Board Chairman had lost control.

He had lost the ability to keep tabs on things.

The number of malicious accidents had been far too great. He had tried to give instructions from his cell, but he had been in no position to stop the snowball once it began rolling down the hill.

Because if he did that, the #1 would have once more become the #1 darkness.

He had sealed away his monstrous side.

He had sworn he would.

So. And yet.

“Adding in this one little foreign element shredded the flowchart you had in your head. You had it set up so the dark side would be dismantled and the people would peacefully surrender no matter how things played out, but that happy ending was torn to pieces and everyone chose for themselves to dive into a free world of high-risk death. …Who got them was random, but in the end ''only one person'' managed to break free of its bonds on their own. He slipped below my radar. I even contacted him during the day, yet I overlooked him. That is highly unusual.”

She sounded amused.

She almost seemed to place more importance on this than the #1 in the neighboring cell.

“I learned just the one thing from this spare time between experiments,” she continued.

Her voice seemed to have gone flat, like she had arrived at exactly the result she had predicted.

“''The freedom of magic wins out over the order of science.'' No matter how carefully you build everything up, I will still tear it down, overwrite it, and crush it.”

After a beat, she added one more thing like a mischievous child revealing a secret.

“Of course, these categories really don’t mean much of anything in the first place.”

She slid the edge of the golden coin along the crossbar of the barred door.

The scraping of metal on metal almost drowned out the click of a mechanism working.

The door had unlocked.

With no regard for how the lock actually worked.

“This is yet another miracle.”

The cell of science could not hold magic.

It was a very blunt metaphor.

She slowly walked out into the corridor and began to pass by the neighboring cell.

“As the name suggests, the Coin of Nicholas is a spiritual item limited to Christmas. Although it absorbs power directly from the ley lines instead of from the magician’s body, so it is technically more like a grimoire than a spiritual item. This chaos is a dream you will wake from come morning. It will not last long, so don’t worry.”

“How dare you!!”

Finally.

Something translucent challenged her from behind the bars. She looked like a lovely girl with marine creature elements and bat wings attached and she wore a dress of English newspapers covered in articles that some might consider profane. Metal bars meant nothing to her. She broke through them with a shower of orange sparks and she grabbed at the little girl covering herself with a thin red cloth.

She was Qliphah Puzzle 545, an artificial demon prepared as a trump card by the Anglican Archbishop who had once tried to overthrow the world.

However…

“I’m trying to talk. Don’t interrupt when you don’t even understand what I mean.”

All of a sudden, something stood next to the little girl.

The translucent being was an angel with a falcon head and a powerful body. As soon as a vertical crack ran through him, the angel mercilessly stripped off his entire body.

He was now a sun.

A dreadful light burst out and filled the space as it attacked the demon girl.

“Kyahhh!!”

Accelerator did not even stir.

The #1 had his reflection.

''Yet a red liquid dripped from the corner of his mouth.

“Think before you speak. Just think about it and you should realize that now is not the time for you to interrupt.”

Anna was not even looking in his direction.

She simply waved goodbye.

“My experiment is complete. Things will go differently next time.”

She never did look through the bars. She was already looking to some other place as she walked away.

But she did give a final parting comment.

“Send ''him'' my regards.”

Accelerator leaned back against the hard wall, let his hips sink to the cold floor, and lowered his head.

He did not speak a word.

One thing had been proven here. His small dream would never come true

Not as long as she was here.

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter4

2020-11-23T17:39:49Z

SNovah: /* Part 13 */

==Chapter 4: The Demon Lord’s Young — the_LIGHT.==

===Part 1===

“Where have you been, Risako!?”

“Mister, Risako-chan is back!!”

The gym clothes girl laughed when she saw the other children gathered around.

“Eh heh heh. A doggy and an older girl saved me.”

They must have been preparing for another move because all the trucks had their engines running. But they had waited until they had found the girl with red hair done up like candy. She was relieved. Having a home to return to was a wonderful thing.

“''A doggy,'' huh?” said the artificial ghost called Frillsand #G.

“…”

Her comment made the young researcher fall silent for a bit.

His name was Drencher Kihara Repatri.

That family name was so well known in the dark side that it had become a more powerful classification than beneficial or harmful. The man who bore that name sighed softly to help refocus his mind.

“There is a chance we’ve been located, but we’re faster at the moment. If we move before they catch up, we can reach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' without issue.”

“Do you really think this world will allow any of this to go ‘without issue’?”

“It’s our job to make sure it happens.”

The adults exchanged their views with their voices too low for the excited children to hear.

But a certain boy kept his voice low for a different reason.

“Risako.”

“Oh, Sodate-chan.”

The tall boy in the same kind of gym clothes looked troubled for some reason. In fact, he looked close to tears. Risako tilted her head, thinking he was afraid she would get after him about the ball and chemical soap, but this was different.

“So you came back,” he said.

“Eh?”

“I was hoping maybe you were gone for good.”

He had wanted that? Did he hate her that much? Risako’s face clouded over, but this was again different. He shook his head and explained.

He was the only one of the children who had ''started to question these motion sensors they wore for some kind of experiment.''

“Because then at least you might have been safe.”

===Part 2===

He was afraid of screwing it up, so he started by drawing marks on her back with a marker.

“Hamazura, that tickles.”

“Stay still.”

The old book had a brush-drawn diagram with no perspective or attempt to make it look three-dimensional. The indicated locations of the organs were clearly not right. Maybe it was like the difference between an aerial photograph of the clouds and the isobars on the weather forecast map. He wondered if this was what all traditional Japanese medicine was like as he drew Xs on his girlfriend’s body. She had even removed her bra and was holding her chest in her hands while showing him her smooth back. He thought his heart was going to burst every time she squirmed from the ticklishness. Even he knew that reaction was inappropriate given the circumstances. Once he finished that, it was finally time to start. He faced the girl while she lay face down on the container lab’s work table like she was sunbathing.

The moxa used for the moxibustion was like fluffy cotton, but he actually had to set it on fire.

It felt wrong doing that on her soft skin and he could even permanently scar her if he screwed it up.

“…”

His fear came to the forefront now that it was time to do it, but this was the only way to help her with the fever.

He fought the desire to shut his eyes and placed a small pile of “fuel” on her soft skin. He worked at the lighter with a trembling hand, but he kept failing. Once he finally had a small flame, he slowly moved it in close.

“Nh.”

“A-are you okay, Takitsubo?”

“I’m fine.”

He continued the process a few more times. He had his doubts, but when she wiped the sweat from her brow, no more sweat beaded up. It did seem to be working.

He could not thank the hakama girl enough.

He could not waste this chance she had given them, so they had to approach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''.

That card-sized hard drive had been labelled with the word “Lifeline”.

Aneri must have decided the data would be too small to see on his phone because she displayed it a flat screen monitor in the lab instead. It was a series of numbers.

It looked like a calculation sheet made with spreadsheet software, but even that was enough to make the delinquent boy’s head hurt. Maybe it was important data, but he had no idea what he was supposed to focus on.

“This looks like materials data,” said Takitsubo after peering at it from the side.

“Materials?”

“Whether they’re beneficial or harmful, the dark side does a lot of research.” She pointed at one of the numbers. “They’re also building a lot of military weapons. But doesn’t it seem odd? Academy City is a mass consumer and it only has so much land since it’s surrounded by walls. You can’t just dig into the ground here and find oil or ores. So where do they get all those materials from?”

“Where? Isn’t that what the cooperative institutions around the world are for? They can work out a deal with them.”

“But how can they do that without leaving any record of it?”

She pointed at another number.

If a citizens group monitoring the flow of money and materials could reveal a secret, then it had never been part of the dark side to begin with.

“Look at this. The dark side is using far more materials than the total amount brought in from outside the city. Cutting off the fat and redistributing it to themselves would not be enough for this. The amount the dark side uses is several times larger. This would show up in the records no matter what you did. Important people like the Board of Directors and its Chairman can only cover up so much. This is too much. It’s well past what you could hide by cooking the books.”

“But then…”

He trailed off when Aneri opened a new window. A single point on a map of Academy City was colored in red. There was a secret there.

“They have an entrance and exit that doesn’t leave any records,” said the track suit girl while viewing the screen.

There were several files that appeared to be saved from message boards and social media pages. Reading through them showed a certain point in common.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

Takitsubo pointed at that bizarre statement.

“There is a way of reaching it and we should see hints of it in the rumors told around the city. Like the ‘!’ signs, a deadly train, kidnappers at the amusement park, babies in the coin lockers, or an underground construction zone where you can dump anything you don’t want found. But none of that gets at the real truth.”

“You mean…?”

“Academy City doesn’t promote recycling so much just because it wants to make the most of its limited resources. ''Sending things back to be recycled over and over again masks how much materials are actually being used.'' They can’t have an investigation revealing that we dump out several times more trash than materials we take in, right? That would violate conservation of mass. So they needed to make it hard to compare those two values. It’s a form of laundering.”

Why was that sleight of hand necessary? How did they reach the impossible result of more waste than raw materials? What was this secret that no one wanted getting out?

''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.

This was the identity of that term they had heard so many times today.

“It…isn’t closed off? There’s a secret route through the walls surrounding Academy City!?”

That could not be. For better or for worse, Academy City was cut off from the outside world. Those thick walls prevented their tech from spreading to the world at large because that could lead to disorder and chaos.

Hamazura used to be part of Skill Out. That was a group of the boys and girls who had dropped out of Academy City but had nowhere to go since they could not get out of the city.

They had been trapped. They had dropped out of school, but those walls had kept them here. If you wanted to take a trip outside the city for just a few days, you needed to submit a ton of paperwork and receive a nanodevice injection. Because if you tried leave without using the official gates, you could be killed to prevent a data leak. There had been burglars and muggers in the back alleys, but none of those expert thieves had dared go anywhere near the walls.

If there was a way to freely move in and out, they may not have felt so much pressure. They could have made a place for themselves.

Their former leader, Komaba Ritoku, might not have had to fight and die.

“…”

But the dark side had torn down that number one assumption like it was nothing.

That counterfeiter had stored that information on a card-sized hard drive labeled “Lifeline”. Had he thought he could use that information to get some dark side bigshots to save him?

He must have never imagined he would instead have his brains blown out by a paparazzo. Hamazura was at the center of all this, but he still did not know if that had been planned or a spontaneous decision.

“It’s deep below Academy City.” Takitsubo Rikou calmly read aloud something on such a large scale that talk of an alternate dimension would have sounded more realistic. “The world’s largest particle accelerator is built directly below the city walls, so people are told that digging in that area could break the accelerator’s seal and expose them to radiation and other risks. That was meant to convince everyone that no one would be dumb enough to try it.”

The diagram they found looked like a puzzle ring. It seemed to carefully avoid the circular accelerator facility, but this was a tunnel built by the dark side. There was no chance it met all the proper safety standards.

That was the dark side’s lifeline.

They had built it to continue pumping fuel into their illicit research and its construction showed they did not care at all if they brought chaos to the world. It really was the greatest taboo. It was a dark umbilical cord that could wipe out the Kiharas and everyone else if it was cut off.

“I doubt Anti-Skill knows about this,” said Takitsubo. “So they won’t be able to block it off. We can safely escape the city if we use it.”

“…”

The red light displayed by Aneri was in District 10, the city’s biggest slum. The taboo no one wanted was hidden below the district everyone had abandoned.

It was unclear if it had always had this name. They may have changed the name periodically to help hide the truth. All the scattered information was fragmentary witness accounts and some of it would likely be intentional misinformation.

But that taboo’s gaping mouth had sat deep underground all this time.

Like a nightmarish symbol of freedom.

The dot on the map displayed on the small screen had the following name displayed next to it: Vanishing Tunnel.

That was the name of their final destination. Anyone who arrived there was given a ticket to another world.

===Part 3===

They were deep, deep underground in District 10.

Few people would think too much about the layout of the subway tunnels below the city. They might know a track took an unnatural curve at one point, but no one would question the online news article about them running across some kind of ruins during construction.

An underground passageway was surrounded by cold concrete and supported by the pillars positioned at even intervals.

The few fluorescent lights on the walls were not enough to fully sweep away the darkness.

That underground blind spot had become the biggest hot spot in the world. A great many people had gathered there. They had not all arrived along the same route. They had each gathered the hints scattered around the city and started to question the city’s biggest assumption. Academy City was surrounded by thick walls, but it was not in fact sealed off.

The brawny men in work jumpsuits were a courier group called Secret Express. The men and women in dress clothes were Concierge, a group that provided hideouts to meet a criminal’s demands. The girls in plain clothing and hiding their faces with sunglasses and hunting caps may have been an extremely popular idol group. The parade of scum included Controller, who used personal information and fictitious bills to threaten the girls he targeted until he had them in digital chains, and Flare, who left behind harmless powder identical to the real deal in order to confuse criminal investigations.

A ruler of the back alleys was there.

A major corporation’s lawyer was there.

A university headmaster was there.

A major entertainment producer was there.

And a few Kiharas from different fields were there.

All sorts of people flooded that underground passageway. People did not end up on the dark side because they were low class, poor, stupid, or criminal. It took all types. The dark side had reached every class of person equally. From worlds no one knew existed to industries everyone envied.

Some had fallen before making it this far and others had attempted a different route instead. In a way, finding this tunnel and setting foot inside made them the chosen ones.

And.

Every last one of them were obstructed and crushed by a certain figure.

The woman had long blonde twintails and she wore a skintight light blue dress and a long loose skirt.

Frillsand #G was like an impassable wall.

All who challenged her crashed into that wall with the intensity of their challenge. After seeing a few of them turned to hunks of flesh and splattered blood, the others must have started wondering if she literally was a solid wall because all of those dark side members had come to a stop. They were pushed back even though she had not taken a single step.

Of course, the ghost was not going to spare them just because they gave up now.

“Next stop: skewering. Repeat: skewering.”

With a wet sound, a muscular man in black was destroyed from groin to head. But he may have been one of the lucky ones. He was gone before he even knew what had happened to him.

“Please look out for the burning and severing.”

Screams of pain echoed through the tunnel. Before long, the dark side members were fighting amongst themselves too. They appeared to have begun an ugly struggle over the concrete column they could use as a shield. However…

“We will arrive at gouging soon.”

Just as the ghost silently circled behind the column, a wet sound exploded out. The victors and losers of the struggle were all turned to mincemeat together while Frillsand #G looked on in disinterest.

“Ah…gahh,” someone groaned.

It was one of the idol girls. Her bottom half was gone and the bottom of her torso was sticking to the floor like a slug.

“But…why? We found the taboo…so aren’t we part of the dark side too? Can’t we all use…the path out together?”

“I have children to take care of. A lot of them.” Frillsand #G did not even look in her direction. “Inviting all of you in with us would only put them at risk.”

“Just…” It was already too late for her, but the top half of a girl still clawed at the concrete floor. “Just in case? You took people’s lives for no more than that!?”

“Next stop: running over. I repeat: running over.”

With a wet splat, the complaints were silenced.

The ghost seemed to be rejecting the idea that grudges lacked the power to kill.

“The rear guard is an important job,” she said in a singsong voice. “But I cannot let that crybaby see this. Knowing of it and seeing it are two very different things.”

The artificial ghost glanced over at something else.

But she soon lost interest, turned around, and vanished into the darkness.

A mere ten meters away, Hamazura Shiage was hiding behind a column and holding his hand over the track suit girl’s mouth.

If she noticed them, they were dead. He felt like his heart, his breathing, his body odor, and the slight static electricity on his clothing could all give them away. He could not even wipe the unpleasant sweat from his cheek as he desperately waited for time to pass.

That ghost really was an enemy.

She had some kind of plan of her own and had saved them on a whim before, but that did not mean he could trust her. If she had saved them on a whim, then she could also choose to throw them out on a whim. And they only had the one life.

This was worse than a sea of blood.

Flesh and blood had lost any hint of their original form, fingers extended into empty space, facial skin was frozen in a look of agony while plastered to the wall. At this point, they were only “things”, not people. There was no dignity remaining.

Each of them was a dark side member who had arrived at ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' along a different route than him.

Their endless possibilities had been reduced to zero.

Or so it felt to him.

Was this tunnel really the right path? The further they went, the more likely they were to encounter that ghost woman, so he began to wonder if it would be safer to turn back now and return to the surface.

“Pwah.”

His girlfriend escaped his hand. He was holding her from behind, so she leaned her head back to look him in the eye.

“Hamazura, I don’t sense her presence anymore. We can keep going now.”

“…”

“We can’t give up after coming so far. Blindly returning to the surface won’t save us. We’ll never find peace if we don’t go through here.”

“R-right.”

He would have long since broken if he were alone.

But when she pulled on his hand, he managed to work up some small semblance of courage.

Even with the evenly-spaced fluorescent lights, the tunnel was dark. And they had no idea who was in charge of that sparse lighting. What if the ghost could shut off the power? His phone felt all the more important to him now.

“This is a long tunnel.”

“Yeah.”

They were not speaking much anymore.

This was ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'', but did this tunnel really lead toward hope? No matter how far they went, the darkness never went away. As they trudged deeper and deeper, he felt like they had passed a point of no return. Also, who had built this enormous underground facility? Someone must have drawn up the plans, dug the hole, set the foundation, and brought in the rebar and concrete. This was a far bigger project than a bank robber’s hand-dug tunnel into the vault. Such a vast and well-made underground space could not have been built without the involvement of a major construction company.

Who had done it?

It might be a company whose ads he saw on TV every day.

Would all of this come to light one day? But those meaningless thoughts were cut off by Takitsubo.

She had noticed first because she was not holding the light.

“Hamazura, there’s a door.”

“…”

It was a thick metal door.

Just the one door sat at the end of the long, long tunnel. There may have been another route, but he did not recall seeing any other paths branching off along the way.

He slowly approached.

It did not appear to be locked. He doubted there were any grenades or other “gifts” left for them.

But that was not what scared him. He had seen all of those corpses along the way. The sight had left him so terrified he barely had it in him to keep his heart beating. He had started to view their fallen predecessors as no more than a piece of the scenery. Because otherwise that shadowy murder scene would have overwhelmed him too much to continue on.

The taboos were piling up.

He and Takitsubo had started this simply wanting to survive, but they too had been corrupted along the way.

Hamazura Shiage reached his fingers toward the doorknob.

He touched it. He squeezed it.

He turned it.

===Part 4===

A flood of light revealed a world no one was ever meant to see.

“…”

The other world turned out to be a cavernous pit.

This abyss slept deep below the earth, yet it was filled with much more artificial light than the tunnel. That was thanks to the construction lights set up here and there.

It was easily more than 250 meters across and maybe more than twice as deep. The perfectly circular space made of reinforced concrete at the very bottom may have reminded different people of different things.

Some might see it as a common utility duct, a circular colosseum, a switchyard’s turntable, or an underground temple dedicated to a god one must never offer any prayers.

But there was one crucial piece that helped solidify the proper image.

“A train?” muttered Hamazura while peering down over the railing.

It was a turntable.

Concrete columns were installed at even intervals around the edges, but there were none in the central circle. The flat concrete floor had a smaller circle built into it. That would rotate to change the train’s direction. The tracks outside the circle extended in 12 different directions. That made it all look like something else: a giant metal flower.

Yes, there were tracks, signal lights, transformers, maintenance equipment, a control room, and a fifteen-car train in here. It was a freight train.

“That’s the dark side’s lifeline?”

For him and Takitsubo, it was the plank of Carneades that would save their lives.

He doubted that turntable was all of it. There would be a container yard and maintenance zone hidden further out from the center.

They walked along the narrow catwalk built along the circular wall and descended the stairs. There were no corpses in here. Whoever had gotten here first must have used the ghost woman to eliminate any nuisances before they reached this point.

And since the train was still here, that person would still be here.

They shared this space with the slaughterer.

“Hamazura.”

“Don’t worry. I’m with you no matter what.”

“Not that. There’s someone down there. And they’re not alone.”

That was a shock. Takitsubo Rikou could accurately locate people by sensing their AIM Diffusion Field. She could not use that power as well as she used to, but she could still sense it to an extent.

The tension grew.

A single person with a bizarre power was certainly scary, but having a large group approach you brought a different sort of fear. He mentally switched his priorities to at least allowing Takitsubo to escape if things looked bad.

The only exit was up here.

Leaving that would mean being surrounded by dead ends in every direction.

“…”

After descending the last flight of stairs, they arrived at the deepest depths.

It felt so much different from when they had been looking down from above. But that was not too surprising since 250 meters was larger than a domed stadium. This was the same as a sports field looking so much bigger from the stands than on TV.

Yes, Hamazura Shiage now stood on the stage. He was no longer an outsider looking in.

“Oh, dear. You actually showed up. What a shame.”

He lasted one second.

His knees suddenly dropped to the ground. He could not keep his shoulders at the same height and his lost strength would not return.

“Wha—!?”

It was the ghost woman.

Was she a beneficial or a harmful?

She had left that tunnel far too bloody to claim she was trying to escape Academy City because she disliked conflict. If anything, she felt more like a vengeful spirit that refused to let anyone leave the city.

She looked like a Western doll with her long blonde twintails and light blue dress. She did not actually punch or kick him. Simply seeing her out of the corner of his eye had done critical damage to him.

A rusty-smelling liquid dripped from his eyes and nose.

He was trying to scream and flip over onto his back, but he was actually curled up and unable to move.

Encountering her meant death.

That was far too sinister a thing to be connected with a simple equals sign like that.

“It is no use.”

The ghost woman walked without audible footsteps. She moved herself from the corner of his vision to the center.

“No one is talking about anything as silly as defending against something with a shield or dodging a projectile with super speed. ''From the moment you see my face,'' the attack is complete. If I so much as casually stand in the corner of your vision, I can do continual damage without you even noticing my presence.”

He realized the strange things had always happened when the ghost woman spoke to him. And why had she turned the lights on in that tunnel? Because it was more convenient for her.

If you saw a ghost while driving, you would crash.

If your face, hands, or feet were missing in a ghost photo, you would find unnatural wounds or marks on your body.

Did this mean she even artificially reproduced those aspects of a ghost? He did not want to believe it because it would mean there was nothing he could do.

“Hamazu—!?”

“You noticed? You must have sharper senses.”

The track suit girl quickly pulled him close, but the ghost woman did not seem to care.

Besides, if seeing her really did mean death, then Takitsubo would have been killed too, but she was fine.

“But I am not talking about anything as poorly-defined as a sixth sense for ghosts. Do you have a power related to AIM Diffusion Fields?”

“There’s no AIM Diffusion Field around you? No, some strong but invisible power is scattering that weaker field.”

“It is known as High Voltage Cutting,” said the ghost woman. “The principle may be similar to the shock diamonds seen in a rocket engine’s flame or the cavitation of air bubbles created around a propeller. The constant emission of a powerful energy will create irregular waveforms and images while it interferes with itself.”

“Gh!? What energy???”

“You can find energy everywhere.” Her tone was light, so understanding how it worked must not have helped avoid its effects. “The carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide you thoughtlessly spread around forms acid rain when it bonds with the moisture in the air. You can acquire electricity simply by sticking two electrodes into a fruit, you know? Copper and zinc are such necessities that you can find them anywhere. Using that, you can produce hydrogen gas in addition to electricity. I only need to absorb power from a ''civilization battery'' the size of a city or even greater. That is enough for me to construct a single outlier point within that stable energy.”

“…”

“What are the common types of haunted locations? Old homes full of drafts, cliffs and caves eroded by the waves, and mountain roads late at night. They are always full of ''noise'', such as static electricity, pressure differences, the creaking of rusty doors, or the rustling of the trees in the wind. Have you ever heard a ghostly voice in the crackle of excess electricity or the roar of hydrogen gas being ignited? I can exist as I am wherever human civilization exists. If you wish to kill me, you must destroy your very way of life. On a global scale.”

This was too much.

He could not understand her explanation. And even if he thought he did, it still did not tell him how to destroy her.

Takitsubo gasped and spoke while holding onto him.

“I get that the constant use of a massive amount of unseen energy would eventually create something unnatural. But if seeing you is deadly, how do you choose specific targets to—?”

She trailed off.

She had seen something out of the corner of her eye, but not the artificial ghost this time. A unified set of colors could be seen peeking out of at them from a gap in the door to one of the freight train’s containers.

''They were small children wearing gym clothes and some kind of device. There were more than just ten or twenty of them.

''All of them were a part of the ghost experiment.

The children must have seen the ghost woman as they nervously spied out. And they seemed to be expectantly waiting to see if she would repel these unknown intruders. They did not know. They had not been told what they were being used for. Simply viewing a ghost photo was harmful and the longer you viewed it, the more damage it did. She embodied that power so perfectly that she had eliminated so many dark side elites.

Yet she had managed to accurately select one out of the many candidates.

That was like shooting the apple off someone’s head. Without explaining any of it to the children who had those sensors attached to them.

“…”

The delinquent boy clenched his teeth.

He could barely move, she held his life in her hand, and he had no idea how to fight back. He had to avoid angering her if at all possible. He understood that, but he still shouted up at her.

“You scum!!”

“Call me what you wish. In fact, I see it as a compliment.”

The ghost woman who resembled a fairy tale princess held her palm out toward him. He only had to see her impossible presence for her to attack, so that gesture was meaningless.

But then her eyes turned unnaturally away from him.

To the side.

A spare container sitting near the train was sliced in two. Something had dropped down from far above like a bolt of lightning.

A red figure wielded a thick machete made of heavy metal.

The android wore a racing swimsuit colored the orange and black of an insect. The bangs of her long crimson hair were cut straight across and she had a slender build.

Cartoony flowers were displayed in her mechanical eyes.

“Smug face.”

“Hello, hello,” said a twig of an old man in a blue jumpsuit and lab coat. “I hate to interrupt when you seem so busy, but I must insist.”

The ghost woman shrugged.

“Were you hoping to use the train? I thought you were one of the harmfuls who would remain in the city and resist to the bitter end.”

“I have no interest in those categories forced onto the dark side from the outside. All I care about is continuing my research. Academy City was a wonderful environment for that, but if that has changed, I need to leave and search out a more comfortable place.”

“You can see me, can’t you?”

“You should be able to tell by observing my eye movements.”

“And you know what that means?” She gave a suggestive glance over at the machine that had arrived with him. “In case you were unaware, I am capable of causing malfunctions in mechanical lenses and sensors just as well as in the human body. Ghost photographs are a result of ghosts interfering in optical machinery, are they not? That might be your masterpiece, but isn’t it presumptuous to assume she can wield her full power against me?”

She remained untouchable. She could kill someone just by placing herself in the corner of their vision and machines could not do anything to her either. Did she have no blind spots?

“Yes, I imagine so.”

But the old man did not seem to mind.

That mysterious old man ''known as a Kihara'' was not bothered that she held his life in her hand.

“You are the strongest when it comes to an individual. Looking at deadliness alone, you might outdo the #3 and the #2.”

“…”

Evidently, even ghosts could find something to be ominous.

This world may have been infected with a disease that caused all bad premonitions to come true.

“But in this specific location, I believe you too will find you cannot wield your full power.”

“What are you—gah!!!!????”

He had given her plenty of warning, but she suddenly arched her back and then froze unnaturally in midair. An ominous straining sound continued on and on as her body grew distorted. She bent and stretched, almost like a face pressed against a wall of glass.

Something was happening.

Hamazura had thought the ghost woman was an intangible being, like a mist or apparition. But she was not. She clearly had a spine to strain, muscles to cry out in pain, and organs to writhe unnaturally.

Then a bizarre creaking and cracking noise came from her. Her volume shrank more and more like she was being crushed in from all sides. The old man was holding something up in his special engineering glove. It looked like an empty candy box, but it was not. It had a small pinhole at the very top. The ghost woman was sucked into that small hole like a liquid or a gas. Hamazura did not want to imagine what things were like inside there. He could only say one thing in a daze.

“A pinhole…camera?”

“High Voltage Cutting? I see, a strange theory, but she is still a form of unstable energy. And all energy will move from high to low—unstable to stable. This is enough to break down her form and burn in her image.”

The old man let go of the candy box.

He had the look of a mischievous child who had just realized he could create his own spark show by sticking a metal clip in the microwave.

“This is the appropriate choice for a ghost photo, don’t you think? A digital camera just wouldn’t fit the aesthetic.”

After dropping it to the cold concrete, he crushed it below his heel. He did not even glance down at the flattened box.

“''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.''” He tapped on his lower back. “Surely you didn’t think a construction company building a secret tunnel out of the city was enough to earn a name like that. With something like her around, you really should have thought of a different possibility.”

“Wh-what?”

Hamazura felt like the unnatural “curse” had weakened, but he still could not bring himself to get up from the ground. The old man only now seemed to have realized that there was another person here reaching for the plank of Carneades.

Hamazura knew any attention on him would only lead to disaster.

Kihara Hasuu smiled.

“Let me make one thing clear. There is a member of the Board who built a vast fortune by doing unofficial construction work for the dark side, but he knows nothing of this. This massive underground structure just appeared out of the blue one day.”

“…?”

Out of the blue?

Hamazura had operated construction machinery before, so he knew how absurd that was. Did that old man have any idea how long it would take to dig out a hole of this size?

But the old man appeared to be serious.

Deadly serious.

“''The Vanishing Tunnel does not actually exist.''”

Hamazura had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

It made no sense. If that were true, then where were they now???

The old man gave the answer.

“Kazakiri Hyouka was not just a single individual. She is more like one piece of the Imaginary Number District, an entire city created from the aggregation of AIM Diffusion Fields. …It all began with a project meant to cut out a portion of that territory and extract it as a new resource. Unlike the microscopic alchemy performed in the particle accelerator, this would have been on the macro scale and cost very little. But not even the group of researchers who guided all that power through the city could have predicted it would take this form. ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' is such a dramatic name. In truth, it was a major failure that needed to be covered up. Everyone involved was at their wits’ end.” He tapped his lower back again. “A nonexistent pathway unofficially connected Academy City to the world outside, increasing the risk of the outer world’s collapse through cultural exchange and technological contamination. The entire world very well could have been destroyed from this single point. While the researchers had hoped to extract materials from the Imaginary Number District, whatever came from there might have transformed the outside world into something truly grotesque. …Yes, that the world still exists as it does now was no more than ''dumb luck''. It was nothing we did on our end. Kazakiri Hyouka and the other inhuman monsters simply showed no interest in that. If something had occurred to them and they had tried it, the world would have ended.”

“You mean…” Takitsubo replied since she had a better understanding of things related to AIM. “You were researching the exact opposite of that ghost? A ghost made from powerful energy and an aggregation of weak powers are opposites, so when they came together, it caused the ghost to malfunction… You were trying to extract inorganic materials from that unseen city, weren’t you?”

“Hard to say if that research was a step forward or a step back. Like I said, they failed. They could not control it, so even the remains of their project you see here cannot be erased. I believe the natural half life was about 12,000 years. In the worst case, the Imaginary Number District could have been converted into real numbers, crushing Academy City in the process. I think the project could have found success if they could have cut off a piece at a workable size and found a way to control it. In that sense, that ghost really is the strongest as an individual and an enviable success.”

Now even Hamazura had a vague idea why the ghost woman had suddenly malfunctioned.

They could not be in the same place.

Two ghosts could not coexist. Just like installing two different pieces of security software on the same computer would cause a conflict.

“It was still a risky gamble, though. The odds were low, but if the tunnel ''had lost'', this temporary space itself would have vanished and we would all have become fossils after being buried deep below the surface.”

Hamazura heard a swooshing sound and looked over to see the android swinging her thick machete next to the old man. Those two had won their bet, so now no one could stop them.

Kihara Hasuu looked away from Hamazura and turned to someone else.

“Now, I have eliminated your bodyguard. Isn’t it time we talked this out like adults?”

===Part 5===

“When’s the train going to leave?”

“Oh, mister just left.”

The children dressed up in gym clothes were whispering to each other while peeking out through the cracked-open door of a freight train container.

But among them…

“Ow, that hurts.”

The girl named Risako spoke up in protest.

But Sodate ignored that and continued tugging on her skinny wrist. The bigger boy was kind of scary when he was not saying anything.

“Listen, Risako.” He spoke quickly while walking through the shadows to stay hidden. He seemed to be speaking to himself more than the girl. “You can still escape. It’s not too late. And once you get to the surface, go tell the grownups about this. I know you can do it.”

“Why? The train is about to leave.”

“You still don’t get it!?” He shouted with his hands on her shoulders. “They make us wear these clothes and devices, they keep us separated from the rest of the city, and they don’t let us go to a normal school. We’re Child Errors, so no one will even notice if we just disappear one day. They’re only raising us because they can use us for something. They’re fattening us up to eat us!”

“But…”

“We don’t even have phones to call for help. ''It isn’t normal to be this isolated.'' That’s why I kept leaving behind some sign of our presence: building blocks, picture books, balls, and so on. I left them outside before the trucks moved on and I made sure to write our names, the trucks’ license numbers, and other information on them! But none of it ever reached the grownups. Our efforts never reached anyone!!”

She had thought he kept stealing things because he was selfish. She had thought he would forget those things in his secret bases because he was sloppy. But that was not it.

“They’re relatively peaceful beneficials? Don’t make me laugh. What’s going to change after we board that train and leave Academy City? There won’t be anyone monitoring them anymore!! Once that happens, I just know he’ll stop holding back. He’ll ''take it even further''! So you at least need to escape before that happens!!”

“Sodate-chan…”

“I’ll give you an opening.” He looked the girl in the eye and spoke clearly. “I won’t let him turn you into a guinea pig no matter what!!”

===Part 6===

A somewhat slender man stepped out. He wore a short-sleeved safari jacket and a rash guard, making him look something like an old-fashioned adventurer, but the webcam attached to the side of his head gave him a more modern outdoorsy look. He appeared to be a different sort of researcher from the old mechanic in a lab coat and jumpsuit.

He was an expert at visiting so-called haunted locations around the world and revealing the scientific cause of the strange phenomena there. But he had apparently also artificially recreated such things to use them for his own purposes.

He grinned and raised his hands in a jocular way. Kihara Hasuu asked him a question with the deadly weapon girl still by his side.

“What is your name?”

“Drencher Kihara Repatri.”

“I see. So that’s you.”

The young man’s eyebrows moved slightly in response to the old man’s impressed tone.

“I didn’t expect someone like you to have heard of me.”

“You are rather…well known.”

The way he said that told Hamazura he did not mean that in a positive way.

This was a confrontation between two harmfuls.

The two researchers ignored the boy and girl entirely as they began a verbal rally. Hamazura knew he could not just sit and watch as a referee or spectator, but he had no way of intervening.

“As you can see, we come from different levels of the dark side. If there is no place for us in Academy City anymore, then leaving the city is a valid choice. But is that plank of Carneades really only big enough for the one group? I think it can support both of us just fine.”

That suggestion seemed surprising…but maybe it wasn’t. It was the ghost woman who had been slaughtering all of the other dark side members trying to reach this point. The android may have attacked Anti-Skill, but she had never actively tried to eliminate her fellow dark siders. She had attacked Hamazura near the counterfeiter’s tents, but if she had been trying to slaughter everyone she came across, the ordinary people in the amusement park would not have escaped alive.

The young man shrugged.

“If that means less fighting, it’s okay with me. Not that I really have a choice, do I?”

“Assuming you have no other trump cards.”

“Then I surrender.”

He did not hesitate to respond. Hamazura was actually surprised to see he was willing to back down to save his own life. Hamazura had gotten the impression that the extreme members of the dark side were willing to sacrifice their own life to achieve their goal.

That surprise scared Hamazura. He could tell he had let the dark side influence him too much. He was afraid the damage would be permanent if he went much further. Once he became a harmful, there was no going back.

“She was my prized project, you know? Frillsand #G, I mean. Now, I knew ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' would pose a challenge, but I never imagined it was a giant mass of AIM Diffusion Fields.”

“Everything has its compatibility. In fact, I could never have won if we were not down here. Keep this girl from working and I’m helpless.”

The crimson-haired girl did nothing to fight the wrinkled hand rubbing her head.

The two men were reaching an agreement. That was not good. Hamazura and Takitsubo had nothing they could offer in a negotiation. At this rate, they would probably each get a bullet in the head as a parting gift. The only other option he could imagine was being made into a guinea pig for some bizarre experiment.

“Oh, right,” casually began the old man.

If he said “what should we do about those two lumps of flesh”, they were screwed. And Hamazura could not predict what that Kihara would do. He felt a terrible squeezing at his heart.

Finally, Kihara Hasuu continued.

“While we can share the train, I will be in charge there. So if you want a ride, it’s only natural you pay a small fare, don’t you think?”

“Do you want my research notes on Frillsand #G?”

“I’m no barbarian. A scientist’s research notes are a part of his very soul. Those are the fruits of your labors, so take them to your grave.”

“Then what do you want?”

“A few of them.”

The old man’s voice was as casual as ever as he pointed his engineering glove in a different direction entirely. He pointed at the gym clothes children who were peeking out from behind cover, without a clue what was being discussed.

“''Just select a few at random.'' I intend to restart my research once things have calmed down, but the rules are different outside the city. I can’t start abducting people off the street until I have a proper base set up, so I could use an initial supply for that settling-in period.”

Hamazura froze as he listened in.

This was the dark side. This was how the elites of that stagnant world thought.

“That Frillsand #G is important to your research, but not so with those lab rats, right? How many experimental observers’ lives were lost until you managed to ''properly reproduce'' that artificial ghost? If your research has entered a stable period, I would assume you are not running through those Child Errors as quickly as you once were.”

“Heh,” laughed Drencher Kihara Repatri.

He weakly lowered his raised hands. He must have decided that was no longer necessary. He too had seen the darkness, so he spoke with the same look in his eyes as the old man.

“It’s true those are all Child Errors. And however they would be treated in the ordinary world, we all know exactly what that term means in the dark side. Yes, I gathered them together and invited them into my lab. I made sure to have a plentiful stock of convenient lives that could be spent as I liked if other forms of research were not enough.”

“Then I can have a few?”

“''Go to hell, you son of a bitch.''”

===Part 7===

Several dry gunshots rang out.

===Part 8===

Hamazura Shiage did not understand what had just happened.

“Hamazura!!”

His body still refused to do what it was told, so track suit girl Takitsubo had to push him to the ground.

The young man had pulled out a handgun. It was no more than a small revolver, but he still fired it repeatedly from just a few meters away.

However…

“Ugh…”

“That won’t work,” said the old man.

The android’s crimson hair fluttered while she held her thick machete at the ready with her bare feet planted a step in front of Hasuu. Not only had she deflected all of the bullets, she had used their ricochets as a counterattack.

''No more than a small revolver.

''Something had gone horribly wrong when you started thinking of things in those terms in this country.

The young man had several holes in his upper body and dark red stains spread across his clothes. Doubling over did nothing to help, so he finally collapsed to the ground.

The old man in a jumpsuit and lab coat spoke up in exasperation while the strongest doll protected him.

“They’re just kids. And it’s not like I’m asking for all of them. Just two or three will do.”

“I wanted to…protect them from the dark side scum who think like that,” spat the young man while struggling to breathe down on all fours. He had given up trying to hold his wounds. “But nothing I did above board did anything to help. I couldn’t even get information on where those children were. The only way to fight the dark side…was to become the dark side. I almost laughed when I saw how many people came running to me then, claiming my research was so valuable. When I said I needed children’s lives to do it, they slapped me on the shoulder and agreed to it all. While happily sipping on a glass of the year’s finest red with their other hand. This city is rotten to the core.”

“Aren’t you Drencher Kihara Repatri?”

“Claiming to be a Kihara was the quickest way to get what I wanted. Ha ha. Those VIPs really were terrified of me.”

“Dammit,” spat out Hamazura Shiage.

The young man saw his own condition as of secondary importance.

It was true the ghost woman had used the children. They had been placed in a position where she could crush their lives at any moment. But had Hamazura ever seen her actually kill a child? What if they had been living in a world where they had to take the charade that far to be believed?

The old man had asked how many experimental observers’ lives were lost until he managed to properly reproduce the artificial ghost, but the young man had never answered.

That was in fact the answer. He had not sacrificed anyone. Not one. He had wanted to gather up those children known as Child Errors and drag them up out of the darkness. There ''were'' adults willing to dive into the dark side for no other reason than that.

There really were.

And yet…

“You’re lying.”

Hamazura suddenly rejected that entire premise. Because if he accepted this, he would have to admit to his own ugliness. Even if saying this would mean revealing he was ugly enough to put up a struggle like this.

“I’ve seen you before. You were at that counterfeiter’s place! You were preparing a passport for yourself so you could abandon those kids and leave the city!!”

“This all would have gone so much more smoothly if that had worked.” The young man smiled weakly. “If I had shown off how I escaped with the passport, Anti-Skill and the dark side’s focus would have turned toward District 23’s airport. Then the children would have had a safer escape underground here. I was never supposed to be down here with them.”

“~ ~ ~!!!!!!”

It felt like they lived in two completely different worlds.

And that young man was definitely the one in the right.

Hamazura felt so pathetic and contemptible for only ever acting to protect him and his girlfriend.

“I know I shouldn’t be asking this.”

The young man looked his way. As if to say it did not matter if he really was a Kihara or not.

His eyes knew how to view the light, but for some reason he now looked to someone as corrupted as Hamazura.

“Maybe it’s for the best if the dark side is destroyed, but please take care of those kids. You’re the only person I can leave them with now. When you saw your girlfriend suffering, you panicked and dumped medical supplies across the ground in your haste. I could see the conscience in your eyes. You had no choice but to fall this far, but you should still have some resistance to the dark side left inside you.”

“Wait, I’m not like that for everyone. Don’t shove this onto me! She’s my girlfriend, so of course I’d work to save her!!”

“Ha ha. Thinking that’s an ‘of course’ is what makes you such an oddity in the dark side. Don’t worry, I know you can do it. Because after falling into this shitty world, you still managed to find someone you care for and you decided to find peace instead of another thrill.”

Hamazura and Takitsubo had first heard of ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' from this man.

Hamazura had been cautious because there was no righteousness in the dark side and the man must have had his own reasons.

Was this why?

Had it been some insurance, just in case? Instead of worrying about his own survival, he had wanted some insurance for after he died.

Yet he had also slaughtered the dark sider people rushing toward this exit.

All because he could not let any harm come to the children as those people fought each other. He had rushed down a dark path to prevent a mere possibility.

But on Hamazura and Takitsubo’s way here, hadn’t the ghost woman glanced their way after slaughtering everyone else and then left, as if sparing them?

“Why did you do all this?”

That was the only question Hamazura could find.

That was not something to say to a dying man. He knew that. But after letting the dark side corrupt him while he worked so hard to ensure his and his girlfriend’s survival, this answer was too pure and upright to accept.

“How could you throw away your own life over this!? When you get down to it, those kids are just strangers! How could a goddamn harmful go this far just because you ‘wanted to save them’!? How!? Tell me!?”

The young man smiled.

There was already blood dripping from the corners of his lips.

“Do you need a reason to protect someone? Of course you don’t.”

That was the end of it.

Time stopped for him with the smile still on his lips.

He had no reason. He did not know why. And he had rushed in to save those children without ever finding a reason.

Hamazura Shiage had to admit defeat.

“A…”

The loser boy clenched his teeth. He moved his battered body, swiped the bloody handgun and some ammo from the young man, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

Losers had their own etiquette to follow.

That scummy old man was still here. Hamazura was not going to let him trample on the young man’s victory.

“Aaaneriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!”

A dull kachunk echoed through the circular space.

The support AI had taken control of the train and shifted it out of standby, so it slowly began to move.

The turntable had tracks in twelve directions, but he knew where to send it.

He just had to remember what the card-sized hard drive labeled Lifeline had said.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

In other words…

(Hours and minutes. If I apply that to an analog clock…)

“Send it down the five o’clock track!!”

The train took off with so many children in gym clothes on board.

That had been his top priority.

“Is justice contagious these days?” asked the old man with the look of someone viewing a crazy person.

He had already proven that the gun would not work, so he gave Hamazura a look of partial pity now that he had inherited that defeated weapon.

“You risked your life for this, but to no avail. Look, not all of them were onboard. They must have run in fear from the very person who would have saved them.”

“Hamazura, two of them were left behind. We can’t just leave them here.”

A boy and a girl in gym clothes were holding hands a short distance away.

What had they thought when they learned the truth behind that young man’s satisfied smile?

Especially when their own actions had worked against him.

“Well, those two will suffice. I will be taking them as a souvenir. Any more than this would have been a waste of food anyway.”

“Shut up,” spat out Hamazura.

He really should not have been doing this. He had come here to escape to safety. It had been clear from the very beginning that he could not be a great hero or brave warrior. This selfish choice here might put himself and his girlfriend in danger.

But.

Even so.

A dying man had left this with him. He had been reminded what it meant to do the right thing. There were lives here he could save. He could redo things. And most of all, his girlfriend was watching.

He was done being pathetic. He gathered strength in his sweaty body and stood up under his own power again. He had to.

“Maybe you’re a Kihara and an android.”

His goal was to run away?

No, sometimes a man had to stand up and speak his mind.

“But I’ll take you on, you goddamned dark siders!!!!!!”

He knew it was possible.

He had just seen a man stay true to this way of life.

He could reclaim his humanity. He must have learned something from what he saw here.

===Part 9===

Of course, Hamazura could never actually hit the crimson-haired android by firing the 9mm handgun at random. He knew she would deflect the bullets with her thick machete and fill him with holes.

So he did something else instead.

“Aneri!!”

A giant shape suddenly moved right next to the racing swimsuit girl.

A wheel loader used to stack up the railroad-sized containers was being remotely controlled.

“Move.”

What was that machete even made of? She did not even look in that direction as she swung her weapon and sliced apart the snowplow-looking piece of machinery. Even though she was not using any rapid vibrations or heat.

But Hamazura used that moment to pull on his girlfriend’s hand and move from there.

This was a vast circular space, but it was not an empty colosseum.

It had concrete columns just like an underground common utility duct and it had various equipment needed for operating and maintaining the trains, all located where it would not get in the way of the turntable and the twelve directions of track. Transformers were surrounded by a fence, a prefab hut had been made into a control room, giant jacks and a carwash were prepared for maintenance purposes, and more.

Aneri had directly operated the freight train, so he felt safe assuming she could operate all of the equipment here.

He pulled his girlfriend close while hiding behind a concrete column and whispering to his phone.

“Aneri, can you directly hijack that hunk of junk?”

No response.

He took that as a no. This did not sound like it was an issue of building up to that or setting something up in advance. That android was immune to cyber attacks on some level he did not understand.

(That means the only option is to destroy her the old-fashioned way!!)

“Hamazura, we can’t hide here forever. If she stops focusing on us, she’ll go after those children. Villains always go for the easiest target.”

“I know that.”

Takitsubo kept trying to wipe the sweat from her brow, but something was not right. The moxibustion should have relieved her symptoms to an extent, but that treatment might not be working as much anymore.

He was worried, but he could not stop now. He hated that fact.

“But using ourselves as bait will put us at risk. Are you prepared for that, Takitsubo?”

“Ask any more stupid questions and I’ll slap you.”

“Okay, it’s time to win your heart all over again!!”

They both ran out from behind the concrete column.

Their eyes met the ones with pupils mechanically expanding and contracting, but they stayed strong this time.

===Part 10===

Ladybird had a lock on two targets.

She walked barefoot across the floor and accurately obeyed her instructions, but she also had a question.

Why were the children necessary?

Kihara Hasuu—her Sensei—was researching androids. He had already successfully created one, so he no longer needed to capture biological humans to dissect and observe them. This disagreement appeared to be over ownership of the Child Errors (she failed to realize it was her education by that true Kihara that led her to use the word “ownership” in this context), but why was the old man so insistent on this?

That unfortunate research was a thing of the past.

She was an android built from purely mechanical parts, but she could use an esper power. That meant no more human specimens were needed for esper development experiments. They only had to mess with machines from now on. The Child Errors no longer needed to be captured and used up.

She thought that was a wonderful thing. She could not believe the people who still clung to the old system that required humans to use other humans. Did they wish to protect the status given to them by the current Level system? If they truly believed their fight was just, then they were beyond reasoning with. Machines were not the only ones that could have their memory data rewritten. Humans could have their feelings and thoughts falsified as well.

So she would bring an end to it all.

She was fighting here to end the misfortune and tragedies caused by the esper development program.

“Ohhhh!!”

The boy raised a meaningless battle cry, ran in, and repeatedly fired his handgun. She only had to block those shots with her machete.

But he had apparently learned how she fought.

She tried to hit him with the ricochets, but they refused to hit. When she deflected a bullet back, it would follow the same straight trajectory. Placing a single piece of plywood in the middle would change things. A bullet’s force was determined by its muzzle velocity. The force of the ricochet would generally be lower. That was obvious enough since bullets were not constantly accelerating like a rocket or missile. So he could set it up so he could shoot her through an obstacle, but she could not break through it on the way back.

Her use of ricochets was similar to Accelerator’s reflection, but all her machete did was knock the bullet back. She could not ''include the actual vector in that''.

That said…

(I doubt someone with such a stupid face could do this. He must be receiving assistance with the calculations.)

She considered jumping. Lifting both feet from the ground was usually a bad idea in combat, but not so with her. With her android specs, she could kick off of one column to the next and attack from the air.

She heard the loud roar of an engine while dealing with the bullets.

It appeared to come from a forklift.

“Aneri, surround the kids! I don’t know where that old man got off to, but don’t let him get close!! If he tries it, run him over!!”

“Don’t get distracted.”

He could have gotten a hit in on her by sending the forklift in from the side while firing on her from the front. Not that a blow like that would be enough to destroy her frame.

She swung the thick machete in her right hand while gathering her strength in the space between her eyebrows.

That was how she aimed.

A blast of wind blew away the obstacles between her and Hamazura Shiage. It was more like they were obliterated by an explosion than swept away by wind.

“An esper power!?” shouted the boy.

“It looked to be Level 3 or higher,” said the girl.

She no longer had to worry about the gunfire now that the line of fire was clear. He must have known the risk of ricochets was back because he stopped attacking and hid behind a nearby column, but that was no defense. She could charge in and slice through the column and his torso behind it with a single horizontal sweep of her blade.

She had enough time to reach her other hand to her thigh, pull out the bottle, and take a drink of the discharge machine oil.

A dull boom burst out.

She was only an android modeled after the structure of the human body, but the materials used for her skeleton, muscles, and everything else were bizarre dark side tech. If she wanted to, her horsepower could rival a V12 engine at max RPM.

But even as she chose the correct action, her mechanical head was filled with questions.

She had used a wind power.

But hadn’t she used fire during her previous clash with these people? And what about the time before that?

Androids had the same structure as humans, so a single android should only have a single power. Or could she do what humans could not because she was a machine?

(Sensei?)

===Part 11===

A column of reinforced concrete was sliced through as easily as tofu or thin paper.

Not horizontally or diagonally—vertically and all the way through. After kicking from column to column to gain height, she had apparently dropped down like lightning. She had a human form, but she could perform superhuman movements.

Hamazura Shiage had tried to jump to the side just beforehand, but he ended up tumbling into a roll.

It was not his torso sliced through along with the column. It was a gas drum kept on hand for the facility’s auxiliary power generator.

He grimaced at the pain in his hips as he continued rolling and pulled the trigger repeatedly.

Not even Ladybird could deflect bullets that hit the concrete ground and sent sparks flying.

The vaporizing gasoline ignited into explosive flames that swallowed up the entire racing swimsuit silhouette.

However…

“No, Hamazura! It didn’t work!!”

“Tch!!”

He clicked his tongue while the track suit girl ran over from elsewhere and pulled him to his feet. A black figure was displayed on the other side of that fiery screen. She showed no sign of collapsing or writhing in pain.

Had she used that previous wind power to affect how the flames spread?

He hoped so. If she was simply this tough, he could not imagine how to defeat her.

“How ''do'' you defeat an android anyway? Strangle her or stab her in the heart, she’s still a machine. That won’t stop her!!”

Could he break her motherboard? Or pull out her battery? But he had no idea how many she had or where in her slender body they were located.

The roaring flames were sliced apart. A horizontal sweep of the heavy metal machete conquered the orange barrier. The barefoot android stepped through entirely unscathed. There was no sign of discoloration on her crimson hair, white skin, or orange and black racing swimsuit.

“Something isn’t right,” said Takitsubo Rikou with eyes seemingly more robotic than the machine’s. What was she looking at right now? “An android that uses esper powers is conceivably possible. Mechanical processing may be able to ‘observe’ the waves or particles like a human brain does. And if you developed that far enough, you might be able to purposefully select between different supernatural phenomena. But this wavelength is simpler than that.”

“You mean how she switches between powers?” spat out Hamazura. “That container base in the garbage pile was their lab, right? Then I get why that old man wants those kids so bad. Even if I don’t know exactly ''how'' he would use them.”

Now, why were they able to spend so long discussing this?

The delinquent boy made sure to keep his gun aimed, but the android in question was only tilting her head.

A dark liquid was dripping from her eyes and nose.

He had seen that before. Immediately after she had been hit by the hakama girl and fought back with her fire power.

“Oh, dear.”

Kihara Hasuu’s voice reached them from somewhere, but it was echoing too much to tell where it came from. Hamazura would have shot the man if he saw him.

“Is it that time already? This is why I wanted to stock up sooner rather than later.”

“Hey.” Hamazura shouted at the unseen man. “Isn’t that cheating? You can’t really call her an android if that’s what you’re doing.”

The boy watched as the girl in the orange and black racing swimsuit held her head and doubled over.

A low straining sound came from her.

Then her back opened along the line from her nape to her tailbone.

The clasp holding together the X-shaped band at the center of the swimsuit’s back popped open and the supports were released in four directions.

Then her soft skin opened wide while supported at her nape.

Her opened back almost looked like a steam locomotive’s boiler or a furnace from hell. The fact that it was smooth human skin instead of a thick metal door gave it the sinister appearance of an insect’s shell opening up.

The top half of her swimsuit fell out of place, but her chest was not visible.

Her long red hair dropped down to cover it up.

She had planted her hands and feet on the ground like a beast.

Something translucent crawled out of her. It looked like a long, narrow blade or like a wriggling snake. It would grab something, drag it inside her, and cut it away. It was an automatic extraction organ.

Hamazura knew what it was for.

“I saw the junk those trash collectors were taking back after searching through those piles of abandoned items. A fridge was full of some brownish filth.”

He felt nauseated just remembering it.

He grimaced as he viewed that monster.

“''It was stuffed full of corpses with the contents of their heads removed.'' When those trash collectors were searching out fridges and washing machines, they weren’t selling them to used appliance stores. They were opening up bloodstained boxes packed full of still-usable organs. And they all came from your lab, didn’t they!?”

“Well, the ordinary corpses were apparently disposed of in District 10’s slums, but there are a lot of people willing to buy up ones fresh enough to make use of their parts.”

Ladybird was not an android with esper powers. She was as harmful as they came. She was a machine that would devour people’s brains when necessary. In Hamazura’s opinion, that meant she did not fit the definition of an android.

“This is a completely different approach from the Rensa model of esper cyborg. Instead of a cyborg made by ''giving a brain a body'', Ladybird-kun ''is a body given a brain.''” Hasuu sounded like he was introducing his favorite grandchild. “Cellulose nanofiber is a carbon material gathering attention for its use in making wires and bulletproof materials, but the point is we can create delicate wires even thinner than the cranial nerves. But unlike a biological brain, leaving them in their active state causes them to automatically replicate and they will try to forcibly fold themselves up for space if they run out of room in the skull. The cerebrum’s frontal lobe is especially troublesome. So ''a foreign object'' must be introduced to constantly provide just the right amount of damage to ensure the brain remains the size I want it. Her power changes each time a new ''foreign object'' is introduced, but that is due to the change in the rejection and damage pattern. You can think of that as a simple idiosyncrasy.”

“Sen…sei?”

A grinding sound came from Ladybird while she seemed to be searching for something. However the old researcher described it, a human brain was apparently a necessary part for her to run. Her movements were noticeably stiff and awkward as she pursued that poison on her own.

“Sensei…but you said this research would help. You said the spread of androids would mean no more human specimens were needed for the esper development.”

“The ladybird—another name for the ladybug—might look humorous, but it is in fact a ravenous carnivore. You have heard that they are good to have around because they eat aphids, haven’t you?”

“Gh…kh.”

“And there are a lot of insects that mimic ladybugs. That includes a type of darkling beetle and cockroach, both kinds of bugs people might not normally want around. But that is not actually a type of protective coloration. Ha ha. Instead of trying to blend into their natural surroundings or avoid their predators, that coloration might actually be used to make humans like them.”

How deep did the dark side go?

How disgusting could the dark said get?

“So don’t you see?”

Its attacks were indiscriminate, like a cannibal insect.

The developer spoke to what looked like a lovely girl. And he seemed to be enjoying it immensely.

“''That is the perfect name for you.''”

===Part 12===

text> @I thought there was a problem with the world.

text> @I thought it was wrong for @humans to use @humans for their research in this city.

text> But @I could climb onto the examination table instead.

text> @I can be repaired or remade as many times as necessary.

text> Since my body was made identically to a @human’s, @I would be able to use an esper power as well. Pieces of my body could be freely added or removed, so @I could be examined inside and out more easily than a @human and @I could be modified as they saw fit.

text> No more sacrifices would be necessary for the esper development research.

text> That is why @I fought.

text> @I thought @Sensei’s research was a wonderful thing.

''“You know, Ladybird-kun, the term android signifies an artificial human built with an engineering approach. Based on that definition, it seems appropriate to me for a completed android to behave like a human.”

text> @Sensei’s words were like a shining light of hope.

text> @I wondered if @I really was good enough.

text> But @I was happy as long as @I could be of some use. @I think that kind of feeling is not something a simple machine could feel.

text> Does that mean @I am somehow @human?

text> The @humans that @I have seen are like that. They do not hesitate to make inefficient choices without even considering cost performance.

text> That is why @I find @humans to be so incredible.

text> @I have not spoken much with any other than @Sensei, but @I know that is because @androids cannot be made public yet. But @I love the @humans that @I see from a distance.

text> @I will build a path to a brighter future for them—a path to a happier world—so @I cannot allow someone to destroy all that just because they do not understand. So I will not let anyone interfere. Anyone who claims it is right to harm @people cannot be allowed to trample on the future @I can bring them.

text> So…

text>And yet…

===Part 13===

“Ah, ahh. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

The lovely girl in a racing swimsuit screamed.

All light vanished from her already mechanical eyes. She had fully transformed into a grotesque predator that roared on all fours.

She wanted to reject the idea, but she could not.

The only way to preserve herself was to devour that raw body tissue and bring it to the most important part of her body. Because intentionally introducing that foreign object would trigger a rejection reaction that would continue to damage her head in just the right way. That truth was more horrifying than needing to soak in a bathtub full of rotting corpses every day. Yet she could not stop. She was not allowed to stop. That had been built into her at the design phase, whether she liked it or not. She would always return to it like a drowning person struggling to reach the surface for air.

Tears spilled from her eyes.

Her mechanical face was painted with anger, hatred, and shame.

Why was she designed to do that?

An ordinary person like Hamazura could not figure it out. What logical reason was there? It almost felt like the cruelty of someone who enjoyed to watch others suffer.

At the same time, everything she needed to survive was contained inside her. Or maybe it was more accurate to say she had been built as an autonomous iron maiden. The victim was thrown into her back, the door to that steam locomotive boiler would slam shut, and the rest was completed automatically. She was made to do that and she must have actually done it several times before.

At that point, it was not an issue of good and evil on her part.

Hamazura could not judge her, but he did have to stop her.

No matter what.

“Grahhhhhhhh!!” she roared.

“Hamazura!!”

Takitsubo shouted in a panic because the red figure had vanished.

But the quadrupedal android had not leaped toward Hamazura or Takitsubo. Nor did she leap toward Kihara Hasuu who had made her this way. She went for someone else. She gained height by kicking off the columns and she moved every closer to the smallest and easiest prey: the kids in gym clothes.

Her instincts took precedence over strategy or emotion.

“Aneri!!”

A hacked track inspection car drove in from the side to tear apart an exposed high-voltage power line for the train. The power line whipped like a serpent and tangled around the android.

A great crash followed.

Knocking her to the ground was not going to flatten Ladybird, but it mattered a lot that she had fallen on her right side with the machete still in that hand.

She could not use that to defend with her arm caught between herself and the ground.

Hamazura gripped the small revolver in both hands and fired several times.

Dry gunshots expanded through the enclosed space.

This time, the shots actually hit the android whose back was turned to him. The “mouth” on her back quickly closed before she had even withdrawn the extraction organ that resembled the thin wing of an insect or a giant scalpel, but that was all that happened. It did not seem to do any real damage to her.

She used one arm to tear away the exposed power line wrapped around her like a serpent, freeing herself. At this rate, the forklifts protecting the children would not last long.

There was no time to spare.

“Boy!! Do you want to protect that girl!?” shouted Hamazura from a distance.

He did not wait for a response. The boy’s efforts had backfired badly, but if he did not care about that girl, he would not have gotten her off the train so she could escape.

Hamazura Shiage decided to trust this fellow human being.

“Then be brave and step forward! Falling back only gives her more of a chance to eat you two!!”

When the boy protecting his friend squeezed his eyes shut and stepped forward, Ladybird briefly came to a stop. She needed the soft brains inside those children. That was the poison she needed to damage herself.

But moving up to her was the right choice.

It was just like a cowboy’s lasso. You could swing it overhead to gather strength all you liked, but it would still be hard to throw it around the head of someone who was close enough to hug you. The android’s extraction organ looked like the thin wing of an insect or a transparent sword, but it was very long. That meant it was hard to use against someone right up in front of her.

But this method would only buy a few seconds at most.

Once she moved to the proper distance and tried again, the boy really would be eaten.

Hamazura made his next move before she could do that.

He had picked up a bottle of industrial cleaner presumably used to wash the train and he chucked it over a metal fence to hit a device larger than a refrigerator.

The giant railroad transformer scattered a frightening amount of sparks. And while it was invisible, it also sent out powerful electromagnetic waves.

Those waves’ effect on the human body was unknown, but their effect on a machine would be much more severe.

He heard a scream. That thing shaped like a calm and composed girl was now writhing on the ground in apparent pain.

Hamazura ran over, fired two or three shots at her, and continued on past her. Then he picked up the gym clothes boy still standing in danger and slid along the ground like a baseball player.

He hid behind the concrete column where the gym clothes girl was.

“Well done, boy. It’ll be okay now.”

Maybe someone from Anti-Skill or Judgment should have been saying that.

Maybe someone from the filthy dark side had no right to say it.

But he had taken over for a man who had wanted to say that so very badly.

And while he said that, Hamazura made sure to check his phone where the kids could not see. The screen was dead and Aneri was not responding. He doubted her program had been taken out, but without a device to receive her instructions, he had lost the support AI’s help.

It really would be one-on-one from here on.

But he did not need to let that show on his face.

“Maybe she’s with the dark side and maybe she isn’t, I dunno, but I don’t want to trample on her dignity any longer.” He looked the boy in the eye. “I’m going to end this here. Listen, don’t get yourselves killed. You need to survive if I’m going to save her.”

“What are you going to do?”

The gym clothes boy’s voice was vanishingly quiet, but he still got it out.

Even if he had to suppress the trembling in his body.

“I don’t want to run away anymore. What I did wasn’t brave. If I had faced mister honestly, he wouldn’t have had to get hurt. So…!!”

“Then help me out.”

Hamazura had planned to tell the boy to take the girl’s hand and run as far away as possible on his signal.

But he changed his mind.

Drencher Kihara Repatri, that young man who had wanted to save the children who would be used up by the dark side, was dead and nothing could change that. But this boy’s eyes carried the light the man had instilled in those children. After losing to Drencher, Hamazura could not allow that light to be extinguished.

No matter what.

So he changed his mind.

“I need a few tools to finish this. I’ll buy some time with this gun, so you gather them for me. Can you do that?”

Hamazura recalled the hard sensation in his pocket and clicked his tongue. He tried pulling it out, but its shine was still dull. It was not quite fully charged. The golden shine had yet to make a full circle around the edge of the coin. But that was fine. He threw the coin as far as he could, even though he had no idea if it would draw Ladybird’s attention or not.

He did not regret losing it.

He did not need the Coin of Nicholas.

Everyone already had the ability to switch over the tracks to a different route.

He would take a different route here and he did not need the creepy occult to do it.

He needed something else.

===Part 14===

She had found them.

Ladybird planted her hands and feet on the cold concrete ground while she located her target again.

She did not know how this would help her. If she captured them, her horrific feast would begin. But she could not stop herself.

She could not change this about herself. She could not escape her fate, just like a drowning person would subconsciously swim toward the surface.

…Even though she had wanted to protect the humans.

She would eat them.

This suffering would never end unless she consumed a human brain.

…Even though she was supposed to free those children from the darkness by lying on the dissection table herself.

“Oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhh, ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

Her vision blurred.

But even her tears were scattered by the blowing wind of her great speed.

Even during unstable bipedal movement, she could rival a V12 engine at max RPMs, so her top speed had increased even further now that she had abandoned her dignity as a girl and gained the efficiency of a machine.

It did not matter if they were an adult or a child.

Puny human legs could never escape her.

She pursued her target as accurately as a precision-guided weapon. She charged toward those distinctive gym clothes.

Handgun bullets attacked her from the side. Even after all this, she had not let go of the thick machete. And without any obstacles in the way, firing on her was suicide. She could accurately kill the shooter with the ricochet by adjusting the angle of her weapon.

Or so she thought.

Instead, the reaction speed of her right hand had slowed by 0.5 seconds.

“?”

That was a devastating delay.

The storm of lead hit her and she tumbled along the ground. 9mm was not enough to destroy her bones or muscles – the problem was her speed. The impact from the side easily knocked her off balance and she broke through two or three concrete columns along the way.

But what was this?

What had happened? She had been moving on all fours, but that had not affected her right arm’s movable range. When she checked, she found no report of her movement performance having dropped.

The problem must have come before that.

She finally realized there had been an error in her targeting.

A whitish smoke was filling the entire circular space.

It was a smokescreen.

(It can’t be.)

More gunfire. She immediately readied her machete, but that did not work when she could only respond after the fact. She could not protect herself and the bullets slipped past the weapon to slam into her body.

“Gahhh!!”

===Part 15===

Hamazura Shiage had seen what happened in that container lab buried in trash. The long silver-haired hakama girl had made a desperate attack to save him and Takitsubo. She had grabbed the android’s face with her palm and shoved burning incense in the android’s mouth.

But how did that make sense? If Ladybird had the reaction speed to deflect every bullet fired at her, how had she overlooked a human hand?

“The dark side is coldhearted to everyone. You don’t get lucky for no good reason.”

The weak were always observant. After going through that sorrowful goodbye and seeing the girl suffering from so much pain, he had decided to at least use what she had taught him.

This was the world’s oldest chemical weapon.

That sounded fancy, but it was easily made with ordinary items.

You could use the hexachloroethane found in commercial bug sprays or make a powder out of the zinc used in all sorts of things in everyday life. Hamazura recalled that Hanzou had been an expert at stuff like this.

“A smokescreen!! It might not stop IR and ultrasound, but your high-speed defenses aren’t a threat if your sensors malfunction for even a moment!!”

===Part 16===

So?

What did that matter?

The intense hunger inside Ladybird continued to grow. It was more like a desire for oxygen than for food or water.

She was going to kill.

Just the one brain would suffice.

Her thoughts focused more and more on that one goal.

…What had she wanted to save again?

She managed to detect something in the powerful smokescreen.

She spotted a small figure in gym clothes.

…What had once been a girl wept as she raised her voice.

“010011101010110001011001101111001011!!”

She could not even get out actual words anymore.

Something inside her had fried.

After rushing toward her target faster than a racecar, she opened up once more. The small size suggested this was the girl. Ladybird’s back opened wide and the thin translucent thing burst out. Several of those predatory organs stuck out like thin insect wings or like long tongues. They wrapped around her target to bind them and then she shoved the heavy mass inside herself.

This was the dark side.

The good were not rewarded and the evil were not punished.

And.

And.

And.

“…?”

When did she notice something was wrong?

The gym clothes had been on a figure small enough to easily lift up in her arms. That much was true. But what was with that weight? Would a child of around 10 really weigh more than 200kg?

“It can’t be!?”

In that moment, Ladybird’s heart was filled by a feeling of…

===Part 17===

Ladybird was not the only one with their target in sight.

Hamazura Shiage accurately aimed his handgun.

“You didn’t like it when I fired on you from behind earlier, did you? Almost like you didn’t want a bullet getting inside that ‘mouth’ on your back.”

The weak were always observant.

The only way to make up for the difference in strength was to search out a weakness.

“And when you were engulfed in flames by that gasoline, you extinguished it with a swing of your machete. That was pretty scary at first glance, but if it really couldn’t harm you, you wouldn’t need to put out the flames, would you?”

He had not used the smokescreen to reduce the effectiveness of her sensors just to hit her with a few useless 9mm bullets.

But making that attack had convinced her that was all it was for.

This was the smokescreen’s true purpose.

The curtain of smoke had let her see the gym clothes without realizing they were on a metal drum and he had baited her into trying to eat that.

Plus, he had already proven that the handgun bullets were enough to ignite the contents of those metal drums.

He fired repeatedly toward her back.

Toward the centerline down her back that resembled the zipper on a costume. The oversized target prevented her from fully closing her back, so he only had to fire on that gap as if shoving the bullets on in there.

The metal drum she had taken into herself now expanded within her.

It exploded.

When the intense boom echoed out from her, he knew he had won. The blast and shockwave were enough to blow away the smokescreen.

He wished he had not seen what remained afterwards.

He was the one who had caused those remains to be strewn across the ground here.

“Hamazura!!”

“I’m fine.”

He bit his lip with the small revolver still in hand.

“Her head moved weirdly in the smokescreen there,” he said. “And then that scream. ''Something other than her mechanical thought process kicked in.'' Without that, I don’t think the metal drum would have tricked her.”

Her attack had been running off of a program, so maybe the parameters could be overwritten and the attributes could be switched on and off.

“She must have remembered something.”

He hung his head and looked down instead of at his girlfriend.

Something was lying on the ground there.

“So in that final moment, she did what she could to save those kids.”

The girl’s head had rolled over toward him and it looked to him like she was smiling.

Because now she would never have to kill again.

===Part 18===

This was a surprise.

He had not even considered what he would do if this happened.

Kihara Hasuu stood in a daze after being left all alone. Finally, he looked around the vast circular space.

Takitsubo looked to be in pain. The moxibustion’s effects would not last forever.

“Pant, gasp.”

“Takitsubo.”

A sinister metallic click sounded. It came from a small revolver.

“Get the kids away from here. It’s time for a grownup chat with that man.”

“…Okay.” Takitsubo nodded. “Are you sure, Hamazura?”

“Yeah. We have to do this before we run away.”

Once no one else was around to see this, the delinquent boy approached the old man with the handgun in his grasp.

“Got anything else?” His voice sounded cold and hard, like a machine. “You’re one of those rumored Kiharas, aren’t you? Did you modify your own body with that android tech?”

“…”

“If not, it’s about time we woke up from this nightmare.”

The revolver’s muzzle rose. His cold voice contained a hint of blatant scorn. Like he refused to accept that this man was unharmed after making Ladybird suffer so.

“You will pay for what you did to ''that girl''. I can’t think of any reason why I should forgive you. I doubt I ever could. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stand on the side of justice. But if I don’t do this here, the justice I couldn’t be will die. I might be dumb, but I can tell that much.”

Yes.

The look in the boy’s eyes said he could not let this man live. ''Kihara Hasuu considered that the correct answer.'' He had not felt anger or sorrow upon Ladybird’s defeat. He had seen a problem to solve and improvements to make. If he were freed from here, he would immediately begin development on the next generation. That would mean many more victims. He knew himself well enough to say that.

And now that there was new research to be done, he had something to live for.

That was his fate as a Kihara.

He did not want to die yet.

He could not let himself die.

No matter what.

“You have set a record here. This will make you the new Kihara Killer.”

“This is over.”

“That is a serious crime. You will undoubtedly become the center of the new dark side. And Academy City will always demand more live sacrifices, whether you want it or not!!”

“Don’t try to stall for time. You’re dead and nothing’s changing that.”

This conversation was meaningless.

Would the boy normally have said so much on reflex? Set a record, Kihara Killer, center of the dark side – Kihara Hasuu’s wording was meant to give his opponent a big head. Was there any way – any way at all – to turn the tables on the boy? The old man was racking his brains the entire time he was buying time. It could be anything. As one who bore the name Kihara, he was willing to break all forms of ethics and standards if need be.

Then he saw it. He noticed something out of place – a gold shine on the cold concrete ground.

It was a Coin of Nicholas.

The clockwise shine had filled the outer edge now. It was fully charged.

“!!”

He immediately leaped at it and grabbed it in his special engineering glove.

He raised his voice.

He wanted to get started on his next research even if it meant relying on something very unscientific.

“Make his gun malfunction, Coin of Nicholas!!”

Who was to blame for this? The actual phenomenon occurred a moment later.

The result was perfectly fair.

A bullet flew from Hamazura Shiage’s handgun.

Yes, there were more ways for a gun to malfunction than for the bullet to jam or even to explode inside, blowing up the gun and the wielder’s hand along with it.

It could also fire the bullet without the trigger being pulled.

“Huh?”

The old man looked down.

He could not believe that he had been hit in the gut, rupturing his stomach of all things. More than the bleeding, his own vomit contaminated his body where a single germ could ultimately be fatal. He collapsed, suffered for more than 5 full minutes, and finally passed away. Stomach acid was primarily composed of hydrochloric acid. What did it feel like to be placed on the surgical table, have your gut cut open, and have a bunch of that dumped inside? All without anesthetic, of course.

The old man had lost his life to his own prayer.

A believer in science had relied on something beyond the bounds of science.

This was the fate of someone who stopped trying to do his own work. But in a way, this may have been exactly what he deserved.

If he had relied on his own strength from the beginning, he never would have earned such resentment over Ladybird.

[[Image:GT_Index_v03_459.jpg|thumb]]

If he had cut out pieces of his own flesh for his experiments, he never would have gotten into an argument over what to do with the children in gym clothes.

If he had chosen that path, everyone who had arrived here maybe could have worked together to survive.

Hamazura did not think the android was at fault.

Kihara Hasuu might agree, but it would mean something very different coming from him. The old man’s crime and punishment had to be defined by his own nature. Speaking as an expert required earnestly facing what parts of science you wished to preserve.

Was this too a present from heaven?

That coin was a trap that provided obvious miracles but also took away all other options you might try.

Hamazura Shiage spoke quietly while viewing the scum still gripping that gold coin after he had stopped moving.

Was his face blank?

Or was he suppressing an inappropriate smile?

“Merry Christmas. Did you enjoy your miracle, mad scientist?”

===Map===

[[Image:GT_Index_v03_460-461.jpg|thumb]]

Below District 10:

Hamazura Shiage – Beneficial

Takitsubo Rikou – Beneficial

Kihara Hasuu – Harmful

Ladybird – Harmful

Drencher Kihara Repatri – Beneficial

Frillsand #G – Beneficial

===Between the Lines 4===

“It’s over.” Anna Sprengel spoke bluntly behind the cold bars. “That marks the end of the December 25 festivities. I doubt anything more will happen now, so I suppose my entertainment has come to a close. Well, at least I managed to gather up some decent ‘fluctuations’. If everything had gone as planned, I might have been so disgusted I switched it off.”

She received no response from the next cell.

Most likely, no one knew what he was thinking.

The human damage had been far too great to say his silence was the most eloquent answer of all.

“What were you picturing? How did you see Operation Handcuffs ending? I bet your dream wasn’t half bad.”

So only Anna’s voice filled this space.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of. Most any adult can think of some embarrassing disaster from their teenage years. The more you express your dreams, the sooner those dreams will be crushed. That’s why the most effective method is to hide what you want and work to reveal what everyone else wants so you can work against them. Hee hee. ''If you want to accomplish something great, you first need to hide your primary objective.'' You were a little too pure. You need to muddy the waters a little.”

A solid clink echoed through the cold air.

The girl who looked only 10 had flicked a gold coin into the air and then caught it in her hand.

“The Coin of Nicholas.”

The Board Chairman had lost control.

He had lost the ability to keep tabs on things.

The number of malicious accidents had been far too great. He had tried to give instructions from his cell, but he had been in no position to stop the snowball once it began rolling down the hill.

Because if he did that, the #1 would have once more become the #1 darkness.

He had sealed away his monstrous side.

He had sworn he would.

So. And yet.

“Adding in this one little foreign element shredded the flowchart you had in your head. You had it set up so the dark side would be dismantled and the people would peacefully surrender no matter how things played out, but that happy ending was torn to pieces and everyone chose for themselves to dive into a free world of high-risk death. …Who got them was random, but in the end ''only one person'' managed to break free of its bonds on their own. He slipped below my radar. I even contacted him during the day, yet I overlooked him. That is highly unusual.”

She sounded amused.

She almost seemed to place more importance on this than the #1 in the neighboring cell.

“I learned just the one thing from this spare time between experiments,” she continued.

Her voice seemed to have gone flat, like she had arrived at exactly the result she had predicted.

“''The freedom of magic wins out over the order of science.'' No matter how carefully you build everything up, I will still tear it down, overwrite it, and crush it.”

After a beat, she added one more thing like a mischievous child revealing a secret.

“Of course, these categories really don’t mean much of anything in the first place.”

She slid the edge of the golden coin along the crossbar of the barred door.

The scraping of metal on metal almost drowned out the click of a mechanism working.

The door had unlocked.

With no regard for how the lock actually worked.

“This is yet another miracle.”

The cell of science could not hold magic.

It was a very blunt metaphor.

She slowly walked out into the corridor and began to pass by the neighboring cell.

“As the name suggests, the Coin of Nicholas is a spiritual item limited to Christmas. Although it absorbs power directly from the ley lines instead of from the magician’s body, so it is technically more like a grimoire than a spiritual item. This chaos is a dream you will wake from come morning. It will not last long, so don’t worry.”

“How dare you!!”

Finally.

Something translucent challenged her from behind the bars. She looked like a lovely girl with marine creature elements and bat wings attached and she wore a dress of English newspapers covered in articles that some might consider profane. Metal bars meant nothing to her. She broke through them with a shower of orange sparks and she grabbed at the little girl covering herself with a thin red cloth.

She was Qliphah Puzzle 545, an artificial demon prepared as a trump card by the Anglican Archbishop who had once tried to overthrow the world.

However…

“I’m trying to talk. Don’t interrupt when you don’t even understand what I mean.”

All of a sudden, something stood next to the little girl.

The translucent being was an angel with a falcon head and a powerful body. As soon as a vertical crack ran through him, the angel mercilessly stripped off his entire body.

He was now a sun.

A dreadful light burst out and filled the space as it attacked the demon girl.

“Kyahhh!!”

Accelerator did not even stir.

The #1 had his reflection.

''Yet a red liquid dripped from the corner of his mouth.

“Think before you speak. Just think about it and you should realize that now is not the time for you to interrupt.”

Anna was not even looking in his direction.

She simply waved goodbye.

“My experiment is complete. Things will go differently next time.”

She never did look through the bars. She was already looking to some other place as she walked away.

But she did give a final parting comment.

“Send ''him'' my regards.”

Accelerator leaned back against the hard wall, let his hips sink to the cold floor, and lowered his head.

He did not speak a word.

One thing had been proven here. His small dream would never come true

Not as long as she was here.

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter4

2020-11-20T21:05:21Z

SNovah: /* Part 12 */

{{Incomplete|parts=12|tparts=19}}
==Chapter 4: The Demon Lord’s Young — the_LIGHT.==

===Part 1===

“Where have you been, Risako!?”

“Mister, Risako-chan is back!!”

The gym clothes girl laughed when she saw the other children gathered around.

“Eh heh heh. A doggy and an older girl saved me.”

They must have been preparing for another move because all the trucks had their engines running. But they had waited until they had found the girl with red hair done up like candy. She was relieved. Having a home to return to was a wonderful thing.

“''A doggy,'' huh?” said the artificial ghost called Frillsand #G.

“…”

Her comment made the young researcher fall silent for a bit.

His name was Drencher Kihara Repatri.

That family name was so well known in the dark side that it had become a more powerful classification than beneficial or harmful. The man who bore that name sighed softly to help refocus his mind.

“There is a chance we’ve been located, but we’re faster at the moment. If we move before they catch up, we can reach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' without issue.”

“Do you really think this world will allow any of this to go ‘without issue’?”

“It’s our job to make sure it happens.”

The adults exchanged their views with their voices too low for the excited children to hear.

But a certain boy kept his voice low for a different reason.

“Risako.”

“Oh, Sodate-chan.”

The tall boy in the same kind of gym clothes looked troubled for some reason. In fact, he looked close to tears. Risako tilted her head, thinking he was afraid she would get after him about the ball and chemical soap, but this was different.

“So you came back,” he said.

“Eh?”

“I was hoping maybe you were gone for good.”

He had wanted that? Did he hate her that much? Risako’s face clouded over, but this was again different. He shook his head and explained.

He was the only one of the children who had ''started to question these motion sensors they wore for some kind of experiment.''

“Because then at least you might have been safe.”

===Part 2===

He was afraid of screwing it up, so he started by drawing marks on her back with a marker.

“Hamazura, that tickles.”

“Stay still.”

The old book had a brush-drawn diagram with no perspective or attempt to make it look three-dimensional. The indicated locations of the organs were clearly not right. Maybe it was like the difference between an aerial photograph of the clouds and the isobars on the weather forecast map. He wondered if this was what all traditional Japanese medicine was like as he drew Xs on his girlfriend’s body. She had even removed her bra and was holding her chest in her hands while showing him her smooth back. He thought his heart was going to burst every time she squirmed from the ticklishness. Even he knew that reaction was inappropriate given the circumstances. Once he finished that, it was finally time to start. He faced the girl while she lay face down on the container lab’s work table like she was sunbathing.

The moxa used for the moxibustion was like fluffy cotton, but he actually had to set it on fire.

It felt wrong doing that on her soft skin and he could even permanently scar her if he screwed it up.

“…”

His fear came to the forefront now that it was time to do it, but this was the only way to help her with the fever.

He fought the desire to shut his eyes and placed a small pile of “fuel” on her soft skin. He worked at the lighter with a trembling hand, but he kept failing. Once he finally had a small flame, he slowly moved it in close.

“Nh.”

“A-are you okay, Takitsubo?”

“I’m fine.”

He continued the process a few more times. He had his doubts, but when she wiped the sweat from her brow, no more sweat beaded up. It did seem to be working.

He could not thank the hakama girl enough.

He could not waste this chance she had given them, so they had to approach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''.

That card-sized hard drive had been labelled with the word “Lifeline”.

Aneri must have decided the data would be too small to see on his phone because she displayed it a flat screen monitor in the lab instead. It was a series of numbers.

It looked like a calculation sheet made with spreadsheet software, but even that was enough to make the delinquent boy’s head hurt. Maybe it was important data, but he had no idea what he was supposed to focus on.

“This looks like materials data,” said Takitsubo after peering at it from the side.

“Materials?”

“Whether they’re beneficial or harmful, the dark side does a lot of research.” She pointed at one of the numbers. “They’re also building a lot of military weapons. But doesn’t it seem odd? Academy City is a mass consumer and it only has so much land since it’s surrounded by walls. You can’t just dig into the ground here and find oil or ores. So where do they get all those materials from?”

“Where? Isn’t that what the cooperative institutions around the world are for? They can work out a deal with them.”

“But how can they do that without leaving any record of it?”

She pointed at another number.

If a citizens group monitoring the flow of money and materials could reveal a secret, then it had never been part of the dark side to begin with.

“Look at this. The dark side is using far more materials than the total amount brought in from outside the city. Cutting off the fat and redistributing it to themselves would not be enough for this. The amount the dark side uses is several times larger. This would show up in the records no matter what you did. Important people like the Board of Directors and its Chairman can only cover up so much. This is too much. It’s well past what you could hide by cooking the books.”

“But then…”

He trailed off when Aneri opened a new window. A single point on a map of Academy City was colored in red. There was a secret there.

“They have an entrance and exit that doesn’t leave any records,” said the track suit girl while viewing the screen.

There were several files that appeared to be saved from message boards and social media pages. Reading through them showed a certain point in common.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

Takitsubo pointed at that bizarre statement.

“There is a way of reaching it and we should see hints of it in the rumors told around the city. Like the ‘!’ signs, a deadly train, kidnappers at the amusement park, babies in the coin lockers, or an underground construction zone where you can dump anything you don’t want found. But none of that gets at the real truth.”

“You mean…?”

“Academy City doesn’t promote recycling so much just because it wants to make the most of its limited resources. ''Sending things back to be recycled over and over again masks how much materials are actually being used.'' They can’t have an investigation revealing that we dump out several times more trash than materials we take in, right? That would violate conservation of mass. So they needed to make it hard to compare those two values. It’s a form of laundering.”

Why was that sleight of hand necessary? How did they reach the impossible result of more waste than raw materials? What was this secret that no one wanted getting out?

''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.

This was the identity of that term they had heard so many times today.

“It…isn’t closed off? There’s a secret route through the walls surrounding Academy City!?”

That could not be. For better or for worse, Academy City was cut off from the outside world. Those thick walls prevented their tech from spreading to the world at large because that could lead to disorder and chaos.

Hamazura used to be part of Skill Out. That was a group of the boys and girls who had dropped out of Academy City but had nowhere to go since they could not get out of the city.

They had been trapped. They had dropped out of school, but those walls had kept them here. If you wanted to take a trip outside the city for just a few days, you needed to submit a ton of paperwork and receive a nanodevice injection. Because if you tried leave without using the official gates, you could be killed to prevent a data leak. There had been burglars and muggers in the back alleys, but none of those expert thieves had dared go anywhere near the walls.

If there was a way to freely move in and out, they may not have felt so much pressure. They could have made a place for themselves.

Their former leader, Komaba Ritoku, might not have had to fight and die.

“…”

But the dark side had torn down that number one assumption like it was nothing.

That counterfeiter had stored that information on a card-sized hard drive labeled “Lifeline”. Had he thought he could use that information to get some dark side bigshots to save him?

He must have never imagined he would instead have his brains blown out by a paparazzo. Hamazura was at the center of all this, but he still did not know if that had been planned or a spontaneous decision.

“It’s deep below Academy City.” Takitsubo Rikou calmly read aloud something on such a large scale that talk of an alternate dimension would have sounded more realistic. “The world’s largest particle accelerator is built directly below the city walls, so people are told that digging in that area could break the accelerator’s seal and expose them to radiation and other risks. That was meant to convince everyone that no one would be dumb enough to try it.”

The diagram they found looked like a puzzle ring. It seemed to carefully avoid the circular accelerator facility, but this was a tunnel built by the dark side. There was no chance it met all the proper safety standards.

That was the dark side’s lifeline.

They had built it to continue pumping fuel into their illicit research and its construction showed they did not care at all if they brought chaos to the world. It really was the greatest taboo. It was a dark umbilical cord that could wipe out the Kiharas and everyone else if it was cut off.

“I doubt Anti-Skill knows about this,” said Takitsubo. “So they won’t be able to block it off. We can safely escape the city if we use it.”

“…”

The red light displayed by Aneri was in District 10, the city’s biggest slum. The taboo no one wanted was hidden below the district everyone had abandoned.

It was unclear if it had always had this name. They may have changed the name periodically to help hide the truth. All the scattered information was fragmentary witness accounts and some of it would likely be intentional misinformation.

But that taboo’s gaping mouth had sat deep underground all this time.

Like a nightmarish symbol of freedom.

The dot on the map displayed on the small screen had the following name displayed next to it: Vanishing Tunnel.

That was the name of their final destination. Anyone who arrived there was given a ticket to another world.

===Part 3===

They were deep, deep underground in District 10.

Few people would think too much about the layout of the subway tunnels below the city. They might know a track took an unnatural curve at one point, but no one would question the online news article about them running across some kind of ruins during construction.

An underground passageway was surrounded by cold concrete and supported by the pillars positioned at even intervals.

The few fluorescent lights on the walls were not enough to fully sweep away the darkness.

That underground blind spot had become the biggest hot spot in the world. A great many people had gathered there. They had not all arrived along the same route. They had each gathered the hints scattered around the city and started to question the city’s biggest assumption. Academy City was surrounded by thick walls, but it was not in fact sealed off.

The brawny men in work jumpsuits were a courier group called Secret Express. The men and women in dress clothes were Concierge, a group that provided hideouts to meet a criminal’s demands. The girls in plain clothing and hiding their faces with sunglasses and hunting caps may have been an extremely popular idol group. The parade of scum included Controller, who used personal information and fictitious bills to threaten the girls he targeted until he had them in digital chains, and Flare, who left behind harmless powder identical to the real deal in order to confuse criminal investigations.

A ruler of the back alleys was there.

A major corporation’s lawyer was there.

A university headmaster was there.

A major entertainment producer was there.

And a few Kiharas from different fields were there.

All sorts of people flooded that underground passageway. People did not end up on the dark side because they were low class, poor, stupid, or criminal. It took all types. The dark side had reached every class of person equally. From worlds no one knew existed to industries everyone envied.

Some had fallen before making it this far and others had attempted a different route instead. In a way, finding this tunnel and setting foot inside made them the chosen ones.

And.

Every last one of them were obstructed and crushed by a certain figure.

The woman had long blonde twintails and she wore a skintight light blue dress and a long loose skirt.

Frillsand #G was like an impassable wall.

All who challenged her crashed into that wall with the intensity of their challenge. After seeing a few of them turned to hunks of flesh and splattered blood, the others must have started wondering if she literally was a solid wall because all of those dark side members had come to a stop. They were pushed back even though she had not taken a single step.

Of course, the ghost was not going to spare them just because they gave up now.

“Next stop: skewering. Repeat: skewering.”

With a wet sound, a muscular man in black was destroyed from groin to head. But he may have been one of the lucky ones. He was gone before he even knew what had happened to him.

“Please look out for the burning and severing.”

Screams of pain echoed through the tunnel. Before long, the dark side members were fighting amongst themselves too. They appeared to have begun an ugly struggle over the concrete column they could use as a shield. However…

“We will arrive at gouging soon.”

Just as the ghost silently circled behind the column, a wet sound exploded out. The victors and losers of the struggle were all turned to mincemeat together while Frillsand #G looked on in disinterest.

“Ah…gahh,” someone groaned.

It was one of the idol girls. Her bottom half was gone and the bottom of her torso was sticking to the floor like a slug.

“But…why? We found the taboo…so aren’t we part of the dark side too? Can’t we all use…the path out together?”

“I have children to take care of. A lot of them.” Frillsand #G did not even look in her direction. “Inviting all of you in with us would only put them at risk.”

“Just…” It was already too late for her, but the top half of a girl still clawed at the concrete floor. “Just in case? You took people’s lives for no more than that!?”

“Next stop: running over. I repeat: running over.”

With a wet splat, the complaints were silenced.

The ghost seemed to be rejecting the idea that grudges lacked the power to kill.

“The rear guard is an important job,” she said in a singsong voice. “But I cannot let that crybaby see this. Knowing of it and seeing it are two very different things.”

The artificial ghost glanced over at something else.

But she soon lost interest, turned around, and vanished into the darkness.

A mere ten meters away, Hamazura Shiage was hiding behind a column and holding his hand over the track suit girl’s mouth.

If she noticed them, they were dead. He felt like his heart, his breathing, his body odor, and the slight static electricity on his clothing could all give them away. He could not even wipe the unpleasant sweat from his cheek as he desperately waited for time to pass.

That ghost really was an enemy.

She had some kind of plan of her own and had saved them on a whim before, but that did not mean he could trust her. If she had saved them on a whim, then she could also choose to throw them out on a whim. And they only had the one life.

This was worse than a sea of blood.

Flesh and blood had lost any hint of their original form, fingers extended into empty space, facial skin was frozen in a look of agony while plastered to the wall. At this point, they were only “things”, not people. There was no dignity remaining.

Each of them was a dark side member who had arrived at ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' along a different route than him.

Their endless possibilities had been reduced to zero.

Or so it felt to him.

Was this tunnel really the right path? The further they went, the more likely they were to encounter that ghost woman, so he began to wonder if it would be safer to turn back now and return to the surface.

“Pwah.”

His girlfriend escaped his hand. He was holding her from behind, so she leaned her head back to look him in the eye.

“Hamazura, I don’t sense her presence anymore. We can keep going now.”

“…”

“We can’t give up after coming so far. Blindly returning to the surface won’t save us. We’ll never find peace if we don’t go through here.”

“R-right.”

He would have long since broken if he were alone.

But when she pulled on his hand, he managed to work up some small semblance of courage.

Even with the evenly-spaced fluorescent lights, the tunnel was dark. And they had no idea who was in charge of that sparse lighting. What if the ghost could shut off the power? His phone felt all the more important to him now.

“This is a long tunnel.”

“Yeah.”

They were not speaking much anymore.

This was ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'', but did this tunnel really lead toward hope? No matter how far they went, the darkness never went away. As they trudged deeper and deeper, he felt like they had passed a point of no return. Also, who had built this enormous underground facility? Someone must have drawn up the plans, dug the hole, set the foundation, and brought in the rebar and concrete. This was a far bigger project than a bank robber’s hand-dug tunnel into the vault. Such a vast and well-made underground space could not have been built without the involvement of a major construction company.

Who had done it?

It might be a company whose ads he saw on TV every day.

Would all of this come to light one day? But those meaningless thoughts were cut off by Takitsubo.

She had noticed first because she was not holding the light.

“Hamazura, there’s a door.”

“…”

It was a thick metal door.

Just the one door sat at the end of the long, long tunnel. There may have been another route, but he did not recall seeing any other paths branching off along the way.

He slowly approached.

It did not appear to be locked. He doubted there were any grenades or other “gifts” left for them.

But that was not what scared him. He had seen all of those corpses along the way. The sight had left him so terrified he barely had it in him to keep his heart beating. He had started to view their fallen predecessors as no more than a piece of the scenery. Because otherwise that shadowy murder scene would have overwhelmed him too much to continue on.

The taboos were piling up.

He and Takitsubo had started this simply wanting to survive, but they too had been corrupted along the way.

Hamazura Shiage reached his fingers toward the doorknob.

He touched it. He squeezed it.

He turned it.

===Part 4===

A flood of light revealed a world no one was ever meant to see.

“…”

The other world turned out to be a cavernous pit.

This abyss slept deep below the earth, yet it was filled with much more artificial light than the tunnel. That was thanks to the construction lights set up here and there.

It was easily more than 250 meters across and maybe more than twice as deep. The perfectly circular space made of reinforced concrete at the very bottom may have reminded different people of different things.

Some might see it as a common utility duct, a circular colosseum, a switchyard’s turntable, or an underground temple dedicated to a god one must never offer any prayers.

But there was one crucial piece that helped solidify the proper image.

“A train?” muttered Hamazura while peering down over the railing.

It was a turntable.

Concrete columns were installed at even intervals around the edges, but there were none in the central circle. The flat concrete floor had a smaller circle built into it. That would rotate to change the train’s direction. The tracks outside the circle extended in 12 different directions. That made it all look like something else: a giant metal flower.

Yes, there were tracks, signal lights, transformers, maintenance equipment, a control room, and a fifteen-car train in here. It was a freight train.

“That’s the dark side’s lifeline?”

For him and Takitsubo, it was the plank of Carneades that would save their lives.

He doubted that turntable was all of it. There would be a container yard and maintenance zone hidden further out from the center.

They walked along the narrow catwalk built along the circular wall and descended the stairs. There were no corpses in here. Whoever had gotten here first must have used the ghost woman to eliminate any nuisances before they reached this point.

And since the train was still here, that person would still be here.

They shared this space with the slaughterer.

“Hamazura.”

“Don’t worry. I’m with you no matter what.”

“Not that. There’s someone down there. And they’re not alone.”

That was a shock. Takitsubo Rikou could accurately locate people by sensing their AIM Diffusion Field. She could not use that power as well as she used to, but she could still sense it to an extent.

The tension grew.

A single person with a bizarre power was certainly scary, but having a large group approach you brought a different sort of fear. He mentally switched his priorities to at least allowing Takitsubo to escape if things looked bad.

The only exit was up here.

Leaving that would mean being surrounded by dead ends in every direction.

“…”

After descending the last flight of stairs, they arrived at the deepest depths.

It felt so much different from when they had been looking down from above. But that was not too surprising since 250 meters was larger than a domed stadium. This was the same as a sports field looking so much bigger from the stands than on TV.

Yes, Hamazura Shiage now stood on the stage. He was no longer an outsider looking in.

“Oh, dear. You actually showed up. What a shame.”

He lasted one second.

His knees suddenly dropped to the ground. He could not keep his shoulders at the same height and his lost strength would not return.

“Wha—!?”

It was the ghost woman.

Was she a beneficial or a harmful?

She had left that tunnel far too bloody to claim she was trying to escape Academy City because she disliked conflict. If anything, she felt more like a vengeful spirit that refused to let anyone leave the city.

She looked like a Western doll with her long blonde twintails and light blue dress. She did not actually punch or kick him. Simply seeing her out of the corner of his eye had done critical damage to him.

A rusty-smelling liquid dripped from his eyes and nose.

He was trying to scream and flip over onto his back, but he was actually curled up and unable to move.

Encountering her meant death.

That was far too sinister a thing to be connected with a simple equals sign like that.

“It is no use.”

The ghost woman walked without audible footsteps. She moved herself from the corner of his vision to the center.

“No one is talking about anything as silly as defending against something with a shield or dodging a projectile with super speed. ''From the moment you see my face,'' the attack is complete. If I so much as casually stand in the corner of your vision, I can do continual damage without you even noticing my presence.”

He realized the strange things had always happened when the ghost woman spoke to him. And why had she turned the lights on in that tunnel? Because it was more convenient for her.

If you saw a ghost while driving, you would crash.

If your face, hands, or feet were missing in a ghost photo, you would find unnatural wounds or marks on your body.

Did this mean she even artificially reproduced those aspects of a ghost? He did not want to believe it because it would mean there was nothing he could do.

“Hamazu—!?”

“You noticed? You must have sharper senses.”

The track suit girl quickly pulled him close, but the ghost woman did not seem to care.

Besides, if seeing her really did mean death, then Takitsubo would have been killed too, but she was fine.

“But I am not talking about anything as poorly-defined as a sixth sense for ghosts. Do you have a power related to AIM Diffusion Fields?”

“There’s no AIM Diffusion Field around you? No, some strong but invisible power is scattering that weaker field.”

“It is known as High Voltage Cutting,” said the ghost woman. “The principle may be similar to the shock diamonds seen in a rocket engine’s flame or the cavitation of air bubbles created around a propeller. The constant emission of a powerful energy will create irregular waveforms and images while it interferes with itself.”

“Gh!? What energy???”

“You can find energy everywhere.” Her tone was light, so understanding how it worked must not have helped avoid its effects. “The carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide you thoughtlessly spread around forms acid rain when it bonds with the moisture in the air. You can acquire electricity simply by sticking two electrodes into a fruit, you know? Copper and zinc are such necessities that you can find them anywhere. Using that, you can produce hydrogen gas in addition to electricity. I only need to absorb power from a ''civilization battery'' the size of a city or even greater. That is enough for me to construct a single outlier point within that stable energy.”

“…”

“What are the common types of haunted locations? Old homes full of drafts, cliffs and caves eroded by the waves, and mountain roads late at night. They are always full of ''noise'', such as static electricity, pressure differences, the creaking of rusty doors, or the rustling of the trees in the wind. Have you ever heard a ghostly voice in the crackle of excess electricity or the roar of hydrogen gas being ignited? I can exist as I am wherever human civilization exists. If you wish to kill me, you must destroy your very way of life. On a global scale.”

This was too much.

He could not understand her explanation. And even if he thought he did, it still did not tell him how to destroy her.

Takitsubo gasped and spoke while holding onto him.

“I get that the constant use of a massive amount of unseen energy would eventually create something unnatural. But if seeing you is deadly, how do you choose specific targets to—?”

She trailed off.

She had seen something out of the corner of her eye, but not the artificial ghost this time. A unified set of colors could be seen peeking out of at them from a gap in the door to one of the freight train’s containers.

''They were small children wearing gym clothes and some kind of device. There were more than just ten or twenty of them.

''All of them were a part of the ghost experiment.

The children must have seen the ghost woman as they nervously spied out. And they seemed to be expectantly waiting to see if she would repel these unknown intruders. They did not know. They had not been told what they were being used for. Simply viewing a ghost photo was harmful and the longer you viewed it, the more damage it did. She embodied that power so perfectly that she had eliminated so many dark side elites.

Yet she had managed to accurately select one out of the many candidates.

That was like shooting the apple off someone’s head. Without explaining any of it to the children who had those sensors attached to them.

“…”

The delinquent boy clenched his teeth.

He could barely move, she held his life in her hand, and he had no idea how to fight back. He had to avoid angering her if at all possible. He understood that, but he still shouted up at her.

“You scum!!”

“Call me what you wish. In fact, I see it as a compliment.”

The ghost woman who resembled a fairy tale princess held her palm out toward him. He only had to see her impossible presence for her to attack, so that gesture was meaningless.

But then her eyes turned unnaturally away from him.

To the side.

A spare container sitting near the train was sliced in two. Something had dropped down from far above like a bolt of lightning.

A red figure wielded a thick machete made of heavy metal.

The android wore a racing swimsuit colored the orange and black of an insect. The bangs of her long crimson hair were cut straight across and she had a slender build.

Cartoony flowers were displayed in her mechanical eyes.

“Smug face.”

“Hello, hello,” said a twig of an old man in a blue jumpsuit and lab coat. “I hate to interrupt when you seem so busy, but I must insist.”

The ghost woman shrugged.

“Were you hoping to use the train? I thought you were one of the harmfuls who would remain in the city and resist to the bitter end.”

“I have no interest in those categories forced onto the dark side from the outside. All I care about is continuing my research. Academy City was a wonderful environment for that, but if that has changed, I need to leave and search out a more comfortable place.”

“You can see me, can’t you?”

“You should be able to tell by observing my eye movements.”

“And you know what that means?” She gave a suggestive glance over at the machine that had arrived with him. “In case you were unaware, I am capable of causing malfunctions in mechanical lenses and sensors just as well as in the human body. Ghost photographs are a result of ghosts interfering in optical machinery, are they not? That might be your masterpiece, but isn’t it presumptuous to assume she can wield her full power against me?”

She remained untouchable. She could kill someone just by placing herself in the corner of their vision and machines could not do anything to her either. Did she have no blind spots?

“Yes, I imagine so.”

But the old man did not seem to mind.

That mysterious old man ''known as a Kihara'' was not bothered that she held his life in her hand.

“You are the strongest when it comes to an individual. Looking at deadliness alone, you might outdo the #3 and the #2.”

“…”

Evidently, even ghosts could find something to be ominous.

This world may have been infected with a disease that caused all bad premonitions to come true.

“But in this specific location, I believe you too will find you cannot wield your full power.”

“What are you—gah!!!!????”

He had given her plenty of warning, but she suddenly arched her back and then froze unnaturally in midair. An ominous straining sound continued on and on as her body grew distorted. She bent and stretched, almost like a face pressed against a wall of glass.

Something was happening.

Hamazura had thought the ghost woman was an intangible being, like a mist or apparition. But she was not. She clearly had a spine to strain, muscles to cry out in pain, and organs to writhe unnaturally.

Then a bizarre creaking and cracking noise came from her. Her volume shrank more and more like she was being crushed in from all sides. The old man was holding something up in his special engineering glove. It looked like an empty candy box, but it was not. It had a small pinhole at the very top. The ghost woman was sucked into that small hole like a liquid or a gas. Hamazura did not want to imagine what things were like inside there. He could only say one thing in a daze.

“A pinhole…camera?”

“High Voltage Cutting? I see, a strange theory, but she is still a form of unstable energy. And all energy will move from high to low—unstable to stable. This is enough to break down her form and burn in her image.”

The old man let go of the candy box.

He had the look of a mischievous child who had just realized he could create his own spark show by sticking a metal clip in the microwave.

“This is the appropriate choice for a ghost photo, don’t you think? A digital camera just wouldn’t fit the aesthetic.”

After dropping it to the cold concrete, he crushed it below his heel. He did not even glance down at the flattened box.

“''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.''” He tapped on his lower back. “Surely you didn’t think a construction company building a secret tunnel out of the city was enough to earn a name like that. With something like her around, you really should have thought of a different possibility.”

“Wh-what?”

Hamazura felt like the unnatural “curse” had weakened, but he still could not bring himself to get up from the ground. The old man only now seemed to have realized that there was another person here reaching for the plank of Carneades.

Hamazura knew any attention on him would only lead to disaster.

Kihara Hasuu smiled.

“Let me make one thing clear. There is a member of the Board who built a vast fortune by doing unofficial construction work for the dark side, but he knows nothing of this. This massive underground structure just appeared out of the blue one day.”

“…?”

Out of the blue?

Hamazura had operated construction machinery before, so he knew how absurd that was. Did that old man have any idea how long it would take to dig out a hole of this size?

But the old man appeared to be serious.

Deadly serious.

“''The Vanishing Tunnel does not actually exist.''”

Hamazura had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

It made no sense. If that were true, then where were they now???

The old man gave the answer.

“Kazakiri Hyouka was not just a single individual. She is more like one piece of the Imaginary Number District, an entire city created from the aggregation of AIM Diffusion Fields. …It all began with a project meant to cut out a portion of that territory and extract it as a new resource. Unlike the microscopic alchemy performed in the particle accelerator, this would have been on the macro scale and cost very little. But not even the group of researchers who guided all that power through the city could have predicted it would take this form. ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' is such a dramatic name. In truth, it was a major failure that needed to be covered up. Everyone involved was at their wits’ end.” He tapped his lower back again. “A nonexistent pathway unofficially connected Academy City to the world outside, increasing the risk of the outer world’s collapse through cultural exchange and technological contamination. The entire world very well could have been destroyed from this single point. While the researchers had hoped to extract materials from the Imaginary Number District, whatever came from there might have transformed the outside world into something truly grotesque. …Yes, that the world still exists as it does now was no more than ''dumb luck''. It was nothing we did on our end. Kazakiri Hyouka and the other inhuman monsters simply showed no interest in that. If something had occurred to them and they had tried it, the world would have ended.”

“You mean…” Takitsubo replied since she had a better understanding of things related to AIM. “You were researching the exact opposite of that ghost? A ghost made from powerful energy and an aggregation of weak powers are opposites, so when they came together, it caused the ghost to malfunction… You were trying to extract inorganic materials from that unseen city, weren’t you?”

“Hard to say if that research was a step forward or a step back. Like I said, they failed. They could not control it, so even the remains of their project you see here cannot be erased. I believe the natural half life was about 12,000 years. In the worst case, the Imaginary Number District could have been converted into real numbers, crushing Academy City in the process. I think the project could have found success if they could have cut off a piece at a workable size and found a way to control it. In that sense, that ghost really is the strongest as an individual and an enviable success.”

Now even Hamazura had a vague idea why the ghost woman had suddenly malfunctioned.

They could not be in the same place.

Two ghosts could not coexist. Just like installing two different pieces of security software on the same computer would cause a conflict.

“It was still a risky gamble, though. The odds were low, but if the tunnel ''had lost'', this temporary space itself would have vanished and we would all have become fossils after being buried deep below the surface.”

Hamazura heard a swooshing sound and looked over to see the android swinging her thick machete next to the old man. Those two had won their bet, so now no one could stop them.

Kihara Hasuu looked away from Hamazura and turned to someone else.

“Now, I have eliminated your bodyguard. Isn’t it time we talked this out like adults?”

===Part 5===

“When’s the train going to leave?”

“Oh, mister just left.”

The children dressed up in gym clothes were whispering to each other while peeking out through the cracked-open door of a freight train container.

But among them…

“Ow, that hurts.”

The girl named Risako spoke up in protest.

But Sodate ignored that and continued tugging on her skinny wrist. The bigger boy was kind of scary when he was not saying anything.

“Listen, Risako.” He spoke quickly while walking through the shadows to stay hidden. He seemed to be speaking to himself more than the girl. “You can still escape. It’s not too late. And once you get to the surface, go tell the grownups about this. I know you can do it.”

“Why? The train is about to leave.”

“You still don’t get it!?” He shouted with his hands on her shoulders. “They make us wear these clothes and devices, they keep us separated from the rest of the city, and they don’t let us go to a normal school. We’re Child Errors, so no one will even notice if we just disappear one day. They’re only raising us because they can use us for something. They’re fattening us up to eat us!”

“But…”

“We don’t even have phones to call for help. ''It isn’t normal to be this isolated.'' That’s why I kept leaving behind some sign of our presence: building blocks, picture books, balls, and so on. I left them outside before the trucks moved on and I made sure to write our names, the trucks’ license numbers, and other information on them! But none of it ever reached the grownups. Our efforts never reached anyone!!”

She had thought he kept stealing things because he was selfish. She had thought he would forget those things in his secret bases because he was sloppy. But that was not it.

“They’re relatively peaceful beneficials? Don’t make me laugh. What’s going to change after we board that train and leave Academy City? There won’t be anyone monitoring them anymore!! Once that happens, I just know he’ll stop holding back. He’ll ''take it even further''! So you at least need to escape before that happens!!”

“Sodate-chan…”

“I’ll give you an opening.” He looked the girl in the eye and spoke clearly. “I won’t let him turn you into a guinea pig no matter what!!”

===Part 6===

A somewhat slender man stepped out. He wore a short-sleeved safari jacket and a rash guard, making him look something like an old-fashioned adventurer, but the webcam attached to the side of his head gave him a more modern outdoorsy look. He appeared to be a different sort of researcher from the old mechanic in a lab coat and jumpsuit.

He was an expert at visiting so-called haunted locations around the world and revealing the scientific cause of the strange phenomena there. But he had apparently also artificially recreated such things to use them for his own purposes.

He grinned and raised his hands in a jocular way. Kihara Hasuu asked him a question with the deadly weapon girl still by his side.

“What is your name?”

“Drencher Kihara Repatri.”

“I see. So that’s you.”

The young man’s eyebrows moved slightly in response to the old man’s impressed tone.

“I didn’t expect someone like you to have heard of me.”

“You are rather…well known.”

The way he said that told Hamazura he did not mean that in a positive way.

This was a confrontation between two harmfuls.

The two researchers ignored the boy and girl entirely as they began a verbal rally. Hamazura knew he could not just sit and watch as a referee or spectator, but he had no way of intervening.

“As you can see, we come from different levels of the dark side. If there is no place for us in Academy City anymore, then leaving the city is a valid choice. But is that plank of Carneades really only big enough for the one group? I think it can support both of us just fine.”

That suggestion seemed surprising…but maybe it wasn’t. It was the ghost woman who had been slaughtering all of the other dark side members trying to reach this point. The android may have attacked Anti-Skill, but she had never actively tried to eliminate her fellow dark siders. She had attacked Hamazura near the counterfeiter’s tents, but if she had been trying to slaughter everyone she came across, the ordinary people in the amusement park would not have escaped alive.

The young man shrugged.

“If that means less fighting, it’s okay with me. Not that I really have a choice, do I?”

“Assuming you have no other trump cards.”

“Then I surrender.”

He did not hesitate to respond. Hamazura was actually surprised to see he was willing to back down to save his own life. Hamazura had gotten the impression that the extreme members of the dark side were willing to sacrifice their own life to achieve their goal.

That surprise scared Hamazura. He could tell he had let the dark side influence him too much. He was afraid the damage would be permanent if he went much further. Once he became a harmful, there was no going back.

“She was my prized project, you know? Frillsand #G, I mean. Now, I knew ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' would pose a challenge, but I never imagined it was a giant mass of AIM Diffusion Fields.”

“Everything has its compatibility. In fact, I could never have won if we were not down here. Keep this girl from working and I’m helpless.”

The crimson-haired girl did nothing to fight the wrinkled hand rubbing her head.

The two men were reaching an agreement. That was not good. Hamazura and Takitsubo had nothing they could offer in a negotiation. At this rate, they would probably each get a bullet in the head as a parting gift. The only other option he could imagine was being made into a guinea pig for some bizarre experiment.

“Oh, right,” casually began the old man.

If he said “what should we do about those two lumps of flesh”, they were screwed. And Hamazura could not predict what that Kihara would do. He felt a terrible squeezing at his heart.

Finally, Kihara Hasuu continued.

“While we can share the train, I will be in charge there. So if you want a ride, it’s only natural you pay a small fare, don’t you think?”

“Do you want my research notes on Frillsand #G?”

“I’m no barbarian. A scientist’s research notes are a part of his very soul. Those are the fruits of your labors, so take them to your grave.”

“Then what do you want?”

“A few of them.”

The old man’s voice was as casual as ever as he pointed his engineering glove in a different direction entirely. He pointed at the gym clothes children who were peeking out from behind cover, without a clue what was being discussed.

“''Just select a few at random.'' I intend to restart my research once things have calmed down, but the rules are different outside the city. I can’t start abducting people off the street until I have a proper base set up, so I could use an initial supply for that settling-in period.”

Hamazura froze as he listened in.

This was the dark side. This was how the elites of that stagnant world thought.

“That Frillsand #G is important to your research, but not so with those lab rats, right? How many experimental observers’ lives were lost until you managed to ''properly reproduce'' that artificial ghost? If your research has entered a stable period, I would assume you are not running through those Child Errors as quickly as you once were.”

“Heh,” laughed Drencher Kihara Repatri.

He weakly lowered his raised hands. He must have decided that was no longer necessary. He too had seen the darkness, so he spoke with the same look in his eyes as the old man.

“It’s true those are all Child Errors. And however they would be treated in the ordinary world, we all know exactly what that term means in the dark side. Yes, I gathered them together and invited them into my lab. I made sure to have a plentiful stock of convenient lives that could be spent as I liked if other forms of research were not enough.”

“Then I can have a few?”

“''Go to hell, you son of a bitch.''”

===Part 7===

Several dry gunshots rang out.

===Part 8===

Hamazura Shiage did not understand what had just happened.

“Hamazura!!”

His body still refused to do what it was told, so track suit girl Takitsubo had to push him to the ground.

The young man had pulled out a handgun. It was no more than a small revolver, but he still fired it repeatedly from just a few meters away.

However…

“Ugh…”

“That won’t work,” said the old man.

The android’s crimson hair fluttered while she held her thick machete at the ready with her bare feet planted a step in front of Hasuu. Not only had she deflected all of the bullets, she had used their ricochets as a counterattack.

''No more than a small revolver.

''Something had gone horribly wrong when you started thinking of things in those terms in this country.

The young man had several holes in his upper body and dark red stains spread across his clothes. Doubling over did nothing to help, so he finally collapsed to the ground.

The old man in a jumpsuit and lab coat spoke up in exasperation while the strongest doll protected him.

“They’re just kids. And it’s not like I’m asking for all of them. Just two or three will do.”

“I wanted to…protect them from the dark side scum who think like that,” spat the young man while struggling to breathe down on all fours. He had given up trying to hold his wounds. “But nothing I did above board did anything to help. I couldn’t even get information on where those children were. The only way to fight the dark side…was to become the dark side. I almost laughed when I saw how many people came running to me then, claiming my research was so valuable. When I said I needed children’s lives to do it, they slapped me on the shoulder and agreed to it all. While happily sipping on a glass of the year’s finest red with their other hand. This city is rotten to the core.”

“Aren’t you Drencher Kihara Repatri?”

“Claiming to be a Kihara was the quickest way to get what I wanted. Ha ha. Those VIPs really were terrified of me.”

“Dammit,” spat out Hamazura Shiage.

The young man saw his own condition as of secondary importance.

It was true the ghost woman had used the children. They had been placed in a position where she could crush their lives at any moment. But had Hamazura ever seen her actually kill a child? What if they had been living in a world where they had to take the charade that far to be believed?

The old man had asked how many experimental observers’ lives were lost until he managed to properly reproduce the artificial ghost, but the young man had never answered.

That was in fact the answer. He had not sacrificed anyone. Not one. He had wanted to gather up those children known as Child Errors and drag them up out of the darkness. There ''were'' adults willing to dive into the dark side for no other reason than that.

There really were.

And yet…

“You’re lying.”

Hamazura suddenly rejected that entire premise. Because if he accepted this, he would have to admit to his own ugliness. Even if saying this would mean revealing he was ugly enough to put up a struggle like this.

“I’ve seen you before. You were at that counterfeiter’s place! You were preparing a passport for yourself so you could abandon those kids and leave the city!!”

“This all would have gone so much more smoothly if that had worked.” The young man smiled weakly. “If I had shown off how I escaped with the passport, Anti-Skill and the dark side’s focus would have turned toward District 23’s airport. Then the children would have had a safer escape underground here. I was never supposed to be down here with them.”

“~ ~ ~!!!!!!”

It felt like they lived in two completely different worlds.

And that young man was definitely the one in the right.

Hamazura felt so pathetic and contemptible for only ever acting to protect him and his girlfriend.

“I know I shouldn’t be asking this.”

The young man looked his way. As if to say it did not matter if he really was a Kihara or not.

His eyes knew how to view the light, but for some reason he now looked to someone as corrupted as Hamazura.

“Maybe it’s for the best if the dark side is destroyed, but please take care of those kids. You’re the only person I can leave them with now. When you saw your girlfriend suffering, you panicked and dumped medical supplies across the ground in your haste. I could see the conscience in your eyes. You had no choice but to fall this far, but you should still have some resistance to the dark side left inside you.”

“Wait, I’m not like that for everyone. Don’t shove this onto me! She’s my girlfriend, so of course I’d work to save her!!”

“Ha ha. Thinking that’s an ‘of course’ is what makes you such an oddity in the dark side. Don’t worry, I know you can do it. Because after falling into this shitty world, you still managed to find someone you care for and you decided to find peace instead of another thrill.”

Hamazura and Takitsubo had first heard of ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' from this man.

Hamazura had been cautious because there was no righteousness in the dark side and the man must have had his own reasons.

Was this why?

Had it been some insurance, just in case? Instead of worrying about his own survival, he had wanted some insurance for after he died.

Yet he had also slaughtered the dark sider people rushing toward this exit.

All because he could not let any harm come to the children as those people fought each other. He had rushed down a dark path to prevent a mere possibility.

But on Hamazura and Takitsubo’s way here, hadn’t the ghost woman glanced their way after slaughtering everyone else and then left, as if sparing them?

“Why did you do all this?”

That was the only question Hamazura could find.

That was not something to say to a dying man. He knew that. But after letting the dark side corrupt him while he worked so hard to ensure his and his girlfriend’s survival, this answer was too pure and upright to accept.

“How could you throw away your own life over this!? When you get down to it, those kids are just strangers! How could a goddamn harmful go this far just because you ‘wanted to save them’!? How!? Tell me!?”

The young man smiled.

There was already blood dripping from the corners of his lips.

“Do you need a reason to protect someone? Of course you don’t.”

That was the end of it.

Time stopped for him with the smile still on his lips.

He had no reason. He did not know why. And he had rushed in to save those children without ever finding a reason.

Hamazura Shiage had to admit defeat.

“A…”

The loser boy clenched his teeth. He moved his battered body, swiped the bloody handgun and some ammo from the young man, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

Losers had their own etiquette to follow.

That scummy old man was still here. Hamazura was not going to let him trample on the young man’s victory.

“Aaaneriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!”

A dull kachunk echoed through the circular space.

The support AI had taken control of the train and shifted it out of standby, so it slowly began to move.

The turntable had tracks in twelve directions, but he knew where to send it.

He just had to remember what the card-sized hard drive labeled Lifeline had said.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

In other words…

(Hours and minutes. If I apply that to an analog clock…)

“Send it down the five o’clock track!!”

The train took off with so many children in gym clothes on board.

That had been his top priority.

“Is justice contagious these days?” asked the old man with the look of someone viewing a crazy person.

He had already proven that the gun would not work, so he gave Hamazura a look of partial pity now that he had inherited that defeated weapon.

“You risked your life for this, but to no avail. Look, not all of them were onboard. They must have run in fear from the very person who would have saved them.”

“Hamazura, two of them were left behind. We can’t just leave them here.”

A boy and a girl in gym clothes were holding hands a short distance away.

What had they thought when they learned the truth behind that young man’s satisfied smile?

Especially when their own actions had worked against him.

“Well, those two will suffice. I will be taking them as a souvenir. Any more than this would have been a waste of food anyway.”

“Shut up,” spat out Hamazura.

He really should not have been doing this. He had come here to escape to safety. It had been clear from the very beginning that he could not be a great hero or brave warrior. This selfish choice here might put himself and his girlfriend in danger.

But.

Even so.

A dying man had left this with him. He had been reminded what it meant to do the right thing. There were lives here he could save. He could redo things. And most of all, his girlfriend was watching.

He was done being pathetic. He gathered strength in his sweaty body and stood up under his own power again. He had to.

“Maybe you’re a Kihara and an android.”

His goal was to run away?

No, sometimes a man had to stand up and speak his mind.

“But I’ll take you on, you goddamned dark siders!!!!!!”

He knew it was possible.

He had just seen a man stay true to this way of life.

He could reclaim his humanity. He must have learned something from what he saw here.

===Part 9===

Of course, Hamazura could never actually hit the crimson-haired android by firing the 9mm handgun at random. He knew she would deflect the bullets with her thick machete and fill him with holes.

So he did something else instead.

“Aneri!!”

A giant shape suddenly moved right next to the racing swimsuit girl.

A wheel loader used to stack up the railroad-sized containers was being remotely controlled.

“Move.”

What was that machete even made of? She did not even look in that direction as she swung her weapon and sliced apart the snowplow-looking piece of machinery. Even though she was not using any rapid vibrations or heat.

But Hamazura used that moment to pull on his girlfriend’s hand and move from there.

This was a vast circular space, but it was not an empty colosseum.

It had concrete columns just like an underground common utility duct and it had various equipment needed for operating and maintaining the trains, all located where it would not get in the way of the turntable and the twelve directions of track. Transformers were surrounded by a fence, a prefab hut had been made into a control room, giant jacks and a carwash were prepared for maintenance purposes, and more.

Aneri had directly operated the freight train, so he felt safe assuming she could operate all of the equipment here.

He pulled his girlfriend close while hiding behind a concrete column and whispering to his phone.

“Aneri, can you directly hijack that hunk of junk?”

No response.

He took that as a no. This did not sound like it was an issue of building up to that or setting something up in advance. That android was immune to cyber attacks on some level he did not understand.

(That means the only option is to destroy her the old-fashioned way!!)

“Hamazura, we can’t hide here forever. If she stops focusing on us, she’ll go after those children. Villains always go for the easiest target.”

“I know that.”

Takitsubo kept trying to wipe the sweat from her brow, but something was not right. The moxibustion should have relieved her symptoms to an extent, but that treatment might not be working as much anymore.

He was worried, but he could not stop now. He hated that fact.

“But using ourselves as bait will put us at risk. Are you prepared for that, Takitsubo?”

“Ask any more stupid questions and I’ll slap you.”

“Okay, it’s time to win your heart all over again!!”

They both ran out from behind the concrete column.

Their eyes met the ones with pupils mechanically expanding and contracting, but they stayed strong this time.

===Part 10===

Ladybird had a lock on two targets.

She walked barefoot across the floor and accurately obeyed her instructions, but she also had a question.

Why were the children necessary?

Kihara Hasuu—her Sensei—was researching androids. He had already successfully created one, so he no longer needed to capture biological humans to dissect and observe them. This disagreement appeared to be over ownership of the Child Errors (she failed to realize it was her education by that true Kihara that led her to use the word “ownership” in this context), but why was the old man so insistent on this?

That unfortunate research was a thing of the past.

She was an android built from purely mechanical parts, but she could use an esper power. That meant no more human specimens were needed for esper development experiments. They only had to mess with machines from now on. The Child Errors no longer needed to be captured and used up.

She thought that was a wonderful thing. She could not believe the people who still clung to the old system that required humans to use other humans. Did they wish to protect the status given to them by the current Level system? If they truly believed their fight was just, then they were beyond reasoning with. Machines were not the only ones that could have their memory data rewritten. Humans could have their feelings and thoughts falsified as well.

So she would bring an end to it all.

She was fighting here to end the misfortune and tragedies caused by the esper development program.

“Ohhhh!!”

The boy raised a meaningless battle cry, ran in, and repeatedly fired his handgun. She only had to block those shots with her machete.

But he had apparently learned how she fought.

She tried to hit him with the ricochets, but they refused to hit. When she deflected a bullet back, it would follow the same straight trajectory. Placing a single piece of plywood in the middle would change things. A bullet’s force was determined by its muzzle velocity. The force of the ricochet would generally be lower. That was obvious enough since bullets were not constantly accelerating like a rocket or missile. So he could set it up so he could shoot her through an obstacle, but she could not break through it on the way back.

Her use of ricochets was similar to Accelerator’s reflection, but all her machete did was knock the bullet back. She could not ''include the actual vector in that''.

That said…

(I doubt someone with such a stupid face could do this. He must be receiving assistance with the calculations.)

She considered jumping. Lifting both feet from the ground was usually a bad idea in combat, but not so with her. With her android specs, she could kick off of one column to the next and attack from the air.

She heard the loud roar of an engine while dealing with the bullets.

It appeared to come from a forklift.

“Aneri, surround the kids! I don’t know where that old man got off to, but don’t let him get close!! If he tries it, run him over!!”

“Don’t get distracted.”

He could have gotten a hit in on her by sending the forklift in from the side while firing on her from the front. Not that a blow like that would be enough to destroy her frame.

She swung the thick machete in her right hand while gathering her strength in the space between her eyebrows.

That was how she aimed.

A blast of wind blew away the obstacles between her and Hamazura Shiage. It was more like they were obliterated by an explosion than swept away by wind.

“An esper power!?” shouted the boy.

“It looked to be Level 3 or higher,” said the girl.

She no longer had to worry about the gunfire now that the line of fire was clear. He must have known the risk of ricochets was back because he stopped attacking and hid behind a nearby column, but that was no defense. She could charge in and slice through the column and his torso behind it with a single horizontal sweep of her blade.

She had enough time to reach her other hand to her thigh, pull out the bottle, and take a drink of the discharge machine oil.

A dull boom burst out.

She was only an android modeled after the structure of the human body, but the materials used for her skeleton, muscles, and everything else were bizarre dark side tech. If she wanted to, her horsepower could rival a V12 engine at max RPM.

But even as she chose the correct action, her mechanical head was filled with questions.

She had used a wind power.

But hadn’t she used fire during her previous clash with these people? And what about the time before that?

Androids had the same structure as humans, so a single android should only have a single power. Or could she do what humans could not because she was a machine?

(Sensei?)

===Part 11===

A column of reinforced concrete was sliced through as easily as tofu or thin paper.

Not horizontally or diagonally—vertically and all the way through. After kicking from column to column to gain height, she had apparently dropped down like lightning. She had a human form, but she could perform superhuman movements.

Hamazura Shiage had tried to jump to the side just beforehand, but he ended up tumbling into a roll.

It was not his torso sliced through along with the column. It was a gas drum kept on hand for the facility’s auxiliary power generator.

He grimaced at the pain in his hips as he continued rolling and pulled the trigger repeatedly.

Not even Ladybird could deflect bullets that hit the concrete ground and sent sparks flying.

The vaporizing gasoline ignited into explosive flames that swallowed up the entire racing swimsuit silhouette.

However…

“No, Hamazura! It didn’t work!!”

“Tch!!”

He clicked his tongue while the track suit girl ran over from elsewhere and pulled him to his feet. A black figure was displayed on the other side of that fiery screen. She showed no sign of collapsing or writhing in pain.

Had she used that previous wind power to affect how the flames spread?

He hoped so. If she was simply this tough, he could not imagine how to defeat her.

“How ''do'' you defeat an android anyway? Strangle her or stab her in the heart, she’s still a machine. That won’t stop her!!”

Could he break her motherboard? Or pull out her battery? But he had no idea how many she had or where in her slender body they were located.

The roaring flames were sliced apart. A horizontal sweep of the heavy metal machete conquered the orange barrier. The barefoot android stepped through entirely unscathed. There was no sign of discoloration on her crimson hair, white skin, or orange and black racing swimsuit.

“Something isn’t right,” said Takitsubo Rikou with eyes seemingly more robotic than the machine’s. What was she looking at right now? “An android that uses esper powers is conceivably possible. Mechanical processing may be able to ‘observe’ the waves or particles like a human brain does. And if you developed that far enough, you might be able to purposefully select between different supernatural phenomena. But this wavelength is simpler than that.”

“You mean how she switches between powers?” spat out Hamazura. “That container base in the garbage pile was their lab, right? Then I get why that old man wants those kids so bad. Even if I don’t know exactly ''how'' he would use them.”

Now, why were they able to spend so long discussing this?

The delinquent boy made sure to keep his gun aimed, but the android in question was only tilting her head.

A dark liquid was dripping from her eyes and nose.

He had seen that before. Immediately after she had been hit by the hakama girl and fought back with her fire power.

“Oh, dear.”

Kihara Hasuu’s voice reached them from somewhere, but it was echoing too much to tell where it came from. Hamazura would have shot the man if he saw him.

“Is it that time already? This is why I wanted to stock up sooner rather than later.”

“Hey.” Hamazura shouted at the unseen man. “Isn’t that cheating? You can’t really call her an android if that’s what you’re doing.”

The boy watched as the girl in the orange and black racing swimsuit held her head and doubled over.

A low straining sound came from her.

Then her back opened along the line from her nape to her tailbone.

The clasp holding together the X-shaped band at the center of the swimsuit’s back popped open and the supports were released in four directions.

Then her soft skin opened wide while supported at her nape.

Her opened back almost looked like a steam locomotive’s boiler or a furnace from hell. The fact that it was smooth human skin instead of a thick metal door gave it the sinister appearance of an insect’s shell opening up.

The top half of her swimsuit fell out of place, but her chest was not visible.

Her long red hair dropped down to cover it up.

She had planted her hands and feet on the ground like a beast.

Something translucent crawled out of her. It looked like a long, narrow blade or like a wriggling snake. It would grab something, drag it inside her, and cut it away. It was an automatic extraction organ.

Hamazura knew what it was for.

“I saw the junk those trash collectors were taking back after searching through those piles of abandoned items. A fridge was full of some brownish filth.”

He felt nauseated just remembering it.

He grimaced as he viewed that monster.

“''It was stuffed full of corpses with the contents of their heads removed.'' When those trash collectors were searching out fridges and washing machines, they weren’t selling them to used appliance stores. They were opening up bloodstained boxes packed full of still-usable organs. And they all came from your lab, didn’t they!?”

“Well, the ordinary corpses were apparently disposed of in District 10’s slums, but there are a lot of people willing to buy up ones fresh enough to make use of their parts.”

Ladybird was not an android with esper powers. She was as harmful as they came. She was a machine that would devour people’s brains when necessary. In Hamazura’s opinion, that meant she did not fit the definition of an android.

“This is a completely different approach from the Rensa model of esper cyborg. Instead of a cyborg made by ''giving a brain a body'', Ladybird-kun ''is a body given a brain.''” Hasuu sounded like he was introducing his favorite grandchild. “Cellulose nanofiber is a carbon material gathering attention for its use in making wires and bulletproof materials, but the point is we can create delicate wires even thinner than the cranial nerves. But unlike a biological brain, leaving them in their active state causes them to automatically replicate and they will try to forcibly fold themselves up for space if they run out of room in the skull. The cerebrum’s frontal lobe is especially troublesome. So ''a foreign object'' must be introduced to constantly provide just the right amount of damage to ensure the brain remains the size I want it. Her power changes each time a new ''foreign object'' is introduced, but that is due to the change in the rejection and damage pattern. You can think of that as a simple idiosyncrasy.”

“Sen…sei?”

A grinding sound came from Ladybird while she seemed to be searching for something. However the old researcher described it, a human brain was apparently a necessary part for her to run. Her movements were noticeably stiff and awkward as she pursued that poison on her own.

“Sensei…but you said this research would help. You said the spread of androids would mean no more human specimens were needed for the esper development.”

“The ladybird—another name for the ladybug—might look humorous, but it is in fact a ravenous carnivore. You have heard that they are good to have around because they eat aphids, haven’t you?”

“Gh…kh.”

“And there are a lot of insects that mimic ladybugs. That includes a type of darkling beetle and cockroach, both kinds of bugs people might not normally want around. But that is not actually a type of protective coloration. Ha ha. Instead of trying to blend into their natural surroundings or avoid their predators, that coloration might actually be used to make humans like them.”

How deep did the dark side go?

How disgusting could the dark said get?

“So don’t you see?”

Its attacks were indiscriminate, like a cannibal insect.

The developer spoke to what looked like a lovely girl. And he seemed to be enjoying it immensely.

“''That is the perfect name for you.''”

===Part 12===

text> @I thought there was a problem with the world.

text> @I thought it was wrong for @humans to use @humans for their research in this city.

text> But @I could climb onto the examination table instead.

text> @I can be repaired or remade as many times as necessary.

text> Since my body was made identically to a @human’s, @I would be able to use an esper power as well. Pieces of my body could be freely added or removed, so @I could be examined inside and out more easily than a @human and @I could be modified as they saw fit.

text> No more sacrifices would be necessary for the esper development research.

text> That is why @I fought.

text> @I thought @Sensei’s research was a wonderful thing.

''“You know, Ladybird-kun, the term android signifies an artificial human built with an engineering approach. Based on that definition, it seems appropriate to me for a completed android to behave like a human.”

text> @Sensei’s words were like a shining light of hope.

text> @I wondered if @I really was good enough.

text> But @I was happy as long as @I could be of some use. @I think that kind of feeling is not something a simple machine could feel.

text> Does that mean @I am somehow @human?

text> The @humans that @I have seen are like that. They do not hesitate to make inefficient choices without even considering cost performance.

text> That is why @I find @humans to be so incredible.

text> @I have not spoken much with any other than @Sensei, but @I know that is because @androids cannot be made public yet. But @I love the @humans that @I see from a distance.

text> @I will build a path to a brighter future for them—a path to a happier world—so @I cannot allow someone to destroy all that just because they do not understand. So I will not let anyone interfere. Anyone who claims it is right to harm @people cannot be allowed to trample on the future @I can bring them.

text> So…

text>And yet…

===Part 13===

===Part 14===

===Part 15===

===Part 16===

===Part 17===

===Part 18===

===Map===

===Between the Lines 4===

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume3_Chapter3|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume3_Epilogue}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter4

2020-11-20T21:04:15Z

SNovah: /* Part 11 */

{{Incomplete|parts=12|tparts=19}}
==Chapter 4: The Demon Lord’s Young — the_LIGHT.==

===Part 1===

“Where have you been, Risako!?”

“Mister, Risako-chan is back!!”

The gym clothes girl laughed when she saw the other children gathered around.

“Eh heh heh. A doggy and an older girl saved me.”

They must have been preparing for another move because all the trucks had their engines running. But they had waited until they had found the girl with red hair done up like candy. She was relieved. Having a home to return to was a wonderful thing.

“''A doggy,'' huh?” said the artificial ghost called Frillsand #G.

“…”

Her comment made the young researcher fall silent for a bit.

His name was Drencher Kihara Repatri.

That family name was so well known in the dark side that it had become a more powerful classification than beneficial or harmful. The man who bore that name sighed softly to help refocus his mind.

“There is a chance we’ve been located, but we’re faster at the moment. If we move before they catch up, we can reach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' without issue.”

“Do you really think this world will allow any of this to go ‘without issue’?”

“It’s our job to make sure it happens.”

The adults exchanged their views with their voices too low for the excited children to hear.

But a certain boy kept his voice low for a different reason.

“Risako.”

“Oh, Sodate-chan.”

The tall boy in the same kind of gym clothes looked troubled for some reason. In fact, he looked close to tears. Risako tilted her head, thinking he was afraid she would get after him about the ball and chemical soap, but this was different.

“So you came back,” he said.

“Eh?”

“I was hoping maybe you were gone for good.”

He had wanted that? Did he hate her that much? Risako’s face clouded over, but this was again different. He shook his head and explained.

He was the only one of the children who had ''started to question these motion sensors they wore for some kind of experiment.''

“Because then at least you might have been safe.”

===Part 2===

He was afraid of screwing it up, so he started by drawing marks on her back with a marker.

“Hamazura, that tickles.”

“Stay still.”

The old book had a brush-drawn diagram with no perspective or attempt to make it look three-dimensional. The indicated locations of the organs were clearly not right. Maybe it was like the difference between an aerial photograph of the clouds and the isobars on the weather forecast map. He wondered if this was what all traditional Japanese medicine was like as he drew Xs on his girlfriend’s body. She had even removed her bra and was holding her chest in her hands while showing him her smooth back. He thought his heart was going to burst every time she squirmed from the ticklishness. Even he knew that reaction was inappropriate given the circumstances. Once he finished that, it was finally time to start. He faced the girl while she lay face down on the container lab’s work table like she was sunbathing.

The moxa used for the moxibustion was like fluffy cotton, but he actually had to set it on fire.

It felt wrong doing that on her soft skin and he could even permanently scar her if he screwed it up.

“…”

His fear came to the forefront now that it was time to do it, but this was the only way to help her with the fever.

He fought the desire to shut his eyes and placed a small pile of “fuel” on her soft skin. He worked at the lighter with a trembling hand, but he kept failing. Once he finally had a small flame, he slowly moved it in close.

“Nh.”

“A-are you okay, Takitsubo?”

“I’m fine.”

He continued the process a few more times. He had his doubts, but when she wiped the sweat from her brow, no more sweat beaded up. It did seem to be working.

He could not thank the hakama girl enough.

He could not waste this chance she had given them, so they had to approach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''.

That card-sized hard drive had been labelled with the word “Lifeline”.

Aneri must have decided the data would be too small to see on his phone because she displayed it a flat screen monitor in the lab instead. It was a series of numbers.

It looked like a calculation sheet made with spreadsheet software, but even that was enough to make the delinquent boy’s head hurt. Maybe it was important data, but he had no idea what he was supposed to focus on.

“This looks like materials data,” said Takitsubo after peering at it from the side.

“Materials?”

“Whether they’re beneficial or harmful, the dark side does a lot of research.” She pointed at one of the numbers. “They’re also building a lot of military weapons. But doesn’t it seem odd? Academy City is a mass consumer and it only has so much land since it’s surrounded by walls. You can’t just dig into the ground here and find oil or ores. So where do they get all those materials from?”

“Where? Isn’t that what the cooperative institutions around the world are for? They can work out a deal with them.”

“But how can they do that without leaving any record of it?”

She pointed at another number.

If a citizens group monitoring the flow of money and materials could reveal a secret, then it had never been part of the dark side to begin with.

“Look at this. The dark side is using far more materials than the total amount brought in from outside the city. Cutting off the fat and redistributing it to themselves would not be enough for this. The amount the dark side uses is several times larger. This would show up in the records no matter what you did. Important people like the Board of Directors and its Chairman can only cover up so much. This is too much. It’s well past what you could hide by cooking the books.”

“But then…”

He trailed off when Aneri opened a new window. A single point on a map of Academy City was colored in red. There was a secret there.

“They have an entrance and exit that doesn’t leave any records,” said the track suit girl while viewing the screen.

There were several files that appeared to be saved from message boards and social media pages. Reading through them showed a certain point in common.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

Takitsubo pointed at that bizarre statement.

“There is a way of reaching it and we should see hints of it in the rumors told around the city. Like the ‘!’ signs, a deadly train, kidnappers at the amusement park, babies in the coin lockers, or an underground construction zone where you can dump anything you don’t want found. But none of that gets at the real truth.”

“You mean…?”

“Academy City doesn’t promote recycling so much just because it wants to make the most of its limited resources. ''Sending things back to be recycled over and over again masks how much materials are actually being used.'' They can’t have an investigation revealing that we dump out several times more trash than materials we take in, right? That would violate conservation of mass. So they needed to make it hard to compare those two values. It’s a form of laundering.”

Why was that sleight of hand necessary? How did they reach the impossible result of more waste than raw materials? What was this secret that no one wanted getting out?

''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.

This was the identity of that term they had heard so many times today.

“It…isn’t closed off? There’s a secret route through the walls surrounding Academy City!?”

That could not be. For better or for worse, Academy City was cut off from the outside world. Those thick walls prevented their tech from spreading to the world at large because that could lead to disorder and chaos.

Hamazura used to be part of Skill Out. That was a group of the boys and girls who had dropped out of Academy City but had nowhere to go since they could not get out of the city.

They had been trapped. They had dropped out of school, but those walls had kept them here. If you wanted to take a trip outside the city for just a few days, you needed to submit a ton of paperwork and receive a nanodevice injection. Because if you tried leave without using the official gates, you could be killed to prevent a data leak. There had been burglars and muggers in the back alleys, but none of those expert thieves had dared go anywhere near the walls.

If there was a way to freely move in and out, they may not have felt so much pressure. They could have made a place for themselves.

Their former leader, Komaba Ritoku, might not have had to fight and die.

“…”

But the dark side had torn down that number one assumption like it was nothing.

That counterfeiter had stored that information on a card-sized hard drive labeled “Lifeline”. Had he thought he could use that information to get some dark side bigshots to save him?

He must have never imagined he would instead have his brains blown out by a paparazzo. Hamazura was at the center of all this, but he still did not know if that had been planned or a spontaneous decision.

“It’s deep below Academy City.” Takitsubo Rikou calmly read aloud something on such a large scale that talk of an alternate dimension would have sounded more realistic. “The world’s largest particle accelerator is built directly below the city walls, so people are told that digging in that area could break the accelerator’s seal and expose them to radiation and other risks. That was meant to convince everyone that no one would be dumb enough to try it.”

The diagram they found looked like a puzzle ring. It seemed to carefully avoid the circular accelerator facility, but this was a tunnel built by the dark side. There was no chance it met all the proper safety standards.

That was the dark side’s lifeline.

They had built it to continue pumping fuel into their illicit research and its construction showed they did not care at all if they brought chaos to the world. It really was the greatest taboo. It was a dark umbilical cord that could wipe out the Kiharas and everyone else if it was cut off.

“I doubt Anti-Skill knows about this,” said Takitsubo. “So they won’t be able to block it off. We can safely escape the city if we use it.”

“…”

The red light displayed by Aneri was in District 10, the city’s biggest slum. The taboo no one wanted was hidden below the district everyone had abandoned.

It was unclear if it had always had this name. They may have changed the name periodically to help hide the truth. All the scattered information was fragmentary witness accounts and some of it would likely be intentional misinformation.

But that taboo’s gaping mouth had sat deep underground all this time.

Like a nightmarish symbol of freedom.

The dot on the map displayed on the small screen had the following name displayed next to it: Vanishing Tunnel.

That was the name of their final destination. Anyone who arrived there was given a ticket to another world.

===Part 3===

They were deep, deep underground in District 10.

Few people would think too much about the layout of the subway tunnels below the city. They might know a track took an unnatural curve at one point, but no one would question the online news article about them running across some kind of ruins during construction.

An underground passageway was surrounded by cold concrete and supported by the pillars positioned at even intervals.

The few fluorescent lights on the walls were not enough to fully sweep away the darkness.

That underground blind spot had become the biggest hot spot in the world. A great many people had gathered there. They had not all arrived along the same route. They had each gathered the hints scattered around the city and started to question the city’s biggest assumption. Academy City was surrounded by thick walls, but it was not in fact sealed off.

The brawny men in work jumpsuits were a courier group called Secret Express. The men and women in dress clothes were Concierge, a group that provided hideouts to meet a criminal’s demands. The girls in plain clothing and hiding their faces with sunglasses and hunting caps may have been an extremely popular idol group. The parade of scum included Controller, who used personal information and fictitious bills to threaten the girls he targeted until he had them in digital chains, and Flare, who left behind harmless powder identical to the real deal in order to confuse criminal investigations.

A ruler of the back alleys was there.

A major corporation’s lawyer was there.

A university headmaster was there.

A major entertainment producer was there.

And a few Kiharas from different fields were there.

All sorts of people flooded that underground passageway. People did not end up on the dark side because they were low class, poor, stupid, or criminal. It took all types. The dark side had reached every class of person equally. From worlds no one knew existed to industries everyone envied.

Some had fallen before making it this far and others had attempted a different route instead. In a way, finding this tunnel and setting foot inside made them the chosen ones.

And.

Every last one of them were obstructed and crushed by a certain figure.

The woman had long blonde twintails and she wore a skintight light blue dress and a long loose skirt.

Frillsand #G was like an impassable wall.

All who challenged her crashed into that wall with the intensity of their challenge. After seeing a few of them turned to hunks of flesh and splattered blood, the others must have started wondering if she literally was a solid wall because all of those dark side members had come to a stop. They were pushed back even though she had not taken a single step.

Of course, the ghost was not going to spare them just because they gave up now.

“Next stop: skewering. Repeat: skewering.”

With a wet sound, a muscular man in black was destroyed from groin to head. But he may have been one of the lucky ones. He was gone before he even knew what had happened to him.

“Please look out for the burning and severing.”

Screams of pain echoed through the tunnel. Before long, the dark side members were fighting amongst themselves too. They appeared to have begun an ugly struggle over the concrete column they could use as a shield. However…

“We will arrive at gouging soon.”

Just as the ghost silently circled behind the column, a wet sound exploded out. The victors and losers of the struggle were all turned to mincemeat together while Frillsand #G looked on in disinterest.

“Ah…gahh,” someone groaned.

It was one of the idol girls. Her bottom half was gone and the bottom of her torso was sticking to the floor like a slug.

“But…why? We found the taboo…so aren’t we part of the dark side too? Can’t we all use…the path out together?”

“I have children to take care of. A lot of them.” Frillsand #G did not even look in her direction. “Inviting all of you in with us would only put them at risk.”

“Just…” It was already too late for her, but the top half of a girl still clawed at the concrete floor. “Just in case? You took people’s lives for no more than that!?”

“Next stop: running over. I repeat: running over.”

With a wet splat, the complaints were silenced.

The ghost seemed to be rejecting the idea that grudges lacked the power to kill.

“The rear guard is an important job,” she said in a singsong voice. “But I cannot let that crybaby see this. Knowing of it and seeing it are two very different things.”

The artificial ghost glanced over at something else.

But she soon lost interest, turned around, and vanished into the darkness.

A mere ten meters away, Hamazura Shiage was hiding behind a column and holding his hand over the track suit girl’s mouth.

If she noticed them, they were dead. He felt like his heart, his breathing, his body odor, and the slight static electricity on his clothing could all give them away. He could not even wipe the unpleasant sweat from his cheek as he desperately waited for time to pass.

That ghost really was an enemy.

She had some kind of plan of her own and had saved them on a whim before, but that did not mean he could trust her. If she had saved them on a whim, then she could also choose to throw them out on a whim. And they only had the one life.

This was worse than a sea of blood.

Flesh and blood had lost any hint of their original form, fingers extended into empty space, facial skin was frozen in a look of agony while plastered to the wall. At this point, they were only “things”, not people. There was no dignity remaining.

Each of them was a dark side member who had arrived at ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' along a different route than him.

Their endless possibilities had been reduced to zero.

Or so it felt to him.

Was this tunnel really the right path? The further they went, the more likely they were to encounter that ghost woman, so he began to wonder if it would be safer to turn back now and return to the surface.

“Pwah.”

His girlfriend escaped his hand. He was holding her from behind, so she leaned her head back to look him in the eye.

“Hamazura, I don’t sense her presence anymore. We can keep going now.”

“…”

“We can’t give up after coming so far. Blindly returning to the surface won’t save us. We’ll never find peace if we don’t go through here.”

“R-right.”

He would have long since broken if he were alone.

But when she pulled on his hand, he managed to work up some small semblance of courage.

Even with the evenly-spaced fluorescent lights, the tunnel was dark. And they had no idea who was in charge of that sparse lighting. What if the ghost could shut off the power? His phone felt all the more important to him now.

“This is a long tunnel.”

“Yeah.”

They were not speaking much anymore.

This was ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'', but did this tunnel really lead toward hope? No matter how far they went, the darkness never went away. As they trudged deeper and deeper, he felt like they had passed a point of no return. Also, who had built this enormous underground facility? Someone must have drawn up the plans, dug the hole, set the foundation, and brought in the rebar and concrete. This was a far bigger project than a bank robber’s hand-dug tunnel into the vault. Such a vast and well-made underground space could not have been built without the involvement of a major construction company.

Who had done it?

It might be a company whose ads he saw on TV every day.

Would all of this come to light one day? But those meaningless thoughts were cut off by Takitsubo.

She had noticed first because she was not holding the light.

“Hamazura, there’s a door.”

“…”

It was a thick metal door.

Just the one door sat at the end of the long, long tunnel. There may have been another route, but he did not recall seeing any other paths branching off along the way.

He slowly approached.

It did not appear to be locked. He doubted there were any grenades or other “gifts” left for them.

But that was not what scared him. He had seen all of those corpses along the way. The sight had left him so terrified he barely had it in him to keep his heart beating. He had started to view their fallen predecessors as no more than a piece of the scenery. Because otherwise that shadowy murder scene would have overwhelmed him too much to continue on.

The taboos were piling up.

He and Takitsubo had started this simply wanting to survive, but they too had been corrupted along the way.

Hamazura Shiage reached his fingers toward the doorknob.

He touched it. He squeezed it.

He turned it.

===Part 4===

A flood of light revealed a world no one was ever meant to see.

“…”

The other world turned out to be a cavernous pit.

This abyss slept deep below the earth, yet it was filled with much more artificial light than the tunnel. That was thanks to the construction lights set up here and there.

It was easily more than 250 meters across and maybe more than twice as deep. The perfectly circular space made of reinforced concrete at the very bottom may have reminded different people of different things.

Some might see it as a common utility duct, a circular colosseum, a switchyard’s turntable, or an underground temple dedicated to a god one must never offer any prayers.

But there was one crucial piece that helped solidify the proper image.

“A train?” muttered Hamazura while peering down over the railing.

It was a turntable.

Concrete columns were installed at even intervals around the edges, but there were none in the central circle. The flat concrete floor had a smaller circle built into it. That would rotate to change the train’s direction. The tracks outside the circle extended in 12 different directions. That made it all look like something else: a giant metal flower.

Yes, there were tracks, signal lights, transformers, maintenance equipment, a control room, and a fifteen-car train in here. It was a freight train.

“That’s the dark side’s lifeline?”

For him and Takitsubo, it was the plank of Carneades that would save their lives.

He doubted that turntable was all of it. There would be a container yard and maintenance zone hidden further out from the center.

They walked along the narrow catwalk built along the circular wall and descended the stairs. There were no corpses in here. Whoever had gotten here first must have used the ghost woman to eliminate any nuisances before they reached this point.

And since the train was still here, that person would still be here.

They shared this space with the slaughterer.

“Hamazura.”

“Don’t worry. I’m with you no matter what.”

“Not that. There’s someone down there. And they’re not alone.”

That was a shock. Takitsubo Rikou could accurately locate people by sensing their AIM Diffusion Field. She could not use that power as well as she used to, but she could still sense it to an extent.

The tension grew.

A single person with a bizarre power was certainly scary, but having a large group approach you brought a different sort of fear. He mentally switched his priorities to at least allowing Takitsubo to escape if things looked bad.

The only exit was up here.

Leaving that would mean being surrounded by dead ends in every direction.

“…”

After descending the last flight of stairs, they arrived at the deepest depths.

It felt so much different from when they had been looking down from above. But that was not too surprising since 250 meters was larger than a domed stadium. This was the same as a sports field looking so much bigger from the stands than on TV.

Yes, Hamazura Shiage now stood on the stage. He was no longer an outsider looking in.

“Oh, dear. You actually showed up. What a shame.”

He lasted one second.

His knees suddenly dropped to the ground. He could not keep his shoulders at the same height and his lost strength would not return.

“Wha—!?”

It was the ghost woman.

Was she a beneficial or a harmful?

She had left that tunnel far too bloody to claim she was trying to escape Academy City because she disliked conflict. If anything, she felt more like a vengeful spirit that refused to let anyone leave the city.

She looked like a Western doll with her long blonde twintails and light blue dress. She did not actually punch or kick him. Simply seeing her out of the corner of his eye had done critical damage to him.

A rusty-smelling liquid dripped from his eyes and nose.

He was trying to scream and flip over onto his back, but he was actually curled up and unable to move.

Encountering her meant death.

That was far too sinister a thing to be connected with a simple equals sign like that.

“It is no use.”

The ghost woman walked without audible footsteps. She moved herself from the corner of his vision to the center.

“No one is talking about anything as silly as defending against something with a shield or dodging a projectile with super speed. ''From the moment you see my face,'' the attack is complete. If I so much as casually stand in the corner of your vision, I can do continual damage without you even noticing my presence.”

He realized the strange things had always happened when the ghost woman spoke to him. And why had she turned the lights on in that tunnel? Because it was more convenient for her.

If you saw a ghost while driving, you would crash.

If your face, hands, or feet were missing in a ghost photo, you would find unnatural wounds or marks on your body.

Did this mean she even artificially reproduced those aspects of a ghost? He did not want to believe it because it would mean there was nothing he could do.

“Hamazu—!?”

“You noticed? You must have sharper senses.”

The track suit girl quickly pulled him close, but the ghost woman did not seem to care.

Besides, if seeing her really did mean death, then Takitsubo would have been killed too, but she was fine.

“But I am not talking about anything as poorly-defined as a sixth sense for ghosts. Do you have a power related to AIM Diffusion Fields?”

“There’s no AIM Diffusion Field around you? No, some strong but invisible power is scattering that weaker field.”

“It is known as High Voltage Cutting,” said the ghost woman. “The principle may be similar to the shock diamonds seen in a rocket engine’s flame or the cavitation of air bubbles created around a propeller. The constant emission of a powerful energy will create irregular waveforms and images while it interferes with itself.”

“Gh!? What energy???”

“You can find energy everywhere.” Her tone was light, so understanding how it worked must not have helped avoid its effects. “The carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide you thoughtlessly spread around forms acid rain when it bonds with the moisture in the air. You can acquire electricity simply by sticking two electrodes into a fruit, you know? Copper and zinc are such necessities that you can find them anywhere. Using that, you can produce hydrogen gas in addition to electricity. I only need to absorb power from a ''civilization battery'' the size of a city or even greater. That is enough for me to construct a single outlier point within that stable energy.”

“…”

“What are the common types of haunted locations? Old homes full of drafts, cliffs and caves eroded by the waves, and mountain roads late at night. They are always full of ''noise'', such as static electricity, pressure differences, the creaking of rusty doors, or the rustling of the trees in the wind. Have you ever heard a ghostly voice in the crackle of excess electricity or the roar of hydrogen gas being ignited? I can exist as I am wherever human civilization exists. If you wish to kill me, you must destroy your very way of life. On a global scale.”

This was too much.

He could not understand her explanation. And even if he thought he did, it still did not tell him how to destroy her.

Takitsubo gasped and spoke while holding onto him.

“I get that the constant use of a massive amount of unseen energy would eventually create something unnatural. But if seeing you is deadly, how do you choose specific targets to—?”

She trailed off.

She had seen something out of the corner of her eye, but not the artificial ghost this time. A unified set of colors could be seen peeking out of at them from a gap in the door to one of the freight train’s containers.

''They were small children wearing gym clothes and some kind of device. There were more than just ten or twenty of them.

''All of them were a part of the ghost experiment.

The children must have seen the ghost woman as they nervously spied out. And they seemed to be expectantly waiting to see if she would repel these unknown intruders. They did not know. They had not been told what they were being used for. Simply viewing a ghost photo was harmful and the longer you viewed it, the more damage it did. She embodied that power so perfectly that she had eliminated so many dark side elites.

Yet she had managed to accurately select one out of the many candidates.

That was like shooting the apple off someone’s head. Without explaining any of it to the children who had those sensors attached to them.

“…”

The delinquent boy clenched his teeth.

He could barely move, she held his life in her hand, and he had no idea how to fight back. He had to avoid angering her if at all possible. He understood that, but he still shouted up at her.

“You scum!!”

“Call me what you wish. In fact, I see it as a compliment.”

The ghost woman who resembled a fairy tale princess held her palm out toward him. He only had to see her impossible presence for her to attack, so that gesture was meaningless.

But then her eyes turned unnaturally away from him.

To the side.

A spare container sitting near the train was sliced in two. Something had dropped down from far above like a bolt of lightning.

A red figure wielded a thick machete made of heavy metal.

The android wore a racing swimsuit colored the orange and black of an insect. The bangs of her long crimson hair were cut straight across and she had a slender build.

Cartoony flowers were displayed in her mechanical eyes.

“Smug face.”

“Hello, hello,” said a twig of an old man in a blue jumpsuit and lab coat. “I hate to interrupt when you seem so busy, but I must insist.”

The ghost woman shrugged.

“Were you hoping to use the train? I thought you were one of the harmfuls who would remain in the city and resist to the bitter end.”

“I have no interest in those categories forced onto the dark side from the outside. All I care about is continuing my research. Academy City was a wonderful environment for that, but if that has changed, I need to leave and search out a more comfortable place.”

“You can see me, can’t you?”

“You should be able to tell by observing my eye movements.”

“And you know what that means?” She gave a suggestive glance over at the machine that had arrived with him. “In case you were unaware, I am capable of causing malfunctions in mechanical lenses and sensors just as well as in the human body. Ghost photographs are a result of ghosts interfering in optical machinery, are they not? That might be your masterpiece, but isn’t it presumptuous to assume she can wield her full power against me?”

She remained untouchable. She could kill someone just by placing herself in the corner of their vision and machines could not do anything to her either. Did she have no blind spots?

“Yes, I imagine so.”

But the old man did not seem to mind.

That mysterious old man ''known as a Kihara'' was not bothered that she held his life in her hand.

“You are the strongest when it comes to an individual. Looking at deadliness alone, you might outdo the #3 and the #2.”

“…”

Evidently, even ghosts could find something to be ominous.

This world may have been infected with a disease that caused all bad premonitions to come true.

“But in this specific location, I believe you too will find you cannot wield your full power.”

“What are you—gah!!!!????”

He had given her plenty of warning, but she suddenly arched her back and then froze unnaturally in midair. An ominous straining sound continued on and on as her body grew distorted. She bent and stretched, almost like a face pressed against a wall of glass.

Something was happening.

Hamazura had thought the ghost woman was an intangible being, like a mist or apparition. But she was not. She clearly had a spine to strain, muscles to cry out in pain, and organs to writhe unnaturally.

Then a bizarre creaking and cracking noise came from her. Her volume shrank more and more like she was being crushed in from all sides. The old man was holding something up in his special engineering glove. It looked like an empty candy box, but it was not. It had a small pinhole at the very top. The ghost woman was sucked into that small hole like a liquid or a gas. Hamazura did not want to imagine what things were like inside there. He could only say one thing in a daze.

“A pinhole…camera?”

“High Voltage Cutting? I see, a strange theory, but she is still a form of unstable energy. And all energy will move from high to low—unstable to stable. This is enough to break down her form and burn in her image.”

The old man let go of the candy box.

He had the look of a mischievous child who had just realized he could create his own spark show by sticking a metal clip in the microwave.

“This is the appropriate choice for a ghost photo, don’t you think? A digital camera just wouldn’t fit the aesthetic.”

After dropping it to the cold concrete, he crushed it below his heel. He did not even glance down at the flattened box.

“''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.''” He tapped on his lower back. “Surely you didn’t think a construction company building a secret tunnel out of the city was enough to earn a name like that. With something like her around, you really should have thought of a different possibility.”

“Wh-what?”

Hamazura felt like the unnatural “curse” had weakened, but he still could not bring himself to get up from the ground. The old man only now seemed to have realized that there was another person here reaching for the plank of Carneades.

Hamazura knew any attention on him would only lead to disaster.

Kihara Hasuu smiled.

“Let me make one thing clear. There is a member of the Board who built a vast fortune by doing unofficial construction work for the dark side, but he knows nothing of this. This massive underground structure just appeared out of the blue one day.”

“…?”

Out of the blue?

Hamazura had operated construction machinery before, so he knew how absurd that was. Did that old man have any idea how long it would take to dig out a hole of this size?

But the old man appeared to be serious.

Deadly serious.

“''The Vanishing Tunnel does not actually exist.''”

Hamazura had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

It made no sense. If that were true, then where were they now???

The old man gave the answer.

“Kazakiri Hyouka was not just a single individual. She is more like one piece of the Imaginary Number District, an entire city created from the aggregation of AIM Diffusion Fields. …It all began with a project meant to cut out a portion of that territory and extract it as a new resource. Unlike the microscopic alchemy performed in the particle accelerator, this would have been on the macro scale and cost very little. But not even the group of researchers who guided all that power through the city could have predicted it would take this form. ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' is such a dramatic name. In truth, it was a major failure that needed to be covered up. Everyone involved was at their wits’ end.” He tapped his lower back again. “A nonexistent pathway unofficially connected Academy City to the world outside, increasing the risk of the outer world’s collapse through cultural exchange and technological contamination. The entire world very well could have been destroyed from this single point. While the researchers had hoped to extract materials from the Imaginary Number District, whatever came from there might have transformed the outside world into something truly grotesque. …Yes, that the world still exists as it does now was no more than ''dumb luck''. It was nothing we did on our end. Kazakiri Hyouka and the other inhuman monsters simply showed no interest in that. If something had occurred to them and they had tried it, the world would have ended.”

“You mean…” Takitsubo replied since she had a better understanding of things related to AIM. “You were researching the exact opposite of that ghost? A ghost made from powerful energy and an aggregation of weak powers are opposites, so when they came together, it caused the ghost to malfunction… You were trying to extract inorganic materials from that unseen city, weren’t you?”

“Hard to say if that research was a step forward or a step back. Like I said, they failed. They could not control it, so even the remains of their project you see here cannot be erased. I believe the natural half life was about 12,000 years. In the worst case, the Imaginary Number District could have been converted into real numbers, crushing Academy City in the process. I think the project could have found success if they could have cut off a piece at a workable size and found a way to control it. In that sense, that ghost really is the strongest as an individual and an enviable success.”

Now even Hamazura had a vague idea why the ghost woman had suddenly malfunctioned.

They could not be in the same place.

Two ghosts could not coexist. Just like installing two different pieces of security software on the same computer would cause a conflict.

“It was still a risky gamble, though. The odds were low, but if the tunnel ''had lost'', this temporary space itself would have vanished and we would all have become fossils after being buried deep below the surface.”

Hamazura heard a swooshing sound and looked over to see the android swinging her thick machete next to the old man. Those two had won their bet, so now no one could stop them.

Kihara Hasuu looked away from Hamazura and turned to someone else.

“Now, I have eliminated your bodyguard. Isn’t it time we talked this out like adults?”

===Part 5===

“When’s the train going to leave?”

“Oh, mister just left.”

The children dressed up in gym clothes were whispering to each other while peeking out through the cracked-open door of a freight train container.

But among them…

“Ow, that hurts.”

The girl named Risako spoke up in protest.

But Sodate ignored that and continued tugging on her skinny wrist. The bigger boy was kind of scary when he was not saying anything.

“Listen, Risako.” He spoke quickly while walking through the shadows to stay hidden. He seemed to be speaking to himself more than the girl. “You can still escape. It’s not too late. And once you get to the surface, go tell the grownups about this. I know you can do it.”

“Why? The train is about to leave.”

“You still don’t get it!?” He shouted with his hands on her shoulders. “They make us wear these clothes and devices, they keep us separated from the rest of the city, and they don’t let us go to a normal school. We’re Child Errors, so no one will even notice if we just disappear one day. They’re only raising us because they can use us for something. They’re fattening us up to eat us!”

“But…”

“We don’t even have phones to call for help. ''It isn’t normal to be this isolated.'' That’s why I kept leaving behind some sign of our presence: building blocks, picture books, balls, and so on. I left them outside before the trucks moved on and I made sure to write our names, the trucks’ license numbers, and other information on them! But none of it ever reached the grownups. Our efforts never reached anyone!!”

She had thought he kept stealing things because he was selfish. She had thought he would forget those things in his secret bases because he was sloppy. But that was not it.

“They’re relatively peaceful beneficials? Don’t make me laugh. What’s going to change after we board that train and leave Academy City? There won’t be anyone monitoring them anymore!! Once that happens, I just know he’ll stop holding back. He’ll ''take it even further''! So you at least need to escape before that happens!!”

“Sodate-chan…”

“I’ll give you an opening.” He looked the girl in the eye and spoke clearly. “I won’t let him turn you into a guinea pig no matter what!!”

===Part 6===

A somewhat slender man stepped out. He wore a short-sleeved safari jacket and a rash guard, making him look something like an old-fashioned adventurer, but the webcam attached to the side of his head gave him a more modern outdoorsy look. He appeared to be a different sort of researcher from the old mechanic in a lab coat and jumpsuit.

He was an expert at visiting so-called haunted locations around the world and revealing the scientific cause of the strange phenomena there. But he had apparently also artificially recreated such things to use them for his own purposes.

He grinned and raised his hands in a jocular way. Kihara Hasuu asked him a question with the deadly weapon girl still by his side.

“What is your name?”

“Drencher Kihara Repatri.”

“I see. So that’s you.”

The young man’s eyebrows moved slightly in response to the old man’s impressed tone.

“I didn’t expect someone like you to have heard of me.”

“You are rather…well known.”

The way he said that told Hamazura he did not mean that in a positive way.

This was a confrontation between two harmfuls.

The two researchers ignored the boy and girl entirely as they began a verbal rally. Hamazura knew he could not just sit and watch as a referee or spectator, but he had no way of intervening.

“As you can see, we come from different levels of the dark side. If there is no place for us in Academy City anymore, then leaving the city is a valid choice. But is that plank of Carneades really only big enough for the one group? I think it can support both of us just fine.”

That suggestion seemed surprising…but maybe it wasn’t. It was the ghost woman who had been slaughtering all of the other dark side members trying to reach this point. The android may have attacked Anti-Skill, but she had never actively tried to eliminate her fellow dark siders. She had attacked Hamazura near the counterfeiter’s tents, but if she had been trying to slaughter everyone she came across, the ordinary people in the amusement park would not have escaped alive.

The young man shrugged.

“If that means less fighting, it’s okay with me. Not that I really have a choice, do I?”

“Assuming you have no other trump cards.”

“Then I surrender.”

He did not hesitate to respond. Hamazura was actually surprised to see he was willing to back down to save his own life. Hamazura had gotten the impression that the extreme members of the dark side were willing to sacrifice their own life to achieve their goal.

That surprise scared Hamazura. He could tell he had let the dark side influence him too much. He was afraid the damage would be permanent if he went much further. Once he became a harmful, there was no going back.

“She was my prized project, you know? Frillsand #G, I mean. Now, I knew ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' would pose a challenge, but I never imagined it was a giant mass of AIM Diffusion Fields.”

“Everything has its compatibility. In fact, I could never have won if we were not down here. Keep this girl from working and I’m helpless.”

The crimson-haired girl did nothing to fight the wrinkled hand rubbing her head.

The two men were reaching an agreement. That was not good. Hamazura and Takitsubo had nothing they could offer in a negotiation. At this rate, they would probably each get a bullet in the head as a parting gift. The only other option he could imagine was being made into a guinea pig for some bizarre experiment.

“Oh, right,” casually began the old man.

If he said “what should we do about those two lumps of flesh”, they were screwed. And Hamazura could not predict what that Kihara would do. He felt a terrible squeezing at his heart.

Finally, Kihara Hasuu continued.

“While we can share the train, I will be in charge there. So if you want a ride, it’s only natural you pay a small fare, don’t you think?”

“Do you want my research notes on Frillsand #G?”

“I’m no barbarian. A scientist’s research notes are a part of his very soul. Those are the fruits of your labors, so take them to your grave.”

“Then what do you want?”

“A few of them.”

The old man’s voice was as casual as ever as he pointed his engineering glove in a different direction entirely. He pointed at the gym clothes children who were peeking out from behind cover, without a clue what was being discussed.

“''Just select a few at random.'' I intend to restart my research once things have calmed down, but the rules are different outside the city. I can’t start abducting people off the street until I have a proper base set up, so I could use an initial supply for that settling-in period.”

Hamazura froze as he listened in.

This was the dark side. This was how the elites of that stagnant world thought.

“That Frillsand #G is important to your research, but not so with those lab rats, right? How many experimental observers’ lives were lost until you managed to ''properly reproduce'' that artificial ghost? If your research has entered a stable period, I would assume you are not running through those Child Errors as quickly as you once were.”

“Heh,” laughed Drencher Kihara Repatri.

He weakly lowered his raised hands. He must have decided that was no longer necessary. He too had seen the darkness, so he spoke with the same look in his eyes as the old man.

“It’s true those are all Child Errors. And however they would be treated in the ordinary world, we all know exactly what that term means in the dark side. Yes, I gathered them together and invited them into my lab. I made sure to have a plentiful stock of convenient lives that could be spent as I liked if other forms of research were not enough.”

“Then I can have a few?”

“''Go to hell, you son of a bitch.''”

===Part 7===

Several dry gunshots rang out.

===Part 8===

Hamazura Shiage did not understand what had just happened.

“Hamazura!!”

His body still refused to do what it was told, so track suit girl Takitsubo had to push him to the ground.

The young man had pulled out a handgun. It was no more than a small revolver, but he still fired it repeatedly from just a few meters away.

However…

“Ugh…”

“That won’t work,” said the old man.

The android’s crimson hair fluttered while she held her thick machete at the ready with her bare feet planted a step in front of Hasuu. Not only had she deflected all of the bullets, she had used their ricochets as a counterattack.

''No more than a small revolver.

''Something had gone horribly wrong when you started thinking of things in those terms in this country.

The young man had several holes in his upper body and dark red stains spread across his clothes. Doubling over did nothing to help, so he finally collapsed to the ground.

The old man in a jumpsuit and lab coat spoke up in exasperation while the strongest doll protected him.

“They’re just kids. And it’s not like I’m asking for all of them. Just two or three will do.”

“I wanted to…protect them from the dark side scum who think like that,” spat the young man while struggling to breathe down on all fours. He had given up trying to hold his wounds. “But nothing I did above board did anything to help. I couldn’t even get information on where those children were. The only way to fight the dark side…was to become the dark side. I almost laughed when I saw how many people came running to me then, claiming my research was so valuable. When I said I needed children’s lives to do it, they slapped me on the shoulder and agreed to it all. While happily sipping on a glass of the year’s finest red with their other hand. This city is rotten to the core.”

“Aren’t you Drencher Kihara Repatri?”

“Claiming to be a Kihara was the quickest way to get what I wanted. Ha ha. Those VIPs really were terrified of me.”

“Dammit,” spat out Hamazura Shiage.

The young man saw his own condition as of secondary importance.

It was true the ghost woman had used the children. They had been placed in a position where she could crush their lives at any moment. But had Hamazura ever seen her actually kill a child? What if they had been living in a world where they had to take the charade that far to be believed?

The old man had asked how many experimental observers’ lives were lost until he managed to properly reproduce the artificial ghost, but the young man had never answered.

That was in fact the answer. He had not sacrificed anyone. Not one. He had wanted to gather up those children known as Child Errors and drag them up out of the darkness. There ''were'' adults willing to dive into the dark side for no other reason than that.

There really were.

And yet…

“You’re lying.”

Hamazura suddenly rejected that entire premise. Because if he accepted this, he would have to admit to his own ugliness. Even if saying this would mean revealing he was ugly enough to put up a struggle like this.

“I’ve seen you before. You were at that counterfeiter’s place! You were preparing a passport for yourself so you could abandon those kids and leave the city!!”

“This all would have gone so much more smoothly if that had worked.” The young man smiled weakly. “If I had shown off how I escaped with the passport, Anti-Skill and the dark side’s focus would have turned toward District 23’s airport. Then the children would have had a safer escape underground here. I was never supposed to be down here with them.”

“~ ~ ~!!!!!!”

It felt like they lived in two completely different worlds.

And that young man was definitely the one in the right.

Hamazura felt so pathetic and contemptible for only ever acting to protect him and his girlfriend.

“I know I shouldn’t be asking this.”

The young man looked his way. As if to say it did not matter if he really was a Kihara or not.

His eyes knew how to view the light, but for some reason he now looked to someone as corrupted as Hamazura.

“Maybe it’s for the best if the dark side is destroyed, but please take care of those kids. You’re the only person I can leave them with now. When you saw your girlfriend suffering, you panicked and dumped medical supplies across the ground in your haste. I could see the conscience in your eyes. You had no choice but to fall this far, but you should still have some resistance to the dark side left inside you.”

“Wait, I’m not like that for everyone. Don’t shove this onto me! She’s my girlfriend, so of course I’d work to save her!!”

“Ha ha. Thinking that’s an ‘of course’ is what makes you such an oddity in the dark side. Don’t worry, I know you can do it. Because after falling into this shitty world, you still managed to find someone you care for and you decided to find peace instead of another thrill.”

Hamazura and Takitsubo had first heard of ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' from this man.

Hamazura had been cautious because there was no righteousness in the dark side and the man must have had his own reasons.

Was this why?

Had it been some insurance, just in case? Instead of worrying about his own survival, he had wanted some insurance for after he died.

Yet he had also slaughtered the dark sider people rushing toward this exit.

All because he could not let any harm come to the children as those people fought each other. He had rushed down a dark path to prevent a mere possibility.

But on Hamazura and Takitsubo’s way here, hadn’t the ghost woman glanced their way after slaughtering everyone else and then left, as if sparing them?

“Why did you do all this?”

That was the only question Hamazura could find.

That was not something to say to a dying man. He knew that. But after letting the dark side corrupt him while he worked so hard to ensure his and his girlfriend’s survival, this answer was too pure and upright to accept.

“How could you throw away your own life over this!? When you get down to it, those kids are just strangers! How could a goddamn harmful go this far just because you ‘wanted to save them’!? How!? Tell me!?”

The young man smiled.

There was already blood dripping from the corners of his lips.

“Do you need a reason to protect someone? Of course you don’t.”

That was the end of it.

Time stopped for him with the smile still on his lips.

He had no reason. He did not know why. And he had rushed in to save those children without ever finding a reason.

Hamazura Shiage had to admit defeat.

“A…”

The loser boy clenched his teeth. He moved his battered body, swiped the bloody handgun and some ammo from the young man, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

Losers had their own etiquette to follow.

That scummy old man was still here. Hamazura was not going to let him trample on the young man’s victory.

“Aaaneriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!”

A dull kachunk echoed through the circular space.

The support AI had taken control of the train and shifted it out of standby, so it slowly began to move.

The turntable had tracks in twelve directions, but he knew where to send it.

He just had to remember what the card-sized hard drive labeled Lifeline had said.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

In other words…

(Hours and minutes. If I apply that to an analog clock…)

“Send it down the five o’clock track!!”

The train took off with so many children in gym clothes on board.

That had been his top priority.

“Is justice contagious these days?” asked the old man with the look of someone viewing a crazy person.

He had already proven that the gun would not work, so he gave Hamazura a look of partial pity now that he had inherited that defeated weapon.

“You risked your life for this, but to no avail. Look, not all of them were onboard. They must have run in fear from the very person who would have saved them.”

“Hamazura, two of them were left behind. We can’t just leave them here.”

A boy and a girl in gym clothes were holding hands a short distance away.

What had they thought when they learned the truth behind that young man’s satisfied smile?

Especially when their own actions had worked against him.

“Well, those two will suffice. I will be taking them as a souvenir. Any more than this would have been a waste of food anyway.”

“Shut up,” spat out Hamazura.

He really should not have been doing this. He had come here to escape to safety. It had been clear from the very beginning that he could not be a great hero or brave warrior. This selfish choice here might put himself and his girlfriend in danger.

But.

Even so.

A dying man had left this with him. He had been reminded what it meant to do the right thing. There were lives here he could save. He could redo things. And most of all, his girlfriend was watching.

He was done being pathetic. He gathered strength in his sweaty body and stood up under his own power again. He had to.

“Maybe you’re a Kihara and an android.”

His goal was to run away?

No, sometimes a man had to stand up and speak his mind.

“But I’ll take you on, you goddamned dark siders!!!!!!”

He knew it was possible.

He had just seen a man stay true to this way of life.

He could reclaim his humanity. He must have learned something from what he saw here.

===Part 9===

Of course, Hamazura could never actually hit the crimson-haired android by firing the 9mm handgun at random. He knew she would deflect the bullets with her thick machete and fill him with holes.

So he did something else instead.

“Aneri!!”

A giant shape suddenly moved right next to the racing swimsuit girl.

A wheel loader used to stack up the railroad-sized containers was being remotely controlled.

“Move.”

What was that machete even made of? She did not even look in that direction as she swung her weapon and sliced apart the snowplow-looking piece of machinery. Even though she was not using any rapid vibrations or heat.

But Hamazura used that moment to pull on his girlfriend’s hand and move from there.

This was a vast circular space, but it was not an empty colosseum.

It had concrete columns just like an underground common utility duct and it had various equipment needed for operating and maintaining the trains, all located where it would not get in the way of the turntable and the twelve directions of track. Transformers were surrounded by a fence, a prefab hut had been made into a control room, giant jacks and a carwash were prepared for maintenance purposes, and more.

Aneri had directly operated the freight train, so he felt safe assuming she could operate all of the equipment here.

He pulled his girlfriend close while hiding behind a concrete column and whispering to his phone.

“Aneri, can you directly hijack that hunk of junk?”

No response.

He took that as a no. This did not sound like it was an issue of building up to that or setting something up in advance. That android was immune to cyber attacks on some level he did not understand.

(That means the only option is to destroy her the old-fashioned way!!)

“Hamazura, we can’t hide here forever. If she stops focusing on us, she’ll go after those children. Villains always go for the easiest target.”

“I know that.”

Takitsubo kept trying to wipe the sweat from her brow, but something was not right. The moxibustion should have relieved her symptoms to an extent, but that treatment might not be working as much anymore.

He was worried, but he could not stop now. He hated that fact.

“But using ourselves as bait will put us at risk. Are you prepared for that, Takitsubo?”

“Ask any more stupid questions and I’ll slap you.”

“Okay, it’s time to win your heart all over again!!”

They both ran out from behind the concrete column.

Their eyes met the ones with pupils mechanically expanding and contracting, but they stayed strong this time.

===Part 10===

Ladybird had a lock on two targets.

She walked barefoot across the floor and accurately obeyed her instructions, but she also had a question.

Why were the children necessary?

Kihara Hasuu—her Sensei—was researching androids. He had already successfully created one, so he no longer needed to capture biological humans to dissect and observe them. This disagreement appeared to be over ownership of the Child Errors (she failed to realize it was her education by that true Kihara that led her to use the word “ownership” in this context), but why was the old man so insistent on this?

That unfortunate research was a thing of the past.

She was an android built from purely mechanical parts, but she could use an esper power. That meant no more human specimens were needed for esper development experiments. They only had to mess with machines from now on. The Child Errors no longer needed to be captured and used up.

She thought that was a wonderful thing. She could not believe the people who still clung to the old system that required humans to use other humans. Did they wish to protect the status given to them by the current Level system? If they truly believed their fight was just, then they were beyond reasoning with. Machines were not the only ones that could have their memory data rewritten. Humans could have their feelings and thoughts falsified as well.

So she would bring an end to it all.

She was fighting here to end the misfortune and tragedies caused by the esper development program.

“Ohhhh!!”

The boy raised a meaningless battle cry, ran in, and repeatedly fired his handgun. She only had to block those shots with her machete.

But he had apparently learned how she fought.

She tried to hit him with the ricochets, but they refused to hit. When she deflected a bullet back, it would follow the same straight trajectory. Placing a single piece of plywood in the middle would change things. A bullet’s force was determined by its muzzle velocity. The force of the ricochet would generally be lower. That was obvious enough since bullets were not constantly accelerating like a rocket or missile. So he could set it up so he could shoot her through an obstacle, but she could not break through it on the way back.

Her use of ricochets was similar to Accelerator’s reflection, but all her machete did was knock the bullet back. She could not ''include the actual vector in that''.

That said…

(I doubt someone with such a stupid face could do this. He must be receiving assistance with the calculations.)

She considered jumping. Lifting both feet from the ground was usually a bad idea in combat, but not so with her. With her android specs, she could kick off of one column to the next and attack from the air.

She heard the loud roar of an engine while dealing with the bullets.

It appeared to come from a forklift.

“Aneri, surround the kids! I don’t know where that old man got off to, but don’t let him get close!! If he tries it, run him over!!”

“Don’t get distracted.”

He could have gotten a hit in on her by sending the forklift in from the side while firing on her from the front. Not that a blow like that would be enough to destroy her frame.

She swung the thick machete in her right hand while gathering her strength in the space between her eyebrows.

That was how she aimed.

A blast of wind blew away the obstacles between her and Hamazura Shiage. It was more like they were obliterated by an explosion than swept away by wind.

“An esper power!?” shouted the boy.

“It looked to be Level 3 or higher,” said the girl.

She no longer had to worry about the gunfire now that the line of fire was clear. He must have known the risk of ricochets was back because he stopped attacking and hid behind a nearby column, but that was no defense. She could charge in and slice through the column and his torso behind it with a single horizontal sweep of her blade.

She had enough time to reach her other hand to her thigh, pull out the bottle, and take a drink of the discharge machine oil.

A dull boom burst out.

She was only an android modeled after the structure of the human body, but the materials used for her skeleton, muscles, and everything else were bizarre dark side tech. If she wanted to, her horsepower could rival a V12 engine at max RPM.

But even as she chose the correct action, her mechanical head was filled with questions.

She had used a wind power.

But hadn’t she used fire during her previous clash with these people? And what about the time before that?

Androids had the same structure as humans, so a single android should only have a single power. Or could she do what humans could not because she was a machine?

(Sensei?)

===Part 11===

A column of reinforced concrete was sliced through as easily as tofu or thin paper.

Not horizontally or diagonally—vertically and all the way through. After kicking from column to column to gain height, she had apparently dropped down like lightning. She had a human form, but she could perform superhuman movements.

Hamazura Shiage had tried to jump to the side just beforehand, but he ended up tumbling into a roll.

It was not his torso sliced through along with the column. It was a gas drum kept on hand for the facility’s auxiliary power generator.

He grimaced at the pain in his hips as he continued rolling and pulled the trigger repeatedly.

Not even Ladybird could deflect bullets that hit the concrete ground and sent sparks flying.

The vaporizing gasoline ignited into explosive flames that swallowed up the entire racing swimsuit silhouette.

However…

“No, Hamazura! It didn’t work!!”

“Tch!!”

He clicked his tongue while the track suit girl ran over from elsewhere and pulled him to his feet. A black figure was displayed on the other side of that fiery screen. She showed no sign of collapsing or writhing in pain.

Had she used that previous wind power to affect how the flames spread?

He hoped so. If she was simply this tough, he could not imagine how to defeat her.

“How ''do'' you defeat an android anyway? Strangle her or stab her in the heart, she’s still a machine. That won’t stop her!!”

Could he break her motherboard? Or pull out her battery? But he had no idea how many she had or where in her slender body they were located.

The roaring flames were sliced apart. A horizontal sweep of the heavy metal machete conquered the orange barrier. The barefoot android stepped through entirely unscathed. There was no sign of discoloration on her crimson hair, white skin, or orange and black racing swimsuit.

“Something isn’t right,” said Takitsubo Rikou with eyes seemingly more robotic than the machine’s. What was she looking at right now? “An android that uses esper powers is conceivably possible. Mechanical processing may be able to ‘observe’ the waves or particles like a human brain does. And if you developed that far enough, you might be able to purposefully select between different supernatural phenomena. But this wavelength is simpler than that.”

“You mean how she switches between powers?” spat out Hamazura. “That container base in the garbage pile was their lab, right? Then I get why that old man wants those kids so bad. Even if I don’t know exactly ''how'' he would use them.”

Now, why were they able to spend so long discussing this?

The delinquent boy made sure to keep his gun aimed, but the android in question was only tilting her head.

A dark liquid was dripping from her eyes and nose.

He had seen that before. Immediately after she had been hit by the hakama girl and fought back with her fire power.

“Oh, dear.”

Kihara Hasuu’s voice reached them from somewhere, but it was echoing too much to tell where it came from. Hamazura would have shot the man if he saw him.

“Is it that time already? This is why I wanted to stock up sooner rather than later.”

“Hey.” Hamazura shouted at the unseen man. “Isn’t that cheating? You can’t really call her an android if that’s what you’re doing.”

The boy watched as the girl in the orange and black racing swimsuit held her head and doubled over.

A low straining sound came from her.

Then her back opened along the line from her nape to her tailbone.

The clasp holding together the X-shaped band at the center of the swimsuit’s back popped open and the supports were released in four directions.

Then her soft skin opened wide while supported at her nape.

Her opened back almost looked like a steam locomotive’s boiler or a furnace from hell. The fact that it was smooth human skin instead of a thick metal door gave it the sinister appearance of an insect’s shell opening up.

The top half of her swimsuit fell out of place, but her chest was not visible.

Her long red hair dropped down to cover it up.

She had planted her hands and feet on the ground like a beast.

Something translucent crawled out of her. It looked like a long, narrow blade or like a wriggling snake. It would grab something, drag it inside her, and cut it away. It was an automatic extraction organ.

Hamazura knew what it was for.

“I saw the junk those trash collectors were taking back after searching through those piles of abandoned items. A fridge was full of some brownish filth.”

He felt nauseated just remembering it.

He grimaced as he viewed that monster.

“''It was stuffed full of corpses with the contents of their heads removed.'' When those trash collectors were searching out fridges and washing machines, they weren’t selling them to used appliance stores. They were opening up bloodstained boxes packed full of still-usable organs. And they all came from your lab, didn’t they!?”

“Well, the ordinary corpses were apparently disposed of in District 10’s slums, but there are a lot of people willing to buy up ones fresh enough to make use of their parts.”

Ladybird was not an android with esper powers. She was as harmful as they came. She was a machine that would devour people’s brains when necessary. In Hamazura’s opinion, that meant she did not fit the definition of an android.

“This is a completely different approach from the Rensa model of esper cyborg. Instead of a cyborg made by ''giving a brain a body'', Ladybird-kun ''is a body given a brain.''” Hasuu sounded like he was introducing his favorite grandchild. “Cellulose nanofiber is a carbon material gathering attention for its use in making wires and bulletproof materials, but the point is we can create delicate wires even thinner than the cranial nerves. But unlike a biological brain, leaving them in their active state causes them to automatically replicate and they will try to forcibly fold themselves up for space if they run out of room in the skull. The cerebrum’s frontal lobe is especially troublesome. So ''a foreign object'' must be introduced to constantly provide just the right amount of damage to ensure the brain remains the size I want it. Her power changes each time a new ''foreign object'' is introduced, but that is due to the change in the rejection and damage pattern. You can think of that as a simple idiosyncrasy.”

“Sen…sei?”

A grinding sound came from Ladybird while she seemed to be searching for something. However the old researcher described it, a human brain was apparently a necessary part for her to run. Her movements were noticeably stiff and awkward as she pursued that poison on her own.

“Sensei…but you said this research would help. You said the spread of androids would mean no more human specimens were needed for the esper development.”

“The ladybird—another name for the ladybug—might look humorous, but it is in fact a ravenous carnivore. You have heard that they are good to have around because they eat aphids, haven’t you?”

“Gh…kh.”

“And there are a lot of insects that mimic ladybugs. That includes a type of darkling beetle and cockroach, both kinds of bugs people might not normally want around. But that is not actually a type of protective coloration. Ha ha. Instead of trying to blend into their natural surroundings or avoid their predators, that coloration might actually be used to make humans like them.”

How deep did the dark side go?

How disgusting could the dark said get?

“So don’t you see?”

Its attacks were indiscriminate, like a cannibal insect.

The developer spoke to what looked like a lovely girl. And he seemed to be enjoying it immensely.

“''That is the perfect name for you.''”

===Part 12===

text> @I thought there was a problem with the world.

text> @I thought it was wrong for @humans to use @humans for their research in this city.

text> But @I could climb onto the examination table instead.

text> @I can be repaired or remade as many times as necessary.

text> Since my body was made identically to a @human’s, @I would be able to use an esper power as well. Pieces of my body could be freely added or removed, so @I could be examined inside and out more easily than a @human and @I could be modified as they saw fit.

text> No more sacrifices would be necessary for the esper development research.

text> That is why @I fought.

text> @I thought @Sensei’s research was a wonderful thing.

''“You know, Ladybird-kun, the term android signifies an artificial human built with an engineering approach. Based on that definition, it seems appropriate to me for a completed android to behave like a human.”

text> @Sensei’s words were like a shining light of hope.

text> @I wondered if @I really was good enough.

text> But @I was happy as long as @I could be of some use. @I think that kind of feeling is not something a simple machine could feel.

text> Does that mean @I am somehow @human?

text> The @humans that @I have seen are like that. They do not hesitate to make inefficient choices without even considering cost performance.

text> That is why @I find @humans to be so incredible.

text> @I have not spoken much with any other than @Sensei, but @I know that is because @androids cannot be made public yet. But @I love the @humans that @I see from a distance.

text> @I will build a path to a brighter future for them – a path to a happier world – so @I cannot allow someone to destroy all that just because they do not understand. So I will not let anyone interfere. Anyone who claims it is right to harm @people cannot be allowed to trample on the future @I can bring them.

text> So…

text>And yet…

===Part 13===

===Part 14===

===Part 15===

===Part 16===

===Part 17===

===Part 18===

===Map===

===Between the Lines 4===

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume3_Chapter3|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume3_Epilogue}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter4

2020-11-20T20:58:39Z

SNovah: /* Part 10 */

{{Incomplete|parts=12|tparts=19}}
==Chapter 4: The Demon Lord’s Young — the_LIGHT.==

===Part 1===

“Where have you been, Risako!?”

“Mister, Risako-chan is back!!”

The gym clothes girl laughed when she saw the other children gathered around.

“Eh heh heh. A doggy and an older girl saved me.”

They must have been preparing for another move because all the trucks had their engines running. But they had waited until they had found the girl with red hair done up like candy. She was relieved. Having a home to return to was a wonderful thing.

“''A doggy,'' huh?” said the artificial ghost called Frillsand #G.

“…”

Her comment made the young researcher fall silent for a bit.

His name was Drencher Kihara Repatri.

That family name was so well known in the dark side that it had become a more powerful classification than beneficial or harmful. The man who bore that name sighed softly to help refocus his mind.

“There is a chance we’ve been located, but we’re faster at the moment. If we move before they catch up, we can reach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' without issue.”

“Do you really think this world will allow any of this to go ‘without issue’?”

“It’s our job to make sure it happens.”

The adults exchanged their views with their voices too low for the excited children to hear.

But a certain boy kept his voice low for a different reason.

“Risako.”

“Oh, Sodate-chan.”

The tall boy in the same kind of gym clothes looked troubled for some reason. In fact, he looked close to tears. Risako tilted her head, thinking he was afraid she would get after him about the ball and chemical soap, but this was different.

“So you came back,” he said.

“Eh?”

“I was hoping maybe you were gone for good.”

He had wanted that? Did he hate her that much? Risako’s face clouded over, but this was again different. He shook his head and explained.

He was the only one of the children who had ''started to question these motion sensors they wore for some kind of experiment.''

“Because then at least you might have been safe.”

===Part 2===

He was afraid of screwing it up, so he started by drawing marks on her back with a marker.

“Hamazura, that tickles.”

“Stay still.”

The old book had a brush-drawn diagram with no perspective or attempt to make it look three-dimensional. The indicated locations of the organs were clearly not right. Maybe it was like the difference between an aerial photograph of the clouds and the isobars on the weather forecast map. He wondered if this was what all traditional Japanese medicine was like as he drew Xs on his girlfriend’s body. She had even removed her bra and was holding her chest in her hands while showing him her smooth back. He thought his heart was going to burst every time she squirmed from the ticklishness. Even he knew that reaction was inappropriate given the circumstances. Once he finished that, it was finally time to start. He faced the girl while she lay face down on the container lab’s work table like she was sunbathing.

The moxa used for the moxibustion was like fluffy cotton, but he actually had to set it on fire.

It felt wrong doing that on her soft skin and he could even permanently scar her if he screwed it up.

“…”

His fear came to the forefront now that it was time to do it, but this was the only way to help her with the fever.

He fought the desire to shut his eyes and placed a small pile of “fuel” on her soft skin. He worked at the lighter with a trembling hand, but he kept failing. Once he finally had a small flame, he slowly moved it in close.

“Nh.”

“A-are you okay, Takitsubo?”

“I’m fine.”

He continued the process a few more times. He had his doubts, but when she wiped the sweat from her brow, no more sweat beaded up. It did seem to be working.

He could not thank the hakama girl enough.

He could not waste this chance she had given them, so they had to approach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''.

That card-sized hard drive had been labelled with the word “Lifeline”.

Aneri must have decided the data would be too small to see on his phone because she displayed it a flat screen monitor in the lab instead. It was a series of numbers.

It looked like a calculation sheet made with spreadsheet software, but even that was enough to make the delinquent boy’s head hurt. Maybe it was important data, but he had no idea what he was supposed to focus on.

“This looks like materials data,” said Takitsubo after peering at it from the side.

“Materials?”

“Whether they’re beneficial or harmful, the dark side does a lot of research.” She pointed at one of the numbers. “They’re also building a lot of military weapons. But doesn’t it seem odd? Academy City is a mass consumer and it only has so much land since it’s surrounded by walls. You can’t just dig into the ground here and find oil or ores. So where do they get all those materials from?”

“Where? Isn’t that what the cooperative institutions around the world are for? They can work out a deal with them.”

“But how can they do that without leaving any record of it?”

She pointed at another number.

If a citizens group monitoring the flow of money and materials could reveal a secret, then it had never been part of the dark side to begin with.

“Look at this. The dark side is using far more materials than the total amount brought in from outside the city. Cutting off the fat and redistributing it to themselves would not be enough for this. The amount the dark side uses is several times larger. This would show up in the records no matter what you did. Important people like the Board of Directors and its Chairman can only cover up so much. This is too much. It’s well past what you could hide by cooking the books.”

“But then…”

He trailed off when Aneri opened a new window. A single point on a map of Academy City was colored in red. There was a secret there.

“They have an entrance and exit that doesn’t leave any records,” said the track suit girl while viewing the screen.

There were several files that appeared to be saved from message boards and social media pages. Reading through them showed a certain point in common.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

Takitsubo pointed at that bizarre statement.

“There is a way of reaching it and we should see hints of it in the rumors told around the city. Like the ‘!’ signs, a deadly train, kidnappers at the amusement park, babies in the coin lockers, or an underground construction zone where you can dump anything you don’t want found. But none of that gets at the real truth.”

“You mean…?”

“Academy City doesn’t promote recycling so much just because it wants to make the most of its limited resources. ''Sending things back to be recycled over and over again masks how much materials are actually being used.'' They can’t have an investigation revealing that we dump out several times more trash than materials we take in, right? That would violate conservation of mass. So they needed to make it hard to compare those two values. It’s a form of laundering.”

Why was that sleight of hand necessary? How did they reach the impossible result of more waste than raw materials? What was this secret that no one wanted getting out?

''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.

This was the identity of that term they had heard so many times today.

“It…isn’t closed off? There’s a secret route through the walls surrounding Academy City!?”

That could not be. For better or for worse, Academy City was cut off from the outside world. Those thick walls prevented their tech from spreading to the world at large because that could lead to disorder and chaos.

Hamazura used to be part of Skill Out. That was a group of the boys and girls who had dropped out of Academy City but had nowhere to go since they could not get out of the city.

They had been trapped. They had dropped out of school, but those walls had kept them here. If you wanted to take a trip outside the city for just a few days, you needed to submit a ton of paperwork and receive a nanodevice injection. Because if you tried leave without using the official gates, you could be killed to prevent a data leak. There had been burglars and muggers in the back alleys, but none of those expert thieves had dared go anywhere near the walls.

If there was a way to freely move in and out, they may not have felt so much pressure. They could have made a place for themselves.

Their former leader, Komaba Ritoku, might not have had to fight and die.

“…”

But the dark side had torn down that number one assumption like it was nothing.

That counterfeiter had stored that information on a card-sized hard drive labeled “Lifeline”. Had he thought he could use that information to get some dark side bigshots to save him?

He must have never imagined he would instead have his brains blown out by a paparazzo. Hamazura was at the center of all this, but he still did not know if that had been planned or a spontaneous decision.

“It’s deep below Academy City.” Takitsubo Rikou calmly read aloud something on such a large scale that talk of an alternate dimension would have sounded more realistic. “The world’s largest particle accelerator is built directly below the city walls, so people are told that digging in that area could break the accelerator’s seal and expose them to radiation and other risks. That was meant to convince everyone that no one would be dumb enough to try it.”

The diagram they found looked like a puzzle ring. It seemed to carefully avoid the circular accelerator facility, but this was a tunnel built by the dark side. There was no chance it met all the proper safety standards.

That was the dark side’s lifeline.

They had built it to continue pumping fuel into their illicit research and its construction showed they did not care at all if they brought chaos to the world. It really was the greatest taboo. It was a dark umbilical cord that could wipe out the Kiharas and everyone else if it was cut off.

“I doubt Anti-Skill knows about this,” said Takitsubo. “So they won’t be able to block it off. We can safely escape the city if we use it.”

“…”

The red light displayed by Aneri was in District 10, the city’s biggest slum. The taboo no one wanted was hidden below the district everyone had abandoned.

It was unclear if it had always had this name. They may have changed the name periodically to help hide the truth. All the scattered information was fragmentary witness accounts and some of it would likely be intentional misinformation.

But that taboo’s gaping mouth had sat deep underground all this time.

Like a nightmarish symbol of freedom.

The dot on the map displayed on the small screen had the following name displayed next to it: Vanishing Tunnel.

That was the name of their final destination. Anyone who arrived there was given a ticket to another world.

===Part 3===

They were deep, deep underground in District 10.

Few people would think too much about the layout of the subway tunnels below the city. They might know a track took an unnatural curve at one point, but no one would question the online news article about them running across some kind of ruins during construction.

An underground passageway was surrounded by cold concrete and supported by the pillars positioned at even intervals.

The few fluorescent lights on the walls were not enough to fully sweep away the darkness.

That underground blind spot had become the biggest hot spot in the world. A great many people had gathered there. They had not all arrived along the same route. They had each gathered the hints scattered around the city and started to question the city’s biggest assumption. Academy City was surrounded by thick walls, but it was not in fact sealed off.

The brawny men in work jumpsuits were a courier group called Secret Express. The men and women in dress clothes were Concierge, a group that provided hideouts to meet a criminal’s demands. The girls in plain clothing and hiding their faces with sunglasses and hunting caps may have been an extremely popular idol group. The parade of scum included Controller, who used personal information and fictitious bills to threaten the girls he targeted until he had them in digital chains, and Flare, who left behind harmless powder identical to the real deal in order to confuse criminal investigations.

A ruler of the back alleys was there.

A major corporation’s lawyer was there.

A university headmaster was there.

A major entertainment producer was there.

And a few Kiharas from different fields were there.

All sorts of people flooded that underground passageway. People did not end up on the dark side because they were low class, poor, stupid, or criminal. It took all types. The dark side had reached every class of person equally. From worlds no one knew existed to industries everyone envied.

Some had fallen before making it this far and others had attempted a different route instead. In a way, finding this tunnel and setting foot inside made them the chosen ones.

And.

Every last one of them were obstructed and crushed by a certain figure.

The woman had long blonde twintails and she wore a skintight light blue dress and a long loose skirt.

Frillsand #G was like an impassable wall.

All who challenged her crashed into that wall with the intensity of their challenge. After seeing a few of them turned to hunks of flesh and splattered blood, the others must have started wondering if she literally was a solid wall because all of those dark side members had come to a stop. They were pushed back even though she had not taken a single step.

Of course, the ghost was not going to spare them just because they gave up now.

“Next stop: skewering. Repeat: skewering.”

With a wet sound, a muscular man in black was destroyed from groin to head. But he may have been one of the lucky ones. He was gone before he even knew what had happened to him.

“Please look out for the burning and severing.”

Screams of pain echoed through the tunnel. Before long, the dark side members were fighting amongst themselves too. They appeared to have begun an ugly struggle over the concrete column they could use as a shield. However…

“We will arrive at gouging soon.”

Just as the ghost silently circled behind the column, a wet sound exploded out. The victors and losers of the struggle were all turned to mincemeat together while Frillsand #G looked on in disinterest.

“Ah…gahh,” someone groaned.

It was one of the idol girls. Her bottom half was gone and the bottom of her torso was sticking to the floor like a slug.

“But…why? We found the taboo…so aren’t we part of the dark side too? Can’t we all use…the path out together?”

“I have children to take care of. A lot of them.” Frillsand #G did not even look in her direction. “Inviting all of you in with us would only put them at risk.”

“Just…” It was already too late for her, but the top half of a girl still clawed at the concrete floor. “Just in case? You took people’s lives for no more than that!?”

“Next stop: running over. I repeat: running over.”

With a wet splat, the complaints were silenced.

The ghost seemed to be rejecting the idea that grudges lacked the power to kill.

“The rear guard is an important job,” she said in a singsong voice. “But I cannot let that crybaby see this. Knowing of it and seeing it are two very different things.”

The artificial ghost glanced over at something else.

But she soon lost interest, turned around, and vanished into the darkness.

A mere ten meters away, Hamazura Shiage was hiding behind a column and holding his hand over the track suit girl’s mouth.

If she noticed them, they were dead. He felt like his heart, his breathing, his body odor, and the slight static electricity on his clothing could all give them away. He could not even wipe the unpleasant sweat from his cheek as he desperately waited for time to pass.

That ghost really was an enemy.

She had some kind of plan of her own and had saved them on a whim before, but that did not mean he could trust her. If she had saved them on a whim, then she could also choose to throw them out on a whim. And they only had the one life.

This was worse than a sea of blood.

Flesh and blood had lost any hint of their original form, fingers extended into empty space, facial skin was frozen in a look of agony while plastered to the wall. At this point, they were only “things”, not people. There was no dignity remaining.

Each of them was a dark side member who had arrived at ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' along a different route than him.

Their endless possibilities had been reduced to zero.

Or so it felt to him.

Was this tunnel really the right path? The further they went, the more likely they were to encounter that ghost woman, so he began to wonder if it would be safer to turn back now and return to the surface.

“Pwah.”

His girlfriend escaped his hand. He was holding her from behind, so she leaned her head back to look him in the eye.

“Hamazura, I don’t sense her presence anymore. We can keep going now.”

“…”

“We can’t give up after coming so far. Blindly returning to the surface won’t save us. We’ll never find peace if we don’t go through here.”

“R-right.”

He would have long since broken if he were alone.

But when she pulled on his hand, he managed to work up some small semblance of courage.

Even with the evenly-spaced fluorescent lights, the tunnel was dark. And they had no idea who was in charge of that sparse lighting. What if the ghost could shut off the power? His phone felt all the more important to him now.

“This is a long tunnel.”

“Yeah.”

They were not speaking much anymore.

This was ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'', but did this tunnel really lead toward hope? No matter how far they went, the darkness never went away. As they trudged deeper and deeper, he felt like they had passed a point of no return. Also, who had built this enormous underground facility? Someone must have drawn up the plans, dug the hole, set the foundation, and brought in the rebar and concrete. This was a far bigger project than a bank robber’s hand-dug tunnel into the vault. Such a vast and well-made underground space could not have been built without the involvement of a major construction company.

Who had done it?

It might be a company whose ads he saw on TV every day.

Would all of this come to light one day? But those meaningless thoughts were cut off by Takitsubo.

She had noticed first because she was not holding the light.

“Hamazura, there’s a door.”

“…”

It was a thick metal door.

Just the one door sat at the end of the long, long tunnel. There may have been another route, but he did not recall seeing any other paths branching off along the way.

He slowly approached.

It did not appear to be locked. He doubted there were any grenades or other “gifts” left for them.

But that was not what scared him. He had seen all of those corpses along the way. The sight had left him so terrified he barely had it in him to keep his heart beating. He had started to view their fallen predecessors as no more than a piece of the scenery. Because otherwise that shadowy murder scene would have overwhelmed him too much to continue on.

The taboos were piling up.

He and Takitsubo had started this simply wanting to survive, but they too had been corrupted along the way.

Hamazura Shiage reached his fingers toward the doorknob.

He touched it. He squeezed it.

He turned it.

===Part 4===

A flood of light revealed a world no one was ever meant to see.

“…”

The other world turned out to be a cavernous pit.

This abyss slept deep below the earth, yet it was filled with much more artificial light than the tunnel. That was thanks to the construction lights set up here and there.

It was easily more than 250 meters across and maybe more than twice as deep. The perfectly circular space made of reinforced concrete at the very bottom may have reminded different people of different things.

Some might see it as a common utility duct, a circular colosseum, a switchyard’s turntable, or an underground temple dedicated to a god one must never offer any prayers.

But there was one crucial piece that helped solidify the proper image.

“A train?” muttered Hamazura while peering down over the railing.

It was a turntable.

Concrete columns were installed at even intervals around the edges, but there were none in the central circle. The flat concrete floor had a smaller circle built into it. That would rotate to change the train’s direction. The tracks outside the circle extended in 12 different directions. That made it all look like something else: a giant metal flower.

Yes, there were tracks, signal lights, transformers, maintenance equipment, a control room, and a fifteen-car train in here. It was a freight train.

“That’s the dark side’s lifeline?”

For him and Takitsubo, it was the plank of Carneades that would save their lives.

He doubted that turntable was all of it. There would be a container yard and maintenance zone hidden further out from the center.

They walked along the narrow catwalk built along the circular wall and descended the stairs. There were no corpses in here. Whoever had gotten here first must have used the ghost woman to eliminate any nuisances before they reached this point.

And since the train was still here, that person would still be here.

They shared this space with the slaughterer.

“Hamazura.”

“Don’t worry. I’m with you no matter what.”

“Not that. There’s someone down there. And they’re not alone.”

That was a shock. Takitsubo Rikou could accurately locate people by sensing their AIM Diffusion Field. She could not use that power as well as she used to, but she could still sense it to an extent.

The tension grew.

A single person with a bizarre power was certainly scary, but having a large group approach you brought a different sort of fear. He mentally switched his priorities to at least allowing Takitsubo to escape if things looked bad.

The only exit was up here.

Leaving that would mean being surrounded by dead ends in every direction.

“…”

After descending the last flight of stairs, they arrived at the deepest depths.

It felt so much different from when they had been looking down from above. But that was not too surprising since 250 meters was larger than a domed stadium. This was the same as a sports field looking so much bigger from the stands than on TV.

Yes, Hamazura Shiage now stood on the stage. He was no longer an outsider looking in.

“Oh, dear. You actually showed up. What a shame.”

He lasted one second.

His knees suddenly dropped to the ground. He could not keep his shoulders at the same height and his lost strength would not return.

“Wha—!?”

It was the ghost woman.

Was she a beneficial or a harmful?

She had left that tunnel far too bloody to claim she was trying to escape Academy City because she disliked conflict. If anything, she felt more like a vengeful spirit that refused to let anyone leave the city.

She looked like a Western doll with her long blonde twintails and light blue dress. She did not actually punch or kick him. Simply seeing her out of the corner of his eye had done critical damage to him.

A rusty-smelling liquid dripped from his eyes and nose.

He was trying to scream and flip over onto his back, but he was actually curled up and unable to move.

Encountering her meant death.

That was far too sinister a thing to be connected with a simple equals sign like that.

“It is no use.”

The ghost woman walked without audible footsteps. She moved herself from the corner of his vision to the center.

“No one is talking about anything as silly as defending against something with a shield or dodging a projectile with super speed. ''From the moment you see my face,'' the attack is complete. If I so much as casually stand in the corner of your vision, I can do continual damage without you even noticing my presence.”

He realized the strange things had always happened when the ghost woman spoke to him. And why had she turned the lights on in that tunnel? Because it was more convenient for her.

If you saw a ghost while driving, you would crash.

If your face, hands, or feet were missing in a ghost photo, you would find unnatural wounds or marks on your body.

Did this mean she even artificially reproduced those aspects of a ghost? He did not want to believe it because it would mean there was nothing he could do.

“Hamazu—!?”

“You noticed? You must have sharper senses.”

The track suit girl quickly pulled him close, but the ghost woman did not seem to care.

Besides, if seeing her really did mean death, then Takitsubo would have been killed too, but she was fine.

“But I am not talking about anything as poorly-defined as a sixth sense for ghosts. Do you have a power related to AIM Diffusion Fields?”

“There’s no AIM Diffusion Field around you? No, some strong but invisible power is scattering that weaker field.”

“It is known as High Voltage Cutting,” said the ghost woman. “The principle may be similar to the shock diamonds seen in a rocket engine’s flame or the cavitation of air bubbles created around a propeller. The constant emission of a powerful energy will create irregular waveforms and images while it interferes with itself.”

“Gh!? What energy???”

“You can find energy everywhere.” Her tone was light, so understanding how it worked must not have helped avoid its effects. “The carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide you thoughtlessly spread around forms acid rain when it bonds with the moisture in the air. You can acquire electricity simply by sticking two electrodes into a fruit, you know? Copper and zinc are such necessities that you can find them anywhere. Using that, you can produce hydrogen gas in addition to electricity. I only need to absorb power from a ''civilization battery'' the size of a city or even greater. That is enough for me to construct a single outlier point within that stable energy.”

“…”

“What are the common types of haunted locations? Old homes full of drafts, cliffs and caves eroded by the waves, and mountain roads late at night. They are always full of ''noise'', such as static electricity, pressure differences, the creaking of rusty doors, or the rustling of the trees in the wind. Have you ever heard a ghostly voice in the crackle of excess electricity or the roar of hydrogen gas being ignited? I can exist as I am wherever human civilization exists. If you wish to kill me, you must destroy your very way of life. On a global scale.”

This was too much.

He could not understand her explanation. And even if he thought he did, it still did not tell him how to destroy her.

Takitsubo gasped and spoke while holding onto him.

“I get that the constant use of a massive amount of unseen energy would eventually create something unnatural. But if seeing you is deadly, how do you choose specific targets to—?”

She trailed off.

She had seen something out of the corner of her eye, but not the artificial ghost this time. A unified set of colors could be seen peeking out of at them from a gap in the door to one of the freight train’s containers.

''They were small children wearing gym clothes and some kind of device. There were more than just ten or twenty of them.

''All of them were a part of the ghost experiment.

The children must have seen the ghost woman as they nervously spied out. And they seemed to be expectantly waiting to see if she would repel these unknown intruders. They did not know. They had not been told what they were being used for. Simply viewing a ghost photo was harmful and the longer you viewed it, the more damage it did. She embodied that power so perfectly that she had eliminated so many dark side elites.

Yet she had managed to accurately select one out of the many candidates.

That was like shooting the apple off someone’s head. Without explaining any of it to the children who had those sensors attached to them.

“…”

The delinquent boy clenched his teeth.

He could barely move, she held his life in her hand, and he had no idea how to fight back. He had to avoid angering her if at all possible. He understood that, but he still shouted up at her.

“You scum!!”

“Call me what you wish. In fact, I see it as a compliment.”

The ghost woman who resembled a fairy tale princess held her palm out toward him. He only had to see her impossible presence for her to attack, so that gesture was meaningless.

But then her eyes turned unnaturally away from him.

To the side.

A spare container sitting near the train was sliced in two. Something had dropped down from far above like a bolt of lightning.

A red figure wielded a thick machete made of heavy metal.

The android wore a racing swimsuit colored the orange and black of an insect. The bangs of her long crimson hair were cut straight across and she had a slender build.

Cartoony flowers were displayed in her mechanical eyes.

“Smug face.”

“Hello, hello,” said a twig of an old man in a blue jumpsuit and lab coat. “I hate to interrupt when you seem so busy, but I must insist.”

The ghost woman shrugged.

“Were you hoping to use the train? I thought you were one of the harmfuls who would remain in the city and resist to the bitter end.”

“I have no interest in those categories forced onto the dark side from the outside. All I care about is continuing my research. Academy City was a wonderful environment for that, but if that has changed, I need to leave and search out a more comfortable place.”

“You can see me, can’t you?”

“You should be able to tell by observing my eye movements.”

“And you know what that means?” She gave a suggestive glance over at the machine that had arrived with him. “In case you were unaware, I am capable of causing malfunctions in mechanical lenses and sensors just as well as in the human body. Ghost photographs are a result of ghosts interfering in optical machinery, are they not? That might be your masterpiece, but isn’t it presumptuous to assume she can wield her full power against me?”

She remained untouchable. She could kill someone just by placing herself in the corner of their vision and machines could not do anything to her either. Did she have no blind spots?

“Yes, I imagine so.”

But the old man did not seem to mind.

That mysterious old man ''known as a Kihara'' was not bothered that she held his life in her hand.

“You are the strongest when it comes to an individual. Looking at deadliness alone, you might outdo the #3 and the #2.”

“…”

Evidently, even ghosts could find something to be ominous.

This world may have been infected with a disease that caused all bad premonitions to come true.

“But in this specific location, I believe you too will find you cannot wield your full power.”

“What are you—gah!!!!????”

He had given her plenty of warning, but she suddenly arched her back and then froze unnaturally in midair. An ominous straining sound continued on and on as her body grew distorted. She bent and stretched, almost like a face pressed against a wall of glass.

Something was happening.

Hamazura had thought the ghost woman was an intangible being, like a mist or apparition. But she was not. She clearly had a spine to strain, muscles to cry out in pain, and organs to writhe unnaturally.

Then a bizarre creaking and cracking noise came from her. Her volume shrank more and more like she was being crushed in from all sides. The old man was holding something up in his special engineering glove. It looked like an empty candy box, but it was not. It had a small pinhole at the very top. The ghost woman was sucked into that small hole like a liquid or a gas. Hamazura did not want to imagine what things were like inside there. He could only say one thing in a daze.

“A pinhole…camera?”

“High Voltage Cutting? I see, a strange theory, but she is still a form of unstable energy. And all energy will move from high to low—unstable to stable. This is enough to break down her form and burn in her image.”

The old man let go of the candy box.

He had the look of a mischievous child who had just realized he could create his own spark show by sticking a metal clip in the microwave.

“This is the appropriate choice for a ghost photo, don’t you think? A digital camera just wouldn’t fit the aesthetic.”

After dropping it to the cold concrete, he crushed it below his heel. He did not even glance down at the flattened box.

“''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.''” He tapped on his lower back. “Surely you didn’t think a construction company building a secret tunnel out of the city was enough to earn a name like that. With something like her around, you really should have thought of a different possibility.”

“Wh-what?”

Hamazura felt like the unnatural “curse” had weakened, but he still could not bring himself to get up from the ground. The old man only now seemed to have realized that there was another person here reaching for the plank of Carneades.

Hamazura knew any attention on him would only lead to disaster.

Kihara Hasuu smiled.

“Let me make one thing clear. There is a member of the Board who built a vast fortune by doing unofficial construction work for the dark side, but he knows nothing of this. This massive underground structure just appeared out of the blue one day.”

“…?”

Out of the blue?

Hamazura had operated construction machinery before, so he knew how absurd that was. Did that old man have any idea how long it would take to dig out a hole of this size?

But the old man appeared to be serious.

Deadly serious.

“''The Vanishing Tunnel does not actually exist.''”

Hamazura had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

It made no sense. If that were true, then where were they now???

The old man gave the answer.

“Kazakiri Hyouka was not just a single individual. She is more like one piece of the Imaginary Number District, an entire city created from the aggregation of AIM Diffusion Fields. …It all began with a project meant to cut out a portion of that territory and extract it as a new resource. Unlike the microscopic alchemy performed in the particle accelerator, this would have been on the macro scale and cost very little. But not even the group of researchers who guided all that power through the city could have predicted it would take this form. ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' is such a dramatic name. In truth, it was a major failure that needed to be covered up. Everyone involved was at their wits’ end.” He tapped his lower back again. “A nonexistent pathway unofficially connected Academy City to the world outside, increasing the risk of the outer world’s collapse through cultural exchange and technological contamination. The entire world very well could have been destroyed from this single point. While the researchers had hoped to extract materials from the Imaginary Number District, whatever came from there might have transformed the outside world into something truly grotesque. …Yes, that the world still exists as it does now was no more than ''dumb luck''. It was nothing we did on our end. Kazakiri Hyouka and the other inhuman monsters simply showed no interest in that. If something had occurred to them and they had tried it, the world would have ended.”

“You mean…” Takitsubo replied since she had a better understanding of things related to AIM. “You were researching the exact opposite of that ghost? A ghost made from powerful energy and an aggregation of weak powers are opposites, so when they came together, it caused the ghost to malfunction… You were trying to extract inorganic materials from that unseen city, weren’t you?”

“Hard to say if that research was a step forward or a step back. Like I said, they failed. They could not control it, so even the remains of their project you see here cannot be erased. I believe the natural half life was about 12,000 years. In the worst case, the Imaginary Number District could have been converted into real numbers, crushing Academy City in the process. I think the project could have found success if they could have cut off a piece at a workable size and found a way to control it. In that sense, that ghost really is the strongest as an individual and an enviable success.”

Now even Hamazura had a vague idea why the ghost woman had suddenly malfunctioned.

They could not be in the same place.

Two ghosts could not coexist. Just like installing two different pieces of security software on the same computer would cause a conflict.

“It was still a risky gamble, though. The odds were low, but if the tunnel ''had lost'', this temporary space itself would have vanished and we would all have become fossils after being buried deep below the surface.”

Hamazura heard a swooshing sound and looked over to see the android swinging her thick machete next to the old man. Those two had won their bet, so now no one could stop them.

Kihara Hasuu looked away from Hamazura and turned to someone else.

“Now, I have eliminated your bodyguard. Isn’t it time we talked this out like adults?”

===Part 5===

“When’s the train going to leave?”

“Oh, mister just left.”

The children dressed up in gym clothes were whispering to each other while peeking out through the cracked-open door of a freight train container.

But among them…

“Ow, that hurts.”

The girl named Risako spoke up in protest.

But Sodate ignored that and continued tugging on her skinny wrist. The bigger boy was kind of scary when he was not saying anything.

“Listen, Risako.” He spoke quickly while walking through the shadows to stay hidden. He seemed to be speaking to himself more than the girl. “You can still escape. It’s not too late. And once you get to the surface, go tell the grownups about this. I know you can do it.”

“Why? The train is about to leave.”

“You still don’t get it!?” He shouted with his hands on her shoulders. “They make us wear these clothes and devices, they keep us separated from the rest of the city, and they don’t let us go to a normal school. We’re Child Errors, so no one will even notice if we just disappear one day. They’re only raising us because they can use us for something. They’re fattening us up to eat us!”

“But…”

“We don’t even have phones to call for help. ''It isn’t normal to be this isolated.'' That’s why I kept leaving behind some sign of our presence: building blocks, picture books, balls, and so on. I left them outside before the trucks moved on and I made sure to write our names, the trucks’ license numbers, and other information on them! But none of it ever reached the grownups. Our efforts never reached anyone!!”

She had thought he kept stealing things because he was selfish. She had thought he would forget those things in his secret bases because he was sloppy. But that was not it.

“They’re relatively peaceful beneficials? Don’t make me laugh. What’s going to change after we board that train and leave Academy City? There won’t be anyone monitoring them anymore!! Once that happens, I just know he’ll stop holding back. He’ll ''take it even further''! So you at least need to escape before that happens!!”

“Sodate-chan…”

“I’ll give you an opening.” He looked the girl in the eye and spoke clearly. “I won’t let him turn you into a guinea pig no matter what!!”

===Part 6===

A somewhat slender man stepped out. He wore a short-sleeved safari jacket and a rash guard, making him look something like an old-fashioned adventurer, but the webcam attached to the side of his head gave him a more modern outdoorsy look. He appeared to be a different sort of researcher from the old mechanic in a lab coat and jumpsuit.

He was an expert at visiting so-called haunted locations around the world and revealing the scientific cause of the strange phenomena there. But he had apparently also artificially recreated such things to use them for his own purposes.

He grinned and raised his hands in a jocular way. Kihara Hasuu asked him a question with the deadly weapon girl still by his side.

“What is your name?”

“Drencher Kihara Repatri.”

“I see. So that’s you.”

The young man’s eyebrows moved slightly in response to the old man’s impressed tone.

“I didn’t expect someone like you to have heard of me.”

“You are rather…well known.”

The way he said that told Hamazura he did not mean that in a positive way.

This was a confrontation between two harmfuls.

The two researchers ignored the boy and girl entirely as they began a verbal rally. Hamazura knew he could not just sit and watch as a referee or spectator, but he had no way of intervening.

“As you can see, we come from different levels of the dark side. If there is no place for us in Academy City anymore, then leaving the city is a valid choice. But is that plank of Carneades really only big enough for the one group? I think it can support both of us just fine.”

That suggestion seemed surprising…but maybe it wasn’t. It was the ghost woman who had been slaughtering all of the other dark side members trying to reach this point. The android may have attacked Anti-Skill, but she had never actively tried to eliminate her fellow dark siders. She had attacked Hamazura near the counterfeiter’s tents, but if she had been trying to slaughter everyone she came across, the ordinary people in the amusement park would not have escaped alive.

The young man shrugged.

“If that means less fighting, it’s okay with me. Not that I really have a choice, do I?”

“Assuming you have no other trump cards.”

“Then I surrender.”

He did not hesitate to respond. Hamazura was actually surprised to see he was willing to back down to save his own life. Hamazura had gotten the impression that the extreme members of the dark side were willing to sacrifice their own life to achieve their goal.

That surprise scared Hamazura. He could tell he had let the dark side influence him too much. He was afraid the damage would be permanent if he went much further. Once he became a harmful, there was no going back.

“She was my prized project, you know? Frillsand #G, I mean. Now, I knew ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' would pose a challenge, but I never imagined it was a giant mass of AIM Diffusion Fields.”

“Everything has its compatibility. In fact, I could never have won if we were not down here. Keep this girl from working and I’m helpless.”

The crimson-haired girl did nothing to fight the wrinkled hand rubbing her head.

The two men were reaching an agreement. That was not good. Hamazura and Takitsubo had nothing they could offer in a negotiation. At this rate, they would probably each get a bullet in the head as a parting gift. The only other option he could imagine was being made into a guinea pig for some bizarre experiment.

“Oh, right,” casually began the old man.

If he said “what should we do about those two lumps of flesh”, they were screwed. And Hamazura could not predict what that Kihara would do. He felt a terrible squeezing at his heart.

Finally, Kihara Hasuu continued.

“While we can share the train, I will be in charge there. So if you want a ride, it’s only natural you pay a small fare, don’t you think?”

“Do you want my research notes on Frillsand #G?”

“I’m no barbarian. A scientist’s research notes are a part of his very soul. Those are the fruits of your labors, so take them to your grave.”

“Then what do you want?”

“A few of them.”

The old man’s voice was as casual as ever as he pointed his engineering glove in a different direction entirely. He pointed at the gym clothes children who were peeking out from behind cover, without a clue what was being discussed.

“''Just select a few at random.'' I intend to restart my research once things have calmed down, but the rules are different outside the city. I can’t start abducting people off the street until I have a proper base set up, so I could use an initial supply for that settling-in period.”

Hamazura froze as he listened in.

This was the dark side. This was how the elites of that stagnant world thought.

“That Frillsand #G is important to your research, but not so with those lab rats, right? How many experimental observers’ lives were lost until you managed to ''properly reproduce'' that artificial ghost? If your research has entered a stable period, I would assume you are not running through those Child Errors as quickly as you once were.”

“Heh,” laughed Drencher Kihara Repatri.

He weakly lowered his raised hands. He must have decided that was no longer necessary. He too had seen the darkness, so he spoke with the same look in his eyes as the old man.

“It’s true those are all Child Errors. And however they would be treated in the ordinary world, we all know exactly what that term means in the dark side. Yes, I gathered them together and invited them into my lab. I made sure to have a plentiful stock of convenient lives that could be spent as I liked if other forms of research were not enough.”

“Then I can have a few?”

“''Go to hell, you son of a bitch.''”

===Part 7===

Several dry gunshots rang out.

===Part 8===

Hamazura Shiage did not understand what had just happened.

“Hamazura!!”

His body still refused to do what it was told, so track suit girl Takitsubo had to push him to the ground.

The young man had pulled out a handgun. It was no more than a small revolver, but he still fired it repeatedly from just a few meters away.

However…

“Ugh…”

“That won’t work,” said the old man.

The android’s crimson hair fluttered while she held her thick machete at the ready with her bare feet planted a step in front of Hasuu. Not only had she deflected all of the bullets, she had used their ricochets as a counterattack.

''No more than a small revolver.

''Something had gone horribly wrong when you started thinking of things in those terms in this country.

The young man had several holes in his upper body and dark red stains spread across his clothes. Doubling over did nothing to help, so he finally collapsed to the ground.

The old man in a jumpsuit and lab coat spoke up in exasperation while the strongest doll protected him.

“They’re just kids. And it’s not like I’m asking for all of them. Just two or three will do.”

“I wanted to…protect them from the dark side scum who think like that,” spat the young man while struggling to breathe down on all fours. He had given up trying to hold his wounds. “But nothing I did above board did anything to help. I couldn’t even get information on where those children were. The only way to fight the dark side…was to become the dark side. I almost laughed when I saw how many people came running to me then, claiming my research was so valuable. When I said I needed children’s lives to do it, they slapped me on the shoulder and agreed to it all. While happily sipping on a glass of the year’s finest red with their other hand. This city is rotten to the core.”

“Aren’t you Drencher Kihara Repatri?”

“Claiming to be a Kihara was the quickest way to get what I wanted. Ha ha. Those VIPs really were terrified of me.”

“Dammit,” spat out Hamazura Shiage.

The young man saw his own condition as of secondary importance.

It was true the ghost woman had used the children. They had been placed in a position where she could crush their lives at any moment. But had Hamazura ever seen her actually kill a child? What if they had been living in a world where they had to take the charade that far to be believed?

The old man had asked how many experimental observers’ lives were lost until he managed to properly reproduce the artificial ghost, but the young man had never answered.

That was in fact the answer. He had not sacrificed anyone. Not one. He had wanted to gather up those children known as Child Errors and drag them up out of the darkness. There ''were'' adults willing to dive into the dark side for no other reason than that.

There really were.

And yet…

“You’re lying.”

Hamazura suddenly rejected that entire premise. Because if he accepted this, he would have to admit to his own ugliness. Even if saying this would mean revealing he was ugly enough to put up a struggle like this.

“I’ve seen you before. You were at that counterfeiter’s place! You were preparing a passport for yourself so you could abandon those kids and leave the city!!”

“This all would have gone so much more smoothly if that had worked.” The young man smiled weakly. “If I had shown off how I escaped with the passport, Anti-Skill and the dark side’s focus would have turned toward District 23’s airport. Then the children would have had a safer escape underground here. I was never supposed to be down here with them.”

“~ ~ ~!!!!!!”

It felt like they lived in two completely different worlds.

And that young man was definitely the one in the right.

Hamazura felt so pathetic and contemptible for only ever acting to protect him and his girlfriend.

“I know I shouldn’t be asking this.”

The young man looked his way. As if to say it did not matter if he really was a Kihara or not.

His eyes knew how to view the light, but for some reason he now looked to someone as corrupted as Hamazura.

“Maybe it’s for the best if the dark side is destroyed, but please take care of those kids. You’re the only person I can leave them with now. When you saw your girlfriend suffering, you panicked and dumped medical supplies across the ground in your haste. I could see the conscience in your eyes. You had no choice but to fall this far, but you should still have some resistance to the dark side left inside you.”

“Wait, I’m not like that for everyone. Don’t shove this onto me! She’s my girlfriend, so of course I’d work to save her!!”

“Ha ha. Thinking that’s an ‘of course’ is what makes you such an oddity in the dark side. Don’t worry, I know you can do it. Because after falling into this shitty world, you still managed to find someone you care for and you decided to find peace instead of another thrill.”

Hamazura and Takitsubo had first heard of ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' from this man.

Hamazura had been cautious because there was no righteousness in the dark side and the man must have had his own reasons.

Was this why?

Had it been some insurance, just in case? Instead of worrying about his own survival, he had wanted some insurance for after he died.

Yet he had also slaughtered the dark sider people rushing toward this exit.

All because he could not let any harm come to the children as those people fought each other. He had rushed down a dark path to prevent a mere possibility.

But on Hamazura and Takitsubo’s way here, hadn’t the ghost woman glanced their way after slaughtering everyone else and then left, as if sparing them?

“Why did you do all this?”

That was the only question Hamazura could find.

That was not something to say to a dying man. He knew that. But after letting the dark side corrupt him while he worked so hard to ensure his and his girlfriend’s survival, this answer was too pure and upright to accept.

“How could you throw away your own life over this!? When you get down to it, those kids are just strangers! How could a goddamn harmful go this far just because you ‘wanted to save them’!? How!? Tell me!?”

The young man smiled.

There was already blood dripping from the corners of his lips.

“Do you need a reason to protect someone? Of course you don’t.”

That was the end of it.

Time stopped for him with the smile still on his lips.

He had no reason. He did not know why. And he had rushed in to save those children without ever finding a reason.

Hamazura Shiage had to admit defeat.

“A…”

The loser boy clenched his teeth. He moved his battered body, swiped the bloody handgun and some ammo from the young man, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

Losers had their own etiquette to follow.

That scummy old man was still here. Hamazura was not going to let him trample on the young man’s victory.

“Aaaneriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!”

A dull kachunk echoed through the circular space.

The support AI had taken control of the train and shifted it out of standby, so it slowly began to move.

The turntable had tracks in twelve directions, but he knew where to send it.

He just had to remember what the card-sized hard drive labeled Lifeline had said.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

In other words…

(Hours and minutes. If I apply that to an analog clock…)

“Send it down the five o’clock track!!”

The train took off with so many children in gym clothes on board.

That had been his top priority.

“Is justice contagious these days?” asked the old man with the look of someone viewing a crazy person.

He had already proven that the gun would not work, so he gave Hamazura a look of partial pity now that he had inherited that defeated weapon.

“You risked your life for this, but to no avail. Look, not all of them were onboard. They must have run in fear from the very person who would have saved them.”

“Hamazura, two of them were left behind. We can’t just leave them here.”

A boy and a girl in gym clothes were holding hands a short distance away.

What had they thought when they learned the truth behind that young man’s satisfied smile?

Especially when their own actions had worked against him.

“Well, those two will suffice. I will be taking them as a souvenir. Any more than this would have been a waste of food anyway.”

“Shut up,” spat out Hamazura.

He really should not have been doing this. He had come here to escape to safety. It had been clear from the very beginning that he could not be a great hero or brave warrior. This selfish choice here might put himself and his girlfriend in danger.

But.

Even so.

A dying man had left this with him. He had been reminded what it meant to do the right thing. There were lives here he could save. He could redo things. And most of all, his girlfriend was watching.

He was done being pathetic. He gathered strength in his sweaty body and stood up under his own power again. He had to.

“Maybe you’re a Kihara and an android.”

His goal was to run away?

No, sometimes a man had to stand up and speak his mind.

“But I’ll take you on, you goddamned dark siders!!!!!!”

He knew it was possible.

He had just seen a man stay true to this way of life.

He could reclaim his humanity. He must have learned something from what he saw here.

===Part 9===

Of course, Hamazura could never actually hit the crimson-haired android by firing the 9mm handgun at random. He knew she would deflect the bullets with her thick machete and fill him with holes.

So he did something else instead.

“Aneri!!”

A giant shape suddenly moved right next to the racing swimsuit girl.

A wheel loader used to stack up the railroad-sized containers was being remotely controlled.

“Move.”

What was that machete even made of? She did not even look in that direction as she swung her weapon and sliced apart the snowplow-looking piece of machinery. Even though she was not using any rapid vibrations or heat.

But Hamazura used that moment to pull on his girlfriend’s hand and move from there.

This was a vast circular space, but it was not an empty colosseum.

It had concrete columns just like an underground common utility duct and it had various equipment needed for operating and maintaining the trains, all located where it would not get in the way of the turntable and the twelve directions of track. Transformers were surrounded by a fence, a prefab hut had been made into a control room, giant jacks and a carwash were prepared for maintenance purposes, and more.

Aneri had directly operated the freight train, so he felt safe assuming she could operate all of the equipment here.

He pulled his girlfriend close while hiding behind a concrete column and whispering to his phone.

“Aneri, can you directly hijack that hunk of junk?”

No response.

He took that as a no. This did not sound like it was an issue of building up to that or setting something up in advance. That android was immune to cyber attacks on some level he did not understand.

(That means the only option is to destroy her the old-fashioned way!!)

“Hamazura, we can’t hide here forever. If she stops focusing on us, she’ll go after those children. Villains always go for the easiest target.”

“I know that.”

Takitsubo kept trying to wipe the sweat from her brow, but something was not right. The moxibustion should have relieved her symptoms to an extent, but that treatment might not be working as much anymore.

He was worried, but he could not stop now. He hated that fact.

“But using ourselves as bait will put us at risk. Are you prepared for that, Takitsubo?”

“Ask any more stupid questions and I’ll slap you.”

“Okay, it’s time to win your heart all over again!!”

They both ran out from behind the concrete column.

Their eyes met the ones with pupils mechanically expanding and contracting, but they stayed strong this time.

===Part 10===

Ladybird had a lock on two targets.

She walked barefoot across the floor and accurately obeyed her instructions, but she also had a question.

Why were the children necessary?

Kihara Hasuu—her Sensei—was researching androids. He had already successfully created one, so he no longer needed to capture biological humans to dissect and observe them. This disagreement appeared to be over ownership of the Child Errors (she failed to realize it was her education by that true Kihara that led her to use the word “ownership” in this context), but why was the old man so insistent on this?

That unfortunate research was a thing of the past.

She was an android built from purely mechanical parts, but she could use an esper power. That meant no more human specimens were needed for esper development experiments. They only had to mess with machines from now on. The Child Errors no longer needed to be captured and used up.

She thought that was a wonderful thing. She could not believe the people who still clung to the old system that required humans to use other humans. Did they wish to protect the status given to them by the current Level system? If they truly believed their fight was just, then they were beyond reasoning with. Machines were not the only ones that could have their memory data rewritten. Humans could have their feelings and thoughts falsified as well.

So she would bring an end to it all.

She was fighting here to end the misfortune and tragedies caused by the esper development program.

“Ohhhh!!”

The boy raised a meaningless battle cry, ran in, and repeatedly fired his handgun. She only had to block those shots with her machete.

But he had apparently learned how she fought.

She tried to hit him with the ricochets, but they refused to hit. When she deflected a bullet back, it would follow the same straight trajectory. Placing a single piece of plywood in the middle would change things. A bullet’s force was determined by its muzzle velocity. The force of the ricochet would generally be lower. That was obvious enough since bullets were not constantly accelerating like a rocket or missile. So he could set it up so he could shoot her through an obstacle, but she could not break through it on the way back.

Her use of ricochets was similar to Accelerator’s reflection, but all her machete did was knock the bullet back. She could not ''include the actual vector in that''.

That said…

(I doubt someone with such a stupid face could do this. He must be receiving assistance with the calculations.)

She considered jumping. Lifting both feet from the ground was usually a bad idea in combat, but not so with her. With her android specs, she could kick off of one column to the next and attack from the air.

She heard the loud roar of an engine while dealing with the bullets.

It appeared to come from a forklift.

“Aneri, surround the kids! I don’t know where that old man got off to, but don’t let him get close!! If he tries it, run him over!!”

“Don’t get distracted.”

He could have gotten a hit in on her by sending the forklift in from the side while firing on her from the front. Not that a blow like that would be enough to destroy her frame.

She swung the thick machete in her right hand while gathering her strength in the space between her eyebrows.

That was how she aimed.

A blast of wind blew away the obstacles between her and Hamazura Shiage. It was more like they were obliterated by an explosion than swept away by wind.

“An esper power!?” shouted the boy.

“It looked to be Level 3 or higher,” said the girl.

She no longer had to worry about the gunfire now that the line of fire was clear. He must have known the risk of ricochets was back because he stopped attacking and hid behind a nearby column, but that was no defense. She could charge in and slice through the column and his torso behind it with a single horizontal sweep of her blade.

She had enough time to reach her other hand to her thigh, pull out the bottle, and take a drink of the discharge machine oil.

A dull boom burst out.

She was only an android modeled after the structure of the human body, but the materials used for her skeleton, muscles, and everything else were bizarre dark side tech. If she wanted to, her horsepower could rival a V12 engine at max RPM.

But even as she chose the correct action, her mechanical head was filled with questions.

She had used a wind power.

But hadn’t she used fire during her previous clash with these people? And what about the time before that?

Androids had the same structure as humans, so a single android should only have a single power. Or could she do what humans could not because she was a machine?

(Sensei?)

===Part 11===

A column of reinforced concrete was sliced through as easily as tofu or thin paper.

Not horizontally or diagonally – vertically and all the way through. After kicking from column to column to gain height, she had apparently dropped down like lightning. She had a human form, but she could perform superhuman movements.

Hamazura Shiage had tried to jump to the side just beforehand, but he ended up tumbling into a roll.

It was not his torso sliced through along with the column. It was a gas drum kept on hand for the facility’s auxiliary power generator.

He grimaced at the pain in his hips as he continued rolling and pulled the trigger repeatedly.

Not even Ladybird could deflect bullets that hit the concrete ground and sent sparks flying.

The vaporizing gasoline ignited into explosive flames that swallowed up the entire racing swimsuit silhouette.

However…

“No, Hamazura! It didn’t work!!”

“Tch!!”

He clicked his tongue while the track suit girl ran over from elsewhere and pulled him to his feet. A black figure was displayed on the other side of that fiery screen. She showed no sign of collapsing or writhing in pain.

Had she used that previous wind power to affect how the flames spread?

He hoped so. If she was simply this tough, he could not imagine how to defeat her.

“How ''do'' you defeat an android anyway? Strangle her or stab her in the heart, she’s still a machine. That won’t stop her!!”

Could he break her motherboard? Or pull out her battery? But he had no idea how many she had or where in her slender body they were located.

The roaring flames were sliced apart. A horizontal sweep of the heavy metal machete conquered the orange barrier. The barefoot android stepped through entirely unscathed. There was no sign of discoloration on her crimson hair, white skin, or orange and black racing swimsuit.

“Something isn’t right,” said Takitsubo Rikou with eyes seemingly more robotic than the machine’s. What was she looking at right now? “An android that uses esper powers is conceivably possible. Mechanical processing may be able to ‘observe’ the waves or particles like a human brain does. And if you developed that far enough, you might be able to purposefully select between different supernatural phenomena. But this wavelength is simpler than that.”

“You mean how she switches between powers?” spat out Hamazura. “That container base in the garbage pile was their lab, right? Then I get why that old man wants those kids so bad. Even if I don’t know exactly ''how'' he would use them.”

Now, why were they able to spend so long discussing this?

The delinquent boy made sure to keep his gun aimed, but the android in question was only tilting her head.

A dark liquid was dripping from her eyes and nose.

He had seen that before. Immediately after she had been hit by the hakama girl and fought back with her fire power.

“Oh, dear.”

Kihara Hasuu’s voice reached them from somewhere, but it was echoing too much to tell where it came from. Hamazura would have shot the man if he saw him.

“Is it that time already? This is why I wanted to stock up sooner rather than later.”

“Hey.” Hamazura shouted at the unseen man. “Isn’t that cheating? You can’t really call her an android if that’s what you’re doing.”

The boy watched as the girl in the orange and black racing swimsuit held her head and doubled over.

A low straining sound came from her.

Then her back opened along the line from her nape to her tailbone.

The clasp holding together the X-shaped band at the center of the swimsuit’s back popped open and the supports were released in four directions.

Then her soft skin opened wide while supported at her nape.

Her opened back almost looked like a steam locomotive’s boiler or a furnace from hell. The fact that it was smooth human skin instead of a thick metal door gave it the sinister appearance of an insect’s shell opening up.

The top half of her swimsuit fell out of place, but her chest was not visible.

Her long red hair dropped down to cover it up.

She had planted her hands and feet on the ground like a beast.

Something translucent crawled out of her. It looked like a long, narrow blade or like a wriggling snake. It would grab something, drag it inside her, and cut it away. It was an automatic extraction organ.

Hamazura knew what it was for.

“I saw the junk those trash collectors were taking back after searching through those piles of abandoned items. A fridge was full of some brownish filth.”

He felt nauseated just remembering it.

He grimaced as he viewed that monster.

“''It was stuffed full of corpses with the contents of their heads removed.'' When those trash collectors were searching out fridges and washing machines, they weren’t selling them to used appliance stores. They were opening up bloodstained boxes packed full of still-usable organs. And they all came from your lab, didn’t they!?”

“Well, the ordinary corpses were apparently disposed of in District 10’s slums, but there are a lot of people willing to buy up ones fresh enough to make use of their parts.”

Ladybird was not an android with esper powers. She was as harmful as they came. She was a machine that would devour people’s brains when necessary. In Hamazura’s opinion, that meant she did not fit the definition of an android.

“This is a completely different approach from the Rensa model of esper cyborg. Instead of a cyborg made by ''giving a brain a body'', Ladybird-kun ''is a body given a brain.''” Hasuu sounded like he was introducing his favorite grandchild. “Cellulose nanofiber is a carbon material gathering attention for its use in making wires and bulletproof materials, but the point is we can create delicate wires even thinner than the cranial nerves. But unlike a biological brain, leaving them in their active state causes them to automatically replicate and they will try to forcibly fold themselves up for space if they run out room in the skull. The cerebrum’s frontal lobe is especially troublesome. So ''a foreign object'' must be introduced to constantly provide just the right amount of damage to ensure the brain remains the size I want it. Her power changes each time a new ''foreign object'' is introduced, but that is due to the change in the rejection and damage pattern. You can think of that as a simple idiosyncrasy.”

“Sen…sei?”

A grinding sound came from Ladybird while she seemed to be searching for something. However the old researcher described it, a human brain was apparently a necessary part for her to run. Her movements were noticeably stiff and awkward as she pursued that poison on her own.

“Sensei…but you said this research would help. You said the spread of androids would mean no more human specimens were needed for the esper development.”

“The ladybird – another name for the ladybug – might look humorous, but it is in fact a ravenous carnivore. You have heard that they are good to have around because they eat aphids, haven’t you?”

“Gh…kh.”

“And there are a lot of insects that mimic ladybugs. That includes a type of darkling beetle and cockroach, both kinds of bugs people might not normally want around. But that is not actually a type of protective coloration. Ha ha. Instead of trying to blend into their natural surroundings or avoid their predators, that coloration might actually be used to make humans like them.”

How deep did the dark side go?

How disgusting could the dark said get?

“So don’t you see?”

Its attacks were indiscriminate, like a cannibal insect.

The developer spoke to what looked like a lovely girl. And he seemed to be enjoying it immensely.

“''That is the perfect name for you.''”

===Part 12===

text> @I thought there was a problem with the world.

text> @I thought it was wrong for @humans to use @humans for their research in this city.

text> But @I could climb onto the examination table instead.

text> @I can be repaired or remade as many times as necessary.

text> Since my body was made identically to a @human’s, @I would be able to use an esper power as well. Pieces of my body could be freely added or removed, so @I could be examined inside and out more easily than a @human and @I could be modified as they saw fit.

text> No more sacrifices would be necessary for the esper development research.

text> That is why @I fought.

text> @I thought @Sensei’s research was a wonderful thing.

''“You know, Ladybird-kun, the term android signifies an artificial human built with an engineering approach. Based on that definition, it seems appropriate to me for a completed android to behave like a human.”

text> @Sensei’s words were like a shining light of hope.

text> @I wondered if @I really was good enough.

text> But @I was happy as long as @I could be of some use. @I think that kind of feeling is not something a simple machine could feel.

text> Does that mean @I am somehow @human?

text> The @humans that @I have seen are like that. They do not hesitate to make inefficient choices without even considering cost performance.

text> That is why @I find @humans to be so incredible.

text> @I have not spoken much with any other than @Sensei, but @I know that is because @androids cannot be made public yet. But @I love the @humans that @I see from a distance.

text> @I will build a path to a brighter future for them – a path to a happier world – so @I cannot allow someone to destroy all that just because they do not understand. So I will not let anyone interfere. Anyone who claims it is right to harm @people cannot be allowed to trample on the future @I can bring them.

text> So…

text>And yet…

===Part 13===

===Part 14===

===Part 15===

===Part 16===

===Part 17===

===Part 18===

===Map===

===Between the Lines 4===

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume3_Chapter3|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume3_Epilogue}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter4

2020-11-20T20:55:54Z

SNovah: /* Part 9 */

{{Incomplete|parts=12|tparts=19}}
==Chapter 4: The Demon Lord’s Young — the_LIGHT.==

===Part 1===

“Where have you been, Risako!?”

“Mister, Risako-chan is back!!”

The gym clothes girl laughed when she saw the other children gathered around.

“Eh heh heh. A doggy and an older girl saved me.”

They must have been preparing for another move because all the trucks had their engines running. But they had waited until they had found the girl with red hair done up like candy. She was relieved. Having a home to return to was a wonderful thing.

“''A doggy,'' huh?” said the artificial ghost called Frillsand #G.

“…”

Her comment made the young researcher fall silent for a bit.

His name was Drencher Kihara Repatri.

That family name was so well known in the dark side that it had become a more powerful classification than beneficial or harmful. The man who bore that name sighed softly to help refocus his mind.

“There is a chance we’ve been located, but we’re faster at the moment. If we move before they catch up, we can reach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' without issue.”

“Do you really think this world will allow any of this to go ‘without issue’?”

“It’s our job to make sure it happens.”

The adults exchanged their views with their voices too low for the excited children to hear.

But a certain boy kept his voice low for a different reason.

“Risako.”

“Oh, Sodate-chan.”

The tall boy in the same kind of gym clothes looked troubled for some reason. In fact, he looked close to tears. Risako tilted her head, thinking he was afraid she would get after him about the ball and chemical soap, but this was different.

“So you came back,” he said.

“Eh?”

“I was hoping maybe you were gone for good.”

He had wanted that? Did he hate her that much? Risako’s face clouded over, but this was again different. He shook his head and explained.

He was the only one of the children who had ''started to question these motion sensors they wore for some kind of experiment.''

“Because then at least you might have been safe.”

===Part 2===

He was afraid of screwing it up, so he started by drawing marks on her back with a marker.

“Hamazura, that tickles.”

“Stay still.”

The old book had a brush-drawn diagram with no perspective or attempt to make it look three-dimensional. The indicated locations of the organs were clearly not right. Maybe it was like the difference between an aerial photograph of the clouds and the isobars on the weather forecast map. He wondered if this was what all traditional Japanese medicine was like as he drew Xs on his girlfriend’s body. She had even removed her bra and was holding her chest in her hands while showing him her smooth back. He thought his heart was going to burst every time she squirmed from the ticklishness. Even he knew that reaction was inappropriate given the circumstances. Once he finished that, it was finally time to start. He faced the girl while she lay face down on the container lab’s work table like she was sunbathing.

The moxa used for the moxibustion was like fluffy cotton, but he actually had to set it on fire.

It felt wrong doing that on her soft skin and he could even permanently scar her if he screwed it up.

“…”

His fear came to the forefront now that it was time to do it, but this was the only way to help her with the fever.

He fought the desire to shut his eyes and placed a small pile of “fuel” on her soft skin. He worked at the lighter with a trembling hand, but he kept failing. Once he finally had a small flame, he slowly moved it in close.

“Nh.”

“A-are you okay, Takitsubo?”

“I’m fine.”

He continued the process a few more times. He had his doubts, but when she wiped the sweat from her brow, no more sweat beaded up. It did seem to be working.

He could not thank the hakama girl enough.

He could not waste this chance she had given them, so they had to approach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''.

That card-sized hard drive had been labelled with the word “Lifeline”.

Aneri must have decided the data would be too small to see on his phone because she displayed it a flat screen monitor in the lab instead. It was a series of numbers.

It looked like a calculation sheet made with spreadsheet software, but even that was enough to make the delinquent boy’s head hurt. Maybe it was important data, but he had no idea what he was supposed to focus on.

“This looks like materials data,” said Takitsubo after peering at it from the side.

“Materials?”

“Whether they’re beneficial or harmful, the dark side does a lot of research.” She pointed at one of the numbers. “They’re also building a lot of military weapons. But doesn’t it seem odd? Academy City is a mass consumer and it only has so much land since it’s surrounded by walls. You can’t just dig into the ground here and find oil or ores. So where do they get all those materials from?”

“Where? Isn’t that what the cooperative institutions around the world are for? They can work out a deal with them.”

“But how can they do that without leaving any record of it?”

She pointed at another number.

If a citizens group monitoring the flow of money and materials could reveal a secret, then it had never been part of the dark side to begin with.

“Look at this. The dark side is using far more materials than the total amount brought in from outside the city. Cutting off the fat and redistributing it to themselves would not be enough for this. The amount the dark side uses is several times larger. This would show up in the records no matter what you did. Important people like the Board of Directors and its Chairman can only cover up so much. This is too much. It’s well past what you could hide by cooking the books.”

“But then…”

He trailed off when Aneri opened a new window. A single point on a map of Academy City was colored in red. There was a secret there.

“They have an entrance and exit that doesn’t leave any records,” said the track suit girl while viewing the screen.

There were several files that appeared to be saved from message boards and social media pages. Reading through them showed a certain point in common.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

Takitsubo pointed at that bizarre statement.

“There is a way of reaching it and we should see hints of it in the rumors told around the city. Like the ‘!’ signs, a deadly train, kidnappers at the amusement park, babies in the coin lockers, or an underground construction zone where you can dump anything you don’t want found. But none of that gets at the real truth.”

“You mean…?”

“Academy City doesn’t promote recycling so much just because it wants to make the most of its limited resources. ''Sending things back to be recycled over and over again masks how much materials are actually being used.'' They can’t have an investigation revealing that we dump out several times more trash than materials we take in, right? That would violate conservation of mass. So they needed to make it hard to compare those two values. It’s a form of laundering.”

Why was that sleight of hand necessary? How did they reach the impossible result of more waste than raw materials? What was this secret that no one wanted getting out?

''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.

This was the identity of that term they had heard so many times today.

“It…isn’t closed off? There’s a secret route through the walls surrounding Academy City!?”

That could not be. For better or for worse, Academy City was cut off from the outside world. Those thick walls prevented their tech from spreading to the world at large because that could lead to disorder and chaos.

Hamazura used to be part of Skill Out. That was a group of the boys and girls who had dropped out of Academy City but had nowhere to go since they could not get out of the city.

They had been trapped. They had dropped out of school, but those walls had kept them here. If you wanted to take a trip outside the city for just a few days, you needed to submit a ton of paperwork and receive a nanodevice injection. Because if you tried leave without using the official gates, you could be killed to prevent a data leak. There had been burglars and muggers in the back alleys, but none of those expert thieves had dared go anywhere near the walls.

If there was a way to freely move in and out, they may not have felt so much pressure. They could have made a place for themselves.

Their former leader, Komaba Ritoku, might not have had to fight and die.

“…”

But the dark side had torn down that number one assumption like it was nothing.

That counterfeiter had stored that information on a card-sized hard drive labeled “Lifeline”. Had he thought he could use that information to get some dark side bigshots to save him?

He must have never imagined he would instead have his brains blown out by a paparazzo. Hamazura was at the center of all this, but he still did not know if that had been planned or a spontaneous decision.

“It’s deep below Academy City.” Takitsubo Rikou calmly read aloud something on such a large scale that talk of an alternate dimension would have sounded more realistic. “The world’s largest particle accelerator is built directly below the city walls, so people are told that digging in that area could break the accelerator’s seal and expose them to radiation and other risks. That was meant to convince everyone that no one would be dumb enough to try it.”

The diagram they found looked like a puzzle ring. It seemed to carefully avoid the circular accelerator facility, but this was a tunnel built by the dark side. There was no chance it met all the proper safety standards.

That was the dark side’s lifeline.

They had built it to continue pumping fuel into their illicit research and its construction showed they did not care at all if they brought chaos to the world. It really was the greatest taboo. It was a dark umbilical cord that could wipe out the Kiharas and everyone else if it was cut off.

“I doubt Anti-Skill knows about this,” said Takitsubo. “So they won’t be able to block it off. We can safely escape the city if we use it.”

“…”

The red light displayed by Aneri was in District 10, the city’s biggest slum. The taboo no one wanted was hidden below the district everyone had abandoned.

It was unclear if it had always had this name. They may have changed the name periodically to help hide the truth. All the scattered information was fragmentary witness accounts and some of it would likely be intentional misinformation.

But that taboo’s gaping mouth had sat deep underground all this time.

Like a nightmarish symbol of freedom.

The dot on the map displayed on the small screen had the following name displayed next to it: Vanishing Tunnel.

That was the name of their final destination. Anyone who arrived there was given a ticket to another world.

===Part 3===

They were deep, deep underground in District 10.

Few people would think too much about the layout of the subway tunnels below the city. They might know a track took an unnatural curve at one point, but no one would question the online news article about them running across some kind of ruins during construction.

An underground passageway was surrounded by cold concrete and supported by the pillars positioned at even intervals.

The few fluorescent lights on the walls were not enough to fully sweep away the darkness.

That underground blind spot had become the biggest hot spot in the world. A great many people had gathered there. They had not all arrived along the same route. They had each gathered the hints scattered around the city and started to question the city’s biggest assumption. Academy City was surrounded by thick walls, but it was not in fact sealed off.

The brawny men in work jumpsuits were a courier group called Secret Express. The men and women in dress clothes were Concierge, a group that provided hideouts to meet a criminal’s demands. The girls in plain clothing and hiding their faces with sunglasses and hunting caps may have been an extremely popular idol group. The parade of scum included Controller, who used personal information and fictitious bills to threaten the girls he targeted until he had them in digital chains, and Flare, who left behind harmless powder identical to the real deal in order to confuse criminal investigations.

A ruler of the back alleys was there.

A major corporation’s lawyer was there.

A university headmaster was there.

A major entertainment producer was there.

And a few Kiharas from different fields were there.

All sorts of people flooded that underground passageway. People did not end up on the dark side because they were low class, poor, stupid, or criminal. It took all types. The dark side had reached every class of person equally. From worlds no one knew existed to industries everyone envied.

Some had fallen before making it this far and others had attempted a different route instead. In a way, finding this tunnel and setting foot inside made them the chosen ones.

And.

Every last one of them were obstructed and crushed by a certain figure.

The woman had long blonde twintails and she wore a skintight light blue dress and a long loose skirt.

Frillsand #G was like an impassable wall.

All who challenged her crashed into that wall with the intensity of their challenge. After seeing a few of them turned to hunks of flesh and splattered blood, the others must have started wondering if she literally was a solid wall because all of those dark side members had come to a stop. They were pushed back even though she had not taken a single step.

Of course, the ghost was not going to spare them just because they gave up now.

“Next stop: skewering. Repeat: skewering.”

With a wet sound, a muscular man in black was destroyed from groin to head. But he may have been one of the lucky ones. He was gone before he even knew what had happened to him.

“Please look out for the burning and severing.”

Screams of pain echoed through the tunnel. Before long, the dark side members were fighting amongst themselves too. They appeared to have begun an ugly struggle over the concrete column they could use as a shield. However…

“We will arrive at gouging soon.”

Just as the ghost silently circled behind the column, a wet sound exploded out. The victors and losers of the struggle were all turned to mincemeat together while Frillsand #G looked on in disinterest.

“Ah…gahh,” someone groaned.

It was one of the idol girls. Her bottom half was gone and the bottom of her torso was sticking to the floor like a slug.

“But…why? We found the taboo…so aren’t we part of the dark side too? Can’t we all use…the path out together?”

“I have children to take care of. A lot of them.” Frillsand #G did not even look in her direction. “Inviting all of you in with us would only put them at risk.”

“Just…” It was already too late for her, but the top half of a girl still clawed at the concrete floor. “Just in case? You took people’s lives for no more than that!?”

“Next stop: running over. I repeat: running over.”

With a wet splat, the complaints were silenced.

The ghost seemed to be rejecting the idea that grudges lacked the power to kill.

“The rear guard is an important job,” she said in a singsong voice. “But I cannot let that crybaby see this. Knowing of it and seeing it are two very different things.”

The artificial ghost glanced over at something else.

But she soon lost interest, turned around, and vanished into the darkness.

A mere ten meters away, Hamazura Shiage was hiding behind a column and holding his hand over the track suit girl’s mouth.

If she noticed them, they were dead. He felt like his heart, his breathing, his body odor, and the slight static electricity on his clothing could all give them away. He could not even wipe the unpleasant sweat from his cheek as he desperately waited for time to pass.

That ghost really was an enemy.

She had some kind of plan of her own and had saved them on a whim before, but that did not mean he could trust her. If she had saved them on a whim, then she could also choose to throw them out on a whim. And they only had the one life.

This was worse than a sea of blood.

Flesh and blood had lost any hint of their original form, fingers extended into empty space, facial skin was frozen in a look of agony while plastered to the wall. At this point, they were only “things”, not people. There was no dignity remaining.

Each of them was a dark side member who had arrived at ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' along a different route than him.

Their endless possibilities had been reduced to zero.

Or so it felt to him.

Was this tunnel really the right path? The further they went, the more likely they were to encounter that ghost woman, so he began to wonder if it would be safer to turn back now and return to the surface.

“Pwah.”

His girlfriend escaped his hand. He was holding her from behind, so she leaned her head back to look him in the eye.

“Hamazura, I don’t sense her presence anymore. We can keep going now.”

“…”

“We can’t give up after coming so far. Blindly returning to the surface won’t save us. We’ll never find peace if we don’t go through here.”

“R-right.”

He would have long since broken if he were alone.

But when she pulled on his hand, he managed to work up some small semblance of courage.

Even with the evenly-spaced fluorescent lights, the tunnel was dark. And they had no idea who was in charge of that sparse lighting. What if the ghost could shut off the power? His phone felt all the more important to him now.

“This is a long tunnel.”

“Yeah.”

They were not speaking much anymore.

This was ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'', but did this tunnel really lead toward hope? No matter how far they went, the darkness never went away. As they trudged deeper and deeper, he felt like they had passed a point of no return. Also, who had built this enormous underground facility? Someone must have drawn up the plans, dug the hole, set the foundation, and brought in the rebar and concrete. This was a far bigger project than a bank robber’s hand-dug tunnel into the vault. Such a vast and well-made underground space could not have been built without the involvement of a major construction company.

Who had done it?

It might be a company whose ads he saw on TV every day.

Would all of this come to light one day? But those meaningless thoughts were cut off by Takitsubo.

She had noticed first because she was not holding the light.

“Hamazura, there’s a door.”

“…”

It was a thick metal door.

Just the one door sat at the end of the long, long tunnel. There may have been another route, but he did not recall seeing any other paths branching off along the way.

He slowly approached.

It did not appear to be locked. He doubted there were any grenades or other “gifts” left for them.

But that was not what scared him. He had seen all of those corpses along the way. The sight had left him so terrified he barely had it in him to keep his heart beating. He had started to view their fallen predecessors as no more than a piece of the scenery. Because otherwise that shadowy murder scene would have overwhelmed him too much to continue on.

The taboos were piling up.

He and Takitsubo had started this simply wanting to survive, but they too had been corrupted along the way.

Hamazura Shiage reached his fingers toward the doorknob.

He touched it. He squeezed it.

He turned it.

===Part 4===

A flood of light revealed a world no one was ever meant to see.

“…”

The other world turned out to be a cavernous pit.

This abyss slept deep below the earth, yet it was filled with much more artificial light than the tunnel. That was thanks to the construction lights set up here and there.

It was easily more than 250 meters across and maybe more than twice as deep. The perfectly circular space made of reinforced concrete at the very bottom may have reminded different people of different things.

Some might see it as a common utility duct, a circular colosseum, a switchyard’s turntable, or an underground temple dedicated to a god one must never offer any prayers.

But there was one crucial piece that helped solidify the proper image.

“A train?” muttered Hamazura while peering down over the railing.

It was a turntable.

Concrete columns were installed at even intervals around the edges, but there were none in the central circle. The flat concrete floor had a smaller circle built into it. That would rotate to change the train’s direction. The tracks outside the circle extended in 12 different directions. That made it all look like something else: a giant metal flower.

Yes, there were tracks, signal lights, transformers, maintenance equipment, a control room, and a fifteen-car train in here. It was a freight train.

“That’s the dark side’s lifeline?”

For him and Takitsubo, it was the plank of Carneades that would save their lives.

He doubted that turntable was all of it. There would be a container yard and maintenance zone hidden further out from the center.

They walked along the narrow catwalk built along the circular wall and descended the stairs. There were no corpses in here. Whoever had gotten here first must have used the ghost woman to eliminate any nuisances before they reached this point.

And since the train was still here, that person would still be here.

They shared this space with the slaughterer.

“Hamazura.”

“Don’t worry. I’m with you no matter what.”

“Not that. There’s someone down there. And they’re not alone.”

That was a shock. Takitsubo Rikou could accurately locate people by sensing their AIM Diffusion Field. She could not use that power as well as she used to, but she could still sense it to an extent.

The tension grew.

A single person with a bizarre power was certainly scary, but having a large group approach you brought a different sort of fear. He mentally switched his priorities to at least allowing Takitsubo to escape if things looked bad.

The only exit was up here.

Leaving that would mean being surrounded by dead ends in every direction.

“…”

After descending the last flight of stairs, they arrived at the deepest depths.

It felt so much different from when they had been looking down from above. But that was not too surprising since 250 meters was larger than a domed stadium. This was the same as a sports field looking so much bigger from the stands than on TV.

Yes, Hamazura Shiage now stood on the stage. He was no longer an outsider looking in.

“Oh, dear. You actually showed up. What a shame.”

He lasted one second.

His knees suddenly dropped to the ground. He could not keep his shoulders at the same height and his lost strength would not return.

“Wha—!?”

It was the ghost woman.

Was she a beneficial or a harmful?

She had left that tunnel far too bloody to claim she was trying to escape Academy City because she disliked conflict. If anything, she felt more like a vengeful spirit that refused to let anyone leave the city.

She looked like a Western doll with her long blonde twintails and light blue dress. She did not actually punch or kick him. Simply seeing her out of the corner of his eye had done critical damage to him.

A rusty-smelling liquid dripped from his eyes and nose.

He was trying to scream and flip over onto his back, but he was actually curled up and unable to move.

Encountering her meant death.

That was far too sinister a thing to be connected with a simple equals sign like that.

“It is no use.”

The ghost woman walked without audible footsteps. She moved herself from the corner of his vision to the center.

“No one is talking about anything as silly as defending against something with a shield or dodging a projectile with super speed. ''From the moment you see my face,'' the attack is complete. If I so much as casually stand in the corner of your vision, I can do continual damage without you even noticing my presence.”

He realized the strange things had always happened when the ghost woman spoke to him. And why had she turned the lights on in that tunnel? Because it was more convenient for her.

If you saw a ghost while driving, you would crash.

If your face, hands, or feet were missing in a ghost photo, you would find unnatural wounds or marks on your body.

Did this mean she even artificially reproduced those aspects of a ghost? He did not want to believe it because it would mean there was nothing he could do.

“Hamazu—!?”

“You noticed? You must have sharper senses.”

The track suit girl quickly pulled him close, but the ghost woman did not seem to care.

Besides, if seeing her really did mean death, then Takitsubo would have been killed too, but she was fine.

“But I am not talking about anything as poorly-defined as a sixth sense for ghosts. Do you have a power related to AIM Diffusion Fields?”

“There’s no AIM Diffusion Field around you? No, some strong but invisible power is scattering that weaker field.”

“It is known as High Voltage Cutting,” said the ghost woman. “The principle may be similar to the shock diamonds seen in a rocket engine’s flame or the cavitation of air bubbles created around a propeller. The constant emission of a powerful energy will create irregular waveforms and images while it interferes with itself.”

“Gh!? What energy???”

“You can find energy everywhere.” Her tone was light, so understanding how it worked must not have helped avoid its effects. “The carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide you thoughtlessly spread around forms acid rain when it bonds with the moisture in the air. You can acquire electricity simply by sticking two electrodes into a fruit, you know? Copper and zinc are such necessities that you can find them anywhere. Using that, you can produce hydrogen gas in addition to electricity. I only need to absorb power from a ''civilization battery'' the size of a city or even greater. That is enough for me to construct a single outlier point within that stable energy.”

“…”

“What are the common types of haunted locations? Old homes full of drafts, cliffs and caves eroded by the waves, and mountain roads late at night. They are always full of ''noise'', such as static electricity, pressure differences, the creaking of rusty doors, or the rustling of the trees in the wind. Have you ever heard a ghostly voice in the crackle of excess electricity or the roar of hydrogen gas being ignited? I can exist as I am wherever human civilization exists. If you wish to kill me, you must destroy your very way of life. On a global scale.”

This was too much.

He could not understand her explanation. And even if he thought he did, it still did not tell him how to destroy her.

Takitsubo gasped and spoke while holding onto him.

“I get that the constant use of a massive amount of unseen energy would eventually create something unnatural. But if seeing you is deadly, how do you choose specific targets to—?”

She trailed off.

She had seen something out of the corner of her eye, but not the artificial ghost this time. A unified set of colors could be seen peeking out of at them from a gap in the door to one of the freight train’s containers.

''They were small children wearing gym clothes and some kind of device. There were more than just ten or twenty of them.

''All of them were a part of the ghost experiment.

The children must have seen the ghost woman as they nervously spied out. And they seemed to be expectantly waiting to see if she would repel these unknown intruders. They did not know. They had not been told what they were being used for. Simply viewing a ghost photo was harmful and the longer you viewed it, the more damage it did. She embodied that power so perfectly that she had eliminated so many dark side elites.

Yet she had managed to accurately select one out of the many candidates.

That was like shooting the apple off someone’s head. Without explaining any of it to the children who had those sensors attached to them.

“…”

The delinquent boy clenched his teeth.

He could barely move, she held his life in her hand, and he had no idea how to fight back. He had to avoid angering her if at all possible. He understood that, but he still shouted up at her.

“You scum!!”

“Call me what you wish. In fact, I see it as a compliment.”

The ghost woman who resembled a fairy tale princess held her palm out toward him. He only had to see her impossible presence for her to attack, so that gesture was meaningless.

But then her eyes turned unnaturally away from him.

To the side.

A spare container sitting near the train was sliced in two. Something had dropped down from far above like a bolt of lightning.

A red figure wielded a thick machete made of heavy metal.

The android wore a racing swimsuit colored the orange and black of an insect. The bangs of her long crimson hair were cut straight across and she had a slender build.

Cartoony flowers were displayed in her mechanical eyes.

“Smug face.”

“Hello, hello,” said a twig of an old man in a blue jumpsuit and lab coat. “I hate to interrupt when you seem so busy, but I must insist.”

The ghost woman shrugged.

“Were you hoping to use the train? I thought you were one of the harmfuls who would remain in the city and resist to the bitter end.”

“I have no interest in those categories forced onto the dark side from the outside. All I care about is continuing my research. Academy City was a wonderful environment for that, but if that has changed, I need to leave and search out a more comfortable place.”

“You can see me, can’t you?”

“You should be able to tell by observing my eye movements.”

“And you know what that means?” She gave a suggestive glance over at the machine that had arrived with him. “In case you were unaware, I am capable of causing malfunctions in mechanical lenses and sensors just as well as in the human body. Ghost photographs are a result of ghosts interfering in optical machinery, are they not? That might be your masterpiece, but isn’t it presumptuous to assume she can wield her full power against me?”

She remained untouchable. She could kill someone just by placing herself in the corner of their vision and machines could not do anything to her either. Did she have no blind spots?

“Yes, I imagine so.”

But the old man did not seem to mind.

That mysterious old man ''known as a Kihara'' was not bothered that she held his life in her hand.

“You are the strongest when it comes to an individual. Looking at deadliness alone, you might outdo the #3 and the #2.”

“…”

Evidently, even ghosts could find something to be ominous.

This world may have been infected with a disease that caused all bad premonitions to come true.

“But in this specific location, I believe you too will find you cannot wield your full power.”

“What are you—gah!!!!????”

He had given her plenty of warning, but she suddenly arched her back and then froze unnaturally in midair. An ominous straining sound continued on and on as her body grew distorted. She bent and stretched, almost like a face pressed against a wall of glass.

Something was happening.

Hamazura had thought the ghost woman was an intangible being, like a mist or apparition. But she was not. She clearly had a spine to strain, muscles to cry out in pain, and organs to writhe unnaturally.

Then a bizarre creaking and cracking noise came from her. Her volume shrank more and more like she was being crushed in from all sides. The old man was holding something up in his special engineering glove. It looked like an empty candy box, but it was not. It had a small pinhole at the very top. The ghost woman was sucked into that small hole like a liquid or a gas. Hamazura did not want to imagine what things were like inside there. He could only say one thing in a daze.

“A pinhole…camera?”

“High Voltage Cutting? I see, a strange theory, but she is still a form of unstable energy. And all energy will move from high to low—unstable to stable. This is enough to break down her form and burn in her image.”

The old man let go of the candy box.

He had the look of a mischievous child who had just realized he could create his own spark show by sticking a metal clip in the microwave.

“This is the appropriate choice for a ghost photo, don’t you think? A digital camera just wouldn’t fit the aesthetic.”

After dropping it to the cold concrete, he crushed it below his heel. He did not even glance down at the flattened box.

“''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.''” He tapped on his lower back. “Surely you didn’t think a construction company building a secret tunnel out of the city was enough to earn a name like that. With something like her around, you really should have thought of a different possibility.”

“Wh-what?”

Hamazura felt like the unnatural “curse” had weakened, but he still could not bring himself to get up from the ground. The old man only now seemed to have realized that there was another person here reaching for the plank of Carneades.

Hamazura knew any attention on him would only lead to disaster.

Kihara Hasuu smiled.

“Let me make one thing clear. There is a member of the Board who built a vast fortune by doing unofficial construction work for the dark side, but he knows nothing of this. This massive underground structure just appeared out of the blue one day.”

“…?”

Out of the blue?

Hamazura had operated construction machinery before, so he knew how absurd that was. Did that old man have any idea how long it would take to dig out a hole of this size?

But the old man appeared to be serious.

Deadly serious.

“''The Vanishing Tunnel does not actually exist.''”

Hamazura had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

It made no sense. If that were true, then where were they now???

The old man gave the answer.

“Kazakiri Hyouka was not just a single individual. She is more like one piece of the Imaginary Number District, an entire city created from the aggregation of AIM Diffusion Fields. …It all began with a project meant to cut out a portion of that territory and extract it as a new resource. Unlike the microscopic alchemy performed in the particle accelerator, this would have been on the macro scale and cost very little. But not even the group of researchers who guided all that power through the city could have predicted it would take this form. ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' is such a dramatic name. In truth, it was a major failure that needed to be covered up. Everyone involved was at their wits’ end.” He tapped his lower back again. “A nonexistent pathway unofficially connected Academy City to the world outside, increasing the risk of the outer world’s collapse through cultural exchange and technological contamination. The entire world very well could have been destroyed from this single point. While the researchers had hoped to extract materials from the Imaginary Number District, whatever came from there might have transformed the outside world into something truly grotesque. …Yes, that the world still exists as it does now was no more than ''dumb luck''. It was nothing we did on our end. Kazakiri Hyouka and the other inhuman monsters simply showed no interest in that. If something had occurred to them and they had tried it, the world would have ended.”

“You mean…” Takitsubo replied since she had a better understanding of things related to AIM. “You were researching the exact opposite of that ghost? A ghost made from powerful energy and an aggregation of weak powers are opposites, so when they came together, it caused the ghost to malfunction… You were trying to extract inorganic materials from that unseen city, weren’t you?”

“Hard to say if that research was a step forward or a step back. Like I said, they failed. They could not control it, so even the remains of their project you see here cannot be erased. I believe the natural half life was about 12,000 years. In the worst case, the Imaginary Number District could have been converted into real numbers, crushing Academy City in the process. I think the project could have found success if they could have cut off a piece at a workable size and found a way to control it. In that sense, that ghost really is the strongest as an individual and an enviable success.”

Now even Hamazura had a vague idea why the ghost woman had suddenly malfunctioned.

They could not be in the same place.

Two ghosts could not coexist. Just like installing two different pieces of security software on the same computer would cause a conflict.

“It was still a risky gamble, though. The odds were low, but if the tunnel ''had lost'', this temporary space itself would have vanished and we would all have become fossils after being buried deep below the surface.”

Hamazura heard a swooshing sound and looked over to see the android swinging her thick machete next to the old man. Those two had won their bet, so now no one could stop them.

Kihara Hasuu looked away from Hamazura and turned to someone else.

“Now, I have eliminated your bodyguard. Isn’t it time we talked this out like adults?”

===Part 5===

“When’s the train going to leave?”

“Oh, mister just left.”

The children dressed up in gym clothes were whispering to each other while peeking out through the cracked-open door of a freight train container.

But among them…

“Ow, that hurts.”

The girl named Risako spoke up in protest.

But Sodate ignored that and continued tugging on her skinny wrist. The bigger boy was kind of scary when he was not saying anything.

“Listen, Risako.” He spoke quickly while walking through the shadows to stay hidden. He seemed to be speaking to himself more than the girl. “You can still escape. It’s not too late. And once you get to the surface, go tell the grownups about this. I know you can do it.”

“Why? The train is about to leave.”

“You still don’t get it!?” He shouted with his hands on her shoulders. “They make us wear these clothes and devices, they keep us separated from the rest of the city, and they don’t let us go to a normal school. We’re Child Errors, so no one will even notice if we just disappear one day. They’re only raising us because they can use us for something. They’re fattening us up to eat us!”

“But…”

“We don’t even have phones to call for help. ''It isn’t normal to be this isolated.'' That’s why I kept leaving behind some sign of our presence: building blocks, picture books, balls, and so on. I left them outside before the trucks moved on and I made sure to write our names, the trucks’ license numbers, and other information on them! But none of it ever reached the grownups. Our efforts never reached anyone!!”

She had thought he kept stealing things because he was selfish. She had thought he would forget those things in his secret bases because he was sloppy. But that was not it.

“They’re relatively peaceful beneficials? Don’t make me laugh. What’s going to change after we board that train and leave Academy City? There won’t be anyone monitoring them anymore!! Once that happens, I just know he’ll stop holding back. He’ll ''take it even further''! So you at least need to escape before that happens!!”

“Sodate-chan…”

“I’ll give you an opening.” He looked the girl in the eye and spoke clearly. “I won’t let him turn you into a guinea pig no matter what!!”

===Part 6===

A somewhat slender man stepped out. He wore a short-sleeved safari jacket and a rash guard, making him look something like an old-fashioned adventurer, but the webcam attached to the side of his head gave him a more modern outdoorsy look. He appeared to be a different sort of researcher from the old mechanic in a lab coat and jumpsuit.

He was an expert at visiting so-called haunted locations around the world and revealing the scientific cause of the strange phenomena there. But he had apparently also artificially recreated such things to use them for his own purposes.

He grinned and raised his hands in a jocular way. Kihara Hasuu asked him a question with the deadly weapon girl still by his side.

“What is your name?”

“Drencher Kihara Repatri.”

“I see. So that’s you.”

The young man’s eyebrows moved slightly in response to the old man’s impressed tone.

“I didn’t expect someone like you to have heard of me.”

“You are rather…well known.”

The way he said that told Hamazura he did not mean that in a positive way.

This was a confrontation between two harmfuls.

The two researchers ignored the boy and girl entirely as they began a verbal rally. Hamazura knew he could not just sit and watch as a referee or spectator, but he had no way of intervening.

“As you can see, we come from different levels of the dark side. If there is no place for us in Academy City anymore, then leaving the city is a valid choice. But is that plank of Carneades really only big enough for the one group? I think it can support both of us just fine.”

That suggestion seemed surprising…but maybe it wasn’t. It was the ghost woman who had been slaughtering all of the other dark side members trying to reach this point. The android may have attacked Anti-Skill, but she had never actively tried to eliminate her fellow dark siders. She had attacked Hamazura near the counterfeiter’s tents, but if she had been trying to slaughter everyone she came across, the ordinary people in the amusement park would not have escaped alive.

The young man shrugged.

“If that means less fighting, it’s okay with me. Not that I really have a choice, do I?”

“Assuming you have no other trump cards.”

“Then I surrender.”

He did not hesitate to respond. Hamazura was actually surprised to see he was willing to back down to save his own life. Hamazura had gotten the impression that the extreme members of the dark side were willing to sacrifice their own life to achieve their goal.

That surprise scared Hamazura. He could tell he had let the dark side influence him too much. He was afraid the damage would be permanent if he went much further. Once he became a harmful, there was no going back.

“She was my prized project, you know? Frillsand #G, I mean. Now, I knew ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' would pose a challenge, but I never imagined it was a giant mass of AIM Diffusion Fields.”

“Everything has its compatibility. In fact, I could never have won if we were not down here. Keep this girl from working and I’m helpless.”

The crimson-haired girl did nothing to fight the wrinkled hand rubbing her head.

The two men were reaching an agreement. That was not good. Hamazura and Takitsubo had nothing they could offer in a negotiation. At this rate, they would probably each get a bullet in the head as a parting gift. The only other option he could imagine was being made into a guinea pig for some bizarre experiment.

“Oh, right,” casually began the old man.

If he said “what should we do about those two lumps of flesh”, they were screwed. And Hamazura could not predict what that Kihara would do. He felt a terrible squeezing at his heart.

Finally, Kihara Hasuu continued.

“While we can share the train, I will be in charge there. So if you want a ride, it’s only natural you pay a small fare, don’t you think?”

“Do you want my research notes on Frillsand #G?”

“I’m no barbarian. A scientist’s research notes are a part of his very soul. Those are the fruits of your labors, so take them to your grave.”

“Then what do you want?”

“A few of them.”

The old man’s voice was as casual as ever as he pointed his engineering glove in a different direction entirely. He pointed at the gym clothes children who were peeking out from behind cover, without a clue what was being discussed.

“''Just select a few at random.'' I intend to restart my research once things have calmed down, but the rules are different outside the city. I can’t start abducting people off the street until I have a proper base set up, so I could use an initial supply for that settling-in period.”

Hamazura froze as he listened in.

This was the dark side. This was how the elites of that stagnant world thought.

“That Frillsand #G is important to your research, but not so with those lab rats, right? How many experimental observers’ lives were lost until you managed to ''properly reproduce'' that artificial ghost? If your research has entered a stable period, I would assume you are not running through those Child Errors as quickly as you once were.”

“Heh,” laughed Drencher Kihara Repatri.

He weakly lowered his raised hands. He must have decided that was no longer necessary. He too had seen the darkness, so he spoke with the same look in his eyes as the old man.

“It’s true those are all Child Errors. And however they would be treated in the ordinary world, we all know exactly what that term means in the dark side. Yes, I gathered them together and invited them into my lab. I made sure to have a plentiful stock of convenient lives that could be spent as I liked if other forms of research were not enough.”

“Then I can have a few?”

“''Go to hell, you son of a bitch.''”

===Part 7===

Several dry gunshots rang out.

===Part 8===

Hamazura Shiage did not understand what had just happened.

“Hamazura!!”

His body still refused to do what it was told, so track suit girl Takitsubo had to push him to the ground.

The young man had pulled out a handgun. It was no more than a small revolver, but he still fired it repeatedly from just a few meters away.

However…

“Ugh…”

“That won’t work,” said the old man.

The android’s crimson hair fluttered while she held her thick machete at the ready with her bare feet planted a step in front of Hasuu. Not only had she deflected all of the bullets, she had used their ricochets as a counterattack.

''No more than a small revolver.

''Something had gone horribly wrong when you started thinking of things in those terms in this country.

The young man had several holes in his upper body and dark red stains spread across his clothes. Doubling over did nothing to help, so he finally collapsed to the ground.

The old man in a jumpsuit and lab coat spoke up in exasperation while the strongest doll protected him.

“They’re just kids. And it’s not like I’m asking for all of them. Just two or three will do.”

“I wanted to…protect them from the dark side scum who think like that,” spat the young man while struggling to breathe down on all fours. He had given up trying to hold his wounds. “But nothing I did above board did anything to help. I couldn’t even get information on where those children were. The only way to fight the dark side…was to become the dark side. I almost laughed when I saw how many people came running to me then, claiming my research was so valuable. When I said I needed children’s lives to do it, they slapped me on the shoulder and agreed to it all. While happily sipping on a glass of the year’s finest red with their other hand. This city is rotten to the core.”

“Aren’t you Drencher Kihara Repatri?”

“Claiming to be a Kihara was the quickest way to get what I wanted. Ha ha. Those VIPs really were terrified of me.”

“Dammit,” spat out Hamazura Shiage.

The young man saw his own condition as of secondary importance.

It was true the ghost woman had used the children. They had been placed in a position where she could crush their lives at any moment. But had Hamazura ever seen her actually kill a child? What if they had been living in a world where they had to take the charade that far to be believed?

The old man had asked how many experimental observers’ lives were lost until he managed to properly reproduce the artificial ghost, but the young man had never answered.

That was in fact the answer. He had not sacrificed anyone. Not one. He had wanted to gather up those children known as Child Errors and drag them up out of the darkness. There ''were'' adults willing to dive into the dark side for no other reason than that.

There really were.

And yet…

“You’re lying.”

Hamazura suddenly rejected that entire premise. Because if he accepted this, he would have to admit to his own ugliness. Even if saying this would mean revealing he was ugly enough to put up a struggle like this.

“I’ve seen you before. You were at that counterfeiter’s place! You were preparing a passport for yourself so you could abandon those kids and leave the city!!”

“This all would have gone so much more smoothly if that had worked.” The young man smiled weakly. “If I had shown off how I escaped with the passport, Anti-Skill and the dark side’s focus would have turned toward District 23’s airport. Then the children would have had a safer escape underground here. I was never supposed to be down here with them.”

“~ ~ ~!!!!!!”

It felt like they lived in two completely different worlds.

And that young man was definitely the one in the right.

Hamazura felt so pathetic and contemptible for only ever acting to protect him and his girlfriend.

“I know I shouldn’t be asking this.”

The young man looked his way. As if to say it did not matter if he really was a Kihara or not.

His eyes knew how to view the light, but for some reason he now looked to someone as corrupted as Hamazura.

“Maybe it’s for the best if the dark side is destroyed, but please take care of those kids. You’re the only person I can leave them with now. When you saw your girlfriend suffering, you panicked and dumped medical supplies across the ground in your haste. I could see the conscience in your eyes. You had no choice but to fall this far, but you should still have some resistance to the dark side left inside you.”

“Wait, I’m not like that for everyone. Don’t shove this onto me! She’s my girlfriend, so of course I’d work to save her!!”

“Ha ha. Thinking that’s an ‘of course’ is what makes you such an oddity in the dark side. Don’t worry, I know you can do it. Because after falling into this shitty world, you still managed to find someone you care for and you decided to find peace instead of another thrill.”

Hamazura and Takitsubo had first heard of ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' from this man.

Hamazura had been cautious because there was no righteousness in the dark side and the man must have had his own reasons.

Was this why?

Had it been some insurance, just in case? Instead of worrying about his own survival, he had wanted some insurance for after he died.

Yet he had also slaughtered the dark sider people rushing toward this exit.

All because he could not let any harm come to the children as those people fought each other. He had rushed down a dark path to prevent a mere possibility.

But on Hamazura and Takitsubo’s way here, hadn’t the ghost woman glanced their way after slaughtering everyone else and then left, as if sparing them?

“Why did you do all this?”

That was the only question Hamazura could find.

That was not something to say to a dying man. He knew that. But after letting the dark side corrupt him while he worked so hard to ensure his and his girlfriend’s survival, this answer was too pure and upright to accept.

“How could you throw away your own life over this!? When you get down to it, those kids are just strangers! How could a goddamn harmful go this far just because you ‘wanted to save them’!? How!? Tell me!?”

The young man smiled.

There was already blood dripping from the corners of his lips.

“Do you need a reason to protect someone? Of course you don’t.”

That was the end of it.

Time stopped for him with the smile still on his lips.

He had no reason. He did not know why. And he had rushed in to save those children without ever finding a reason.

Hamazura Shiage had to admit defeat.

“A…”

The loser boy clenched his teeth. He moved his battered body, swiped the bloody handgun and some ammo from the young man, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

Losers had their own etiquette to follow.

That scummy old man was still here. Hamazura was not going to let him trample on the young man’s victory.

“Aaaneriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!”

A dull kachunk echoed through the circular space.

The support AI had taken control of the train and shifted it out of standby, so it slowly began to move.

The turntable had tracks in twelve directions, but he knew where to send it.

He just had to remember what the card-sized hard drive labeled Lifeline had said.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

In other words…

(Hours and minutes. If I apply that to an analog clock…)

“Send it down the five o’clock track!!”

The train took off with so many children in gym clothes on board.

That had been his top priority.

“Is justice contagious these days?” asked the old man with the look of someone viewing a crazy person.

He had already proven that the gun would not work, so he gave Hamazura a look of partial pity now that he had inherited that defeated weapon.

“You risked your life for this, but to no avail. Look, not all of them were onboard. They must have run in fear from the very person who would have saved them.”

“Hamazura, two of them were left behind. We can’t just leave them here.”

A boy and a girl in gym clothes were holding hands a short distance away.

What had they thought when they learned the truth behind that young man’s satisfied smile?

Especially when their own actions had worked against him.

“Well, those two will suffice. I will be taking them as a souvenir. Any more than this would have been a waste of food anyway.”

“Shut up,” spat out Hamazura.

He really should not have been doing this. He had come here to escape to safety. It had been clear from the very beginning that he could not be a great hero or brave warrior. This selfish choice here might put himself and his girlfriend in danger.

But.

Even so.

A dying man had left this with him. He had been reminded what it meant to do the right thing. There were lives here he could save. He could redo things. And most of all, his girlfriend was watching.

He was done being pathetic. He gathered strength in his sweaty body and stood up under his own power again. He had to.

“Maybe you’re a Kihara and an android.”

His goal was to run away?

No, sometimes a man had to stand up and speak his mind.

“But I’ll take you on, you goddamned dark siders!!!!!!”

He knew it was possible.

He had just seen a man stay true to this way of life.

He could reclaim his humanity. He must have learned something from what he saw here.

===Part 9===

Of course, Hamazura could never actually hit the crimson-haired android by firing the 9mm handgun at random. He knew she would deflect the bullets with her thick machete and fill him with holes.

So he did something else instead.

“Aneri!!”

A giant shape suddenly moved right next to the racing swimsuit girl.

A wheel loader used to stack up the railroad-sized containers was being remotely controlled.

“Move.”

What was that machete even made of? She did not even look in that direction as she swung her weapon and sliced apart the snowplow-looking piece of machinery. Even though she was not using any rapid vibrations or heat.

But Hamazura used that moment to pull on his girlfriend’s hand and move from there.

This was a vast circular space, but it was not an empty colosseum.

It had concrete columns just like an underground common utility duct and it had various equipment needed for operating and maintaining the trains, all located where it would not get in the way of the turntable and the twelve directions of track. Transformers were surrounded by a fence, a prefab hut had been made into a control room, giant jacks and a carwash were prepared for maintenance purposes, and more.

Aneri had directly operated the freight train, so he felt safe assuming she could operate all of the equipment here.

He pulled his girlfriend close while hiding behind a concrete column and whispering to his phone.

“Aneri, can you directly hijack that hunk of junk?”

No response.

He took that as a no. This did not sound like it was an issue of building up to that or setting something up in advance. That android was immune to cyber attacks on some level he did not understand.

(That means the only option is to destroy her the old-fashioned way!!)

“Hamazura, we can’t hide here forever. If she stops focusing on us, she’ll go after those children. Villains always go for the easiest target.”

“I know that.”

Takitsubo kept trying to wipe the sweat from her brow, but something was not right. The moxibustion should have relieved her symptoms to an extent, but that treatment might not be working as much anymore.

He was worried, but he could not stop now. He hated that fact.

“But using ourselves as bait will put us at risk. Are you prepared for that, Takitsubo?”

“Ask any more stupid questions and I’ll slap you.”

“Okay, it’s time to win your heart all over again!!”

They both ran out from behind the concrete column.

Their eyes met the ones with pupils mechanically expanding and contracting, but they stayed strong this time.

===Part 10===

Ladybird had a lock on two targets.

She walked barefoot across the floor and accurately obeyed her instructions, but she also had a question.

Why were the children necessary?

Kihara Hasuu – her Sensei – was researching androids. He had already successfully created one, so he no longer needed to capture biological humans to dissect and observe them. This disagreement appeared to be over ownership of the Child Errors (she failed to realize it was her education by that true Kihara that led her to use the word “ownership” in this context), but why was the old man so insistent on this?

That unfortunate research was a thing of the past.

She was an android built from purely mechanical parts, but she could use an esper power. That meant no more human specimens were needed for esper development experiments. They only had to mess with machines from now on. The Child Errors no longer needed to be captured and used up.

She thought that was a wonderful thing. She could not believe the people who still clung to the old system that required humans to use other humans. Did they wish to protect the status given to them by the current Level system? If they truly believed their fight was just, then they were beyond reasoning with. Machines were not the only ones that could have their memory data rewritten. Humans could have their feelings and thoughts falsified as well.

So she would bring an end to it all.

She was fighting here to end the misfortune and tragedies caused by the esper development program.

“Ohhhh!!”

The boy raised a meaningless battle cry, ran in, and repeatedly fired his handgun. She only had to block those shots with her machete.

But he had apparently learned how she fought.

She tried to hit him with the ricochets, but they refused to hit. When she deflected a bullet back, it would follow the same straight trajectory. Placing a single piece of plywood in the middle would change things. A bullet’s force was determined by its muzzle velocity. The force of the ricochet would generally be lower. That was obvious enough since bullets were not constantly accelerating like a rocket or missile. So he could set it up so he could shoot her through an obstacle, but she could not break through it on the way back.

Her use of ricochets was similar to Accelerator’s reflection, but all her machete did was knock the bullet back. She could not ''include the actual vector in that''.

That said…

(I doubt someone with such a stupid face could do this. He must be receiving assistance with the calculations.)

She considered jumping. Lifting both feet from the ground was usually a bad idea in combat, but not so with her. With her android specs, she could kick off of one column to the next and attack from the air.

She heard the loud roar of an engine while dealing with the bullets.

It appeared to come from a forklift.

“Aneri, surround the kids! I don’t know where that old man got off to, but don’t let him get close!! If he tries it, run him over!!”

“Don’t get distracted.”

He could have gotten a hit in on her by sending the forklift in from the side while firing on her from the front. Not that a blow like that would be enough to destroy her frame.

She swung the thick machete in her right hand while gathering her strength in the space between her eyebrows.

That was how she aimed.

A blast of wind blew away the obstacles between her and Hamazura Shiage. It was more like they were obliterated by an explosion than swept away by wind.

“An esper power!?” shouted the boy.

“It looked to be Level 3 or higher,” said the girl.

She no longer had to worry about the gunfire now that the line of fire was clear. He must have known the risk of ricochets was back because he stopped attacking and hid behind a nearby column, but that was no defense. She could charge in and slice through the column and his torso behind it with a single horizontal sweep of her blade.

She had enough time to reach her other hand to her thigh, pull out the bottle, and take a drink of the discharge machine oil.

A dull boom burst out.

She was only an android modeled after the structure of the human body, but the materials used for her skeleton, muscles, and everything else were bizarre dark side tech. If she wanted to, her horsepower could rival a V12 engine at max RPMs.

But even as she chose the correct action, her mechanical head was filled with questions.

She had used a wind power.

But hadn’t she used fire during her previous clash with these people? And what about the time before that?

Androids had the same structure as humans, so a single android should only have a single power. Or could she do what humans could not because she was a machine?

(Sensei?)

===Part 11===

A column of reinforced concrete was sliced through as easily as tofu or thin paper.

Not horizontally or diagonally – vertically and all the way through. After kicking from column to column to gain height, she had apparently dropped down like lightning. She had a human form, but she could perform superhuman movements.

Hamazura Shiage had tried to jump to the side just beforehand, but he ended up tumbling into a roll.

It was not his torso sliced through along with the column. It was a gas drum kept on hand for the facility’s auxiliary power generator.

He grimaced at the pain in his hips as he continued rolling and pulled the trigger repeatedly.

Not even Ladybird could deflect bullets that hit the concrete ground and sent sparks flying.

The vaporizing gasoline ignited into explosive flames that swallowed up the entire racing swimsuit silhouette.

However…

“No, Hamazura! It didn’t work!!”

“Tch!!”

He clicked his tongue while the track suit girl ran over from elsewhere and pulled him to his feet. A black figure was displayed on the other side of that fiery screen. She showed no sign of collapsing or writhing in pain.

Had she used that previous wind power to affect how the flames spread?

He hoped so. If she was simply this tough, he could not imagine how to defeat her.

“How ''do'' you defeat an android anyway? Strangle her or stab her in the heart, she’s still a machine. That won’t stop her!!”

Could he break her motherboard? Or pull out her battery? But he had no idea how many she had or where in her slender body they were located.

The roaring flames were sliced apart. A horizontal sweep of the heavy metal machete conquered the orange barrier. The barefoot android stepped through entirely unscathed. There was no sign of discoloration on her crimson hair, white skin, or orange and black racing swimsuit.

“Something isn’t right,” said Takitsubo Rikou with eyes seemingly more robotic than the machine’s. What was she looking at right now? “An android that uses esper powers is conceivably possible. Mechanical processing may be able to ‘observe’ the waves or particles like a human brain does. And if you developed that far enough, you might be able to purposefully select between different supernatural phenomena. But this wavelength is simpler than that.”

“You mean how she switches between powers?” spat out Hamazura. “That container base in the garbage pile was their lab, right? Then I get why that old man wants those kids so bad. Even if I don’t know exactly ''how'' he would use them.”

Now, why were they able to spend so long discussing this?

The delinquent boy made sure to keep his gun aimed, but the android in question was only tilting her head.

A dark liquid was dripping from her eyes and nose.

He had seen that before. Immediately after she had been hit by the hakama girl and fought back with her fire power.

“Oh, dear.”

Kihara Hasuu’s voice reached them from somewhere, but it was echoing too much to tell where it came from. Hamazura would have shot the man if he saw him.

“Is it that time already? This is why I wanted to stock up sooner rather than later.”

“Hey.” Hamazura shouted at the unseen man. “Isn’t that cheating? You can’t really call her an android if that’s what you’re doing.”

The boy watched as the girl in the orange and black racing swimsuit held her head and doubled over.

A low straining sound came from her.

Then her back opened along the line from her nape to her tailbone.

The clasp holding together the X-shaped band at the center of the swimsuit’s back popped open and the supports were released in four directions.

Then her soft skin opened wide while supported at her nape.

Her opened back almost looked like a steam locomotive’s boiler or a furnace from hell. The fact that it was smooth human skin instead of a thick metal door gave it the sinister appearance of an insect’s shell opening up.

The top half of her swimsuit fell out of place, but her chest was not visible.

Her long red hair dropped down to cover it up.

She had planted her hands and feet on the ground like a beast.

Something translucent crawled out of her. It looked like a long, narrow blade or like a wriggling snake. It would grab something, drag it inside her, and cut it away. It was an automatic extraction organ.

Hamazura knew what it was for.

“I saw the junk those trash collectors were taking back after searching through those piles of abandoned items. A fridge was full of some brownish filth.”

He felt nauseated just remembering it.

He grimaced as he viewed that monster.

“''It was stuffed full of corpses with the contents of their heads removed.'' When those trash collectors were searching out fridges and washing machines, they weren’t selling them to used appliance stores. They were opening up bloodstained boxes packed full of still-usable organs. And they all came from your lab, didn’t they!?”

“Well, the ordinary corpses were apparently disposed of in District 10’s slums, but there are a lot of people willing to buy up ones fresh enough to make use of their parts.”

Ladybird was not an android with esper powers. She was as harmful as they came. She was a machine that would devour people’s brains when necessary. In Hamazura’s opinion, that meant she did not fit the definition of an android.

“This is a completely different approach from the Rensa model of esper cyborg. Instead of a cyborg made by ''giving a brain a body'', Ladybird-kun ''is a body given a brain.''” Hasuu sounded like he was introducing his favorite grandchild. “Cellulose nanofiber is a carbon material gathering attention for its use in making wires and bulletproof materials, but the point is we can create delicate wires even thinner than the cranial nerves. But unlike a biological brain, leaving them in their active state causes them to automatically replicate and they will try to forcibly fold themselves up for space if they run out room in the skull. The cerebrum’s frontal lobe is especially troublesome. So ''a foreign object'' must be introduced to constantly provide just the right amount of damage to ensure the brain remains the size I want it. Her power changes each time a new ''foreign object'' is introduced, but that is due to the change in the rejection and damage pattern. You can think of that as a simple idiosyncrasy.”

“Sen…sei?”

A grinding sound came from Ladybird while she seemed to be searching for something. However the old researcher described it, a human brain was apparently a necessary part for her to run. Her movements were noticeably stiff and awkward as she pursued that poison on her own.

“Sensei…but you said this research would help. You said the spread of androids would mean no more human specimens were needed for the esper development.”

“The ladybird – another name for the ladybug – might look humorous, but it is in fact a ravenous carnivore. You have heard that they are good to have around because they eat aphids, haven’t you?”

“Gh…kh.”

“And there are a lot of insects that mimic ladybugs. That includes a type of darkling beetle and cockroach, both kinds of bugs people might not normally want around. But that is not actually a type of protective coloration. Ha ha. Instead of trying to blend into their natural surroundings or avoid their predators, that coloration might actually be used to make humans like them.”

How deep did the dark side go?

How disgusting could the dark said get?

“So don’t you see?”

Its attacks were indiscriminate, like a cannibal insect.

The developer spoke to what looked like a lovely girl. And he seemed to be enjoying it immensely.

“''That is the perfect name for you.''”

===Part 12===

text> @I thought there was a problem with the world.

text> @I thought it was wrong for @humans to use @humans for their research in this city.

text> But @I could climb onto the examination table instead.

text> @I can be repaired or remade as many times as necessary.

text> Since my body was made identically to a @human’s, @I would be able to use an esper power as well. Pieces of my body could be freely added or removed, so @I could be examined inside and out more easily than a @human and @I could be modified as they saw fit.

text> No more sacrifices would be necessary for the esper development research.

text> That is why @I fought.

text> @I thought @Sensei’s research was a wonderful thing.

''“You know, Ladybird-kun, the term android signifies an artificial human built with an engineering approach. Based on that definition, it seems appropriate to me for a completed android to behave like a human.”

text> @Sensei’s words were like a shining light of hope.

text> @I wondered if @I really was good enough.

text> But @I was happy as long as @I could be of some use. @I think that kind of feeling is not something a simple machine could feel.

text> Does that mean @I am somehow @human?

text> The @humans that @I have seen are like that. They do not hesitate to make inefficient choices without even considering cost performance.

text> That is why @I find @humans to be so incredible.

text> @I have not spoken much with any other than @Sensei, but @I know that is because @androids cannot be made public yet. But @I love the @humans that @I see from a distance.

text> @I will build a path to a brighter future for them – a path to a happier world – so @I cannot allow someone to destroy all that just because they do not understand. So I will not let anyone interfere. Anyone who claims it is right to harm @people cannot be allowed to trample on the future @I can bring them.

text> So…

text>And yet…

===Part 13===

===Part 14===

===Part 15===

===Part 16===

===Part 17===

===Part 18===

===Map===

===Between the Lines 4===

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume3_Chapter3|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume3_Epilogue}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter4

2020-11-20T20:53:16Z

SNovah: /* Part 8 */

{{Incomplete|parts=12|tparts=19}}
==Chapter 4: The Demon Lord’s Young — the_LIGHT.==

===Part 1===

“Where have you been, Risako!?”

“Mister, Risako-chan is back!!”

The gym clothes girl laughed when she saw the other children gathered around.

“Eh heh heh. A doggy and an older girl saved me.”

They must have been preparing for another move because all the trucks had their engines running. But they had waited until they had found the girl with red hair done up like candy. She was relieved. Having a home to return to was a wonderful thing.

“''A doggy,'' huh?” said the artificial ghost called Frillsand #G.

“…”

Her comment made the young researcher fall silent for a bit.

His name was Drencher Kihara Repatri.

That family name was so well known in the dark side that it had become a more powerful classification than beneficial or harmful. The man who bore that name sighed softly to help refocus his mind.

“There is a chance we’ve been located, but we’re faster at the moment. If we move before they catch up, we can reach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' without issue.”

“Do you really think this world will allow any of this to go ‘without issue’?”

“It’s our job to make sure it happens.”

The adults exchanged their views with their voices too low for the excited children to hear.

But a certain boy kept his voice low for a different reason.

“Risako.”

“Oh, Sodate-chan.”

The tall boy in the same kind of gym clothes looked troubled for some reason. In fact, he looked close to tears. Risako tilted her head, thinking he was afraid she would get after him about the ball and chemical soap, but this was different.

“So you came back,” he said.

“Eh?”

“I was hoping maybe you were gone for good.”

He had wanted that? Did he hate her that much? Risako’s face clouded over, but this was again different. He shook his head and explained.

He was the only one of the children who had ''started to question these motion sensors they wore for some kind of experiment.''

“Because then at least you might have been safe.”

===Part 2===

He was afraid of screwing it up, so he started by drawing marks on her back with a marker.

“Hamazura, that tickles.”

“Stay still.”

The old book had a brush-drawn diagram with no perspective or attempt to make it look three-dimensional. The indicated locations of the organs were clearly not right. Maybe it was like the difference between an aerial photograph of the clouds and the isobars on the weather forecast map. He wondered if this was what all traditional Japanese medicine was like as he drew Xs on his girlfriend’s body. She had even removed her bra and was holding her chest in her hands while showing him her smooth back. He thought his heart was going to burst every time she squirmed from the ticklishness. Even he knew that reaction was inappropriate given the circumstances. Once he finished that, it was finally time to start. He faced the girl while she lay face down on the container lab’s work table like she was sunbathing.

The moxa used for the moxibustion was like fluffy cotton, but he actually had to set it on fire.

It felt wrong doing that on her soft skin and he could even permanently scar her if he screwed it up.

“…”

His fear came to the forefront now that it was time to do it, but this was the only way to help her with the fever.

He fought the desire to shut his eyes and placed a small pile of “fuel” on her soft skin. He worked at the lighter with a trembling hand, but he kept failing. Once he finally had a small flame, he slowly moved it in close.

“Nh.”

“A-are you okay, Takitsubo?”

“I’m fine.”

He continued the process a few more times. He had his doubts, but when she wiped the sweat from her brow, no more sweat beaded up. It did seem to be working.

He could not thank the hakama girl enough.

He could not waste this chance she had given them, so they had to approach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''.

That card-sized hard drive had been labelled with the word “Lifeline”.

Aneri must have decided the data would be too small to see on his phone because she displayed it a flat screen monitor in the lab instead. It was a series of numbers.

It looked like a calculation sheet made with spreadsheet software, but even that was enough to make the delinquent boy’s head hurt. Maybe it was important data, but he had no idea what he was supposed to focus on.

“This looks like materials data,” said Takitsubo after peering at it from the side.

“Materials?”

“Whether they’re beneficial or harmful, the dark side does a lot of research.” She pointed at one of the numbers. “They’re also building a lot of military weapons. But doesn’t it seem odd? Academy City is a mass consumer and it only has so much land since it’s surrounded by walls. You can’t just dig into the ground here and find oil or ores. So where do they get all those materials from?”

“Where? Isn’t that what the cooperative institutions around the world are for? They can work out a deal with them.”

“But how can they do that without leaving any record of it?”

She pointed at another number.

If a citizens group monitoring the flow of money and materials could reveal a secret, then it had never been part of the dark side to begin with.

“Look at this. The dark side is using far more materials than the total amount brought in from outside the city. Cutting off the fat and redistributing it to themselves would not be enough for this. The amount the dark side uses is several times larger. This would show up in the records no matter what you did. Important people like the Board of Directors and its Chairman can only cover up so much. This is too much. It’s well past what you could hide by cooking the books.”

“But then…”

He trailed off when Aneri opened a new window. A single point on a map of Academy City was colored in red. There was a secret there.

“They have an entrance and exit that doesn’t leave any records,” said the track suit girl while viewing the screen.

There were several files that appeared to be saved from message boards and social media pages. Reading through them showed a certain point in common.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

Takitsubo pointed at that bizarre statement.

“There is a way of reaching it and we should see hints of it in the rumors told around the city. Like the ‘!’ signs, a deadly train, kidnappers at the amusement park, babies in the coin lockers, or an underground construction zone where you can dump anything you don’t want found. But none of that gets at the real truth.”

“You mean…?”

“Academy City doesn’t promote recycling so much just because it wants to make the most of its limited resources. ''Sending things back to be recycled over and over again masks how much materials are actually being used.'' They can’t have an investigation revealing that we dump out several times more trash than materials we take in, right? That would violate conservation of mass. So they needed to make it hard to compare those two values. It’s a form of laundering.”

Why was that sleight of hand necessary? How did they reach the impossible result of more waste than raw materials? What was this secret that no one wanted getting out?

''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.

This was the identity of that term they had heard so many times today.

“It…isn’t closed off? There’s a secret route through the walls surrounding Academy City!?”

That could not be. For better or for worse, Academy City was cut off from the outside world. Those thick walls prevented their tech from spreading to the world at large because that could lead to disorder and chaos.

Hamazura used to be part of Skill Out. That was a group of the boys and girls who had dropped out of Academy City but had nowhere to go since they could not get out of the city.

They had been trapped. They had dropped out of school, but those walls had kept them here. If you wanted to take a trip outside the city for just a few days, you needed to submit a ton of paperwork and receive a nanodevice injection. Because if you tried leave without using the official gates, you could be killed to prevent a data leak. There had been burglars and muggers in the back alleys, but none of those expert thieves had dared go anywhere near the walls.

If there was a way to freely move in and out, they may not have felt so much pressure. They could have made a place for themselves.

Their former leader, Komaba Ritoku, might not have had to fight and die.

“…”

But the dark side had torn down that number one assumption like it was nothing.

That counterfeiter had stored that information on a card-sized hard drive labeled “Lifeline”. Had he thought he could use that information to get some dark side bigshots to save him?

He must have never imagined he would instead have his brains blown out by a paparazzo. Hamazura was at the center of all this, but he still did not know if that had been planned or a spontaneous decision.

“It’s deep below Academy City.” Takitsubo Rikou calmly read aloud something on such a large scale that talk of an alternate dimension would have sounded more realistic. “The world’s largest particle accelerator is built directly below the city walls, so people are told that digging in that area could break the accelerator’s seal and expose them to radiation and other risks. That was meant to convince everyone that no one would be dumb enough to try it.”

The diagram they found looked like a puzzle ring. It seemed to carefully avoid the circular accelerator facility, but this was a tunnel built by the dark side. There was no chance it met all the proper safety standards.

That was the dark side’s lifeline.

They had built it to continue pumping fuel into their illicit research and its construction showed they did not care at all if they brought chaos to the world. It really was the greatest taboo. It was a dark umbilical cord that could wipe out the Kiharas and everyone else if it was cut off.

“I doubt Anti-Skill knows about this,” said Takitsubo. “So they won’t be able to block it off. We can safely escape the city if we use it.”

“…”

The red light displayed by Aneri was in District 10, the city’s biggest slum. The taboo no one wanted was hidden below the district everyone had abandoned.

It was unclear if it had always had this name. They may have changed the name periodically to help hide the truth. All the scattered information was fragmentary witness accounts and some of it would likely be intentional misinformation.

But that taboo’s gaping mouth had sat deep underground all this time.

Like a nightmarish symbol of freedom.

The dot on the map displayed on the small screen had the following name displayed next to it: Vanishing Tunnel.

That was the name of their final destination. Anyone who arrived there was given a ticket to another world.

===Part 3===

They were deep, deep underground in District 10.

Few people would think too much about the layout of the subway tunnels below the city. They might know a track took an unnatural curve at one point, but no one would question the online news article about them running across some kind of ruins during construction.

An underground passageway was surrounded by cold concrete and supported by the pillars positioned at even intervals.

The few fluorescent lights on the walls were not enough to fully sweep away the darkness.

That underground blind spot had become the biggest hot spot in the world. A great many people had gathered there. They had not all arrived along the same route. They had each gathered the hints scattered around the city and started to question the city’s biggest assumption. Academy City was surrounded by thick walls, but it was not in fact sealed off.

The brawny men in work jumpsuits were a courier group called Secret Express. The men and women in dress clothes were Concierge, a group that provided hideouts to meet a criminal’s demands. The girls in plain clothing and hiding their faces with sunglasses and hunting caps may have been an extremely popular idol group. The parade of scum included Controller, who used personal information and fictitious bills to threaten the girls he targeted until he had them in digital chains, and Flare, who left behind harmless powder identical to the real deal in order to confuse criminal investigations.

A ruler of the back alleys was there.

A major corporation’s lawyer was there.

A university headmaster was there.

A major entertainment producer was there.

And a few Kiharas from different fields were there.

All sorts of people flooded that underground passageway. People did not end up on the dark side because they were low class, poor, stupid, or criminal. It took all types. The dark side had reached every class of person equally. From worlds no one knew existed to industries everyone envied.

Some had fallen before making it this far and others had attempted a different route instead. In a way, finding this tunnel and setting foot inside made them the chosen ones.

And.

Every last one of them were obstructed and crushed by a certain figure.

The woman had long blonde twintails and she wore a skintight light blue dress and a long loose skirt.

Frillsand #G was like an impassable wall.

All who challenged her crashed into that wall with the intensity of their challenge. After seeing a few of them turned to hunks of flesh and splattered blood, the others must have started wondering if she literally was a solid wall because all of those dark side members had come to a stop. They were pushed back even though she had not taken a single step.

Of course, the ghost was not going to spare them just because they gave up now.

“Next stop: skewering. Repeat: skewering.”

With a wet sound, a muscular man in black was destroyed from groin to head. But he may have been one of the lucky ones. He was gone before he even knew what had happened to him.

“Please look out for the burning and severing.”

Screams of pain echoed through the tunnel. Before long, the dark side members were fighting amongst themselves too. They appeared to have begun an ugly struggle over the concrete column they could use as a shield. However…

“We will arrive at gouging soon.”

Just as the ghost silently circled behind the column, a wet sound exploded out. The victors and losers of the struggle were all turned to mincemeat together while Frillsand #G looked on in disinterest.

“Ah…gahh,” someone groaned.

It was one of the idol girls. Her bottom half was gone and the bottom of her torso was sticking to the floor like a slug.

“But…why? We found the taboo…so aren’t we part of the dark side too? Can’t we all use…the path out together?”

“I have children to take care of. A lot of them.” Frillsand #G did not even look in her direction. “Inviting all of you in with us would only put them at risk.”

“Just…” It was already too late for her, but the top half of a girl still clawed at the concrete floor. “Just in case? You took people’s lives for no more than that!?”

“Next stop: running over. I repeat: running over.”

With a wet splat, the complaints were silenced.

The ghost seemed to be rejecting the idea that grudges lacked the power to kill.

“The rear guard is an important job,” she said in a singsong voice. “But I cannot let that crybaby see this. Knowing of it and seeing it are two very different things.”

The artificial ghost glanced over at something else.

But she soon lost interest, turned around, and vanished into the darkness.

A mere ten meters away, Hamazura Shiage was hiding behind a column and holding his hand over the track suit girl’s mouth.

If she noticed them, they were dead. He felt like his heart, his breathing, his body odor, and the slight static electricity on his clothing could all give them away. He could not even wipe the unpleasant sweat from his cheek as he desperately waited for time to pass.

That ghost really was an enemy.

She had some kind of plan of her own and had saved them on a whim before, but that did not mean he could trust her. If she had saved them on a whim, then she could also choose to throw them out on a whim. And they only had the one life.

This was worse than a sea of blood.

Flesh and blood had lost any hint of their original form, fingers extended into empty space, facial skin was frozen in a look of agony while plastered to the wall. At this point, they were only “things”, not people. There was no dignity remaining.

Each of them was a dark side member who had arrived at ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' along a different route than him.

Their endless possibilities had been reduced to zero.

Or so it felt to him.

Was this tunnel really the right path? The further they went, the more likely they were to encounter that ghost woman, so he began to wonder if it would be safer to turn back now and return to the surface.

“Pwah.”

His girlfriend escaped his hand. He was holding her from behind, so she leaned her head back to look him in the eye.

“Hamazura, I don’t sense her presence anymore. We can keep going now.”

“…”

“We can’t give up after coming so far. Blindly returning to the surface won’t save us. We’ll never find peace if we don’t go through here.”

“R-right.”

He would have long since broken if he were alone.

But when she pulled on his hand, he managed to work up some small semblance of courage.

Even with the evenly-spaced fluorescent lights, the tunnel was dark. And they had no idea who was in charge of that sparse lighting. What if the ghost could shut off the power? His phone felt all the more important to him now.

“This is a long tunnel.”

“Yeah.”

They were not speaking much anymore.

This was ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'', but did this tunnel really lead toward hope? No matter how far they went, the darkness never went away. As they trudged deeper and deeper, he felt like they had passed a point of no return. Also, who had built this enormous underground facility? Someone must have drawn up the plans, dug the hole, set the foundation, and brought in the rebar and concrete. This was a far bigger project than a bank robber’s hand-dug tunnel into the vault. Such a vast and well-made underground space could not have been built without the involvement of a major construction company.

Who had done it?

It might be a company whose ads he saw on TV every day.

Would all of this come to light one day? But those meaningless thoughts were cut off by Takitsubo.

She had noticed first because she was not holding the light.

“Hamazura, there’s a door.”

“…”

It was a thick metal door.

Just the one door sat at the end of the long, long tunnel. There may have been another route, but he did not recall seeing any other paths branching off along the way.

He slowly approached.

It did not appear to be locked. He doubted there were any grenades or other “gifts” left for them.

But that was not what scared him. He had seen all of those corpses along the way. The sight had left him so terrified he barely had it in him to keep his heart beating. He had started to view their fallen predecessors as no more than a piece of the scenery. Because otherwise that shadowy murder scene would have overwhelmed him too much to continue on.

The taboos were piling up.

He and Takitsubo had started this simply wanting to survive, but they too had been corrupted along the way.

Hamazura Shiage reached his fingers toward the doorknob.

He touched it. He squeezed it.

He turned it.

===Part 4===

A flood of light revealed a world no one was ever meant to see.

“…”

The other world turned out to be a cavernous pit.

This abyss slept deep below the earth, yet it was filled with much more artificial light than the tunnel. That was thanks to the construction lights set up here and there.

It was easily more than 250 meters across and maybe more than twice as deep. The perfectly circular space made of reinforced concrete at the very bottom may have reminded different people of different things.

Some might see it as a common utility duct, a circular colosseum, a switchyard’s turntable, or an underground temple dedicated to a god one must never offer any prayers.

But there was one crucial piece that helped solidify the proper image.

“A train?” muttered Hamazura while peering down over the railing.

It was a turntable.

Concrete columns were installed at even intervals around the edges, but there were none in the central circle. The flat concrete floor had a smaller circle built into it. That would rotate to change the train’s direction. The tracks outside the circle extended in 12 different directions. That made it all look like something else: a giant metal flower.

Yes, there were tracks, signal lights, transformers, maintenance equipment, a control room, and a fifteen-car train in here. It was a freight train.

“That’s the dark side’s lifeline?”

For him and Takitsubo, it was the plank of Carneades that would save their lives.

He doubted that turntable was all of it. There would be a container yard and maintenance zone hidden further out from the center.

They walked along the narrow catwalk built along the circular wall and descended the stairs. There were no corpses in here. Whoever had gotten here first must have used the ghost woman to eliminate any nuisances before they reached this point.

And since the train was still here, that person would still be here.

They shared this space with the slaughterer.

“Hamazura.”

“Don’t worry. I’m with you no matter what.”

“Not that. There’s someone down there. And they’re not alone.”

That was a shock. Takitsubo Rikou could accurately locate people by sensing their AIM Diffusion Field. She could not use that power as well as she used to, but she could still sense it to an extent.

The tension grew.

A single person with a bizarre power was certainly scary, but having a large group approach you brought a different sort of fear. He mentally switched his priorities to at least allowing Takitsubo to escape if things looked bad.

The only exit was up here.

Leaving that would mean being surrounded by dead ends in every direction.

“…”

After descending the last flight of stairs, they arrived at the deepest depths.

It felt so much different from when they had been looking down from above. But that was not too surprising since 250 meters was larger than a domed stadium. This was the same as a sports field looking so much bigger from the stands than on TV.

Yes, Hamazura Shiage now stood on the stage. He was no longer an outsider looking in.

“Oh, dear. You actually showed up. What a shame.”

He lasted one second.

His knees suddenly dropped to the ground. He could not keep his shoulders at the same height and his lost strength would not return.

“Wha—!?”

It was the ghost woman.

Was she a beneficial or a harmful?

She had left that tunnel far too bloody to claim she was trying to escape Academy City because she disliked conflict. If anything, she felt more like a vengeful spirit that refused to let anyone leave the city.

She looked like a Western doll with her long blonde twintails and light blue dress. She did not actually punch or kick him. Simply seeing her out of the corner of his eye had done critical damage to him.

A rusty-smelling liquid dripped from his eyes and nose.

He was trying to scream and flip over onto his back, but he was actually curled up and unable to move.

Encountering her meant death.

That was far too sinister a thing to be connected with a simple equals sign like that.

“It is no use.”

The ghost woman walked without audible footsteps. She moved herself from the corner of his vision to the center.

“No one is talking about anything as silly as defending against something with a shield or dodging a projectile with super speed. ''From the moment you see my face,'' the attack is complete. If I so much as casually stand in the corner of your vision, I can do continual damage without you even noticing my presence.”

He realized the strange things had always happened when the ghost woman spoke to him. And why had she turned the lights on in that tunnel? Because it was more convenient for her.

If you saw a ghost while driving, you would crash.

If your face, hands, or feet were missing in a ghost photo, you would find unnatural wounds or marks on your body.

Did this mean she even artificially reproduced those aspects of a ghost? He did not want to believe it because it would mean there was nothing he could do.

“Hamazu—!?”

“You noticed? You must have sharper senses.”

The track suit girl quickly pulled him close, but the ghost woman did not seem to care.

Besides, if seeing her really did mean death, then Takitsubo would have been killed too, but she was fine.

“But I am not talking about anything as poorly-defined as a sixth sense for ghosts. Do you have a power related to AIM Diffusion Fields?”

“There’s no AIM Diffusion Field around you? No, some strong but invisible power is scattering that weaker field.”

“It is known as High Voltage Cutting,” said the ghost woman. “The principle may be similar to the shock diamonds seen in a rocket engine’s flame or the cavitation of air bubbles created around a propeller. The constant emission of a powerful energy will create irregular waveforms and images while it interferes with itself.”

“Gh!? What energy???”

“You can find energy everywhere.” Her tone was light, so understanding how it worked must not have helped avoid its effects. “The carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide you thoughtlessly spread around forms acid rain when it bonds with the moisture in the air. You can acquire electricity simply by sticking two electrodes into a fruit, you know? Copper and zinc are such necessities that you can find them anywhere. Using that, you can produce hydrogen gas in addition to electricity. I only need to absorb power from a ''civilization battery'' the size of a city or even greater. That is enough for me to construct a single outlier point within that stable energy.”

“…”

“What are the common types of haunted locations? Old homes full of drafts, cliffs and caves eroded by the waves, and mountain roads late at night. They are always full of ''noise'', such as static electricity, pressure differences, the creaking of rusty doors, or the rustling of the trees in the wind. Have you ever heard a ghostly voice in the crackle of excess electricity or the roar of hydrogen gas being ignited? I can exist as I am wherever human civilization exists. If you wish to kill me, you must destroy your very way of life. On a global scale.”

This was too much.

He could not understand her explanation. And even if he thought he did, it still did not tell him how to destroy her.

Takitsubo gasped and spoke while holding onto him.

“I get that the constant use of a massive amount of unseen energy would eventually create something unnatural. But if seeing you is deadly, how do you choose specific targets to—?”

She trailed off.

She had seen something out of the corner of her eye, but not the artificial ghost this time. A unified set of colors could be seen peeking out of at them from a gap in the door to one of the freight train’s containers.

''They were small children wearing gym clothes and some kind of device. There were more than just ten or twenty of them.

''All of them were a part of the ghost experiment.

The children must have seen the ghost woman as they nervously spied out. And they seemed to be expectantly waiting to see if she would repel these unknown intruders. They did not know. They had not been told what they were being used for. Simply viewing a ghost photo was harmful and the longer you viewed it, the more damage it did. She embodied that power so perfectly that she had eliminated so many dark side elites.

Yet she had managed to accurately select one out of the many candidates.

That was like shooting the apple off someone’s head. Without explaining any of it to the children who had those sensors attached to them.

“…”

The delinquent boy clenched his teeth.

He could barely move, she held his life in her hand, and he had no idea how to fight back. He had to avoid angering her if at all possible. He understood that, but he still shouted up at her.

“You scum!!”

“Call me what you wish. In fact, I see it as a compliment.”

The ghost woman who resembled a fairy tale princess held her palm out toward him. He only had to see her impossible presence for her to attack, so that gesture was meaningless.

But then her eyes turned unnaturally away from him.

To the side.

A spare container sitting near the train was sliced in two. Something had dropped down from far above like a bolt of lightning.

A red figure wielded a thick machete made of heavy metal.

The android wore a racing swimsuit colored the orange and black of an insect. The bangs of her long crimson hair were cut straight across and she had a slender build.

Cartoony flowers were displayed in her mechanical eyes.

“Smug face.”

“Hello, hello,” said a twig of an old man in a blue jumpsuit and lab coat. “I hate to interrupt when you seem so busy, but I must insist.”

The ghost woman shrugged.

“Were you hoping to use the train? I thought you were one of the harmfuls who would remain in the city and resist to the bitter end.”

“I have no interest in those categories forced onto the dark side from the outside. All I care about is continuing my research. Academy City was a wonderful environment for that, but if that has changed, I need to leave and search out a more comfortable place.”

“You can see me, can’t you?”

“You should be able to tell by observing my eye movements.”

“And you know what that means?” She gave a suggestive glance over at the machine that had arrived with him. “In case you were unaware, I am capable of causing malfunctions in mechanical lenses and sensors just as well as in the human body. Ghost photographs are a result of ghosts interfering in optical machinery, are they not? That might be your masterpiece, but isn’t it presumptuous to assume she can wield her full power against me?”

She remained untouchable. She could kill someone just by placing herself in the corner of their vision and machines could not do anything to her either. Did she have no blind spots?

“Yes, I imagine so.”

But the old man did not seem to mind.

That mysterious old man ''known as a Kihara'' was not bothered that she held his life in her hand.

“You are the strongest when it comes to an individual. Looking at deadliness alone, you might outdo the #3 and the #2.”

“…”

Evidently, even ghosts could find something to be ominous.

This world may have been infected with a disease that caused all bad premonitions to come true.

“But in this specific location, I believe you too will find you cannot wield your full power.”

“What are you—gah!!!!????”

He had given her plenty of warning, but she suddenly arched her back and then froze unnaturally in midair. An ominous straining sound continued on and on as her body grew distorted. She bent and stretched, almost like a face pressed against a wall of glass.

Something was happening.

Hamazura had thought the ghost woman was an intangible being, like a mist or apparition. But she was not. She clearly had a spine to strain, muscles to cry out in pain, and organs to writhe unnaturally.

Then a bizarre creaking and cracking noise came from her. Her volume shrank more and more like she was being crushed in from all sides. The old man was holding something up in his special engineering glove. It looked like an empty candy box, but it was not. It had a small pinhole at the very top. The ghost woman was sucked into that small hole like a liquid or a gas. Hamazura did not want to imagine what things were like inside there. He could only say one thing in a daze.

“A pinhole…camera?”

“High Voltage Cutting? I see, a strange theory, but she is still a form of unstable energy. And all energy will move from high to low—unstable to stable. This is enough to break down her form and burn in her image.”

The old man let go of the candy box.

He had the look of a mischievous child who had just realized he could create his own spark show by sticking a metal clip in the microwave.

“This is the appropriate choice for a ghost photo, don’t you think? A digital camera just wouldn’t fit the aesthetic.”

After dropping it to the cold concrete, he crushed it below his heel. He did not even glance down at the flattened box.

“''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.''” He tapped on his lower back. “Surely you didn’t think a construction company building a secret tunnel out of the city was enough to earn a name like that. With something like her around, you really should have thought of a different possibility.”

“Wh-what?”

Hamazura felt like the unnatural “curse” had weakened, but he still could not bring himself to get up from the ground. The old man only now seemed to have realized that there was another person here reaching for the plank of Carneades.

Hamazura knew any attention on him would only lead to disaster.

Kihara Hasuu smiled.

“Let me make one thing clear. There is a member of the Board who built a vast fortune by doing unofficial construction work for the dark side, but he knows nothing of this. This massive underground structure just appeared out of the blue one day.”

“…?”

Out of the blue?

Hamazura had operated construction machinery before, so he knew how absurd that was. Did that old man have any idea how long it would take to dig out a hole of this size?

But the old man appeared to be serious.

Deadly serious.

“''The Vanishing Tunnel does not actually exist.''”

Hamazura had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

It made no sense. If that were true, then where were they now???

The old man gave the answer.

“Kazakiri Hyouka was not just a single individual. She is more like one piece of the Imaginary Number District, an entire city created from the aggregation of AIM Diffusion Fields. …It all began with a project meant to cut out a portion of that territory and extract it as a new resource. Unlike the microscopic alchemy performed in the particle accelerator, this would have been on the macro scale and cost very little. But not even the group of researchers who guided all that power through the city could have predicted it would take this form. ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' is such a dramatic name. In truth, it was a major failure that needed to be covered up. Everyone involved was at their wits’ end.” He tapped his lower back again. “A nonexistent pathway unofficially connected Academy City to the world outside, increasing the risk of the outer world’s collapse through cultural exchange and technological contamination. The entire world very well could have been destroyed from this single point. While the researchers had hoped to extract materials from the Imaginary Number District, whatever came from there might have transformed the outside world into something truly grotesque. …Yes, that the world still exists as it does now was no more than ''dumb luck''. It was nothing we did on our end. Kazakiri Hyouka and the other inhuman monsters simply showed no interest in that. If something had occurred to them and they had tried it, the world would have ended.”

“You mean…” Takitsubo replied since she had a better understanding of things related to AIM. “You were researching the exact opposite of that ghost? A ghost made from powerful energy and an aggregation of weak powers are opposites, so when they came together, it caused the ghost to malfunction… You were trying to extract inorganic materials from that unseen city, weren’t you?”

“Hard to say if that research was a step forward or a step back. Like I said, they failed. They could not control it, so even the remains of their project you see here cannot be erased. I believe the natural half life was about 12,000 years. In the worst case, the Imaginary Number District could have been converted into real numbers, crushing Academy City in the process. I think the project could have found success if they could have cut off a piece at a workable size and found a way to control it. In that sense, that ghost really is the strongest as an individual and an enviable success.”

Now even Hamazura had a vague idea why the ghost woman had suddenly malfunctioned.

They could not be in the same place.

Two ghosts could not coexist. Just like installing two different pieces of security software on the same computer would cause a conflict.

“It was still a risky gamble, though. The odds were low, but if the tunnel ''had lost'', this temporary space itself would have vanished and we would all have become fossils after being buried deep below the surface.”

Hamazura heard a swooshing sound and looked over to see the android swinging her thick machete next to the old man. Those two had won their bet, so now no one could stop them.

Kihara Hasuu looked away from Hamazura and turned to someone else.

“Now, I have eliminated your bodyguard. Isn’t it time we talked this out like adults?”

===Part 5===

“When’s the train going to leave?”

“Oh, mister just left.”

The children dressed up in gym clothes were whispering to each other while peeking out through the cracked-open door of a freight train container.

But among them…

“Ow, that hurts.”

The girl named Risako spoke up in protest.

But Sodate ignored that and continued tugging on her skinny wrist. The bigger boy was kind of scary when he was not saying anything.

“Listen, Risako.” He spoke quickly while walking through the shadows to stay hidden. He seemed to be speaking to himself more than the girl. “You can still escape. It’s not too late. And once you get to the surface, go tell the grownups about this. I know you can do it.”

“Why? The train is about to leave.”

“You still don’t get it!?” He shouted with his hands on her shoulders. “They make us wear these clothes and devices, they keep us separated from the rest of the city, and they don’t let us go to a normal school. We’re Child Errors, so no one will even notice if we just disappear one day. They’re only raising us because they can use us for something. They’re fattening us up to eat us!”

“But…”

“We don’t even have phones to call for help. ''It isn’t normal to be this isolated.'' That’s why I kept leaving behind some sign of our presence: building blocks, picture books, balls, and so on. I left them outside before the trucks moved on and I made sure to write our names, the trucks’ license numbers, and other information on them! But none of it ever reached the grownups. Our efforts never reached anyone!!”

She had thought he kept stealing things because he was selfish. She had thought he would forget those things in his secret bases because he was sloppy. But that was not it.

“They’re relatively peaceful beneficials? Don’t make me laugh. What’s going to change after we board that train and leave Academy City? There won’t be anyone monitoring them anymore!! Once that happens, I just know he’ll stop holding back. He’ll ''take it even further''! So you at least need to escape before that happens!!”

“Sodate-chan…”

“I’ll give you an opening.” He looked the girl in the eye and spoke clearly. “I won’t let him turn you into a guinea pig no matter what!!”

===Part 6===

A somewhat slender man stepped out. He wore a short-sleeved safari jacket and a rash guard, making him look something like an old-fashioned adventurer, but the webcam attached to the side of his head gave him a more modern outdoorsy look. He appeared to be a different sort of researcher from the old mechanic in a lab coat and jumpsuit.

He was an expert at visiting so-called haunted locations around the world and revealing the scientific cause of the strange phenomena there. But he had apparently also artificially recreated such things to use them for his own purposes.

He grinned and raised his hands in a jocular way. Kihara Hasuu asked him a question with the deadly weapon girl still by his side.

“What is your name?”

“Drencher Kihara Repatri.”

“I see. So that’s you.”

The young man’s eyebrows moved slightly in response to the old man’s impressed tone.

“I didn’t expect someone like you to have heard of me.”

“You are rather…well known.”

The way he said that told Hamazura he did not mean that in a positive way.

This was a confrontation between two harmfuls.

The two researchers ignored the boy and girl entirely as they began a verbal rally. Hamazura knew he could not just sit and watch as a referee or spectator, but he had no way of intervening.

“As you can see, we come from different levels of the dark side. If there is no place for us in Academy City anymore, then leaving the city is a valid choice. But is that plank of Carneades really only big enough for the one group? I think it can support both of us just fine.”

That suggestion seemed surprising…but maybe it wasn’t. It was the ghost woman who had been slaughtering all of the other dark side members trying to reach this point. The android may have attacked Anti-Skill, but she had never actively tried to eliminate her fellow dark siders. She had attacked Hamazura near the counterfeiter’s tents, but if she had been trying to slaughter everyone she came across, the ordinary people in the amusement park would not have escaped alive.

The young man shrugged.

“If that means less fighting, it’s okay with me. Not that I really have a choice, do I?”

“Assuming you have no other trump cards.”

“Then I surrender.”

He did not hesitate to respond. Hamazura was actually surprised to see he was willing to back down to save his own life. Hamazura had gotten the impression that the extreme members of the dark side were willing to sacrifice their own life to achieve their goal.

That surprise scared Hamazura. He could tell he had let the dark side influence him too much. He was afraid the damage would be permanent if he went much further. Once he became a harmful, there was no going back.

“She was my prized project, you know? Frillsand #G, I mean. Now, I knew ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' would pose a challenge, but I never imagined it was a giant mass of AIM Diffusion Fields.”

“Everything has its compatibility. In fact, I could never have won if we were not down here. Keep this girl from working and I’m helpless.”

The crimson-haired girl did nothing to fight the wrinkled hand rubbing her head.

The two men were reaching an agreement. That was not good. Hamazura and Takitsubo had nothing they could offer in a negotiation. At this rate, they would probably each get a bullet in the head as a parting gift. The only other option he could imagine was being made into a guinea pig for some bizarre experiment.

“Oh, right,” casually began the old man.

If he said “what should we do about those two lumps of flesh”, they were screwed. And Hamazura could not predict what that Kihara would do. He felt a terrible squeezing at his heart.

Finally, Kihara Hasuu continued.

“While we can share the train, I will be in charge there. So if you want a ride, it’s only natural you pay a small fare, don’t you think?”

“Do you want my research notes on Frillsand #G?”

“I’m no barbarian. A scientist’s research notes are a part of his very soul. Those are the fruits of your labors, so take them to your grave.”

“Then what do you want?”

“A few of them.”

The old man’s voice was as casual as ever as he pointed his engineering glove in a different direction entirely. He pointed at the gym clothes children who were peeking out from behind cover, without a clue what was being discussed.

“''Just select a few at random.'' I intend to restart my research once things have calmed down, but the rules are different outside the city. I can’t start abducting people off the street until I have a proper base set up, so I could use an initial supply for that settling-in period.”

Hamazura froze as he listened in.

This was the dark side. This was how the elites of that stagnant world thought.

“That Frillsand #G is important to your research, but not so with those lab rats, right? How many experimental observers’ lives were lost until you managed to ''properly reproduce'' that artificial ghost? If your research has entered a stable period, I would assume you are not running through those Child Errors as quickly as you once were.”

“Heh,” laughed Drencher Kihara Repatri.

He weakly lowered his raised hands. He must have decided that was no longer necessary. He too had seen the darkness, so he spoke with the same look in his eyes as the old man.

“It’s true those are all Child Errors. And however they would be treated in the ordinary world, we all know exactly what that term means in the dark side. Yes, I gathered them together and invited them into my lab. I made sure to have a plentiful stock of convenient lives that could be spent as I liked if other forms of research were not enough.”

“Then I can have a few?”

“''Go to hell, you son of a bitch.''”

===Part 7===

Several dry gunshots rang out.

===Part 8===

Hamazura Shiage did not understand what had just happened.

“Hamazura!!”

His body still refused to do what it was told, so track suit girl Takitsubo had to push him to the ground.

The young man had pulled out a handgun. It was no more than a small revolver, but he still fired it repeatedly from just a few meters away.

However…

“Ugh…”

“That won’t work,” said the old man.

The android’s crimson hair fluttered while she held her thick machete at the ready with her bare feet planted a step in front of Hasuu. Not only had she deflected all of the bullets, she had used their ricochets as a counterattack.

''No more than a small revolver.

''Something had gone horribly wrong when you started thinking of things in those terms in this country.

The young man had several holes in his upper body and dark red stains spread across his clothes. Doubling over did nothing to help, so he finally collapsed to the ground.

The old man in a jumpsuit and lab coat spoke up in exasperation while the strongest doll protected him.

“They’re just kids. And it’s not like I’m asking for all of them. Just two or three will do.”

“I wanted to…protect them from the dark side scum who think like that,” spat the young man while struggling to breathe down on all fours. He had given up trying to hold his wounds. “But nothing I did above board did anything to help. I couldn’t even get information on where those children were. The only way to fight the dark side…was to become the dark side. I almost laughed when I saw how many people came running to me then, claiming my research was so valuable. When I said I needed children’s lives to do it, they slapped me on the shoulder and agreed to it all. While happily sipping on a glass of the year’s finest red with their other hand. This city is rotten to the core.”

“Aren’t you Drencher Kihara Repatri?”

“Claiming to be a Kihara was the quickest way to get what I wanted. Ha ha. Those VIPs really were terrified of me.”

“Dammit,” spat out Hamazura Shiage.

The young man saw his own condition as of secondary importance.

It was true the ghost woman had used the children. They had been placed in a position where she could crush their lives at any moment. But had Hamazura ever seen her actually kill a child? What if they had been living in a world where they had to take the charade that far to be believed?

The old man had asked how many experimental observers’ lives were lost until he managed to properly reproduce the artificial ghost, but the young man had never answered.

That was in fact the answer. He had not sacrificed anyone. Not one. He had wanted to gather up those children known as Child Errors and drag them up out of the darkness. There ''were'' adults willing to dive into the dark side for no other reason than that.

There really were.

And yet…

“You’re lying.”

Hamazura suddenly rejected that entire premise. Because if he accepted this, he would have to admit to his own ugliness. Even if saying this would mean revealing he was ugly enough to put up a struggle like this.

“I’ve seen you before. You were at that counterfeiter’s place! You were preparing a passport for yourself so you could abandon those kids and leave the city!!”

“This all would have gone so much more smoothly if that had worked.” The young man smiled weakly. “If I had shown off how I escaped with the passport, Anti-Skill and the dark side’s focus would have turned toward District 23’s airport. Then the children would have had a safer escape underground here. I was never supposed to be down here with them.”

“~ ~ ~!!!!!!”

It felt like they lived in two completely different worlds.

And that young man was definitely the one in the right.

Hamazura felt so pathetic and contemptible for only ever acting to protect him and his girlfriend.

“I know I shouldn’t be asking this.”

The young man looked his way. As if to say it did not matter if he really was a Kihara or not.

His eyes knew how to view the light, but for some reason he now looked to someone as corrupted as Hamazura.

“Maybe it’s for the best if the dark side is destroyed, but please take care of those kids. You’re the only person I can leave them with now. When you saw your girlfriend suffering, you panicked and dumped medical supplies across the ground in your haste. I could see the conscience in your eyes. You had no choice but to fall this far, but you should still have some resistance to the dark side left inside you.”

“Wait, I’m not like that for everyone. Don’t shove this onto me! She’s my girlfriend, so of course I’d work to save her!!”

“Ha ha. Thinking that’s an ‘of course’ is what makes you such an oddity in the dark side. Don’t worry, I know you can do it. Because after falling into this shitty world, you still managed to find someone you care for and you decided to find peace instead of another thrill.”

Hamazura and Takitsubo had first heard of ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' from this man.

Hamazura had been cautious because there was no righteousness in the dark side and the man must have had his own reasons.

Was this why?

Had it been some insurance, just in case? Instead of worrying about his own survival, he had wanted some insurance for after he died.

Yet he had also slaughtered the dark sider people rushing toward this exit.

All because he could not let any harm come to the children as those people fought each other. He had rushed down a dark path to prevent a mere possibility.

But on Hamazura and Takitsubo’s way here, hadn’t the ghost woman glanced their way after slaughtering everyone else and then left, as if sparing them?

“Why did you do all this?”

That was the only question Hamazura could find.

That was not something to say to a dying man. He knew that. But after letting the dark side corrupt him while he worked so hard to ensure his and his girlfriend’s survival, this answer was too pure and upright to accept.

“How could you throw away your own life over this!? When you get down to it, those kids are just strangers! How could a goddamn harmful go this far just because you ‘wanted to save them’!? How!? Tell me!?”

The young man smiled.

There was already blood dripping from the corners of his lips.

“Do you need a reason to protect someone? Of course you don’t.”

That was the end of it.

Time stopped for him with the smile still on his lips.

He had no reason. He did not know why. And he had rushed in to save those children without ever finding a reason.

Hamazura Shiage had to admit defeat.

“A…”

The loser boy clenched his teeth. He moved his battered body, swiped the bloody handgun and some ammo from the young man, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

Losers had their own etiquette to follow.

That scummy old man was still here. Hamazura was not going to let him trample on the young man’s victory.

“Aaaneriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!”

A dull kachunk echoed through the circular space.

The support AI had taken control of the train and shifted it out of standby, so it slowly began to move.

The turntable had tracks in twelve directions, but he knew where to send it.

He just had to remember what the card-sized hard drive labeled Lifeline had said.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

In other words…

(Hours and minutes. If I apply that to an analog clock…)

“Send it down the five o’clock track!!”

The train took off with so many children in gym clothes on board.

That had been his top priority.

“Is justice contagious these days?” asked the old man with the look of someone viewing a crazy person.

He had already proven that the gun would not work, so he gave Hamazura a look of partial pity now that he had inherited that defeated weapon.

“You risked your life for this, but to no avail. Look, not all of them were onboard. They must have run in fear from the very person who would have saved them.”

“Hamazura, two of them were left behind. We can’t just leave them here.”

A boy and a girl in gym clothes were holding hands a short distance away.

What had they thought when they learned the truth behind that young man’s satisfied smile?

Especially when their own actions had worked against him.

“Well, those two will suffice. I will be taking them as a souvenir. Any more than this would have been a waste of food anyway.”

“Shut up,” spat out Hamazura.

He really should not have been doing this. He had come here to escape to safety. It had been clear from the very beginning that he could not be a great hero or brave warrior. This selfish choice here might put himself and his girlfriend in danger.

But.

Even so.

A dying man had left this with him. He had been reminded what it meant to do the right thing. There were lives here he could save. He could redo things. And most of all, his girlfriend was watching.

He was done being pathetic. He gathered strength in his sweaty body and stood up under his own power again. He had to.

“Maybe you’re a Kihara and an android.”

His goal was to run away?

No, sometimes a man had to stand up and speak his mind.

“But I’ll take you on, you goddamned dark siders!!!!!!”

He knew it was possible.

He had just seen a man stay true to this way of life.

He could reclaim his humanity. He must have learned something from what he saw here.

===Part 9===

Of course, Hamazura could never actually hit the crimson-haired android by firing the 9mm handgun at random. He knew she would deflect the bullets with her thick machete and fill him with holes.

So he did something else instead.

“Aneri!!”

A giant shape suddenly moved right next to the racing swimsuit girl.

A wheel loader used to stack up the railroad-sized containers was being remotely controlled.

“Move.”

What was that machete even made of? She did not even look in that direction as she swung her weapon and sliced apart the snowplow-looking piece of machinery. Even though she was not using any rapid vibrations or heat.

But Hamazura used that moment to pull on his girlfriend’s hand and move from there.

This was a vast circular space, but it was not an empty colosseum.

It had concrete columns just like an underground common utility duct and it had various equipment needed for operating and maintaining the trains, all located where it would not get in the way of the turntable and the 12 directions of track. Transformers were surrounded by a fence, a prefab hut had been made into a control room, giant jacks and a carwash were prepared for maintenance purposes, and more.

Aneri had directly operated the freight train, so he felt safe assuming she could operate all of the equipment here.

He pulled his girlfriend close while hiding behind a concrete column and whispering to his phone.

“Aneri, can you directly hijack that hunk of junk?”

No response.

He took that as a no. This did not sound like it was an issue of building up to that or setting something up in advance. That android was immune to cyber attacks on some level he did not understand.

(That means the only option is to destroy her the old-fashioned way!!)

“Hamazura, we can’t hide here forever. If she stops focusing on us, she’ll go after those children. Villains always go for the easiest target.”

“I know that.”

Takitsubo kept trying to wipe the sweat from her brow, but something was not right. The moxibustion should have relieved her symptoms to an extent, but that treatment might not be working as much anymore.

He was worried, but he could not stop now. He hated that fact.

“But using ourselves as bait will put us at risk. Are you prepared for that, Takitsubo?”

“Ask any more stupid questions and I’ll slap you.”

“Okay, it’s time to win your heart all over again!!”

They both ran out from behind the concrete column.

Their eyes met the ones with pupils mechanically expanding and contracting, but they stayed strong this time.

===Part 10===

Ladybird had a lock on two targets.

She walked barefoot across the floor and accurately obeyed her instructions, but she also had a question.

Why were the children necessary?

Kihara Hasuu – her Sensei – was researching androids. He had already successfully created one, so he no longer needed to capture biological humans to dissect and observe them. This disagreement appeared to be over ownership of the Child Errors (she failed to realize it was her education by that true Kihara that led her to use the word “ownership” in this context), but why was the old man so insistent on this?

That unfortunate research was a thing of the past.

She was an android built from purely mechanical parts, but she could use an esper power. That meant no more human specimens were needed for esper development experiments. They only had to mess with machines from now on. The Child Errors no longer needed to be captured and used up.

She thought that was a wonderful thing. She could not believe the people who still clung to the old system that required humans to use other humans. Did they wish to protect the status given to them by the current Level system? If they truly believed their fight was just, then they were beyond reasoning with. Machines were not the only ones that could have their memory data rewritten. Humans could have their feelings and thoughts falsified as well.

So she would bring an end to it all.

She was fighting here to end the misfortune and tragedies caused by the esper development program.

“Ohhhh!!”

The boy raised a meaningless battle cry, ran in, and repeatedly fired his handgun. She only had to block those shots with her machete.

But he had apparently learned how she fought.

She tried to hit him with the ricochets, but they refused to hit. When she deflected a bullet back, it would follow the same straight trajectory. Placing a single piece of plywood in the middle would change things. A bullet’s force was determined by its muzzle velocity. The force of the ricochet would generally be lower. That was obvious enough since bullets were not constantly accelerating like a rocket or missile. So he could set it up so he could shoot her through an obstacle, but she could not break through it on the way back.

Her use of ricochets was similar to Accelerator’s reflection, but all her machete did was knock the bullet back. She could not ''include the actual vector in that''.

That said…

(I doubt someone with such a stupid face could do this. He must be receiving assistance with the calculations.)

She considered jumping. Lifting both feet from the ground was usually a bad idea in combat, but not so with her. With her android specs, she could kick off of one column to the next and attack from the air.

She heard the loud roar of an engine while dealing with the bullets.

It appeared to come from a forklift.

“Aneri, surround the kids! I don’t know where that old man got off to, but don’t let him get close!! If he tries it, run him over!!”

“Don’t get distracted.”

He could have gotten a hit in on her by sending the forklift in from the side while firing on her from the front. Not that a blow like that would be enough to destroy her frame.

She swung the thick machete in her right hand while gathering her strength in the space between her eyebrows.

That was how she aimed.

A blast of wind blew away the obstacles between her and Hamazura Shiage. It was more like they were obliterated by an explosion than swept away by wind.

“An esper power!?” shouted the boy.

“It looked to be Level 3 or higher,” said the girl.

She no longer had to worry about the gunfire now that the line of fire was clear. He must have known the risk of ricochets was back because he stopped attacking and hid behind a nearby column, but that was no defense. She could charge in and slice through the column and his torso behind it with a single horizontal sweep of her blade.

She had enough time to reach her other hand to her thigh, pull out the bottle, and take a drink of the discharge machine oil.

A dull boom burst out.

She was only an android modeled after the structure of the human body, but the materials used for her skeleton, muscles, and everything else were bizarre dark side tech. If she wanted to, her horsepower could rival a V12 engine at max RPMs.

But even as she chose the correct action, her mechanical head was filled with questions.

She had used a wind power.

But hadn’t she used fire during her previous clash with these people? And what about the time before that?

Androids had the same structure as humans, so a single android should only have a single power. Or could she do what humans could not because she was a machine?

(Sensei?)

===Part 11===

A column of reinforced concrete was sliced through as easily as tofu or thin paper.

Not horizontally or diagonally – vertically and all the way through. After kicking from column to column to gain height, she had apparently dropped down like lightning. She had a human form, but she could perform superhuman movements.

Hamazura Shiage had tried to jump to the side just beforehand, but he ended up tumbling into a roll.

It was not his torso sliced through along with the column. It was a gas drum kept on hand for the facility’s auxiliary power generator.

He grimaced at the pain in his hips as he continued rolling and pulled the trigger repeatedly.

Not even Ladybird could deflect bullets that hit the concrete ground and sent sparks flying.

The vaporizing gasoline ignited into explosive flames that swallowed up the entire racing swimsuit silhouette.

However…

“No, Hamazura! It didn’t work!!”

“Tch!!”

He clicked his tongue while the track suit girl ran over from elsewhere and pulled him to his feet. A black figure was displayed on the other side of that fiery screen. She showed no sign of collapsing or writhing in pain.

Had she used that previous wind power to affect how the flames spread?

He hoped so. If she was simply this tough, he could not imagine how to defeat her.

“How ''do'' you defeat an android anyway? Strangle her or stab her in the heart, she’s still a machine. That won’t stop her!!”

Could he break her motherboard? Or pull out her battery? But he had no idea how many she had or where in her slender body they were located.

The roaring flames were sliced apart. A horizontal sweep of the heavy metal machete conquered the orange barrier. The barefoot android stepped through entirely unscathed. There was no sign of discoloration on her crimson hair, white skin, or orange and black racing swimsuit.

“Something isn’t right,” said Takitsubo Rikou with eyes seemingly more robotic than the machine’s. What was she looking at right now? “An android that uses esper powers is conceivably possible. Mechanical processing may be able to ‘observe’ the waves or particles like a human brain does. And if you developed that far enough, you might be able to purposefully select between different supernatural phenomena. But this wavelength is simpler than that.”

“You mean how she switches between powers?” spat out Hamazura. “That container base in the garbage pile was their lab, right? Then I get why that old man wants those kids so bad. Even if I don’t know exactly ''how'' he would use them.”

Now, why were they able to spend so long discussing this?

The delinquent boy made sure to keep his gun aimed, but the android in question was only tilting her head.

A dark liquid was dripping from her eyes and nose.

He had seen that before. Immediately after she had been hit by the hakama girl and fought back with her fire power.

“Oh, dear.”

Kihara Hasuu’s voice reached them from somewhere, but it was echoing too much to tell where it came from. Hamazura would have shot the man if he saw him.

“Is it that time already? This is why I wanted to stock up sooner rather than later.”

“Hey.” Hamazura shouted at the unseen man. “Isn’t that cheating? You can’t really call her an android if that’s what you’re doing.”

The boy watched as the girl in the orange and black racing swimsuit held her head and doubled over.

A low straining sound came from her.

Then her back opened along the line from her nape to her tailbone.

The clasp holding together the X-shaped band at the center of the swimsuit’s back popped open and the supports were released in four directions.

Then her soft skin opened wide while supported at her nape.

Her opened back almost looked like a steam locomotive’s boiler or a furnace from hell. The fact that it was smooth human skin instead of a thick metal door gave it the sinister appearance of an insect’s shell opening up.

The top half of her swimsuit fell out of place, but her chest was not visible.

Her long red hair dropped down to cover it up.

She had planted her hands and feet on the ground like a beast.

Something translucent crawled out of her. It looked like a long, narrow blade or like a wriggling snake. It would grab something, drag it inside her, and cut it away. It was an automatic extraction organ.

Hamazura knew what it was for.

“I saw the junk those trash collectors were taking back after searching through those piles of abandoned items. A fridge was full of some brownish filth.”

He felt nauseated just remembering it.

He grimaced as he viewed that monster.

“''It was stuffed full of corpses with the contents of their heads removed.'' When those trash collectors were searching out fridges and washing machines, they weren’t selling them to used appliance stores. They were opening up bloodstained boxes packed full of still-usable organs. And they all came from your lab, didn’t they!?”

“Well, the ordinary corpses were apparently disposed of in District 10’s slums, but there are a lot of people willing to buy up ones fresh enough to make use of their parts.”

Ladybird was not an android with esper powers. She was as harmful as they came. She was a machine that would devour people’s brains when necessary. In Hamazura’s opinion, that meant she did not fit the definition of an android.

“This is a completely different approach from the Rensa model of esper cyborg. Instead of a cyborg made by ''giving a brain a body'', Ladybird-kun ''is a body given a brain.''” Hasuu sounded like he was introducing his favorite grandchild. “Cellulose nanofiber is a carbon material gathering attention for its use in making wires and bulletproof materials, but the point is we can create delicate wires even thinner than the cranial nerves. But unlike a biological brain, leaving them in their active state causes them to automatically replicate and they will try to forcibly fold themselves up for space if they run out room in the skull. The cerebrum’s frontal lobe is especially troublesome. So ''a foreign object'' must be introduced to constantly provide just the right amount of damage to ensure the brain remains the size I want it. Her power changes each time a new ''foreign object'' is introduced, but that is due to the change in the rejection and damage pattern. You can think of that as a simple idiosyncrasy.”

“Sen…sei?”

A grinding sound came from Ladybird while she seemed to be searching for something. However the old researcher described it, a human brain was apparently a necessary part for her to run. Her movements were noticeably stiff and awkward as she pursued that poison on her own.

“Sensei…but you said this research would help. You said the spread of androids would mean no more human specimens were needed for the esper development.”

“The ladybird – another name for the ladybug – might look humorous, but it is in fact a ravenous carnivore. You have heard that they are good to have around because they eat aphids, haven’t you?”

“Gh…kh.”

“And there are a lot of insects that mimic ladybugs. That includes a type of darkling beetle and cockroach, both kinds of bugs people might not normally want around. But that is not actually a type of protective coloration. Ha ha. Instead of trying to blend into their natural surroundings or avoid their predators, that coloration might actually be used to make humans like them.”

How deep did the dark side go?

How disgusting could the dark said get?

“So don’t you see?”

Its attacks were indiscriminate, like a cannibal insect.

The developer spoke to what looked like a lovely girl. And he seemed to be enjoying it immensely.

“''That is the perfect name for you.''”

===Part 12===

text> @I thought there was a problem with the world.

text> @I thought it was wrong for @humans to use @humans for their research in this city.

text> But @I could climb onto the examination table instead.

text> @I can be repaired or remade as many times as necessary.

text> Since my body was made identically to a @human’s, @I would be able to use an esper power as well. Pieces of my body could be freely added or removed, so @I could be examined inside and out more easily than a @human and @I could be modified as they saw fit.

text> No more sacrifices would be necessary for the esper development research.

text> That is why @I fought.

text> @I thought @Sensei’s research was a wonderful thing.

''“You know, Ladybird-kun, the term android signifies an artificial human built with an engineering approach. Based on that definition, it seems appropriate to me for a completed android to behave like a human.”

text> @Sensei’s words were like a shining light of hope.

text> @I wondered if @I really was good enough.

text> But @I was happy as long as @I could be of some use. @I think that kind of feeling is not something a simple machine could feel.

text> Does that mean @I am somehow @human?

text> The @humans that @I have seen are like that. They do not hesitate to make inefficient choices without even considering cost performance.

text> That is why @I find @humans to be so incredible.

text> @I have not spoken much with any other than @Sensei, but @I know that is because @androids cannot be made public yet. But @I love the @humans that @I see from a distance.

text> @I will build a path to a brighter future for them – a path to a happier world – so @I cannot allow someone to destroy all that just because they do not understand. So I will not let anyone interfere. Anyone who claims it is right to harm @people cannot be allowed to trample on the future @I can bring them.

text> So…

text>And yet…

===Part 13===

===Part 14===

===Part 15===

===Part 16===

===Part 17===

===Part 18===

===Map===

===Between the Lines 4===

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{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume3_Chapter3|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume3_Epilogue}}
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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter4

2020-11-20T20:44:14Z

SNovah: /* Part 4 */

{{Incomplete|parts=12|tparts=19}}
==Chapter 4: The Demon Lord’s Young — the_LIGHT.==

===Part 1===

“Where have you been, Risako!?”

“Mister, Risako-chan is back!!”

The gym clothes girl laughed when she saw the other children gathered around.

“Eh heh heh. A doggy and an older girl saved me.”

They must have been preparing for another move because all the trucks had their engines running. But they had waited until they had found the girl with red hair done up like candy. She was relieved. Having a home to return to was a wonderful thing.

“''A doggy,'' huh?” said the artificial ghost called Frillsand #G.

“…”

Her comment made the young researcher fall silent for a bit.

His name was Drencher Kihara Repatri.

That family name was so well known in the dark side that it had become a more powerful classification than beneficial or harmful. The man who bore that name sighed softly to help refocus his mind.

“There is a chance we’ve been located, but we’re faster at the moment. If we move before they catch up, we can reach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' without issue.”

“Do you really think this world will allow any of this to go ‘without issue’?”

“It’s our job to make sure it happens.”

The adults exchanged their views with their voices too low for the excited children to hear.

But a certain boy kept his voice low for a different reason.

“Risako.”

“Oh, Sodate-chan.”

The tall boy in the same kind of gym clothes looked troubled for some reason. In fact, he looked close to tears. Risako tilted her head, thinking he was afraid she would get after him about the ball and chemical soap, but this was different.

“So you came back,” he said.

“Eh?”

“I was hoping maybe you were gone for good.”

He had wanted that? Did he hate her that much? Risako’s face clouded over, but this was again different. He shook his head and explained.

He was the only one of the children who had ''started to question these motion sensors they wore for some kind of experiment.''

“Because then at least you might have been safe.”

===Part 2===

He was afraid of screwing it up, so he started by drawing marks on her back with a marker.

“Hamazura, that tickles.”

“Stay still.”

The old book had a brush-drawn diagram with no perspective or attempt to make it look three-dimensional. The indicated locations of the organs were clearly not right. Maybe it was like the difference between an aerial photograph of the clouds and the isobars on the weather forecast map. He wondered if this was what all traditional Japanese medicine was like as he drew Xs on his girlfriend’s body. She had even removed her bra and was holding her chest in her hands while showing him her smooth back. He thought his heart was going to burst every time she squirmed from the ticklishness. Even he knew that reaction was inappropriate given the circumstances. Once he finished that, it was finally time to start. He faced the girl while she lay face down on the container lab’s work table like she was sunbathing.

The moxa used for the moxibustion was like fluffy cotton, but he actually had to set it on fire.

It felt wrong doing that on her soft skin and he could even permanently scar her if he screwed it up.

“…”

His fear came to the forefront now that it was time to do it, but this was the only way to help her with the fever.

He fought the desire to shut his eyes and placed a small pile of “fuel” on her soft skin. He worked at the lighter with a trembling hand, but he kept failing. Once he finally had a small flame, he slowly moved it in close.

“Nh.”

“A-are you okay, Takitsubo?”

“I’m fine.”

He continued the process a few more times. He had his doubts, but when she wiped the sweat from her brow, no more sweat beaded up. It did seem to be working.

He could not thank the hakama girl enough.

He could not waste this chance she had given them, so they had to approach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''.

That card-sized hard drive had been labelled with the word “Lifeline”.

Aneri must have decided the data would be too small to see on his phone because she displayed it a flat screen monitor in the lab instead. It was a series of numbers.

It looked like a calculation sheet made with spreadsheet software, but even that was enough to make the delinquent boy’s head hurt. Maybe it was important data, but he had no idea what he was supposed to focus on.

“This looks like materials data,” said Takitsubo after peering at it from the side.

“Materials?”

“Whether they’re beneficial or harmful, the dark side does a lot of research.” She pointed at one of the numbers. “They’re also building a lot of military weapons. But doesn’t it seem odd? Academy City is a mass consumer and it only has so much land since it’s surrounded by walls. You can’t just dig into the ground here and find oil or ores. So where do they get all those materials from?”

“Where? Isn’t that what the cooperative institutions around the world are for? They can work out a deal with them.”

“But how can they do that without leaving any record of it?”

She pointed at another number.

If a citizens group monitoring the flow of money and materials could reveal a secret, then it had never been part of the dark side to begin with.

“Look at this. The dark side is using far more materials than the total amount brought in from outside the city. Cutting off the fat and redistributing it to themselves would not be enough for this. The amount the dark side uses is several times larger. This would show up in the records no matter what you did. Important people like the Board of Directors and its Chairman can only cover up so much. This is too much. It’s well past what you could hide by cooking the books.”

“But then…”

He trailed off when Aneri opened a new window. A single point on a map of Academy City was colored in red. There was a secret there.

“They have an entrance and exit that doesn’t leave any records,” said the track suit girl while viewing the screen.

There were several files that appeared to be saved from message boards and social media pages. Reading through them showed a certain point in common.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

Takitsubo pointed at that bizarre statement.

“There is a way of reaching it and we should see hints of it in the rumors told around the city. Like the ‘!’ signs, a deadly train, kidnappers at the amusement park, babies in the coin lockers, or an underground construction zone where you can dump anything you don’t want found. But none of that gets at the real truth.”

“You mean…?”

“Academy City doesn’t promote recycling so much just because it wants to make the most of its limited resources. ''Sending things back to be recycled over and over again masks how much materials are actually being used.'' They can’t have an investigation revealing that we dump out several times more trash than materials we take in, right? That would violate conservation of mass. So they needed to make it hard to compare those two values. It’s a form of laundering.”

Why was that sleight of hand necessary? How did they reach the impossible result of more waste than raw materials? What was this secret that no one wanted getting out?

''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.

This was the identity of that term they had heard so many times today.

“It…isn’t closed off? There’s a secret route through the walls surrounding Academy City!?”

That could not be. For better or for worse, Academy City was cut off from the outside world. Those thick walls prevented their tech from spreading to the world at large because that could lead to disorder and chaos.

Hamazura used to be part of Skill Out. That was a group of the boys and girls who had dropped out of Academy City but had nowhere to go since they could not get out of the city.

They had been trapped. They had dropped out of school, but those walls had kept them here. If you wanted to take a trip outside the city for just a few days, you needed to submit a ton of paperwork and receive a nanodevice injection. Because if you tried leave without using the official gates, you could be killed to prevent a data leak. There had been burglars and muggers in the back alleys, but none of those expert thieves had dared go anywhere near the walls.

If there was a way to freely move in and out, they may not have felt so much pressure. They could have made a place for themselves.

Their former leader, Komaba Ritoku, might not have had to fight and die.

“…”

But the dark side had torn down that number one assumption like it was nothing.

That counterfeiter had stored that information on a card-sized hard drive labeled “Lifeline”. Had he thought he could use that information to get some dark side bigshots to save him?

He must have never imagined he would instead have his brains blown out by a paparazzo. Hamazura was at the center of all this, but he still did not know if that had been planned or a spontaneous decision.

“It’s deep below Academy City.” Takitsubo Rikou calmly read aloud something on such a large scale that talk of an alternate dimension would have sounded more realistic. “The world’s largest particle accelerator is built directly below the city walls, so people are told that digging in that area could break the accelerator’s seal and expose them to radiation and other risks. That was meant to convince everyone that no one would be dumb enough to try it.”

The diagram they found looked like a puzzle ring. It seemed to carefully avoid the circular accelerator facility, but this was a tunnel built by the dark side. There was no chance it met all the proper safety standards.

That was the dark side’s lifeline.

They had built it to continue pumping fuel into their illicit research and its construction showed they did not care at all if they brought chaos to the world. It really was the greatest taboo. It was a dark umbilical cord that could wipe out the Kiharas and everyone else if it was cut off.

“I doubt Anti-Skill knows about this,” said Takitsubo. “So they won’t be able to block it off. We can safely escape the city if we use it.”

“…”

The red light displayed by Aneri was in District 10, the city’s biggest slum. The taboo no one wanted was hidden below the district everyone had abandoned.

It was unclear if it had always had this name. They may have changed the name periodically to help hide the truth. All the scattered information was fragmentary witness accounts and some of it would likely be intentional misinformation.

But that taboo’s gaping mouth had sat deep underground all this time.

Like a nightmarish symbol of freedom.

The dot on the map displayed on the small screen had the following name displayed next to it: Vanishing Tunnel.

That was the name of their final destination. Anyone who arrived there was given a ticket to another world.

===Part 3===

They were deep, deep underground in District 10.

Few people would think too much about the layout of the subway tunnels below the city. They might know a track took an unnatural curve at one point, but no one would question the online news article about them running across some kind of ruins during construction.

An underground passageway was surrounded by cold concrete and supported by the pillars positioned at even intervals.

The few fluorescent lights on the walls were not enough to fully sweep away the darkness.

That underground blind spot had become the biggest hot spot in the world. A great many people had gathered there. They had not all arrived along the same route. They had each gathered the hints scattered around the city and started to question the city’s biggest assumption. Academy City was surrounded by thick walls, but it was not in fact sealed off.

The brawny men in work jumpsuits were a courier group called Secret Express. The men and women in dress clothes were Concierge, a group that provided hideouts to meet a criminal’s demands. The girls in plain clothing and hiding their faces with sunglasses and hunting caps may have been an extremely popular idol group. The parade of scum included Controller, who used personal information and fictitious bills to threaten the girls he targeted until he had them in digital chains, and Flare, who left behind harmless powder identical to the real deal in order to confuse criminal investigations.

A ruler of the back alleys was there.

A major corporation’s lawyer was there.

A university headmaster was there.

A major entertainment producer was there.

And a few Kiharas from different fields were there.

All sorts of people flooded that underground passageway. People did not end up on the dark side because they were low class, poor, stupid, or criminal. It took all types. The dark side had reached every class of person equally. From worlds no one knew existed to industries everyone envied.

Some had fallen before making it this far and others had attempted a different route instead. In a way, finding this tunnel and setting foot inside made them the chosen ones.

And.

Every last one of them were obstructed and crushed by a certain figure.

The woman had long blonde twintails and she wore a skintight light blue dress and a long loose skirt.

Frillsand #G was like an impassable wall.

All who challenged her crashed into that wall with the intensity of their challenge. After seeing a few of them turned to hunks of flesh and splattered blood, the others must have started wondering if she literally was a solid wall because all of those dark side members had come to a stop. They were pushed back even though she had not taken a single step.

Of course, the ghost was not going to spare them just because they gave up now.

“Next stop: skewering. Repeat: skewering.”

With a wet sound, a muscular man in black was destroyed from groin to head. But he may have been one of the lucky ones. He was gone before he even knew what had happened to him.

“Please look out for the burning and severing.”

Screams of pain echoed through the tunnel. Before long, the dark side members were fighting amongst themselves too. They appeared to have begun an ugly struggle over the concrete column they could use as a shield. However…

“We will arrive at gouging soon.”

Just as the ghost silently circled behind the column, a wet sound exploded out. The victors and losers of the struggle were all turned to mincemeat together while Frillsand #G looked on in disinterest.

“Ah…gahh,” someone groaned.

It was one of the idol girls. Her bottom half was gone and the bottom of her torso was sticking to the floor like a slug.

“But…why? We found the taboo…so aren’t we part of the dark side too? Can’t we all use…the path out together?”

“I have children to take care of. A lot of them.” Frillsand #G did not even look in her direction. “Inviting all of you in with us would only put them at risk.”

“Just…” It was already too late for her, but the top half of a girl still clawed at the concrete floor. “Just in case? You took people’s lives for no more than that!?”

“Next stop: running over. I repeat: running over.”

With a wet splat, the complaints were silenced.

The ghost seemed to be rejecting the idea that grudges lacked the power to kill.

“The rear guard is an important job,” she said in a singsong voice. “But I cannot let that crybaby see this. Knowing of it and seeing it are two very different things.”

The artificial ghost glanced over at something else.

But she soon lost interest, turned around, and vanished into the darkness.

A mere ten meters away, Hamazura Shiage was hiding behind a column and holding his hand over the track suit girl’s mouth.

If she noticed them, they were dead. He felt like his heart, his breathing, his body odor, and the slight static electricity on his clothing could all give them away. He could not even wipe the unpleasant sweat from his cheek as he desperately waited for time to pass.

That ghost really was an enemy.

She had some kind of plan of her own and had saved them on a whim before, but that did not mean he could trust her. If she had saved them on a whim, then she could also choose to throw them out on a whim. And they only had the one life.

This was worse than a sea of blood.

Flesh and blood had lost any hint of their original form, fingers extended into empty space, facial skin was frozen in a look of agony while plastered to the wall. At this point, they were only “things”, not people. There was no dignity remaining.

Each of them was a dark side member who had arrived at ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' along a different route than him.

Their endless possibilities had been reduced to zero.

Or so it felt to him.

Was this tunnel really the right path? The further they went, the more likely they were to encounter that ghost woman, so he began to wonder if it would be safer to turn back now and return to the surface.

“Pwah.”

His girlfriend escaped his hand. He was holding her from behind, so she leaned her head back to look him in the eye.

“Hamazura, I don’t sense her presence anymore. We can keep going now.”

“…”

“We can’t give up after coming so far. Blindly returning to the surface won’t save us. We’ll never find peace if we don’t go through here.”

“R-right.”

He would have long since broken if he were alone.

But when she pulled on his hand, he managed to work up some small semblance of courage.

Even with the evenly-spaced fluorescent lights, the tunnel was dark. And they had no idea who was in charge of that sparse lighting. What if the ghost could shut off the power? His phone felt all the more important to him now.

“This is a long tunnel.”

“Yeah.”

They were not speaking much anymore.

This was ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'', but did this tunnel really lead toward hope? No matter how far they went, the darkness never went away. As they trudged deeper and deeper, he felt like they had passed a point of no return. Also, who had built this enormous underground facility? Someone must have drawn up the plans, dug the hole, set the foundation, and brought in the rebar and concrete. This was a far bigger project than a bank robber’s hand-dug tunnel into the vault. Such a vast and well-made underground space could not have been built without the involvement of a major construction company.

Who had done it?

It might be a company whose ads he saw on TV every day.

Would all of this come to light one day? But those meaningless thoughts were cut off by Takitsubo.

She had noticed first because she was not holding the light.

“Hamazura, there’s a door.”

“…”

It was a thick metal door.

Just the one door sat at the end of the long, long tunnel. There may have been another route, but he did not recall seeing any other paths branching off along the way.

He slowly approached.

It did not appear to be locked. He doubted there were any grenades or other “gifts” left for them.

But that was not what scared him. He had seen all of those corpses along the way. The sight had left him so terrified he barely had it in him to keep his heart beating. He had started to view their fallen predecessors as no more than a piece of the scenery. Because otherwise that shadowy murder scene would have overwhelmed him too much to continue on.

The taboos were piling up.

He and Takitsubo had started this simply wanting to survive, but they too had been corrupted along the way.

Hamazura Shiage reached his fingers toward the doorknob.

He touched it. He squeezed it.

He turned it.

===Part 4===

A flood of light revealed a world no one was ever meant to see.

“…”

The other world turned out to be a cavernous pit.

This abyss slept deep below the earth, yet it was filled with much more artificial light than the tunnel. That was thanks to the construction lights set up here and there.

It was easily more than 250 meters across and maybe more than twice as deep. The perfectly circular space made of reinforced concrete at the very bottom may have reminded different people of different things.

Some might see it as a common utility duct, a circular colosseum, a switchyard’s turntable, or an underground temple dedicated to a god one must never offer any prayers.

But there was one crucial piece that helped solidify the proper image.

“A train?” muttered Hamazura while peering down over the railing.

It was a turntable.

Concrete columns were installed at even intervals around the edges, but there were none in the central circle. The flat concrete floor had a smaller circle built into it. That would rotate to change the train’s direction. The tracks outside the circle extended in 12 different directions. That made it all look like something else: a giant metal flower.

Yes, there were tracks, signal lights, transformers, maintenance equipment, a control room, and a fifteen-car train in here. It was a freight train.

“That’s the dark side’s lifeline?”

For him and Takitsubo, it was the plank of Carneades that would save their lives.

He doubted that turntable was all of it. There would be a container yard and maintenance zone hidden further out from the center.

They walked along the narrow catwalk built along the circular wall and descended the stairs. There were no corpses in here. Whoever had gotten here first must have used the ghost woman to eliminate any nuisances before they reached this point.

And since the train was still here, that person would still be here.

They shared this space with the slaughterer.

“Hamazura.”

“Don’t worry. I’m with you no matter what.”

“Not that. There’s someone down there. And they’re not alone.”

That was a shock. Takitsubo Rikou could accurately locate people by sensing their AIM Diffusion Field. She could not use that power as well as she used to, but she could still sense it to an extent.

The tension grew.

A single person with a bizarre power was certainly scary, but having a large group approach you brought a different sort of fear. He mentally switched his priorities to at least allowing Takitsubo to escape if things looked bad.

The only exit was up here.

Leaving that would mean being surrounded by dead ends in every direction.

“…”

After descending the last flight of stairs, they arrived at the deepest depths.

It felt so much different from when they had been looking down from above. But that was not too surprising since 250 meters was larger than a domed stadium. This was the same as a sports field looking so much bigger from the stands than on TV.

Yes, Hamazura Shiage now stood on the stage. He was no longer an outsider looking in.

“Oh, dear. You actually showed up. What a shame.”

He lasted one second.

His knees suddenly dropped to the ground. He could not keep his shoulders at the same height and his lost strength would not return.

“Wha—!?”

It was the ghost woman.

Was she a beneficial or a harmful?

She had left that tunnel far too bloody to claim she was trying to escape Academy City because she disliked conflict. If anything, she felt more like a vengeful spirit that refused to let anyone leave the city.

She looked like a Western doll with her long blonde twintails and light blue dress. She did not actually punch or kick him. Simply seeing her out of the corner of his eye had done critical damage to him.

A rusty-smelling liquid dripped from his eyes and nose.

He was trying to scream and flip over onto his back, but he was actually curled up and unable to move.

Encountering her meant death.

That was far too sinister a thing to be connected with a simple equals sign like that.

“It is no use.”

The ghost woman walked without audible footsteps. She moved herself from the corner of his vision to the center.

“No one is talking about anything as silly as defending against something with a shield or dodging a projectile with super speed. ''From the moment you see my face,'' the attack is complete. If I so much as casually stand in the corner of your vision, I can do continual damage without you even noticing my presence.”

He realized the strange things had always happened when the ghost woman spoke to him. And why had she turned the lights on in that tunnel? Because it was more convenient for her.

If you saw a ghost while driving, you would crash.

If your face, hands, or feet were missing in a ghost photo, you would find unnatural wounds or marks on your body.

Did this mean she even artificially reproduced those aspects of a ghost? He did not want to believe it because it would mean there was nothing he could do.

“Hamazu—!?”

“You noticed? You must have sharper senses.”

The track suit girl quickly pulled him close, but the ghost woman did not seem to care.

Besides, if seeing her really did mean death, then Takitsubo would have been killed too, but she was fine.

“But I am not talking about anything as poorly-defined as a sixth sense for ghosts. Do you have a power related to AIM Diffusion Fields?”

“There’s no AIM Diffusion Field around you? No, some strong but invisible power is scattering that weaker field.”

“It is known as High Voltage Cutting,” said the ghost woman. “The principle may be similar to the shock diamonds seen in a rocket engine’s flame or the cavitation of air bubbles created around a propeller. The constant emission of a powerful energy will create irregular waveforms and images while it interferes with itself.”

“Gh!? What energy???”

“You can find energy everywhere.” Her tone was light, so understanding how it worked must not have helped avoid its effects. “The carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide you thoughtlessly spread around forms acid rain when it bonds with the moisture in the air. You can acquire electricity simply by sticking two electrodes into a fruit, you know? Copper and zinc are such necessities that you can find them anywhere. Using that, you can produce hydrogen gas in addition to electricity. I only need to absorb power from a ''civilization battery'' the size of a city or even greater. That is enough for me to construct a single outlier point within that stable energy.”

“…”

“What are the common types of haunted locations? Old homes full of drafts, cliffs and caves eroded by the waves, and mountain roads late at night. They are always full of ''noise'', such as static electricity, pressure differences, the creaking of rusty doors, or the rustling of the trees in the wind. Have you ever heard a ghostly voice in the crackle of excess electricity or the roar of hydrogen gas being ignited? I can exist as I am wherever human civilization exists. If you wish to kill me, you must destroy your very way of life. On a global scale.”

This was too much.

He could not understand her explanation. And even if he thought he did, it still did not tell him how to destroy her.

Takitsubo gasped and spoke while holding onto him.

“I get that the constant use of a massive amount of unseen energy would eventually create something unnatural. But if seeing you is deadly, how do you choose specific targets to—?”

She trailed off.

She had seen something out of the corner of her eye, but not the artificial ghost this time. A unified set of colors could be seen peeking out of at them from a gap in the door to one of the freight train’s containers.

''They were small children wearing gym clothes and some kind of device. There were more than just ten or twenty of them.

''All of them were a part of the ghost experiment.

The children must have seen the ghost woman as they nervously spied out. And they seemed to be expectantly waiting to see if she would repel these unknown intruders. They did not know. They had not been told what they were being used for. Simply viewing a ghost photo was harmful and the longer you viewed it, the more damage it did. She embodied that power so perfectly that she had eliminated so many dark side elites.

Yet she had managed to accurately select one out of the many candidates.

That was like shooting the apple off someone’s head. Without explaining any of it to the children who had those sensors attached to them.

“…”

The delinquent boy clenched his teeth.

He could barely move, she held his life in her hand, and he had no idea how to fight back. He had to avoid angering her if at all possible. He understood that, but he still shouted up at her.

“You scum!!”

“Call me what you wish. In fact, I see it as a compliment.”

The ghost woman who resembled a fairy tale princess held her palm out toward him. He only had to see her impossible presence for her to attack, so that gesture was meaningless.

But then her eyes turned unnaturally away from him.

To the side.

A spare container sitting near the train was sliced in two. Something had dropped down from far above like a bolt of lightning.

A red figure wielded a thick machete made of heavy metal.

The android wore a racing swimsuit colored the orange and black of an insect. The bangs of her long crimson hair were cut straight across and she had a slender build.

Cartoony flowers were displayed in her mechanical eyes.

“Smug face.”

“Hello, hello,” said a twig of an old man in a blue jumpsuit and lab coat. “I hate to interrupt when you seem so busy, but I must insist.”

The ghost woman shrugged.

“Were you hoping to use the train? I thought you were one of the harmfuls who would remain in the city and resist to the bitter end.”

“I have no interest in those categories forced onto the dark side from the outside. All I care about is continuing my research. Academy City was a wonderful environment for that, but if that has changed, I need to leave and search out a more comfortable place.”

“You can see me, can’t you?”

“You should be able to tell by observing my eye movements.”

“And you know what that means?” She gave a suggestive glance over at the machine that had arrived with him. “In case you were unaware, I am capable of causing malfunctions in mechanical lenses and sensors just as well as in the human body. Ghost photographs are a result of ghosts interfering in optical machinery, are they not? That might be your masterpiece, but isn’t it presumptuous to assume she can wield her full power against me?”

She remained untouchable. She could kill someone just by placing herself in the corner of their vision and machines could not do anything to her either. Did she have no blind spots?

“Yes, I imagine so.”

But the old man did not seem to mind.

That mysterious old man ''known as a Kihara'' was not bothered that she held his life in her hand.

“You are the strongest when it comes to an individual. Looking at deadliness alone, you might outdo the #3 and the #2.”

“…”

Evidently, even ghosts could find something to be ominous.

This world may have been infected with a disease that caused all bad premonitions to come true.

“But in this specific location, I believe you too will find you cannot wield your full power.”

“What are you—gah!!!!????”

He had given her plenty of warning, but she suddenly arched her back and then froze unnaturally in midair. An ominous straining sound continued on and on as her body grew distorted. She bent and stretched, almost like a face pressed against a wall of glass.

Something was happening.

Hamazura had thought the ghost woman was an intangible being, like a mist or apparition. But she was not. She clearly had a spine to strain, muscles to cry out in pain, and organs to writhe unnaturally.

Then a bizarre creaking and cracking noise came from her. Her volume shrank more and more like she was being crushed in from all sides. The old man was holding something up in his special engineering glove. It looked like an empty candy box, but it was not. It had a small pinhole at the very top. The ghost woman was sucked into that small hole like a liquid or a gas. Hamazura did not want to imagine what things were like inside there. He could only say one thing in a daze.

“A pinhole…camera?”

“High Voltage Cutting? I see, a strange theory, but she is still a form of unstable energy. And all energy will move from high to low—unstable to stable. This is enough to break down her form and burn in her image.”

The old man let go of the candy box.

He had the look of a mischievous child who had just realized he could create his own spark show by sticking a metal clip in the microwave.

“This is the appropriate choice for a ghost photo, don’t you think? A digital camera just wouldn’t fit the aesthetic.”

After dropping it to the cold concrete, he crushed it below his heel. He did not even glance down at the flattened box.

“''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.''” He tapped on his lower back. “Surely you didn’t think a construction company building a secret tunnel out of the city was enough to earn a name like that. With something like her around, you really should have thought of a different possibility.”

“Wh-what?”

Hamazura felt like the unnatural “curse” had weakened, but he still could not bring himself to get up from the ground. The old man only now seemed to have realized that there was another person here reaching for the plank of Carneades.

Hamazura knew any attention on him would only lead to disaster.

Kihara Hasuu smiled.

“Let me make one thing clear. There is a member of the Board who built a vast fortune by doing unofficial construction work for the dark side, but he knows nothing of this. This massive underground structure just appeared out of the blue one day.”

“…?”

Out of the blue?

Hamazura had operated construction machinery before, so he knew how absurd that was. Did that old man have any idea how long it would take to dig out a hole of this size?

But the old man appeared to be serious.

Deadly serious.

“''The Vanishing Tunnel does not actually exist.''”

Hamazura had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

It made no sense. If that were true, then where were they now???

The old man gave the answer.

“Kazakiri Hyouka was not just a single individual. She is more like one piece of the Imaginary Number District, an entire city created from the aggregation of AIM Diffusion Fields. …It all began with a project meant to cut out a portion of that territory and extract it as a new resource. Unlike the microscopic alchemy performed in the particle accelerator, this would have been on the macro scale and cost very little. But not even the group of researchers who guided all that power through the city could have predicted it would take this form. ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' is such a dramatic name. In truth, it was a major failure that needed to be covered up. Everyone involved was at their wits’ end.” He tapped his lower back again. “A nonexistent pathway unofficially connected Academy City to the world outside, increasing the risk of the outer world’s collapse through cultural exchange and technological contamination. The entire world very well could have been destroyed from this single point. While the researchers had hoped to extract materials from the Imaginary Number District, whatever came from there might have transformed the outside world into something truly grotesque. …Yes, that the world still exists as it does now was no more than ''dumb luck''. It was nothing we did on our end. Kazakiri Hyouka and the other inhuman monsters simply showed no interest in that. If something had occurred to them and they had tried it, the world would have ended.”

“You mean…” Takitsubo replied since she had a better understanding of things related to AIM. “You were researching the exact opposite of that ghost? A ghost made from powerful energy and an aggregation of weak powers are opposites, so when they came together, it caused the ghost to malfunction… You were trying to extract inorganic materials from that unseen city, weren’t you?”

“Hard to say if that research was a step forward or a step back. Like I said, they failed. They could not control it, so even the remains of their project you see here cannot be erased. I believe the natural half life was about 12,000 years. In the worst case, the Imaginary Number District could have been converted into real numbers, crushing Academy City in the process. I think the project could have found success if they could have cut off a piece at a workable size and found a way to control it. In that sense, that ghost really is the strongest as an individual and an enviable success.”

Now even Hamazura had a vague idea why the ghost woman had suddenly malfunctioned.

They could not be in the same place.

Two ghosts could not coexist. Just like installing two different pieces of security software on the same computer would cause a conflict.

“It was still a risky gamble, though. The odds were low, but if the tunnel ''had lost'', this temporary space itself would have vanished and we would all have become fossils after being buried deep below the surface.”

Hamazura heard a swooshing sound and looked over to see the android swinging her thick machete next to the old man. Those two had won their bet, so now no one could stop them.

Kihara Hasuu looked away from Hamazura and turned to someone else.

“Now, I have eliminated your bodyguard. Isn’t it time we talked this out like adults?”

===Part 5===

“When’s the train going to leave?”

“Oh, mister just left.”

The children dressed up in gym clothes were whispering to each other while peeking out through the cracked-open door of a freight train container.

But among them…

“Ow, that hurts.”

The girl named Risako spoke up in protest.

But Sodate ignored that and continued tugging on her skinny wrist. The bigger boy was kind of scary when he was not saying anything.

“Listen, Risako.” He spoke quickly while walking through the shadows to stay hidden. He seemed to be speaking to himself more than the girl. “You can still escape. It’s not too late. And once you get to the surface, go tell the grownups about this. I know you can do it.”

“Why? The train is about to leave.”

“You still don’t get it!?” He shouted with his hands on her shoulders. “They make us wear these clothes and devices, they keep us separated from the rest of the city, and they don’t let us go to a normal school. We’re Child Errors, so no one will even notice if we just disappear one day. They’re only raising us because they can use us for something. They’re fattening us up to eat us!”

“But…”

“We don’t even have phones to call for help. ''It isn’t normal to be this isolated.'' That’s why I kept leaving behind some sign of our presence: building blocks, picture books, balls, and so on. I left them outside before the trucks moved on and I made sure to write our names, the trucks’ license numbers, and other information on them! But none of it ever reached the grownups. Our efforts never reached anyone!!”

She had thought he kept stealing things because he was selfish. She had thought he would forget those things in his secret bases because he was sloppy. But that was not it.

“They’re relatively peaceful beneficials? Don’t make me laugh. What’s going to change after we board that train and leave Academy City? There won’t be anyone monitoring them anymore!! Once that happens, I just know he’ll stop holding back. He’ll ''take it even further''! So you at least need to escape before that happens!!”

“Sodate-chan…”

“I’ll give you an opening.” He looked the girl in the eye and spoke clearly. “I won’t let him turn you into a guinea pig no matter what!!”

===Part 6===

A somewhat slender man stepped out. He wore a short-sleeved safari jacket and a rash guard, making him look something like an old-fashioned adventurer, but the webcam attached to the side of his head gave him a more modern outdoorsy look. He appeared to be a different sort of researcher from the old mechanic in a lab coat and jumpsuit.

He was an expert at visiting so-called haunted locations around the world and revealing the scientific cause of the strange phenomena there. But he had apparently also artificially recreated such things to use them for his own purposes.

He grinned and raised his hands in a jocular way. Kihara Hasuu asked him a question with the deadly weapon girl still by his side.

“What is your name?”

“Drencher Kihara Repatri.”

“I see. So that’s you.”

The young man’s eyebrows moved slightly in response to the old man’s impressed tone.

“I didn’t expect someone like you to have heard of me.”

“You are rather…well known.”

The way he said that told Hamazura he did not mean that in a positive way.

This was a confrontation between two harmfuls.

The two researchers ignored the boy and girl entirely as they began a verbal rally. Hamazura knew he could not just sit and watch as a referee or spectator, but he had no way of intervening.

“As you can see, we come from different levels of the dark side. If there is no place for us in Academy City anymore, then leaving the city is a valid choice. But is that plank of Carneades really only big enough for the one group? I think it can support both of us just fine.”

That suggestion seemed surprising…but maybe it wasn’t. It was the ghost woman who had been slaughtering all of the other dark side members trying to reach this point. The android may have attacked Anti-Skill, but she had never actively tried to eliminate her fellow dark siders. She had attacked Hamazura near the counterfeiter’s tents, but if she had been trying to slaughter everyone she came across, the ordinary people in the amusement park would not have escaped alive.

The young man shrugged.

“If that means less fighting, it’s okay with me. Not that I really have a choice, do I?”

“Assuming you have no other trump cards.”

“Then I surrender.”

He did not hesitate to respond. Hamazura was actually surprised to see he was willing to back down to save his own life. Hamazura had gotten the impression that the extreme members of the dark side were willing to sacrifice their own life to achieve their goal.

That surprise scared Hamazura. He could tell he had let the dark side influence him too much. He was afraid the damage would be permanent if he went much further. Once he became a harmful, there was no going back.

“She was my prized project, you know? Frillsand #G, I mean. Now, I knew ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' would pose a challenge, but I never imagined it was a giant mass of AIM Diffusion Fields.”

“Everything has its compatibility. In fact, I could never have won if we were not down here. Keep this girl from working and I’m helpless.”

The crimson-haired girl did nothing to fight the wrinkled hand rubbing her head.

The two men were reaching an agreement. That was not good. Hamazura and Takitsubo had nothing they could offer in a negotiation. At this rate, they would probably each get a bullet in the head as a parting gift. The only other option he could imagine was being made into a guinea pig for some bizarre experiment.

“Oh, right,” casually began the old man.

If he said “what should we do about those two lumps of flesh”, they were screwed. And Hamazura could not predict what that Kihara would do. He felt a terrible squeezing at his heart.

Finally, Kihara Hasuu continued.

“While we can share the train, I will be in charge there. So if you want a ride, it’s only natural you pay a small fare, don’t you think?”

“Do you want my research notes on Frillsand #G?”

“I’m no barbarian. A scientist’s research notes are a part of his very soul. Those are the fruits of your labors, so take them to your grave.”

“Then what do you want?”

“A few of them.”

The old man’s voice was as casual as ever as he pointed his engineering glove in a different direction entirely. He pointed at the gym clothes children who were peeking out from behind cover, without a clue what was being discussed.

“''Just select a few at random.'' I intend to restart my research once things have calmed down, but the rules are different outside the city. I can’t start abducting people off the street until I have a proper base set up, so I could use an initial supply for that settling-in period.”

Hamazura froze as he listened in.

This was the dark side. This was how the elites of that stagnant world thought.

“That Frillsand #G is important to your research, but not so with those lab rats, right? How many experimental observers’ lives were lost until you managed to ''properly reproduce'' that artificial ghost? If your research has entered a stable period, I would assume you are not running through those Child Errors as quickly as you once were.”

“Heh,” laughed Drencher Kihara Repatri.

He weakly lowered his raised hands. He must have decided that was no longer necessary. He too had seen the darkness, so he spoke with the same look in his eyes as the old man.

“It’s true those are all Child Errors. And however they would be treated in the ordinary world, we all know exactly what that term means in the dark side. Yes, I gathered them together and invited them into my lab. I made sure to have a plentiful stock of convenient lives that could be spent as I liked if other forms of research were not enough.”

“Then I can have a few?”

“''Go to hell, you son of a bitch.''”

===Part 7===

Several dry gunshots rang out.

===Part 8===

Hamazura Shiage did not understand what had just happened.

“Hamazura!!”

His body still refused to do what it was told, so track suit girl Takitsubo had to push him to the ground.

The young man had pulled out a handgun. It was no more than a small revolver, but he still fired it repeatedly from just a few meters away.

However…

“Ugh…”

“That won’t work,” said the old man.

The android’s crimson hair fluttered while she held her thick machete at the ready with her bare feet planted a step in front of Hasuu. Not only had she deflected all of the bullets, she had used their ricochets as a counterattack.

''No more than a small revolver.

''Something had gone horribly wrong when you started thinking of things in those terms in this country.

The young man had several holes in his upper body and dark red stains spread across his clothes. Doubling over did nothing to help, so he finally collapsed to the ground.

The old man in a jumpsuit and lab coat spoke up in exasperation while the strongest doll protected him.

“They’re just kids. And it’s not like I’m asking for all of them. Just two or three will do.”

“I wanted to…protect them from the dark side scum who think like that,” spat the young man while struggling to breathe down on all fours. He had given up trying to hold his wounds. “But nothing I did above board did anything to help. I couldn’t even get information on where those children were. The only way to fight the dark side…was to become the dark side. I almost laughed when I saw how many people came running to me then, claiming my research was so valuable. When I said I needed children’s lives to do it, they slapped me on the shoulder and agreed to it all. While happily sipping on a glass of this year’s finest red with their other hand. This city is rotten to the core.”

“Aren’t you Drencher Kihara Repatri?”

“Claiming to be a Kihara was the quickest way to get what I wanted. Ha ha. Those VIPs really were terrified of me.”

“Dammit,” spat out Hamazura Shiage.

The young man saw his own condition as of secondary importance.

It was true the ghost woman had used the children. They had been placed in a position where she could crush their lives at any moment. But had Hamazura ever seen her actually kill a child? What if they had been living in a world where they had to take the charade that far to be believed?

The old man had asked how many experimental observers’ lives were lost until he managed to properly reproduce the artificial ghost, but the young man had never answered.

That was in fact the answer. He had not sacrificed anyone. Not one. He had wanted to gather up those children known as Child Errors and drag them up out of the darkness. There ''were'' adults willing to dive into the dark side for no other reason than that.

There really were.

And yet…

“You’re lying.”

Hamazura suddenly rejected that entire premise. Because if he accepted this, he would have to admit to his own ugliness. Even if saying this would mean revealing he was ugly enough to put up a struggle like this.

“I’ve seen you before. You were at that counterfeiter’s place! You were preparing a passport for yourself so you could abandon those kids and leave the city!!”

“This all would have gone so much more smoothly if that had worked.” The young man smiled weakly. “If I had shown off how I escaped with the passport, Anti-Skill and the dark side’s focus would have turned toward District 23’s airport. Then the children would have had a safer escape underground here. I was never supposed to be down here with them.”

“~ ~ ~!!!!!!”

It felt like they lived in two completely different worlds.

And that young man was definitely the one in the right.

Hamazura felt so pathetic and contemptible for only ever acting to protect him and his girlfriend.

“I know I shouldn’t be asking this.”

The young man looked his way. As if to say it did not matter if he really was a Kihara or not.

His eyes knew how to view the light, but for some reason he now looked to someone as corrupted as Hamazura.

“Maybe it’s for the best if the dark side is destroyed, but please take care of those kids. You’re the only person I can leave them with now. When you saw your girlfriend suffering, you panicked and dumped medical supplies across the ground in your haste. I could see the conscience in your eyes. You had no choice but to fall this far, but you should still have some resistance to the dark side left inside you.”

“Wait, I’m not like that for everyone. Don’t shove this onto me! She’s my girlfriend, so of course I’d work to save her!!”

“Ha ha. Thinking that’s an ‘of course’ is what makes you such an oddity in the dark side. Don’t worry, I know you can do it. Because after falling into this shitty world, you still managed to find someone you care for and you decided to find peace instead of another thrill.”

Hamazura and Takitsubo had first heard of ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' from this man.

Hamazura had been cautious because there was no righteousness in the dark side and the man must have had his own reasons.

Was this why?

Had it been some insurance, just in case? Instead of worrying about his own survival, he had wanted some insurance for after he died.

Yet he had also slaughtered the dark sider people rushing toward this exit.

All because he could not let any harm come to the children as those people fought each other. He had rushed down a dark path to prevent a mere possibility.

But on Hamazura and Takitsubo’s way here, hadn’t the ghost woman glanced their way after slaughtering everyone else and then left, as if sparing them?

“Why did you do all this?”

That was the only question Hamazura could find.

That was not something to say to a dying man. He knew that. But after letting the dark side corrupt him while he worked so hard to ensure his and his girlfriend’s survival, this answer was too pure and upright to accept.

“How could you throw away your own life over this!? When you get down to it, those kids are just strangers! How could a goddamn harmful go this far just because you ‘wanted to save them’!? How!? Tell me!?”

The young man smiled.

There was already blood dripping from the corners of his lips.

“Do you need a reason to protect someone? Of course you don’t.”

That was the end of it.

Time stopped for him with the smile still on his lips.

He had no reason. He did not know why. And he had rushed in to save those children without ever finding a reason.

Hamazura Shiage had to admit defeat.

“A…”

The loser boy clenched his teeth. He moved his battered body, swiped the bloody handgun and some ammo from the young man, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

Losers had their own etiquette to follow.

That scummy old man was still here. Hamazura was not going to let him trample on the young man’s victory.

“Aaaneriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!”

A dull kachunk echoed through the circular space.

The support AI had taken control of the train and shifted it out of standby, so it slowly began to move.

The turntable had tracks in 12 directions, but he knew where to send it.

He just had to remember what the card-sized hard drive labeled lifeline had said.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

In other words…

(Hours and minutes. If I apply that to an analog clock…)

“Send it down the 5 o’clock track!!”

The train took off with so many children in gym clothes on board.

That had been his top priority.

“Is justice contagious these days?” asked the old man with the look of someone viewing a crazy person.

He had already proven that the gun would not work, so he gave Hamazura a look of partial pity now that he had inherited that defeated weapon.

“You risked your life for this, but to no avail. Look, not all of them were onboard. They must have run in fear from the very person who would have saved them.”

“Hamazura, two of them were left behind. We can’t just leave them here.”

A boy and a girl in gym clothes were holding hands a short distance away.

What had they thought when they learned the truth behind that young man’s satisfied smile?

Especially when their own actions had worked against him.

“Well, those two will suffice. I will be taking them as a souvenir. Any more than this would have been a waste of food anyway.”

“Shut up,” spat out Hamazura.

He really should not have been doing this. He had come here to escape to safety. It had been clear from the very beginning that he could not be a great hero or brave warrior. This selfish choice here might put himself and his girlfriend in danger.

But.

Even so.

A dying man had left this with him. He had been reminded what it meant to do the right thing. There were lives here he could save. He could redo things. And most of all, his girlfriend was watching.

He was done being pathetic. He gathered strength in his sweaty body and stood up under his own power again. He had to.

“Maybe you’re a Kihara and an android.”

His goal was to run away?

No, sometimes a man had to stand up and speak his mind.

“But I’ll take you on, you goddamned dark siders!!!!!!”

He knew it was possible.

He had just seen a man stay true to this way of life.

He could reclaim his humanity. He must have learned something from what he saw here.

===Part 9===

Of course, Hamazura could never actually hit the crimson-haired android by firing the 9mm handgun at random. He knew she would deflect the bullets with her thick machete and fill him with holes.

So he did something else instead.

“Aneri!!”

A giant shape suddenly moved right next to the racing swimsuit girl.

A wheel loader used to stack up the railroad-sized containers was being remotely controlled.

“Move.”

What was that machete even made of? She did not even look in that direction as she swung her weapon and sliced apart the snowplow-looking piece of machinery. Even though she was not using any rapid vibrations or heat.

But Hamazura used that moment to pull on his girlfriend’s hand and move from there.

This was a vast circular space, but it was not an empty colosseum.

It had concrete columns just like an underground common utility duct and it had various equipment needed for operating and maintaining the trains, all located where it would not get in the way of the turntable and the 12 directions of track. Transformers were surrounded by a fence, a prefab hut had been made into a control room, giant jacks and a carwash were prepared for maintenance purposes, and more.

Aneri had directly operated the freight train, so he felt safe assuming she could operate all of the equipment here.

He pulled his girlfriend close while hiding behind a concrete column and whispering to his phone.

“Aneri, can you directly hijack that hunk of junk?”

No response.

He took that as a no. This did not sound like it was an issue of building up to that or setting something up in advance. That android was immune to cyber attacks on some level he did not understand.

(That means the only option is to destroy her the old-fashioned way!!)

“Hamazura, we can’t hide here forever. If she stops focusing on us, she’ll go after those children. Villains always go for the easiest target.”

“I know that.”

Takitsubo kept trying to wipe the sweat from her brow, but something was not right. The moxibustion should have relieved her symptoms to an extent, but that treatment might not be working as much anymore.

He was worried, but he could not stop now. He hated that fact.

“But using ourselves as bait will put us at risk. Are you prepared for that, Takitsubo?”

“Ask any more stupid questions and I’ll slap you.”

“Okay, it’s time to win your heart all over again!!”

They both ran out from behind the concrete column.

Their eyes met the ones with pupils mechanically expanding and contracting, but they stayed strong this time.

===Part 10===

Ladybird had a lock on two targets.

She walked barefoot across the floor and accurately obeyed her instructions, but she also had a question.

Why were the children necessary?

Kihara Hasuu – her Sensei – was researching androids. He had already successfully created one, so he no longer needed to capture biological humans to dissect and observe them. This disagreement appeared to be over ownership of the Child Errors (she failed to realize it was her education by that true Kihara that led her to use the word “ownership” in this context), but why was the old man so insistent on this?

That unfortunate research was a thing of the past.

She was an android built from purely mechanical parts, but she could use an esper power. That meant no more human specimens were needed for esper development experiments. They only had to mess with machines from now on. The Child Errors no longer needed to be captured and used up.

She thought that was a wonderful thing. She could not believe the people who still clung to the old system that required humans to use other humans. Did they wish to protect the status given to them by the current Level system? If they truly believed their fight was just, then they were beyond reasoning with. Machines were not the only ones that could have their memory data rewritten. Humans could have their feelings and thoughts falsified as well.

So she would bring an end to it all.

She was fighting here to end the misfortune and tragedies caused by the esper development program.

“Ohhhh!!”

The boy raised a meaningless battle cry, ran in, and repeatedly fired his handgun. She only had to block those shots with her machete.

But he had apparently learned how she fought.

She tried to hit him with the ricochets, but they refused to hit. When she deflected a bullet back, it would follow the same straight trajectory. Placing a single piece of plywood in the middle would change things. A bullet’s force was determined by its muzzle velocity. The force of the ricochet would generally be lower. That was obvious enough since bullets were not constantly accelerating like a rocket or missile. So he could set it up so he could shoot her through an obstacle, but she could not break through it on the way back.

Her use of ricochets was similar to Accelerator’s reflection, but all her machete did was knock the bullet back. She could not ''include the actual vector in that''.

That said…

(I doubt someone with such a stupid face could do this. He must be receiving assistance with the calculations.)

She considered jumping. Lifting both feet from the ground was usually a bad idea in combat, but not so with her. With her android specs, she could kick off of one column to the next and attack from the air.

She heard the loud roar of an engine while dealing with the bullets.

It appeared to come from a forklift.

“Aneri, surround the kids! I don’t know where that old man got off to, but don’t let him get close!! If he tries it, run him over!!”

“Don’t get distracted.”

He could have gotten a hit in on her by sending the forklift in from the side while firing on her from the front. Not that a blow like that would be enough to destroy her frame.

She swung the thick machete in her right hand while gathering her strength in the space between her eyebrows.

That was how she aimed.

A blast of wind blew away the obstacles between her and Hamazura Shiage. It was more like they were obliterated by an explosion than swept away by wind.

“An esper power!?” shouted the boy.

“It looked to be Level 3 or higher,” said the girl.

She no longer had to worry about the gunfire now that the line of fire was clear. He must have known the risk of ricochets was back because he stopped attacking and hid behind a nearby column, but that was no defense. She could charge in and slice through the column and his torso behind it with a single horizontal sweep of her blade.

She had enough time to reach her other hand to her thigh, pull out the bottle, and take a drink of the discharge machine oil.

A dull boom burst out.

She was only an android modeled after the structure of the human body, but the materials used for her skeleton, muscles, and everything else were bizarre dark side tech. If she wanted to, her horsepower could rival a V12 engine at max RPMs.

But even as she chose the correct action, her mechanical head was filled with questions.

She had used a wind power.

But hadn’t she used fire during her previous clash with these people? And what about the time before that?

Androids had the same structure as humans, so a single android should only have a single power. Or could she do what humans could not because she was a machine?

(Sensei?)

===Part 11===

A column of reinforced concrete was sliced through as easily as tofu or thin paper.

Not horizontally or diagonally – vertically and all the way through. After kicking from column to column to gain height, she had apparently dropped down like lightning. She had a human form, but she could perform superhuman movements.

Hamazura Shiage had tried to jump to the side just beforehand, but he ended up tumbling into a roll.

It was not his torso sliced through along with the column. It was a gas drum kept on hand for the facility’s auxiliary power generator.

He grimaced at the pain in his hips as he continued rolling and pulled the trigger repeatedly.

Not even Ladybird could deflect bullets that hit the concrete ground and sent sparks flying.

The vaporizing gasoline ignited into explosive flames that swallowed up the entire racing swimsuit silhouette.

However…

“No, Hamazura! It didn’t work!!”

“Tch!!”

He clicked his tongue while the track suit girl ran over from elsewhere and pulled him to his feet. A black figure was displayed on the other side of that fiery screen. She showed no sign of collapsing or writhing in pain.

Had she used that previous wind power to affect how the flames spread?

He hoped so. If she was simply this tough, he could not imagine how to defeat her.

“How ''do'' you defeat an android anyway? Strangle her or stab her in the heart, she’s still a machine. That won’t stop her!!”

Could he break her motherboard? Or pull out her battery? But he had no idea how many she had or where in her slender body they were located.

The roaring flames were sliced apart. A horizontal sweep of the heavy metal machete conquered the orange barrier. The barefoot android stepped through entirely unscathed. There was no sign of discoloration on her crimson hair, white skin, or orange and black racing swimsuit.

“Something isn’t right,” said Takitsubo Rikou with eyes seemingly more robotic than the machine’s. What was she looking at right now? “An android that uses esper powers is conceivably possible. Mechanical processing may be able to ‘observe’ the waves or particles like a human brain does. And if you developed that far enough, you might be able to purposefully select between different supernatural phenomena. But this wavelength is simpler than that.”

“You mean how she switches between powers?” spat out Hamazura. “That container base in the garbage pile was their lab, right? Then I get why that old man wants those kids so bad. Even if I don’t know exactly ''how'' he would use them.”

Now, why were they able to spend so long discussing this?

The delinquent boy made sure to keep his gun aimed, but the android in question was only tilting her head.

A dark liquid was dripping from her eyes and nose.

He had seen that before. Immediately after she had been hit by the hakama girl and fought back with her fire power.

“Oh, dear.”

Kihara Hasuu’s voice reached them from somewhere, but it was echoing too much to tell where it came from. Hamazura would have shot the man if he saw him.

“Is it that time already? This is why I wanted to stock up sooner rather than later.”

“Hey.” Hamazura shouted at the unseen man. “Isn’t that cheating? You can’t really call her an android if that’s what you’re doing.”

The boy watched as the girl in the orange and black racing swimsuit held her head and doubled over.

A low straining sound came from her.

Then her back opened along the line from her nape to her tailbone.

The clasp holding together the X-shaped band at the center of the swimsuit’s back popped open and the supports were released in four directions.

Then her soft skin opened wide while supported at her nape.

Her opened back almost looked like a steam locomotive’s boiler or a furnace from hell. The fact that it was smooth human skin instead of a thick metal door gave it the sinister appearance of an insect’s shell opening up.

The top half of her swimsuit fell out of place, but her chest was not visible.

Her long red hair dropped down to cover it up.

She had planted her hands and feet on the ground like a beast.

Something translucent crawled out of her. It looked like a long, narrow blade or like a wriggling snake. It would grab something, drag it inside her, and cut it away. It was an automatic extraction organ.

Hamazura knew what it was for.

“I saw the junk those trash collectors were taking back after searching through those piles of abandoned items. A fridge was full of some brownish filth.”

He felt nauseated just remembering it.

He grimaced as he viewed that monster.

“''It was stuffed full of corpses with the contents of their heads removed.'' When those trash collectors were searching out fridges and washing machines, they weren’t selling them to used appliance stores. They were opening up bloodstained boxes packed full of still-usable organs. And they all came from your lab, didn’t they!?”

“Well, the ordinary corpses were apparently disposed of in District 10’s slums, but there are a lot of people willing to buy up ones fresh enough to make use of their parts.”

Ladybird was not an android with esper powers. She was as harmful as they came. She was a machine that would devour people’s brains when necessary. In Hamazura’s opinion, that meant she did not fit the definition of an android.

“This is a completely different approach from the Rensa model of esper cyborg. Instead of a cyborg made by ''giving a brain a body'', Ladybird-kun ''is a body given a brain.''” Hasuu sounded like he was introducing his favorite grandchild. “Cellulose nanofiber is a carbon material gathering attention for its use in making wires and bulletproof materials, but the point is we can create delicate wires even thinner than the cranial nerves. But unlike a biological brain, leaving them in their active state causes them to automatically replicate and they will try to forcibly fold themselves up for space if they run out room in the skull. The cerebrum’s frontal lobe is especially troublesome. So ''a foreign object'' must be introduced to constantly provide just the right amount of damage to ensure the brain remains the size I want it. Her power changes each time a new ''foreign object'' is introduced, but that is due to the change in the rejection and damage pattern. You can think of that as a simple idiosyncrasy.”

“Sen…sei?”

A grinding sound came from Ladybird while she seemed to be searching for something. However the old researcher described it, a human brain was apparently a necessary part for her to run. Her movements were noticeably stiff and awkward as she pursued that poison on her own.

“Sensei…but you said this research would help. You said the spread of androids would mean no more human specimens were needed for the esper development.”

“The ladybird – another name for the ladybug – might look humorous, but it is in fact a ravenous carnivore. You have heard that they are good to have around because they eat aphids, haven’t you?”

“Gh…kh.”

“And there are a lot of insects that mimic ladybugs. That includes a type of darkling beetle and cockroach, both kinds of bugs people might not normally want around. But that is not actually a type of protective coloration. Ha ha. Instead of trying to blend into their natural surroundings or avoid their predators, that coloration might actually be used to make humans like them.”

How deep did the dark side go?

How disgusting could the dark said get?

“So don’t you see?”

Its attacks were indiscriminate, like a cannibal insect.

The developer spoke to what looked like a lovely girl. And he seemed to be enjoying it immensely.

“''That is the perfect name for you.''”

===Part 12===

text> @I thought there was a problem with the world.

text> @I thought it was wrong for @humans to use @humans for their research in this city.

text> But @I could climb onto the examination table instead.

text> @I can be repaired or remade as many times as necessary.

text> Since my body was made identically to a @human’s, @I would be able to use an esper power as well. Pieces of my body could be freely added or removed, so @I could be examined inside and out more easily than a @human and @I could be modified as they saw fit.

text> No more sacrifices would be necessary for the esper development research.

text> That is why @I fought.

text> @I thought @Sensei’s research was a wonderful thing.

''“You know, Ladybird-kun, the term android signifies an artificial human built with an engineering approach. Based on that definition, it seems appropriate to me for a completed android to behave like a human.”

text> @Sensei’s words were like a shining light of hope.

text> @I wondered if @I really was good enough.

text> But @I was happy as long as @I could be of some use. @I think that kind of feeling is not something a simple machine could feel.

text> Does that mean @I am somehow @human?

text> The @humans that @I have seen are like that. They do not hesitate to make inefficient choices without even considering cost performance.

text> That is why @I find @humans to be so incredible.

text> @I have not spoken much with any other than @Sensei, but @I know that is because @androids cannot be made public yet. But @I love the @humans that @I see from a distance.

text> @I will build a path to a brighter future for them – a path to a happier world – so @I cannot allow someone to destroy all that just because they do not understand. So I will not let anyone interfere. Anyone who claims it is right to harm @people cannot be allowed to trample on the future @I can bring them.

text> So…

text>And yet…

===Part 13===

===Part 14===

===Part 15===

===Part 16===

===Part 17===

===Part 18===

===Map===

===Between the Lines 4===

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume3_Chapter3|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume3_Epilogue}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter4

2020-11-20T20:33:32Z

SNovah: /* Part 3 */

{{Incomplete|parts=12|tparts=19}}
==Chapter 4: The Demon Lord’s Young — the_LIGHT.==

===Part 1===

“Where have you been, Risako!?”

“Mister, Risako-chan is back!!”

The gym clothes girl laughed when she saw the other children gathered around.

“Eh heh heh. A doggy and an older girl saved me.”

They must have been preparing for another move because all the trucks had their engines running. But they had waited until they had found the girl with red hair done up like candy. She was relieved. Having a home to return to was a wonderful thing.

“''A doggy,'' huh?” said the artificial ghost called Frillsand #G.

“…”

Her comment made the young researcher fall silent for a bit.

His name was Drencher Kihara Repatri.

That family name was so well known in the dark side that it had become a more powerful classification than beneficial or harmful. The man who bore that name sighed softly to help refocus his mind.

“There is a chance we’ve been located, but we’re faster at the moment. If we move before they catch up, we can reach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' without issue.”

“Do you really think this world will allow any of this to go ‘without issue’?”

“It’s our job to make sure it happens.”

The adults exchanged their views with their voices too low for the excited children to hear.

But a certain boy kept his voice low for a different reason.

“Risako.”

“Oh, Sodate-chan.”

The tall boy in the same kind of gym clothes looked troubled for some reason. In fact, he looked close to tears. Risako tilted her head, thinking he was afraid she would get after him about the ball and chemical soap, but this was different.

“So you came back,” he said.

“Eh?”

“I was hoping maybe you were gone for good.”

He had wanted that? Did he hate her that much? Risako’s face clouded over, but this was again different. He shook his head and explained.

He was the only one of the children who had ''started to question these motion sensors they wore for some kind of experiment.''

“Because then at least you might have been safe.”

===Part 2===

He was afraid of screwing it up, so he started by drawing marks on her back with a marker.

“Hamazura, that tickles.”

“Stay still.”

The old book had a brush-drawn diagram with no perspective or attempt to make it look three-dimensional. The indicated locations of the organs were clearly not right. Maybe it was like the difference between an aerial photograph of the clouds and the isobars on the weather forecast map. He wondered if this was what all traditional Japanese medicine was like as he drew Xs on his girlfriend’s body. She had even removed her bra and was holding her chest in her hands while showing him her smooth back. He thought his heart was going to burst every time she squirmed from the ticklishness. Even he knew that reaction was inappropriate given the circumstances. Once he finished that, it was finally time to start. He faced the girl while she lay face down on the container lab’s work table like she was sunbathing.

The moxa used for the moxibustion was like fluffy cotton, but he actually had to set it on fire.

It felt wrong doing that on her soft skin and he could even permanently scar her if he screwed it up.

“…”

His fear came to the forefront now that it was time to do it, but this was the only way to help her with the fever.

He fought the desire to shut his eyes and placed a small pile of “fuel” on her soft skin. He worked at the lighter with a trembling hand, but he kept failing. Once he finally had a small flame, he slowly moved it in close.

“Nh.”

“A-are you okay, Takitsubo?”

“I’m fine.”

He continued the process a few more times. He had his doubts, but when she wiped the sweat from her brow, no more sweat beaded up. It did seem to be working.

He could not thank the hakama girl enough.

He could not waste this chance she had given them, so they had to approach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''.

That card-sized hard drive had been labelled with the word “Lifeline”.

Aneri must have decided the data would be too small to see on his phone because she displayed it a flat screen monitor in the lab instead. It was a series of numbers.

It looked like a calculation sheet made with spreadsheet software, but even that was enough to make the delinquent boy’s head hurt. Maybe it was important data, but he had no idea what he was supposed to focus on.

“This looks like materials data,” said Takitsubo after peering at it from the side.

“Materials?”

“Whether they’re beneficial or harmful, the dark side does a lot of research.” She pointed at one of the numbers. “They’re also building a lot of military weapons. But doesn’t it seem odd? Academy City is a mass consumer and it only has so much land since it’s surrounded by walls. You can’t just dig into the ground here and find oil or ores. So where do they get all those materials from?”

“Where? Isn’t that what the cooperative institutions around the world are for? They can work out a deal with them.”

“But how can they do that without leaving any record of it?”

She pointed at another number.

If a citizens group monitoring the flow of money and materials could reveal a secret, then it had never been part of the dark side to begin with.

“Look at this. The dark side is using far more materials than the total amount brought in from outside the city. Cutting off the fat and redistributing it to themselves would not be enough for this. The amount the dark side uses is several times larger. This would show up in the records no matter what you did. Important people like the Board of Directors and its Chairman can only cover up so much. This is too much. It’s well past what you could hide by cooking the books.”

“But then…”

He trailed off when Aneri opened a new window. A single point on a map of Academy City was colored in red. There was a secret there.

“They have an entrance and exit that doesn’t leave any records,” said the track suit girl while viewing the screen.

There were several files that appeared to be saved from message boards and social media pages. Reading through them showed a certain point in common.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

Takitsubo pointed at that bizarre statement.

“There is a way of reaching it and we should see hints of it in the rumors told around the city. Like the ‘!’ signs, a deadly train, kidnappers at the amusement park, babies in the coin lockers, or an underground construction zone where you can dump anything you don’t want found. But none of that gets at the real truth.”

“You mean…?”

“Academy City doesn’t promote recycling so much just because it wants to make the most of its limited resources. ''Sending things back to be recycled over and over again masks how much materials are actually being used.'' They can’t have an investigation revealing that we dump out several times more trash than materials we take in, right? That would violate conservation of mass. So they needed to make it hard to compare those two values. It’s a form of laundering.”

Why was that sleight of hand necessary? How did they reach the impossible result of more waste than raw materials? What was this secret that no one wanted getting out?

''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.

This was the identity of that term they had heard so many times today.

“It…isn’t closed off? There’s a secret route through the walls surrounding Academy City!?”

That could not be. For better or for worse, Academy City was cut off from the outside world. Those thick walls prevented their tech from spreading to the world at large because that could lead to disorder and chaos.

Hamazura used to be part of Skill Out. That was a group of the boys and girls who had dropped out of Academy City but had nowhere to go since they could not get out of the city.

They had been trapped. They had dropped out of school, but those walls had kept them here. If you wanted to take a trip outside the city for just a few days, you needed to submit a ton of paperwork and receive a nanodevice injection. Because if you tried leave without using the official gates, you could be killed to prevent a data leak. There had been burglars and muggers in the back alleys, but none of those expert thieves had dared go anywhere near the walls.

If there was a way to freely move in and out, they may not have felt so much pressure. They could have made a place for themselves.

Their former leader, Komaba Ritoku, might not have had to fight and die.

“…”

But the dark side had torn down that number one assumption like it was nothing.

That counterfeiter had stored that information on a card-sized hard drive labeled “Lifeline”. Had he thought he could use that information to get some dark side bigshots to save him?

He must have never imagined he would instead have his brains blown out by a paparazzo. Hamazura was at the center of all this, but he still did not know if that had been planned or a spontaneous decision.

“It’s deep below Academy City.” Takitsubo Rikou calmly read aloud something on such a large scale that talk of an alternate dimension would have sounded more realistic. “The world’s largest particle accelerator is built directly below the city walls, so people are told that digging in that area could break the accelerator’s seal and expose them to radiation and other risks. That was meant to convince everyone that no one would be dumb enough to try it.”

The diagram they found looked like a puzzle ring. It seemed to carefully avoid the circular accelerator facility, but this was a tunnel built by the dark side. There was no chance it met all the proper safety standards.

That was the dark side’s lifeline.

They had built it to continue pumping fuel into their illicit research and its construction showed they did not care at all if they brought chaos to the world. It really was the greatest taboo. It was a dark umbilical cord that could wipe out the Kiharas and everyone else if it was cut off.

“I doubt Anti-Skill knows about this,” said Takitsubo. “So they won’t be able to block it off. We can safely escape the city if we use it.”

“…”

The red light displayed by Aneri was in District 10, the city’s biggest slum. The taboo no one wanted was hidden below the district everyone had abandoned.

It was unclear if it had always had this name. They may have changed the name periodically to help hide the truth. All the scattered information was fragmentary witness accounts and some of it would likely be intentional misinformation.

But that taboo’s gaping mouth had sat deep underground all this time.

Like a nightmarish symbol of freedom.

The dot on the map displayed on the small screen had the following name displayed next to it: Vanishing Tunnel.

That was the name of their final destination. Anyone who arrived there was given a ticket to another world.

===Part 3===

They were deep, deep underground in District 10.

Few people would think too much about the layout of the subway tunnels below the city. They might know a track took an unnatural curve at one point, but no one would question the online news article about them running across some kind of ruins during construction.

An underground passageway was surrounded by cold concrete and supported by the pillars positioned at even intervals.

The few fluorescent lights on the walls were not enough to fully sweep away the darkness.

That underground blind spot had become the biggest hot spot in the world. A great many people had gathered there. They had not all arrived along the same route. They had each gathered the hints scattered around the city and started to question the city’s biggest assumption. Academy City was surrounded by thick walls, but it was not in fact sealed off.

The brawny men in work jumpsuits were a courier group called Secret Express. The men and women in dress clothes were Concierge, a group that provided hideouts to meet a criminal’s demands. The girls in plain clothing and hiding their faces with sunglasses and hunting caps may have been an extremely popular idol group. The parade of scum included Controller, who used personal information and fictitious bills to threaten the girls he targeted until he had them in digital chains, and Flare, who left behind harmless powder identical to the real deal in order to confuse criminal investigations.

A ruler of the back alleys was there.

A major corporation’s lawyer was there.

A university headmaster was there.

A major entertainment producer was there.

And a few Kiharas from different fields were there.

All sorts of people flooded that underground passageway. People did not end up on the dark side because they were low class, poor, stupid, or criminal. It took all types. The dark side had reached every class of person equally. From worlds no one knew existed to industries everyone envied.

Some had fallen before making it this far and others had attempted a different route instead. In a way, finding this tunnel and setting foot inside made them the chosen ones.

And.

Every last one of them were obstructed and crushed by a certain figure.

The woman had long blonde twintails and she wore a skintight light blue dress and a long loose skirt.

Frillsand #G was like an impassable wall.

All who challenged her crashed into that wall with the intensity of their challenge. After seeing a few of them turned to hunks of flesh and splattered blood, the others must have started wondering if she literally was a solid wall because all of those dark side members had come to a stop. They were pushed back even though she had not taken a single step.

Of course, the ghost was not going to spare them just because they gave up now.

“Next stop: skewering. Repeat: skewering.”

With a wet sound, a muscular man in black was destroyed from groin to head. But he may have been one of the lucky ones. He was gone before he even knew what had happened to him.

“Please look out for the burning and severing.”

Screams of pain echoed through the tunnel. Before long, the dark side members were fighting amongst themselves too. They appeared to have begun an ugly struggle over the concrete column they could use as a shield. However…

“We will arrive at gouging soon.”

Just as the ghost silently circled behind the column, a wet sound exploded out. The victors and losers of the struggle were all turned to mincemeat together while Frillsand #G looked on in disinterest.

“Ah…gahh,” someone groaned.

It was one of the idol girls. Her bottom half was gone and the bottom of her torso was sticking to the floor like a slug.

“But…why? We found the taboo…so aren’t we part of the dark side too? Can’t we all use…the path out together?”

“I have children to take care of. A lot of them.” Frillsand #G did not even look in her direction. “Inviting all of you in with us would only put them at risk.”

“Just…” It was already too late for her, but the top half of a girl still clawed at the concrete floor. “Just in case? You took people’s lives for no more than that!?”

“Next stop: running over. I repeat: running over.”

With a wet splat, the complaints were silenced.

The ghost seemed to be rejecting the idea that grudges lacked the power to kill.

“The rear guard is an important job,” she said in a singsong voice. “But I cannot let that crybaby see this. Knowing of it and seeing it are two very different things.”

The artificial ghost glanced over at something else.

But she soon lost interest, turned around, and vanished into the darkness.

A mere ten meters away, Hamazura Shiage was hiding behind a column and holding his hand over the track suit girl’s mouth.

If she noticed them, they were dead. He felt like his heart, his breathing, his body odor, and the slight static electricity on his clothing could all give them away. He could not even wipe the unpleasant sweat from his cheek as he desperately waited for time to pass.

That ghost really was an enemy.

She had some kind of plan of her own and had saved them on a whim before, but that did not mean he could trust her. If she had saved them on a whim, then she could also choose to throw them out on a whim. And they only had the one life.

This was worse than a sea of blood.

Flesh and blood had lost any hint of their original form, fingers extended into empty space, facial skin was frozen in a look of agony while plastered to the wall. At this point, they were only “things”, not people. There was no dignity remaining.

Each of them was a dark side member who had arrived at ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' along a different route than him.

Their endless possibilities had been reduced to zero.

Or so it felt to him.

Was this tunnel really the right path? The further they went, the more likely they were to encounter that ghost woman, so he began to wonder if it would be safer to turn back now and return to the surface.

“Pwah.”

His girlfriend escaped his hand. He was holding her from behind, so she leaned her head back to look him in the eye.

“Hamazura, I don’t sense her presence anymore. We can keep going now.”

“…”

“We can’t give up after coming so far. Blindly returning to the surface won’t save us. We’ll never find peace if we don’t go through here.”

“R-right.”

He would have long since broken if he were alone.

But when she pulled on his hand, he managed to work up some small semblance of courage.

Even with the evenly-spaced fluorescent lights, the tunnel was dark. And they had no idea who was in charge of that sparse lighting. What if the ghost could shut off the power? His phone felt all the more important to him now.

“This is a long tunnel.”

“Yeah.”

They were not speaking much anymore.

This was ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'', but did this tunnel really lead toward hope? No matter how far they went, the darkness never went away. As they trudged deeper and deeper, he felt like they had passed a point of no return. Also, who had built this enormous underground facility? Someone must have drawn up the plans, dug the hole, set the foundation, and brought in the rebar and concrete. This was a far bigger project than a bank robber’s hand-dug tunnel into the vault. Such a vast and well-made underground space could not have been built without the involvement of a major construction company.

Who had done it?

It might be a company whose ads he saw on TV every day.

Would all of this come to light one day? But those meaningless thoughts were cut off by Takitsubo.

She had noticed first because she was not holding the light.

“Hamazura, there’s a door.”

“…”

It was a thick metal door.

Just the one door sat at the end of the long, long tunnel. There may have been another route, but he did not recall seeing any other paths branching off along the way.

He slowly approached.

It did not appear to be locked. He doubted there were any grenades or other “gifts” left for them.

But that was not what scared him. He had seen all of those corpses along the way. The sight had left him so terrified he barely had it in him to keep his heart beating. He had started to view their fallen predecessors as no more than a piece of the scenery. Because otherwise that shadowy murder scene would have overwhelmed him too much to continue on.

The taboos were piling up.

He and Takitsubo had started this simply wanting to survive, but they too had been corrupted along the way.

Hamazura Shiage reached his fingers toward the doorknob.

He touched it. He squeezed it.

He turned it.

===Part 4===

A flood of light revealed a world no one was ever meant to see.

“…”

The other world turned out to be a cavernous pit.

This abyss slept deep below the earth, yet it was filled with much more artificial light than the tunnel. That was thanks to the construction lights set up here and there.

It was easily more than 250m across and maybe more than twice as deep. The perfectly circular space made of reinforced concrete at the very bottom may have reminded different people of different things.

Some might see it as a common utility duct, a circular colosseum, a switchyard’s turntable, or an underground temple dedicated to a god one must never offer any prayers.

But there was one crucial piece that helped solidify the proper image.

“A train?” muttered Hamazura while peering down over the railing.

It was a turntable.

Concrete columns were installed at even intervals around the edges, but there were none in the central circle. The flat concrete floor had a smaller circle built into it. That would rotate to change the train’s direction. The tracks outside the circle extended in 12 different directions. That made it all look like something else: a giant metal flower.

Yes, there were tracks, signal lights, transformers, maintenance equipment, a control room, and a 15-car train in here. It was a freight train.

“That’s the dark side’s lifeline?”

For him and Takitsubo, it was the plank of Carneades that would save their lives.

He doubted that turntable was all of it. There would be a container yard and maintenance zone hidden further out from the center.

They walked along the narrow catwalk built along the circular wall and descended the stairs. There were no corpses in here. Whoever had gotten here first must have used the ghost woman to eliminate any nuisances before they reached this point.

And since the train was still here, that person would still be here.

They shared this space with the slaughterer.

“Hamazura.”

“Don’t worry. I’m with you no matter what.”

“Not that. There’s someone down there. And they’re not alone.”

That was a shock. Takitsubo Rikou could accurately locate people by sensing their AIM Diffusion Field. She could not use that power as well as she used to, but she could still sense it to an extent.

The tension grew.

A single person with a bizarre power was certainly scary, but having a large group approach you brought a different sort of fear. He mentally switched his priorities to at least allowing Takitsubo to escape if things looked bad.

The only exit was up here.

Leaving that would mean being surrounded by dead ends in every direction.

“…”

After descending the last flight of stairs, they arrived at the deepest depths.

It felt so much different from when they had been looking down from above. But that was not too surprising since 250m was larger than a domed stadium. This was the same as a sports field looking so much bigger from the stands than on TV.

Yes, Hamazura Shiage now stood on the stage. He was no longer an outsider looking in.

“Oh, dear. You actually showed up. What a shame.”

He lasted one second.

His knees suddenly dropped to the ground. He could not keep his shoulders at the same height and his lost strength would not return.

“Wha-!?”

It was the ghost woman.

Was she a beneficial or a harmful?

She had left that tunnel far too bloody to claim she was trying to escape Academy City because she disliked conflict. If anything, she felt more like a vengeful spirit that refused to let anyone leave the city.

She looked like a Western doll with her long blonde twintails and light blue dress. She did not actually punch or kick him. Simply seeing her out of the corner of his eye had done critical damage to him.

A rusty-smelling liquid dripped from his eyes and nose.

He was trying to scream and flip over onto his back, but he was actually curled up and unable to move.

Encountering her meant death.

That was far too sinister a thing to be connected with a simple equals sign like that.

“It is no use.”

The ghost woman walked without audible footsteps. She moved herself from the corner of his vision to the center.

“No one is talking about anything as silly as defending against something with a shield or dodging a projectile with super speed. ''From the moment you see my face,'' the attack is complete. If I so much as casually stand in the corner of your vision, I can do continual damage without you even noticing my presence.”

He realized the strange things had always happened when the ghost woman spoke to him. And why had she turned the lights on in that tunnel? Because it was more convenient for her.

If you saw a ghost while driving, you would crash.

If your face, hands, or feet were missing in a ghost photo, you would find unnatural wounds or marks on your body.

Did this mean she even artificially reproduced those aspects of a ghost? He did not want to believe it because it would mean there was nothing he could do.

“Hamazu-!?”

“You noticed? You must have sharper senses.”

The track suit girl quickly pulled him close, but the ghost woman did not seem to care.

Besides, if seeing her really did mean death, then Takitsubo would have been killed too, but she was fine.

“But I am not talking about anything as poorly-defined as a sixth sense for ghosts. Do you have a power related to AIM Diffusion Fields?”

“There’s no AIM Diffusion Field around you? No, some strong but invisible power is scattering that weaker field.”

“It is known as High Voltage Cutting,” said the ghost woman. “The principle may be similar to the shock diamonds seen in a rocket engine’s flame or the cavitation of air bubbles created around a propeller. The constant emission of a powerful energy will create irregular waveforms and images while it interferes with itself.”

“Gh!? What energy???”

“You can find energy everywhere.” Her tone was light, so understanding how it worked must not have helped avoid its effects. “The carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide you thoughtlessly spread around forms acid rain when it bonds with the moisture in the air. You can acquire electricity simply by sticking two electrodes into a fruit, you know? Copper and zinc are such necessities that you can find them anywhere. Using that, you can produce hydrogen gas in addition to electricity. I only need to absorb power from a ''civilization battery'' the size of a city or even greater. That is enough for me to construct a single outlier point within that stable energy.”

“…”

“What are the common types of haunted locations? Old homes full of drafts, cliffs and caves eroded by the waves, and mountain roads late at night. They are always full of ''noise'', such as static electricity, pressure differences, the creaking of rusty doors, or the rustling of the trees in the wind. Have you ever heard a ghostly voice in the crackle of excess electricity or the roar of hydrogen gas being ignited? I can exist as I am wherever human civilization exists. If you wish to kill me, you must destroy your very way of life. On a global scale.”

This was too much.

He could not understand her explanation. And even if he thought he did, it still did not tell him how to destroy her.

Takitsubo gasped and spoke while holding onto him.

“I get that the constant use of a massive amount of unseen energy would eventually create something unnatural. But if seeing you is deadly, how do you choose specific targets to-?”

She trailed off.

She had seen something out of the corner of her eye, but not the artificial ghost this time. A unified set of colors could be seen peeking out of at them from a gap in the door to one of the freight train’s containers.

''They were small children wearing gym clothes and some kind of device. There were more than just 10 or 20 of them.

''All of them were a part of the ghost experiment.

The children must have seen the ghost woman as they nervously spied out. And they seemed to be expectantly waiting to see if she would repel these unknown intruders. They did not know. They had not been told what they were being used for. Simply viewing a ghost photo was harmful and the longer you viewed it, the more damage it did. She embodied that power so perfectly that she had eliminated so many dark side elites.

Yet she had managed to accurately select one out of the many candidates.

That was like shooting the apple off someone’s head. Without explaining any of it to the children who had those sensors attached to them.

“…”

The delinquent boy clenched his teeth.

He could barely move, she held his life in her hand, and he had no idea how to fight back. He had to avoid angering her if at all possible. He understood that, but he still shouted up at her.

“You scum!!”

“Call me what you wish. In fact, I see it as a compliment.”

The ghost woman who resembled a fairy tale princess held her palm out toward him. He only had to see her impossible presence for her to attack, so that gesture was meaningless.

But then her eyes turned unnaturally away from him.

To the side.

A spare container sitting near the train was sliced in two. Something had dropped down from far above like a bolt of lightning.

A red figure wielded a thick machete made of heavy metal.

The android wore a racing swimsuit colored the orange and black of an insect. The bangs of her long crimson hair were cut straight across and she had a slender build.

Cartoony flowers were displayed in her mechanical eyes.

“Smug face.”

“Hello, hello,” said a twig of an old man in a blue jumpsuit and lab coat. “I hate to interrupt when you seem so busy, but I must insist.”

The ghost woman shrugged.

“Were you hoping to use the train? I thought you were one of the harmfuls who would remain in the city and resist to the bitter end.”

“I have no interest in those categories forced onto the dark side from the outside. All I care about is continuing my research. Academy City was a wonderful environment for that, but if that has changed, I need to leave and search out a more comfortable place.”

“You can see me, can’t you?”

“You should be able to tell by observing my eye movements.”

“And you know what that means?” She gave a suggestive glance over at the machine that had arrived with him. “In case you were unaware, I am capable of causing malfunctions in mechanical lenses and sensors just as well as in the human body. Ghost photographs are a result of ghosts interfering in optical machinery, are they not? That might be your masterpiece, but isn’t it presumptuous to assume she can wield her full power against me?”

She remained untouchable. She could kill someone just by placing herself in the corner of their vision and machines could not do anything to her either. Did she have no blind spots?

“Yes, I imagine so.”

But the old man did not seem to mind.

That mysterious old man ''known as a Kihara'' was not bothered that she held his life in her hand.

“You are the strongest when it comes to an individual. Looking at deadliness alone, you might outdo the #3 and the #2.”

“…”

Evidently, even ghosts could find something to be ominous.

This world may have been infected with a disease that caused all bad premonitions to come true.

“But in this specific location, I believe you too will find you cannot wield your full power.”

“What are you- gah!!!!????”

He had given her plenty of warning, but she suddenly arched her back and then froze unnaturally in midair. An ominous straining sound continued on and on as her body grew distorted. She bent and stretched, almost like a face pressed against a wall of glass.

Something was happening.

Hamazura had thought the ghost woman was an intangible being, like a mist or apparition. But she was not. She clearly had a spine to strain, muscles to cry out in pain, and organs to writhe unnaturally.

Then a bizarre creaking and cracking noise came from her. Her volume shrank more and more like she was being crushed in from all sides. The old man was holding something up in his special engineering glove. It looked like an empty candy box, but it was not. It had a small pinhole at the very top. The ghost woman was sucked into that small hole like a liquid or a gas. Hamazura did not want to imagine what things were like inside there. He could only say one thing in a daze.

“A pinhole…camera?”

“High Voltage Cutting? I see, a strange theory, but she is still a form of unstable energy. And all energy will move from high to low – unstable to stable. This is enough to break down her form and burn in her image.”

The old man let go of the candy box.

He had the look of a mischievous child who had just realized he could create his own spark show by sticking a metal clip in the microwave.

“This is the appropriate choice for a ghost photo, don’t you think? A digital camera just wouldn’t fit the aesthetic.”

After dropping it to the cold concrete, he crushed it below his heel. He did not even glance down at the flattened box.

“''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.''” He tapped on his lower back. “Surely you didn’t think a construction company building a secret tunnel out of the city was enough to earn a name like that. With something like her around, you really should have thought of a different possibility.”

“Wh-what?”

Hamazura felt like the unnatural “curse” had weakened, but he still could not bring himself to get up from the ground. The old man only now seemed to have realized that there was another person here reaching for the plank of Carneades.

Hamazura knew any attention on him would only lead to disaster.

Kihara Hasuu smiled.

“Let me make one thing clear. There is a member of the Board who built a vast fortune by doing unofficial construction work for the dark side, but he knows nothing of this. This massive underground structure just appeared out of the blue one day.”

“…?”

Out of the blue?

Hamazura had operated construction machinery before, so he knew how absurd that was. Did that old man have any idea how long it would take to dig out a hole of this size?

But the old man appeared to be serious.

Deadly serious.

“''The Vanishing Tunnel does not actually exist.''”

Hamazura had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

It made no sense. If that were true, then where were they now???

The old man gave the answer.

“Kazakiri Hyouka was not just a single individual. She is more like one piece of the Imaginary Number District, an entire city created from the aggregation of AIM Diffusion Fields. …It all began with a project meant to cut out a portion of that territory and extract it as a new resource. Unlike the microscopic alchemy performed in the particle accelerator, this would have been on the macro scale and cost very little. But not even the group of researchers who guided all that power through the city could have predicted it would take this form. ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' is such a dramatic name. In truth, it was a major failure that needed to be covered up. Everyone involved was at their wits’ end.” He tapped his lower back again. “A nonexistent pathway unofficially connected Academy City to the world outside, increasing the risk of the outer world’s collapse through cultural exchange and technological contamination. The entire world very well could have been destroyed from this single point. While the researchers had hoped to extract materials from the Imaginary Number District, whatever came from there might have transformed the outside world into something truly grotesque. …Yes, that the world still exists as it does now was no more than ''dumb luck''. It was nothing we did on our end. Kazakiri Hyouka and the other inhuman monsters simply showed no interest in that. If something had occurred to them and they had tried it, the world would have ended.”

“You mean…” Takitsubo replied since she had a better understanding of things related to AIM. “You were researching the exact opposite of that ghost? A ghost made from powerful energy and an aggregation of weak powers are opposites, so when they came together, it caused the ghost to malfunction… You were trying to extract inorganic materials from that unseen city, weren’t you?”

“Hard to say if that research was a step forward or a step back. Like I said, they failed. They could not control it, so even the remains of their project you see here cannot be erased. I believe the natural half life was about 12,000 years. In the worst case, the Imaginary Number District could have been converted into real numbers, crushing Academy City in the process. I think the project could have found success if they could have cut off a piece at a workable size and found a way to control it. In that sense, that ghost really is the strongest as an individual and an enviable success.”

Now even Hamazura had a vague idea why the ghost woman had suddenly malfunctioned.

They could not be in the same place.

Two ghosts could not coexist. Just like installing two different pieces of security software on the same computer would cause a conflict.

“It was still a risky gamble, though. The odds were low, but if the tunnel ''had lost'', this temporary space itself would have vanished and we would all have become fossils after being buried deep below the surface.”

Hamazura heard a swooshing sound and looked over to see the android swinging her thick machete next to the old man. Those two had won their bet, so now no one could stop them.

Kihara Hasuu looked away from Hamazura and turned to someone else.

“Now, I have eliminated your bodyguard. Isn’t it time we talked this out like adults?”

===Part 5===

“When’s the train going to leave?”

“Oh, mister just left.”

The children dressed up in gym clothes were whispering to each other while peeking out through the cracked-open door of a freight train container.

But among them…

“Ow, that hurts.”

The girl named Risako spoke up in protest.

But Sodate ignored that and continued tugging on her skinny wrist. The bigger boy was kind of scary when he was not saying anything.

“Listen, Risako.” He spoke quickly while walking through the shadows to stay hidden. He seemed to be speaking to himself more than the girl. “You can still escape. It’s not too late. And once you get to the surface, go tell the grownups about this. I know you can do it.”

“Why? The train is about to leave.”

“You still don’t get it!?” He shouted with his hands on her shoulders. “They make us wear these clothes and devices, they keep us separated from the rest of the city, and they don’t let us go to a normal school. We’re Child Errors, so no one will even notice if we just disappear one day. They’re only raising us because they can use us for something. They’re fattening us up to eat us!”

“But…”

“We don’t even have phones to call for help. ''It isn’t normal to be this isolated.'' That’s why I kept leaving behind some sign of our presence: building blocks, picture books, balls, and so on. I left them outside before the trucks moved on and I made sure to write our names, the trucks’ license numbers, and other information on them! But none of it ever reached the grownups. Our efforts never reached anyone!!”

She had thought he kept stealing things because he was selfish. She had thought he would forget those things in his secret bases because he was sloppy. But that was not it.

“They’re relatively peaceful beneficials? Don’t make me laugh. What’s going to change after we board that train and leave Academy City? There won’t be anyone monitoring them anymore!! Once that happens, I just know he’ll stop holding back. He’ll ''take it even further''! So you at least need to escape before that happens!!”

“Sodate-chan…”

“I’ll give you an opening.” He looked the girl in the eye and spoke clearly. “I won’t let him turn you into a guinea pig no matter what!!”

===Part 6===

A somewhat slender man stepped out. He wore a short-sleeved safari jacket and a rash guard, making him look something like an old-fashioned adventurer, but the webcam attached to the side of his head gave him a more modern outdoorsy look. He appeared to be a different sort of researcher from the old mechanic in a lab coat and jumpsuit.

He was an expert at visiting so-called haunted locations around the world and revealing the scientific cause of the strange phenomena there. But he had apparently also artificially recreated such things to use them for his own purposes.

He grinned and raised his hands in a jocular way. Kihara Hasuu asked him a question with the deadly weapon girl still by his side.

“What is your name?”

“Drencher Kihara Repatri.”

“I see. So that’s you.”

The young man’s eyebrows moved slightly in response to the old man’s impressed tone.

“I didn’t expect someone like you to have heard of me.”

“You are rather…well known.”

The way he said that told Hamazura he did not mean that in a positive way.

This was a confrontation between two harmfuls.

The two researchers ignored the boy and girl entirely as they began a verbal rally. Hamazura knew he could not just sit and watch as a referee or spectator, but he had no way of intervening.

“As you can see, we come from different levels of the dark side. If there is no place for us in Academy City anymore, then leaving the city is a valid choice. But is that plank of Carneades really only big enough for the one group? I think it can support both of us just fine.”

That suggestion seemed surprising…but maybe it wasn’t. It was the ghost woman who had been slaughtering all of the other dark side members trying to reach this point. The android may have attacked Anti-Skill, but she had never actively tried to eliminate her fellow dark siders. She had attacked Hamazura near the counterfeiter’s tents, but if she had been trying to slaughter everyone she came across, the ordinary people in the amusement park would not have escaped alive.

The young man shrugged.

“If that means less fighting, it’s okay with me. Not that I really have a choice, do I?”

“Assuming you have no other trump cards.”

“Then I surrender.”

He did not hesitate to respond. Hamazura was actually surprised to see he was willing to back down to save his own life. Hamazura had gotten the impression that the extreme members of the dark side were willing to sacrifice their own life to achieve their goal.

That surprise scared Hamazura. He could tell he had let the dark side influence him too much. He was afraid the damage would be permanent if he went much further. Once he became a harmful, there was no going back.

“She was my prized project, you know? Frillsand #G, I mean. Now, I knew ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' would pose a challenge, but I never imagined it was a giant mass of AIM Diffusion Fields.”

“Everything has its compatibility. In fact, I could never have won if we were not down here. Keep this girl from working and I’m helpless.”

The crimson-haired girl did nothing to fight the wrinkled hand rubbing her head.

The two men were reaching an agreement. That was not good. Hamazura and Takitsubo had nothing they could offer in a negotiation. At this rate, they would probably each get a bullet in the head as a parting gift. The only other option he could imagine was being made into a guinea pig for some bizarre experiment.

“Oh, right,” casually began the old man.

If he said “what should we do about those two lumps of flesh”, they were screwed. And Hamazura could not predict what that Kihara would do. He felt a terrible squeezing at his heart.

Finally, Kihara Hasuu continued.

“While we can share the train, I will be in charge there. So if you want a ride, it’s only natural you pay a small fare, don’t you think?”

“Do you want my research notes on Frillsand #G?”

“I’m no barbarian. A scientist’s research notes are a part of his very soul. Those are the fruits of your labors, so take them to your grave.”

“Then what do you want?”

“A few of them.”

The old man’s voice was as casual as ever as he pointed his engineering glove in a different direction entirely. He pointed at the gym clothes children who were peeking out from behind cover, without a clue what was being discussed.

“''Just select a few at random.'' I intend to restart my research once things have calmed down, but the rules are different outside the city. I can’t start abducting people off the street until I have a proper base set up, so I could use an initial supply for that settling-in period.”

Hamazura froze as he listened in.

This was the dark side. This was how the elites of that stagnant world thought.

“That Frillsand #G is important to your research, but not so with those lab rats, right? How many experimental observers’ lives were lost until you managed to ''properly reproduce'' that artificial ghost? If your research has entered a stable period, I would assume you are not running through those Child Errors as quickly as you once were.”

“Heh,” laughed Drencher Kihara Repatri.

He weakly lowered his raised hands. He must have decided that was no longer necessary. He too had seen the darkness, so he spoke with the same look in his eyes as the old man.

“It’s true those are all Child Errors. And however they would be treated in the ordinary world, we all know exactly what that term means in the dark side. Yes, I gathered them together and invited them into my lab. I made sure to have a plentiful stock of convenient lives that could be spent as I liked if other forms of research were not enough.”

“Then I can have a few?”

“''Go to hell, you son of a bitch.''”

===Part 7===

Several dry gunshots rang out.

===Part 8===

Hamazura Shiage did not understand what had just happened.

“Hamazura!!”

His body still refused to do what it was told, so track suit girl Takitsubo had to push him to the ground.

The young man had pulled out a handgun. It was no more than a small revolver, but he still fired it repeatedly from just a few meters away.

However…

“Ugh…”

“That won’t work,” said the old man.

The android’s crimson hair fluttered while she held her thick machete at the ready with her bare feet planted a step in front of Hasuu. Not only had she deflected all of the bullets, she had used their ricochets as a counterattack.

''No more than a small revolver.

''Something had gone horribly wrong when you started thinking of things in those terms in this country.

The young man had several holes in his upper body and dark red stains spread across his clothes. Doubling over did nothing to help, so he finally collapsed to the ground.

The old man in a jumpsuit and lab coat spoke up in exasperation while the strongest doll protected him.

“They’re just kids. And it’s not like I’m asking for all of them. Just two or three will do.”

“I wanted to…protect them from the dark side scum who think like that,” spat the young man while struggling to breathe down on all fours. He had given up trying to hold his wounds. “But nothing I did above board did anything to help. I couldn’t even get information on where those children were. The only way to fight the dark side…was to become the dark side. I almost laughed when I saw how many people came running to me then, claiming my research was so valuable. When I said I needed children’s lives to do it, they slapped me on the shoulder and agreed to it all. While happily sipping on a glass of this year’s finest red with their other hand. This city is rotten to the core.”

“Aren’t you Drencher Kihara Repatri?”

“Claiming to be a Kihara was the quickest way to get what I wanted. Ha ha. Those VIPs really were terrified of me.”

“Dammit,” spat out Hamazura Shiage.

The young man saw his own condition as of secondary importance.

It was true the ghost woman had used the children. They had been placed in a position where she could crush their lives at any moment. But had Hamazura ever seen her actually kill a child? What if they had been living in a world where they had to take the charade that far to be believed?

The old man had asked how many experimental observers’ lives were lost until he managed to properly reproduce the artificial ghost, but the young man had never answered.

That was in fact the answer. He had not sacrificed anyone. Not one. He had wanted to gather up those children known as Child Errors and drag them up out of the darkness. There ''were'' adults willing to dive into the dark side for no other reason than that.

There really were.

And yet…

“You’re lying.”

Hamazura suddenly rejected that entire premise. Because if he accepted this, he would have to admit to his own ugliness. Even if saying this would mean revealing he was ugly enough to put up a struggle like this.

“I’ve seen you before. You were at that counterfeiter’s place! You were preparing a passport for yourself so you could abandon those kids and leave the city!!”

“This all would have gone so much more smoothly if that had worked.” The young man smiled weakly. “If I had shown off how I escaped with the passport, Anti-Skill and the dark side’s focus would have turned toward District 23’s airport. Then the children would have had a safer escape underground here. I was never supposed to be down here with them.”

“~ ~ ~!!!!!!”

It felt like they lived in two completely different worlds.

And that young man was definitely the one in the right.

Hamazura felt so pathetic and contemptible for only ever acting to protect him and his girlfriend.

“I know I shouldn’t be asking this.”

The young man looked his way. As if to say it did not matter if he really was a Kihara or not.

His eyes knew how to view the light, but for some reason he now looked to someone as corrupted as Hamazura.

“Maybe it’s for the best if the dark side is destroyed, but please take care of those kids. You’re the only person I can leave them with now. When you saw your girlfriend suffering, you panicked and dumped medical supplies across the ground in your haste. I could see the conscience in your eyes. You had no choice but to fall this far, but you should still have some resistance to the dark side left inside you.”

“Wait, I’m not like that for everyone. Don’t shove this onto me! She’s my girlfriend, so of course I’d work to save her!!”

“Ha ha. Thinking that’s an ‘of course’ is what makes you such an oddity in the dark side. Don’t worry, I know you can do it. Because after falling into this shitty world, you still managed to find someone you care for and you decided to find peace instead of another thrill.”

Hamazura and Takitsubo had first heard of ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' from this man.

Hamazura had been cautious because there was no righteousness in the dark side and the man must have had his own reasons.

Was this why?

Had it been some insurance, just in case? Instead of worrying about his own survival, he had wanted some insurance for after he died.

Yet he had also slaughtered the dark sider people rushing toward this exit.

All because he could not let any harm come to the children as those people fought each other. He had rushed down a dark path to prevent a mere possibility.

But on Hamazura and Takitsubo’s way here, hadn’t the ghost woman glanced their way after slaughtering everyone else and then left, as if sparing them?

“Why did you do all this?”

That was the only question Hamazura could find.

That was not something to say to a dying man. He knew that. But after letting the dark side corrupt him while he worked so hard to ensure his and his girlfriend’s survival, this answer was too pure and upright to accept.

“How could you throw away your own life over this!? When you get down to it, those kids are just strangers! How could a goddamn harmful go this far just because you ‘wanted to save them’!? How!? Tell me!?”

The young man smiled.

There was already blood dripping from the corners of his lips.

“Do you need a reason to protect someone? Of course you don’t.”

That was the end of it.

Time stopped for him with the smile still on his lips.

He had no reason. He did not know why. And he had rushed in to save those children without ever finding a reason.

Hamazura Shiage had to admit defeat.

“A…”

The loser boy clenched his teeth. He moved his battered body, swiped the bloody handgun and some ammo from the young man, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

Losers had their own etiquette to follow.

That scummy old man was still here. Hamazura was not going to let him trample on the young man’s victory.

“Aaaneriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!”

A dull kachunk echoed through the circular space.

The support AI had taken control of the train and shifted it out of standby, so it slowly began to move.

The turntable had tracks in 12 directions, but he knew where to send it.

He just had to remember what the card-sized hard drive labeled lifeline had said.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

In other words…

(Hours and minutes. If I apply that to an analog clock…)

“Send it down the 5 o’clock track!!”

The train took off with so many children in gym clothes on board.

That had been his top priority.

“Is justice contagious these days?” asked the old man with the look of someone viewing a crazy person.

He had already proven that the gun would not work, so he gave Hamazura a look of partial pity now that he had inherited that defeated weapon.

“You risked your life for this, but to no avail. Look, not all of them were onboard. They must have run in fear from the very person who would have saved them.”

“Hamazura, two of them were left behind. We can’t just leave them here.”

A boy and a girl in gym clothes were holding hands a short distance away.

What had they thought when they learned the truth behind that young man’s satisfied smile?

Especially when their own actions had worked against him.

“Well, those two will suffice. I will be taking them as a souvenir. Any more than this would have been a waste of food anyway.”

“Shut up,” spat out Hamazura.

He really should not have been doing this. He had come here to escape to safety. It had been clear from the very beginning that he could not be a great hero or brave warrior. This selfish choice here might put himself and his girlfriend in danger.

But.

Even so.

A dying man had left this with him. He had been reminded what it meant to do the right thing. There were lives here he could save. He could redo things. And most of all, his girlfriend was watching.

He was done being pathetic. He gathered strength in his sweaty body and stood up under his own power again. He had to.

“Maybe you’re a Kihara and an android.”

His goal was to run away?

No, sometimes a man had to stand up and speak his mind.

“But I’ll take you on, you goddamned dark siders!!!!!!”

He knew it was possible.

He had just seen a man stay true to this way of life.

He could reclaim his humanity. He must have learned something from what he saw here.

===Part 9===

Of course, Hamazura could never actually hit the crimson-haired android by firing the 9mm handgun at random. He knew she would deflect the bullets with her thick machete and fill him with holes.

So he did something else instead.

“Aneri!!”

A giant shape suddenly moved right next to the racing swimsuit girl.

A wheel loader used to stack up the railroad-sized containers was being remotely controlled.

“Move.”

What was that machete even made of? She did not even look in that direction as she swung her weapon and sliced apart the snowplow-looking piece of machinery. Even though she was not using any rapid vibrations or heat.

But Hamazura used that moment to pull on his girlfriend’s hand and move from there.

This was a vast circular space, but it was not an empty colosseum.

It had concrete columns just like an underground common utility duct and it had various equipment needed for operating and maintaining the trains, all located where it would not get in the way of the turntable and the 12 directions of track. Transformers were surrounded by a fence, a prefab hut had been made into a control room, giant jacks and a carwash were prepared for maintenance purposes, and more.

Aneri had directly operated the freight train, so he felt safe assuming she could operate all of the equipment here.

He pulled his girlfriend close while hiding behind a concrete column and whispering to his phone.

“Aneri, can you directly hijack that hunk of junk?”

No response.

He took that as a no. This did not sound like it was an issue of building up to that or setting something up in advance. That android was immune to cyber attacks on some level he did not understand.

(That means the only option is to destroy her the old-fashioned way!!)

“Hamazura, we can’t hide here forever. If she stops focusing on us, she’ll go after those children. Villains always go for the easiest target.”

“I know that.”

Takitsubo kept trying to wipe the sweat from her brow, but something was not right. The moxibustion should have relieved her symptoms to an extent, but that treatment might not be working as much anymore.

He was worried, but he could not stop now. He hated that fact.

“But using ourselves as bait will put us at risk. Are you prepared for that, Takitsubo?”

“Ask any more stupid questions and I’ll slap you.”

“Okay, it’s time to win your heart all over again!!”

They both ran out from behind the concrete column.

Their eyes met the ones with pupils mechanically expanding and contracting, but they stayed strong this time.

===Part 10===

Ladybird had a lock on two targets.

She walked barefoot across the floor and accurately obeyed her instructions, but she also had a question.

Why were the children necessary?

Kihara Hasuu – her Sensei – was researching androids. He had already successfully created one, so he no longer needed to capture biological humans to dissect and observe them. This disagreement appeared to be over ownership of the Child Errors (she failed to realize it was her education by that true Kihara that led her to use the word “ownership” in this context), but why was the old man so insistent on this?

That unfortunate research was a thing of the past.

She was an android built from purely mechanical parts, but she could use an esper power. That meant no more human specimens were needed for esper development experiments. They only had to mess with machines from now on. The Child Errors no longer needed to be captured and used up.

She thought that was a wonderful thing. She could not believe the people who still clung to the old system that required humans to use other humans. Did they wish to protect the status given to them by the current Level system? If they truly believed their fight was just, then they were beyond reasoning with. Machines were not the only ones that could have their memory data rewritten. Humans could have their feelings and thoughts falsified as well.

So she would bring an end to it all.

She was fighting here to end the misfortune and tragedies caused by the esper development program.

“Ohhhh!!”

The boy raised a meaningless battle cry, ran in, and repeatedly fired his handgun. She only had to block those shots with her machete.

But he had apparently learned how she fought.

She tried to hit him with the ricochets, but they refused to hit. When she deflected a bullet back, it would follow the same straight trajectory. Placing a single piece of plywood in the middle would change things. A bullet’s force was determined by its muzzle velocity. The force of the ricochet would generally be lower. That was obvious enough since bullets were not constantly accelerating like a rocket or missile. So he could set it up so he could shoot her through an obstacle, but she could not break through it on the way back.

Her use of ricochets was similar to Accelerator’s reflection, but all her machete did was knock the bullet back. She could not ''include the actual vector in that''.

That said…

(I doubt someone with such a stupid face could do this. He must be receiving assistance with the calculations.)

She considered jumping. Lifting both feet from the ground was usually a bad idea in combat, but not so with her. With her android specs, she could kick off of one column to the next and attack from the air.

She heard the loud roar of an engine while dealing with the bullets.

It appeared to come from a forklift.

“Aneri, surround the kids! I don’t know where that old man got off to, but don’t let him get close!! If he tries it, run him over!!”

“Don’t get distracted.”

He could have gotten a hit in on her by sending the forklift in from the side while firing on her from the front. Not that a blow like that would be enough to destroy her frame.

She swung the thick machete in her right hand while gathering her strength in the space between her eyebrows.

That was how she aimed.

A blast of wind blew away the obstacles between her and Hamazura Shiage. It was more like they were obliterated by an explosion than swept away by wind.

“An esper power!?” shouted the boy.

“It looked to be Level 3 or higher,” said the girl.

She no longer had to worry about the gunfire now that the line of fire was clear. He must have known the risk of ricochets was back because he stopped attacking and hid behind a nearby column, but that was no defense. She could charge in and slice through the column and his torso behind it with a single horizontal sweep of her blade.

She had enough time to reach her other hand to her thigh, pull out the bottle, and take a drink of the discharge machine oil.

A dull boom burst out.

She was only an android modeled after the structure of the human body, but the materials used for her skeleton, muscles, and everything else were bizarre dark side tech. If she wanted to, her horsepower could rival a V12 engine at max RPMs.

But even as she chose the correct action, her mechanical head was filled with questions.

She had used a wind power.

But hadn’t she used fire during her previous clash with these people? And what about the time before that?

Androids had the same structure as humans, so a single android should only have a single power. Or could she do what humans could not because she was a machine?

(Sensei?)

===Part 11===

A column of reinforced concrete was sliced through as easily as tofu or thin paper.

Not horizontally or diagonally – vertically and all the way through. After kicking from column to column to gain height, she had apparently dropped down like lightning. She had a human form, but she could perform superhuman movements.

Hamazura Shiage had tried to jump to the side just beforehand, but he ended up tumbling into a roll.

It was not his torso sliced through along with the column. It was a gas drum kept on hand for the facility’s auxiliary power generator.

He grimaced at the pain in his hips as he continued rolling and pulled the trigger repeatedly.

Not even Ladybird could deflect bullets that hit the concrete ground and sent sparks flying.

The vaporizing gasoline ignited into explosive flames that swallowed up the entire racing swimsuit silhouette.

However…

“No, Hamazura! It didn’t work!!”

“Tch!!”

He clicked his tongue while the track suit girl ran over from elsewhere and pulled him to his feet. A black figure was displayed on the other side of that fiery screen. She showed no sign of collapsing or writhing in pain.

Had she used that previous wind power to affect how the flames spread?

He hoped so. If she was simply this tough, he could not imagine how to defeat her.

“How ''do'' you defeat an android anyway? Strangle her or stab her in the heart, she’s still a machine. That won’t stop her!!”

Could he break her motherboard? Or pull out her battery? But he had no idea how many she had or where in her slender body they were located.

The roaring flames were sliced apart. A horizontal sweep of the heavy metal machete conquered the orange barrier. The barefoot android stepped through entirely unscathed. There was no sign of discoloration on her crimson hair, white skin, or orange and black racing swimsuit.

“Something isn’t right,” said Takitsubo Rikou with eyes seemingly more robotic than the machine’s. What was she looking at right now? “An android that uses esper powers is conceivably possible. Mechanical processing may be able to ‘observe’ the waves or particles like a human brain does. And if you developed that far enough, you might be able to purposefully select between different supernatural phenomena. But this wavelength is simpler than that.”

“You mean how she switches between powers?” spat out Hamazura. “That container base in the garbage pile was their lab, right? Then I get why that old man wants those kids so bad. Even if I don’t know exactly ''how'' he would use them.”

Now, why were they able to spend so long discussing this?

The delinquent boy made sure to keep his gun aimed, but the android in question was only tilting her head.

A dark liquid was dripping from her eyes and nose.

He had seen that before. Immediately after she had been hit by the hakama girl and fought back with her fire power.

“Oh, dear.”

Kihara Hasuu’s voice reached them from somewhere, but it was echoing too much to tell where it came from. Hamazura would have shot the man if he saw him.

“Is it that time already? This is why I wanted to stock up sooner rather than later.”

“Hey.” Hamazura shouted at the unseen man. “Isn’t that cheating? You can’t really call her an android if that’s what you’re doing.”

The boy watched as the girl in the orange and black racing swimsuit held her head and doubled over.

A low straining sound came from her.

Then her back opened along the line from her nape to her tailbone.

The clasp holding together the X-shaped band at the center of the swimsuit’s back popped open and the supports were released in four directions.

Then her soft skin opened wide while supported at her nape.

Her opened back almost looked like a steam locomotive’s boiler or a furnace from hell. The fact that it was smooth human skin instead of a thick metal door gave it the sinister appearance of an insect’s shell opening up.

The top half of her swimsuit fell out of place, but her chest was not visible.

Her long red hair dropped down to cover it up.

She had planted her hands and feet on the ground like a beast.

Something translucent crawled out of her. It looked like a long, narrow blade or like a wriggling snake. It would grab something, drag it inside her, and cut it away. It was an automatic extraction organ.

Hamazura knew what it was for.

“I saw the junk those trash collectors were taking back after searching through those piles of abandoned items. A fridge was full of some brownish filth.”

He felt nauseated just remembering it.

He grimaced as he viewed that monster.

“''It was stuffed full of corpses with the contents of their heads removed.'' When those trash collectors were searching out fridges and washing machines, they weren’t selling them to used appliance stores. They were opening up bloodstained boxes packed full of still-usable organs. And they all came from your lab, didn’t they!?”

“Well, the ordinary corpses were apparently disposed of in District 10’s slums, but there are a lot of people willing to buy up ones fresh enough to make use of their parts.”

Ladybird was not an android with esper powers. She was as harmful as they came. She was a machine that would devour people’s brains when necessary. In Hamazura’s opinion, that meant she did not fit the definition of an android.

“This is a completely different approach from the Rensa model of esper cyborg. Instead of a cyborg made by ''giving a brain a body'', Ladybird-kun ''is a body given a brain.''” Hasuu sounded like he was introducing his favorite grandchild. “Cellulose nanofiber is a carbon material gathering attention for its use in making wires and bulletproof materials, but the point is we can create delicate wires even thinner than the cranial nerves. But unlike a biological brain, leaving them in their active state causes them to automatically replicate and they will try to forcibly fold themselves up for space if they run out room in the skull. The cerebrum’s frontal lobe is especially troublesome. So ''a foreign object'' must be introduced to constantly provide just the right amount of damage to ensure the brain remains the size I want it. Her power changes each time a new ''foreign object'' is introduced, but that is due to the change in the rejection and damage pattern. You can think of that as a simple idiosyncrasy.”

“Sen…sei?”

A grinding sound came from Ladybird while she seemed to be searching for something. However the old researcher described it, a human brain was apparently a necessary part for her to run. Her movements were noticeably stiff and awkward as she pursued that poison on her own.

“Sensei…but you said this research would help. You said the spread of androids would mean no more human specimens were needed for the esper development.”

“The ladybird – another name for the ladybug – might look humorous, but it is in fact a ravenous carnivore. You have heard that they are good to have around because they eat aphids, haven’t you?”

“Gh…kh.”

“And there are a lot of insects that mimic ladybugs. That includes a type of darkling beetle and cockroach, both kinds of bugs people might not normally want around. But that is not actually a type of protective coloration. Ha ha. Instead of trying to blend into their natural surroundings or avoid their predators, that coloration might actually be used to make humans like them.”

How deep did the dark side go?

How disgusting could the dark said get?

“So don’t you see?”

Its attacks were indiscriminate, like a cannibal insect.

The developer spoke to what looked like a lovely girl. And he seemed to be enjoying it immensely.

“''That is the perfect name for you.''”

===Part 12===

text> @I thought there was a problem with the world.

text> @I thought it was wrong for @humans to use @humans for their research in this city.

text> But @I could climb onto the examination table instead.

text> @I can be repaired or remade as many times as necessary.

text> Since my body was made identically to a @human’s, @I would be able to use an esper power as well. Pieces of my body could be freely added or removed, so @I could be examined inside and out more easily than a @human and @I could be modified as they saw fit.

text> No more sacrifices would be necessary for the esper development research.

text> That is why @I fought.

text> @I thought @Sensei’s research was a wonderful thing.

''“You know, Ladybird-kun, the term android signifies an artificial human built with an engineering approach. Based on that definition, it seems appropriate to me for a completed android to behave like a human.”

text> @Sensei’s words were like a shining light of hope.

text> @I wondered if @I really was good enough.

text> But @I was happy as long as @I could be of some use. @I think that kind of feeling is not something a simple machine could feel.

text> Does that mean @I am somehow @human?

text> The @humans that @I have seen are like that. They do not hesitate to make inefficient choices without even considering cost performance.

text> That is why @I find @humans to be so incredible.

text> @I have not spoken much with any other than @Sensei, but @I know that is because @androids cannot be made public yet. But @I love the @humans that @I see from a distance.

text> @I will build a path to a brighter future for them – a path to a happier world – so @I cannot allow someone to destroy all that just because they do not understand. So I will not let anyone interfere. Anyone who claims it is right to harm @people cannot be allowed to trample on the future @I can bring them.

text> So…

text>And yet…

===Part 13===

===Part 14===

===Part 15===

===Part 16===

===Part 17===

===Part 18===

===Map===

===Between the Lines 4===

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume3_Chapter3|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume3_Epilogue}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter4

2020-11-20T20:30:41Z

SNovah: /* Part 2 */

{{Incomplete|parts=12|tparts=19}}
==Chapter 4: The Demon Lord’s Young — the_LIGHT.==

===Part 1===

“Where have you been, Risako!?”

“Mister, Risako-chan is back!!”

The gym clothes girl laughed when she saw the other children gathered around.

“Eh heh heh. A doggy and an older girl saved me.”

They must have been preparing for another move because all the trucks had their engines running. But they had waited until they had found the girl with red hair done up like candy. She was relieved. Having a home to return to was a wonderful thing.

“''A doggy,'' huh?” said the artificial ghost called Frillsand #G.

“…”

Her comment made the young researcher fall silent for a bit.

His name was Drencher Kihara Repatri.

That family name was so well known in the dark side that it had become a more powerful classification than beneficial or harmful. The man who bore that name sighed softly to help refocus his mind.

“There is a chance we’ve been located, but we’re faster at the moment. If we move before they catch up, we can reach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' without issue.”

“Do you really think this world will allow any of this to go ‘without issue’?”

“It’s our job to make sure it happens.”

The adults exchanged their views with their voices too low for the excited children to hear.

But a certain boy kept his voice low for a different reason.

“Risako.”

“Oh, Sodate-chan.”

The tall boy in the same kind of gym clothes looked troubled for some reason. In fact, he looked close to tears. Risako tilted her head, thinking he was afraid she would get after him about the ball and chemical soap, but this was different.

“So you came back,” he said.

“Eh?”

“I was hoping maybe you were gone for good.”

He had wanted that? Did he hate her that much? Risako’s face clouded over, but this was again different. He shook his head and explained.

He was the only one of the children who had ''started to question these motion sensors they wore for some kind of experiment.''

“Because then at least you might have been safe.”

===Part 2===

He was afraid of screwing it up, so he started by drawing marks on her back with a marker.

“Hamazura, that tickles.”

“Stay still.”

The old book had a brush-drawn diagram with no perspective or attempt to make it look three-dimensional. The indicated locations of the organs were clearly not right. Maybe it was like the difference between an aerial photograph of the clouds and the isobars on the weather forecast map. He wondered if this was what all traditional Japanese medicine was like as he drew Xs on his girlfriend’s body. She had even removed her bra and was holding her chest in her hands while showing him her smooth back. He thought his heart was going to burst every time she squirmed from the ticklishness. Even he knew that reaction was inappropriate given the circumstances. Once he finished that, it was finally time to start. He faced the girl while she lay face down on the container lab’s work table like she was sunbathing.

The moxa used for the moxibustion was like fluffy cotton, but he actually had to set it on fire.

It felt wrong doing that on her soft skin and he could even permanently scar her if he screwed it up.

“…”

His fear came to the forefront now that it was time to do it, but this was the only way to help her with the fever.

He fought the desire to shut his eyes and placed a small pile of “fuel” on her soft skin. He worked at the lighter with a trembling hand, but he kept failing. Once he finally had a small flame, he slowly moved it in close.

“Nh.”

“A-are you okay, Takitsubo?”

“I’m fine.”

He continued the process a few more times. He had his doubts, but when she wiped the sweat from her brow, no more sweat beaded up. It did seem to be working.

He could not thank the hakama girl enough.

He could not waste this chance she had given them, so they had to approach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''.

That card-sized hard drive had been labelled with the word “Lifeline”.

Aneri must have decided the data would be too small to see on his phone because she displayed it a flat screen monitor in the lab instead. It was a series of numbers.

It looked like a calculation sheet made with spreadsheet software, but even that was enough to make the delinquent boy’s head hurt. Maybe it was important data, but he had no idea what he was supposed to focus on.

“This looks like materials data,” said Takitsubo after peering at it from the side.

“Materials?”

“Whether they’re beneficial or harmful, the dark side does a lot of research.” She pointed at one of the numbers. “They’re also building a lot of military weapons. But doesn’t it seem odd? Academy City is a mass consumer and it only has so much land since it’s surrounded by walls. You can’t just dig into the ground here and find oil or ores. So where do they get all those materials from?”

“Where? Isn’t that what the cooperative institutions around the world are for? They can work out a deal with them.”

“But how can they do that without leaving any record of it?”

She pointed at another number.

If a citizens group monitoring the flow of money and materials could reveal a secret, then it had never been part of the dark side to begin with.

“Look at this. The dark side is using far more materials than the total amount brought in from outside the city. Cutting off the fat and redistributing it to themselves would not be enough for this. The amount the dark side uses is several times larger. This would show up in the records no matter what you did. Important people like the Board of Directors and its Chairman can only cover up so much. This is too much. It’s well past what you could hide by cooking the books.”

“But then…”

He trailed off when Aneri opened a new window. A single point on a map of Academy City was colored in red. There was a secret there.

“They have an entrance and exit that doesn’t leave any records,” said the track suit girl while viewing the screen.

There were several files that appeared to be saved from message boards and social media pages. Reading through them showed a certain point in common.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

Takitsubo pointed at that bizarre statement.

“There is a way of reaching it and we should see hints of it in the rumors told around the city. Like the ‘!’ signs, a deadly train, kidnappers at the amusement park, babies in the coin lockers, or an underground construction zone where you can dump anything you don’t want found. But none of that gets at the real truth.”

“You mean…?”

“Academy City doesn’t promote recycling so much just because it wants to make the most of its limited resources. ''Sending things back to be recycled over and over again masks how much materials are actually being used.'' They can’t have an investigation revealing that we dump out several times more trash than materials we take in, right? That would violate conservation of mass. So they needed to make it hard to compare those two values. It’s a form of laundering.”

Why was that sleight of hand necessary? How did they reach the impossible result of more waste than raw materials? What was this secret that no one wanted getting out?

''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.

This was the identity of that term they had heard so many times today.

“It…isn’t closed off? There’s a secret route through the walls surrounding Academy City!?”

That could not be. For better or for worse, Academy City was cut off from the outside world. Those thick walls prevented their tech from spreading to the world at large because that could lead to disorder and chaos.

Hamazura used to be part of Skill Out. That was a group of the boys and girls who had dropped out of Academy City but had nowhere to go since they could not get out of the city.

They had been trapped. They had dropped out of school, but those walls had kept them here. If you wanted to take a trip outside the city for just a few days, you needed to submit a ton of paperwork and receive a nanodevice injection. Because if you tried leave without using the official gates, you could be killed to prevent a data leak. There had been burglars and muggers in the back alleys, but none of those expert thieves had dared go anywhere near the walls.

If there was a way to freely move in and out, they may not have felt so much pressure. They could have made a place for themselves.

Their former leader, Komaba Ritoku, might not have had to fight and die.

“…”

But the dark side had torn down that number one assumption like it was nothing.

That counterfeiter had stored that information on a card-sized hard drive labeled “Lifeline”. Had he thought he could use that information to get some dark side bigshots to save him?

He must have never imagined he would instead have his brains blown out by a paparazzo. Hamazura was at the center of all this, but he still did not know if that had been planned or a spontaneous decision.

“It’s deep below Academy City.” Takitsubo Rikou calmly read aloud something on such a large scale that talk of an alternate dimension would have sounded more realistic. “The world’s largest particle accelerator is built directly below the city walls, so people are told that digging in that area could break the accelerator’s seal and expose them to radiation and other risks. That was meant to convince everyone that no one would be dumb enough to try it.”

The diagram they found looked like a puzzle ring. It seemed to carefully avoid the circular accelerator facility, but this was a tunnel built by the dark side. There was no chance it met all the proper safety standards.

That was the dark side’s lifeline.

They had built it to continue pumping fuel into their illicit research and its construction showed they did not care at all if they brought chaos to the world. It really was the greatest taboo. It was a dark umbilical cord that could wipe out the Kiharas and everyone else if it was cut off.

“I doubt Anti-Skill knows about this,” said Takitsubo. “So they won’t be able to block it off. We can safely escape the city if we use it.”

“…”

The red light displayed by Aneri was in District 10, the city’s biggest slum. The taboo no one wanted was hidden below the district everyone had abandoned.

It was unclear if it had always had this name. They may have changed the name periodically to help hide the truth. All the scattered information was fragmentary witness accounts and some of it would likely be intentional misinformation.

But that taboo’s gaping mouth had sat deep underground all this time.

Like a nightmarish symbol of freedom.

The dot on the map displayed on the small screen had the following name displayed next to it: Vanishing Tunnel.

That was the name of their final destination. Anyone who arrived there was given a ticket to another world.

===Part 3===

They were deep, deep underground in District 10.

Few people would think too much about the layout of the subway tunnels below the city. They might know a track took an unnatural curve at one point, but no one would question the online news article about them running across some kind of ruins during construction.

An underground passageway was surrounded by cold concrete and supported by the pillars positioned at even intervals.

The few fluorescent lights on the walls were not enough to fully sweep away the darkness.

That underground blind spot had become the biggest hot spot in the world. A great many people had gathered there. They had not all arrived along the same route. They had each gathered the hints scattered around the city and started to question the city’s biggest assumption. Academy City was surrounded by thick walls, but it was not in fact sealed off.

The brawny men in work jumpsuits were a courier group called Secret Express. The men and women in dress clothes were Concierge, a group that provided hideouts to meet a criminal’s demands. The girls in plain clothing and hiding their faces with sunglasses and hunting caps may have been an extremely popular idol group. The parade of scum included Controller, who used personal information and fictitious bills to threaten the girls he targeted until he had them in digital chains, and Flare, who left behind harmless powder identical to the real deal in order to confuse criminal investigations.

A ruler of the back alleys was there.

A major corporation’s lawyer was there.

A university headmaster was there.

A major entertainment producer was there.

And a few Kiharas from different fields were there.

All sorts of people flooded that underground passageway. People did not end up on the dark side because they were low class, poor, stupid, or criminal. It took all types. The dark side had reached every class of person equally. From worlds no one knew existed to industries everyone envied.

Some had fallen before making it this far and others had attempted a different route instead. In a way, finding this tunnel and setting foot inside made them the chosen ones.

And.

Every last one of them were obstructed and crushed by a certain figure.

The woman had long blonde twintails and she wore a skintight light blue dress and a long loose skirt.

Frillsand #G was like an impassable wall.

All who challenged her crashed into that wall with the intensity of their challenge. After seeing a few of them turned to hunks of flesh and splattered blood, the others must have started wondering if she literally was a solid wall because all of those dark side members had come to a stop. They were pushed back even though she had not taken a single step.

Of course, the ghost was not going to spare them just because they gave up now.

“Next stop: skewering. Repeat: skewering.”

With a wet sound, a muscular man in black was destroyed from groin to head. But he may have been one of the lucky ones. He was gone before he even knew what had happened to him.

“Please look out for the burning and severing.”

Screams of pain echoed through the tunnel. Before long, the dark side members were fighting amongst themselves too. They appeared to have begun an ugly struggle over the concrete column they could use as a shield. However…

“We will arrive at gouging soon.”

Just as the ghost silently circled behind the column, a wet sound exploded out. The victors and losers of the struggle were all turned to mincemeat together while Frillsand #G looked on in disinterest.

“Ah…gahh,” someone groaned.

It was one of the idol girls. Her bottom half was gone and the bottom of her torso was sticking to the floor like a slug.

“But…why? We found the taboo…so aren’t we part of the dark side too? Can’t we all use…the path out together?”

“I have children to take care of. A lot of them.” Frillsand #G did not even look in her direction. “Inviting all of you in with us would only put them at risk.”

“Just…” It was already too late for her, but the top half of a girl still clawed at the concrete floor. “Just in case? You took people’s lives for no more than that!?”

“Next stop: running over. I repeat: running over.”

With a wet splat, the complaints were silenced.

The ghost seemed to be rejecting the idea that grudges lacked the power to kill.

“The rear guard is an important job,” she said in a singsong voice. “But I cannot let that crybaby see this. Knowing of it and seeing it are two very different things.”

The artificial ghost glanced over at something else.

But she soon lost interest, turned around, and vanished into the darkness.

A mere 10m away, Hamazura Shiage was hiding behind a column and holding his hand over the track suit girl’s mouth.

If she noticed them, they were dead. He felt like his heart, his breathing, his body odor, and the slight static electricity on his clothing could all give them away. He could not even wipe the unpleasant sweat from his cheek as he desperately waited for time to pass.

That ghost really was an enemy.

She had some kind of plan of her own and had saved them on a whim before, but that did not mean he could trust her. If she had saved them on a whim, then she could also choose to throw them out on a whim. And they only had the one life.

This was worse than a sea of blood.

Flesh and blood had lost any hint of their original form, fingers extended into empty space, facial skin was frozen in a look of agony while plastered to the wall. At this point, they were only “things”, not people. There was no dignity remaining.

Each of them was a dark side member who had arrived at ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' along a different route than him.

Their endless possibilities had been reduced to zero.

Or so it felt to him.

Was this tunnel really the right path? The further they went, the more likely they were to encounter that ghost woman, so he began to wonder if it would be safer to turn back now and return to the surface.

“Pwah.”

His girlfriend escaped his hand. He was holding her from behind, so she leaned her head back to look him in the eye.

“Hamazura, I don’t sense her presence anymore. We can keep going now.”

“…”

“We can’t give up after coming so far. Blindly returning to the surface won’t save us. We’ll never find peace if we don’t go through here.”

“R-right.”

He would have long since broken if he were alone.

But when she pulled on his hand, he managed to work up some small semblance of courage.

Even with the evenly-spaced fluorescent lights, the tunnel was dark. And they had no idea who was in charge of that sparse lighting. What if the ghost could shut off the power? His phone felt all the more important to him now.

“This is a long tunnel.”

“Yeah.”

They were not speaking much anymore.

This was ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'', but did this tunnel really lead toward hope? No matter how far they went, the darkness never went away. As they trudged deeper and deeper, he felt like they had passed a point of no return. Also, who had built this enormous underground facility? Someone must have drawn up the plans, dug the hole, set the foundation, and brought in the rebar and concrete. This was a far bigger project than a bank robber’s hand-dug tunnel into the vault. Such a vast and well-made underground space could not have been built without the involvement of a major construction company.

Who had done it?

It might be a company whose ads he saw on TV every day.

Would all of this come to light one day? But those meaningless thoughts were cut off by Takitsubo.

She had noticed first because she was not holding the light.

“Hamazura, there’s a door.”

“…”

It was a thick metal door.

Just the one door sat at the end of the long, long tunnel. There may have been another route, but he did not recall seeing any other paths branching off along the way.

He slowly approached.

It did not appear to be locked. He doubted there were any grenades or other “gifts” left for them.

But that was not what scared him. He had seen all of those corpses along the way. The sight had left him so terrified he barely had it in him to keep his heart beating. He had started to view their fallen predecessors as no more than a piece of the scenery. Because otherwise that shadowy murder scene would have overwhelmed him too much to continue on.

The taboos were piling up.

He and Takitsubo had started this simply wanting to survive, but they too had been corrupted along the way.

Hamazura Shiage reached his fingers toward the doorknob.

He touched it. He squeezed it.

He turned it.

===Part 4===

A flood of light revealed a world no one was ever meant to see.

“…”

The other world turned out to be a cavernous pit.

This abyss slept deep below the earth, yet it was filled with much more artificial light than the tunnel. That was thanks to the construction lights set up here and there.

It was easily more than 250m across and maybe more than twice as deep. The perfectly circular space made of reinforced concrete at the very bottom may have reminded different people of different things.

Some might see it as a common utility duct, a circular colosseum, a switchyard’s turntable, or an underground temple dedicated to a god one must never offer any prayers.

But there was one crucial piece that helped solidify the proper image.

“A train?” muttered Hamazura while peering down over the railing.

It was a turntable.

Concrete columns were installed at even intervals around the edges, but there were none in the central circle. The flat concrete floor had a smaller circle built into it. That would rotate to change the train’s direction. The tracks outside the circle extended in 12 different directions. That made it all look like something else: a giant metal flower.

Yes, there were tracks, signal lights, transformers, maintenance equipment, a control room, and a 15-car train in here. It was a freight train.

“That’s the dark side’s lifeline?”

For him and Takitsubo, it was the plank of Carneades that would save their lives.

He doubted that turntable was all of it. There would be a container yard and maintenance zone hidden further out from the center.

They walked along the narrow catwalk built along the circular wall and descended the stairs. There were no corpses in here. Whoever had gotten here first must have used the ghost woman to eliminate any nuisances before they reached this point.

And since the train was still here, that person would still be here.

They shared this space with the slaughterer.

“Hamazura.”

“Don’t worry. I’m with you no matter what.”

“Not that. There’s someone down there. And they’re not alone.”

That was a shock. Takitsubo Rikou could accurately locate people by sensing their AIM Diffusion Field. She could not use that power as well as she used to, but she could still sense it to an extent.

The tension grew.

A single person with a bizarre power was certainly scary, but having a large group approach you brought a different sort of fear. He mentally switched his priorities to at least allowing Takitsubo to escape if things looked bad.

The only exit was up here.

Leaving that would mean being surrounded by dead ends in every direction.

“…”

After descending the last flight of stairs, they arrived at the deepest depths.

It felt so much different from when they had been looking down from above. But that was not too surprising since 250m was larger than a domed stadium. This was the same as a sports field looking so much bigger from the stands than on TV.

Yes, Hamazura Shiage now stood on the stage. He was no longer an outsider looking in.

“Oh, dear. You actually showed up. What a shame.”

He lasted one second.

His knees suddenly dropped to the ground. He could not keep his shoulders at the same height and his lost strength would not return.

“Wha-!?”

It was the ghost woman.

Was she a beneficial or a harmful?

She had left that tunnel far too bloody to claim she was trying to escape Academy City because she disliked conflict. If anything, she felt more like a vengeful spirit that refused to let anyone leave the city.

She looked like a Western doll with her long blonde twintails and light blue dress. She did not actually punch or kick him. Simply seeing her out of the corner of his eye had done critical damage to him.

A rusty-smelling liquid dripped from his eyes and nose.

He was trying to scream and flip over onto his back, but he was actually curled up and unable to move.

Encountering her meant death.

That was far too sinister a thing to be connected with a simple equals sign like that.

“It is no use.”

The ghost woman walked without audible footsteps. She moved herself from the corner of his vision to the center.

“No one is talking about anything as silly as defending against something with a shield or dodging a projectile with super speed. ''From the moment you see my face,'' the attack is complete. If I so much as casually stand in the corner of your vision, I can do continual damage without you even noticing my presence.”

He realized the strange things had always happened when the ghost woman spoke to him. And why had she turned the lights on in that tunnel? Because it was more convenient for her.

If you saw a ghost while driving, you would crash.

If your face, hands, or feet were missing in a ghost photo, you would find unnatural wounds or marks on your body.

Did this mean she even artificially reproduced those aspects of a ghost? He did not want to believe it because it would mean there was nothing he could do.

“Hamazu-!?”

“You noticed? You must have sharper senses.”

The track suit girl quickly pulled him close, but the ghost woman did not seem to care.

Besides, if seeing her really did mean death, then Takitsubo would have been killed too, but she was fine.

“But I am not talking about anything as poorly-defined as a sixth sense for ghosts. Do you have a power related to AIM Diffusion Fields?”

“There’s no AIM Diffusion Field around you? No, some strong but invisible power is scattering that weaker field.”

“It is known as High Voltage Cutting,” said the ghost woman. “The principle may be similar to the shock diamonds seen in a rocket engine’s flame or the cavitation of air bubbles created around a propeller. The constant emission of a powerful energy will create irregular waveforms and images while it interferes with itself.”

“Gh!? What energy???”

“You can find energy everywhere.” Her tone was light, so understanding how it worked must not have helped avoid its effects. “The carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide you thoughtlessly spread around forms acid rain when it bonds with the moisture in the air. You can acquire electricity simply by sticking two electrodes into a fruit, you know? Copper and zinc are such necessities that you can find them anywhere. Using that, you can produce hydrogen gas in addition to electricity. I only need to absorb power from a ''civilization battery'' the size of a city or even greater. That is enough for me to construct a single outlier point within that stable energy.”

“…”

“What are the common types of haunted locations? Old homes full of drafts, cliffs and caves eroded by the waves, and mountain roads late at night. They are always full of ''noise'', such as static electricity, pressure differences, the creaking of rusty doors, or the rustling of the trees in the wind. Have you ever heard a ghostly voice in the crackle of excess electricity or the roar of hydrogen gas being ignited? I can exist as I am wherever human civilization exists. If you wish to kill me, you must destroy your very way of life. On a global scale.”

This was too much.

He could not understand her explanation. And even if he thought he did, it still did not tell him how to destroy her.

Takitsubo gasped and spoke while holding onto him.

“I get that the constant use of a massive amount of unseen energy would eventually create something unnatural. But if seeing you is deadly, how do you choose specific targets to-?”

She trailed off.

She had seen something out of the corner of her eye, but not the artificial ghost this time. A unified set of colors could be seen peeking out of at them from a gap in the door to one of the freight train’s containers.

''They were small children wearing gym clothes and some kind of device. There were more than just 10 or 20 of them.

''All of them were a part of the ghost experiment.

The children must have seen the ghost woman as they nervously spied out. And they seemed to be expectantly waiting to see if she would repel these unknown intruders. They did not know. They had not been told what they were being used for. Simply viewing a ghost photo was harmful and the longer you viewed it, the more damage it did. She embodied that power so perfectly that she had eliminated so many dark side elites.

Yet she had managed to accurately select one out of the many candidates.

That was like shooting the apple off someone’s head. Without explaining any of it to the children who had those sensors attached to them.

“…”

The delinquent boy clenched his teeth.

He could barely move, she held his life in her hand, and he had no idea how to fight back. He had to avoid angering her if at all possible. He understood that, but he still shouted up at her.

“You scum!!”

“Call me what you wish. In fact, I see it as a compliment.”

The ghost woman who resembled a fairy tale princess held her palm out toward him. He only had to see her impossible presence for her to attack, so that gesture was meaningless.

But then her eyes turned unnaturally away from him.

To the side.

A spare container sitting near the train was sliced in two. Something had dropped down from far above like a bolt of lightning.

A red figure wielded a thick machete made of heavy metal.

The android wore a racing swimsuit colored the orange and black of an insect. The bangs of her long crimson hair were cut straight across and she had a slender build.

Cartoony flowers were displayed in her mechanical eyes.

“Smug face.”

“Hello, hello,” said a twig of an old man in a blue jumpsuit and lab coat. “I hate to interrupt when you seem so busy, but I must insist.”

The ghost woman shrugged.

“Were you hoping to use the train? I thought you were one of the harmfuls who would remain in the city and resist to the bitter end.”

“I have no interest in those categories forced onto the dark side from the outside. All I care about is continuing my research. Academy City was a wonderful environment for that, but if that has changed, I need to leave and search out a more comfortable place.”

“You can see me, can’t you?”

“You should be able to tell by observing my eye movements.”

“And you know what that means?” She gave a suggestive glance over at the machine that had arrived with him. “In case you were unaware, I am capable of causing malfunctions in mechanical lenses and sensors just as well as in the human body. Ghost photographs are a result of ghosts interfering in optical machinery, are they not? That might be your masterpiece, but isn’t it presumptuous to assume she can wield her full power against me?”

She remained untouchable. She could kill someone just by placing herself in the corner of their vision and machines could not do anything to her either. Did she have no blind spots?

“Yes, I imagine so.”

But the old man did not seem to mind.

That mysterious old man ''known as a Kihara'' was not bothered that she held his life in her hand.

“You are the strongest when it comes to an individual. Looking at deadliness alone, you might outdo the #3 and the #2.”

“…”

Evidently, even ghosts could find something to be ominous.

This world may have been infected with a disease that caused all bad premonitions to come true.

“But in this specific location, I believe you too will find you cannot wield your full power.”

“What are you- gah!!!!????”

He had given her plenty of warning, but she suddenly arched her back and then froze unnaturally in midair. An ominous straining sound continued on and on as her body grew distorted. She bent and stretched, almost like a face pressed against a wall of glass.

Something was happening.

Hamazura had thought the ghost woman was an intangible being, like a mist or apparition. But she was not. She clearly had a spine to strain, muscles to cry out in pain, and organs to writhe unnaturally.

Then a bizarre creaking and cracking noise came from her. Her volume shrank more and more like she was being crushed in from all sides. The old man was holding something up in his special engineering glove. It looked like an empty candy box, but it was not. It had a small pinhole at the very top. The ghost woman was sucked into that small hole like a liquid or a gas. Hamazura did not want to imagine what things were like inside there. He could only say one thing in a daze.

“A pinhole…camera?”

“High Voltage Cutting? I see, a strange theory, but she is still a form of unstable energy. And all energy will move from high to low – unstable to stable. This is enough to break down her form and burn in her image.”

The old man let go of the candy box.

He had the look of a mischievous child who had just realized he could create his own spark show by sticking a metal clip in the microwave.

“This is the appropriate choice for a ghost photo, don’t you think? A digital camera just wouldn’t fit the aesthetic.”

After dropping it to the cold concrete, he crushed it below his heel. He did not even glance down at the flattened box.

“''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.''” He tapped on his lower back. “Surely you didn’t think a construction company building a secret tunnel out of the city was enough to earn a name like that. With something like her around, you really should have thought of a different possibility.”

“Wh-what?”

Hamazura felt like the unnatural “curse” had weakened, but he still could not bring himself to get up from the ground. The old man only now seemed to have realized that there was another person here reaching for the plank of Carneades.

Hamazura knew any attention on him would only lead to disaster.

Kihara Hasuu smiled.

“Let me make one thing clear. There is a member of the Board who built a vast fortune by doing unofficial construction work for the dark side, but he knows nothing of this. This massive underground structure just appeared out of the blue one day.”

“…?”

Out of the blue?

Hamazura had operated construction machinery before, so he knew how absurd that was. Did that old man have any idea how long it would take to dig out a hole of this size?

But the old man appeared to be serious.

Deadly serious.

“''The Vanishing Tunnel does not actually exist.''”

Hamazura had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

It made no sense. If that were true, then where were they now???

The old man gave the answer.

“Kazakiri Hyouka was not just a single individual. She is more like one piece of the Imaginary Number District, an entire city created from the aggregation of AIM Diffusion Fields. …It all began with a project meant to cut out a portion of that territory and extract it as a new resource. Unlike the microscopic alchemy performed in the particle accelerator, this would have been on the macro scale and cost very little. But not even the group of researchers who guided all that power through the city could have predicted it would take this form. ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' is such a dramatic name. In truth, it was a major failure that needed to be covered up. Everyone involved was at their wits’ end.” He tapped his lower back again. “A nonexistent pathway unofficially connected Academy City to the world outside, increasing the risk of the outer world’s collapse through cultural exchange and technological contamination. The entire world very well could have been destroyed from this single point. While the researchers had hoped to extract materials from the Imaginary Number District, whatever came from there might have transformed the outside world into something truly grotesque. …Yes, that the world still exists as it does now was no more than ''dumb luck''. It was nothing we did on our end. Kazakiri Hyouka and the other inhuman monsters simply showed no interest in that. If something had occurred to them and they had tried it, the world would have ended.”

“You mean…” Takitsubo replied since she had a better understanding of things related to AIM. “You were researching the exact opposite of that ghost? A ghost made from powerful energy and an aggregation of weak powers are opposites, so when they came together, it caused the ghost to malfunction… You were trying to extract inorganic materials from that unseen city, weren’t you?”

“Hard to say if that research was a step forward or a step back. Like I said, they failed. They could not control it, so even the remains of their project you see here cannot be erased. I believe the natural half life was about 12,000 years. In the worst case, the Imaginary Number District could have been converted into real numbers, crushing Academy City in the process. I think the project could have found success if they could have cut off a piece at a workable size and found a way to control it. In that sense, that ghost really is the strongest as an individual and an enviable success.”

Now even Hamazura had a vague idea why the ghost woman had suddenly malfunctioned.

They could not be in the same place.

Two ghosts could not coexist. Just like installing two different pieces of security software on the same computer would cause a conflict.

“It was still a risky gamble, though. The odds were low, but if the tunnel ''had lost'', this temporary space itself would have vanished and we would all have become fossils after being buried deep below the surface.”

Hamazura heard a swooshing sound and looked over to see the android swinging her thick machete next to the old man. Those two had won their bet, so now no one could stop them.

Kihara Hasuu looked away from Hamazura and turned to someone else.

“Now, I have eliminated your bodyguard. Isn’t it time we talked this out like adults?”

===Part 5===

“When’s the train going to leave?”

“Oh, mister just left.”

The children dressed up in gym clothes were whispering to each other while peeking out through the cracked-open door of a freight train container.

But among them…

“Ow, that hurts.”

The girl named Risako spoke up in protest.

But Sodate ignored that and continued tugging on her skinny wrist. The bigger boy was kind of scary when he was not saying anything.

“Listen, Risako.” He spoke quickly while walking through the shadows to stay hidden. He seemed to be speaking to himself more than the girl. “You can still escape. It’s not too late. And once you get to the surface, go tell the grownups about this. I know you can do it.”

“Why? The train is about to leave.”

“You still don’t get it!?” He shouted with his hands on her shoulders. “They make us wear these clothes and devices, they keep us separated from the rest of the city, and they don’t let us go to a normal school. We’re Child Errors, so no one will even notice if we just disappear one day. They’re only raising us because they can use us for something. They’re fattening us up to eat us!”

“But…”

“We don’t even have phones to call for help. ''It isn’t normal to be this isolated.'' That’s why I kept leaving behind some sign of our presence: building blocks, picture books, balls, and so on. I left them outside before the trucks moved on and I made sure to write our names, the trucks’ license numbers, and other information on them! But none of it ever reached the grownups. Our efforts never reached anyone!!”

She had thought he kept stealing things because he was selfish. She had thought he would forget those things in his secret bases because he was sloppy. But that was not it.

“They’re relatively peaceful beneficials? Don’t make me laugh. What’s going to change after we board that train and leave Academy City? There won’t be anyone monitoring them anymore!! Once that happens, I just know he’ll stop holding back. He’ll ''take it even further''! So you at least need to escape before that happens!!”

“Sodate-chan…”

“I’ll give you an opening.” He looked the girl in the eye and spoke clearly. “I won’t let him turn you into a guinea pig no matter what!!”

===Part 6===

A somewhat slender man stepped out. He wore a short-sleeved safari jacket and a rash guard, making him look something like an old-fashioned adventurer, but the webcam attached to the side of his head gave him a more modern outdoorsy look. He appeared to be a different sort of researcher from the old mechanic in a lab coat and jumpsuit.

He was an expert at visiting so-called haunted locations around the world and revealing the scientific cause of the strange phenomena there. But he had apparently also artificially recreated such things to use them for his own purposes.

He grinned and raised his hands in a jocular way. Kihara Hasuu asked him a question with the deadly weapon girl still by his side.

“What is your name?”

“Drencher Kihara Repatri.”

“I see. So that’s you.”

The young man’s eyebrows moved slightly in response to the old man’s impressed tone.

“I didn’t expect someone like you to have heard of me.”

“You are rather…well known.”

The way he said that told Hamazura he did not mean that in a positive way.

This was a confrontation between two harmfuls.

The two researchers ignored the boy and girl entirely as they began a verbal rally. Hamazura knew he could not just sit and watch as a referee or spectator, but he had no way of intervening.

“As you can see, we come from different levels of the dark side. If there is no place for us in Academy City anymore, then leaving the city is a valid choice. But is that plank of Carneades really only big enough for the one group? I think it can support both of us just fine.”

That suggestion seemed surprising…but maybe it wasn’t. It was the ghost woman who had been slaughtering all of the other dark side members trying to reach this point. The android may have attacked Anti-Skill, but she had never actively tried to eliminate her fellow dark siders. She had attacked Hamazura near the counterfeiter’s tents, but if she had been trying to slaughter everyone she came across, the ordinary people in the amusement park would not have escaped alive.

The young man shrugged.

“If that means less fighting, it’s okay with me. Not that I really have a choice, do I?”

“Assuming you have no other trump cards.”

“Then I surrender.”

He did not hesitate to respond. Hamazura was actually surprised to see he was willing to back down to save his own life. Hamazura had gotten the impression that the extreme members of the dark side were willing to sacrifice their own life to achieve their goal.

That surprise scared Hamazura. He could tell he had let the dark side influence him too much. He was afraid the damage would be permanent if he went much further. Once he became a harmful, there was no going back.

“She was my prized project, you know? Frillsand #G, I mean. Now, I knew ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' would pose a challenge, but I never imagined it was a giant mass of AIM Diffusion Fields.”

“Everything has its compatibility. In fact, I could never have won if we were not down here. Keep this girl from working and I’m helpless.”

The crimson-haired girl did nothing to fight the wrinkled hand rubbing her head.

The two men were reaching an agreement. That was not good. Hamazura and Takitsubo had nothing they could offer in a negotiation. At this rate, they would probably each get a bullet in the head as a parting gift. The only other option he could imagine was being made into a guinea pig for some bizarre experiment.

“Oh, right,” casually began the old man.

If he said “what should we do about those two lumps of flesh”, they were screwed. And Hamazura could not predict what that Kihara would do. He felt a terrible squeezing at his heart.

Finally, Kihara Hasuu continued.

“While we can share the train, I will be in charge there. So if you want a ride, it’s only natural you pay a small fare, don’t you think?”

“Do you want my research notes on Frillsand #G?”

“I’m no barbarian. A scientist’s research notes are a part of his very soul. Those are the fruits of your labors, so take them to your grave.”

“Then what do you want?”

“A few of them.”

The old man’s voice was as casual as ever as he pointed his engineering glove in a different direction entirely. He pointed at the gym clothes children who were peeking out from behind cover, without a clue what was being discussed.

“''Just select a few at random.'' I intend to restart my research once things have calmed down, but the rules are different outside the city. I can’t start abducting people off the street until I have a proper base set up, so I could use an initial supply for that settling-in period.”

Hamazura froze as he listened in.

This was the dark side. This was how the elites of that stagnant world thought.

“That Frillsand #G is important to your research, but not so with those lab rats, right? How many experimental observers’ lives were lost until you managed to ''properly reproduce'' that artificial ghost? If your research has entered a stable period, I would assume you are not running through those Child Errors as quickly as you once were.”

“Heh,” laughed Drencher Kihara Repatri.

He weakly lowered his raised hands. He must have decided that was no longer necessary. He too had seen the darkness, so he spoke with the same look in his eyes as the old man.

“It’s true those are all Child Errors. And however they would be treated in the ordinary world, we all know exactly what that term means in the dark side. Yes, I gathered them together and invited them into my lab. I made sure to have a plentiful stock of convenient lives that could be spent as I liked if other forms of research were not enough.”

“Then I can have a few?”

“''Go to hell, you son of a bitch.''”

===Part 7===

Several dry gunshots rang out.

===Part 8===

Hamazura Shiage did not understand what had just happened.

“Hamazura!!”

His body still refused to do what it was told, so track suit girl Takitsubo had to push him to the ground.

The young man had pulled out a handgun. It was no more than a small revolver, but he still fired it repeatedly from just a few meters away.

However…

“Ugh…”

“That won’t work,” said the old man.

The android’s crimson hair fluttered while she held her thick machete at the ready with her bare feet planted a step in front of Hasuu. Not only had she deflected all of the bullets, she had used their ricochets as a counterattack.

''No more than a small revolver.

''Something had gone horribly wrong when you started thinking of things in those terms in this country.

The young man had several holes in his upper body and dark red stains spread across his clothes. Doubling over did nothing to help, so he finally collapsed to the ground.

The old man in a jumpsuit and lab coat spoke up in exasperation while the strongest doll protected him.

“They’re just kids. And it’s not like I’m asking for all of them. Just two or three will do.”

“I wanted to…protect them from the dark side scum who think like that,” spat the young man while struggling to breathe down on all fours. He had given up trying to hold his wounds. “But nothing I did above board did anything to help. I couldn’t even get information on where those children were. The only way to fight the dark side…was to become the dark side. I almost laughed when I saw how many people came running to me then, claiming my research was so valuable. When I said I needed children’s lives to do it, they slapped me on the shoulder and agreed to it all. While happily sipping on a glass of this year’s finest red with their other hand. This city is rotten to the core.”

“Aren’t you Drencher Kihara Repatri?”

“Claiming to be a Kihara was the quickest way to get what I wanted. Ha ha. Those VIPs really were terrified of me.”

“Dammit,” spat out Hamazura Shiage.

The young man saw his own condition as of secondary importance.

It was true the ghost woman had used the children. They had been placed in a position where she could crush their lives at any moment. But had Hamazura ever seen her actually kill a child? What if they had been living in a world where they had to take the charade that far to be believed?

The old man had asked how many experimental observers’ lives were lost until he managed to properly reproduce the artificial ghost, but the young man had never answered.

That was in fact the answer. He had not sacrificed anyone. Not one. He had wanted to gather up those children known as Child Errors and drag them up out of the darkness. There ''were'' adults willing to dive into the dark side for no other reason than that.

There really were.

And yet…

“You’re lying.”

Hamazura suddenly rejected that entire premise. Because if he accepted this, he would have to admit to his own ugliness. Even if saying this would mean revealing he was ugly enough to put up a struggle like this.

“I’ve seen you before. You were at that counterfeiter’s place! You were preparing a passport for yourself so you could abandon those kids and leave the city!!”

“This all would have gone so much more smoothly if that had worked.” The young man smiled weakly. “If I had shown off how I escaped with the passport, Anti-Skill and the dark side’s focus would have turned toward District 23’s airport. Then the children would have had a safer escape underground here. I was never supposed to be down here with them.”

“~ ~ ~!!!!!!”

It felt like they lived in two completely different worlds.

And that young man was definitely the one in the right.

Hamazura felt so pathetic and contemptible for only ever acting to protect him and his girlfriend.

“I know I shouldn’t be asking this.”

The young man looked his way. As if to say it did not matter if he really was a Kihara or not.

His eyes knew how to view the light, but for some reason he now looked to someone as corrupted as Hamazura.

“Maybe it’s for the best if the dark side is destroyed, but please take care of those kids. You’re the only person I can leave them with now. When you saw your girlfriend suffering, you panicked and dumped medical supplies across the ground in your haste. I could see the conscience in your eyes. You had no choice but to fall this far, but you should still have some resistance to the dark side left inside you.”

“Wait, I’m not like that for everyone. Don’t shove this onto me! She’s my girlfriend, so of course I’d work to save her!!”

“Ha ha. Thinking that’s an ‘of course’ is what makes you such an oddity in the dark side. Don’t worry, I know you can do it. Because after falling into this shitty world, you still managed to find someone you care for and you decided to find peace instead of another thrill.”

Hamazura and Takitsubo had first heard of ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' from this man.

Hamazura had been cautious because there was no righteousness in the dark side and the man must have had his own reasons.

Was this why?

Had it been some insurance, just in case? Instead of worrying about his own survival, he had wanted some insurance for after he died.

Yet he had also slaughtered the dark sider people rushing toward this exit.

All because he could not let any harm come to the children as those people fought each other. He had rushed down a dark path to prevent a mere possibility.

But on Hamazura and Takitsubo’s way here, hadn’t the ghost woman glanced their way after slaughtering everyone else and then left, as if sparing them?

“Why did you do all this?”

That was the only question Hamazura could find.

That was not something to say to a dying man. He knew that. But after letting the dark side corrupt him while he worked so hard to ensure his and his girlfriend’s survival, this answer was too pure and upright to accept.

“How could you throw away your own life over this!? When you get down to it, those kids are just strangers! How could a goddamn harmful go this far just because you ‘wanted to save them’!? How!? Tell me!?”

The young man smiled.

There was already blood dripping from the corners of his lips.

“Do you need a reason to protect someone? Of course you don’t.”

That was the end of it.

Time stopped for him with the smile still on his lips.

He had no reason. He did not know why. And he had rushed in to save those children without ever finding a reason.

Hamazura Shiage had to admit defeat.

“A…”

The loser boy clenched his teeth. He moved his battered body, swiped the bloody handgun and some ammo from the young man, and shouted at the top of his lungs.

Losers had their own etiquette to follow.

That scummy old man was still here. Hamazura was not going to let him trample on the young man’s victory.

“Aaaneriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!”

A dull kachunk echoed through the circular space.

The support AI had taken control of the train and shifted it out of standby, so it slowly began to move.

The turntable had tracks in 12 directions, but he knew where to send it.

He just had to remember what the card-sized hard drive labeled lifeline had said.

If you boarded a train between 4 hours and 30 minutes, you would be taken to another world.

In other words…

(Hours and minutes. If I apply that to an analog clock…)

“Send it down the 5 o’clock track!!”

The train took off with so many children in gym clothes on board.

That had been his top priority.

“Is justice contagious these days?” asked the old man with the look of someone viewing a crazy person.

He had already proven that the gun would not work, so he gave Hamazura a look of partial pity now that he had inherited that defeated weapon.

“You risked your life for this, but to no avail. Look, not all of them were onboard. They must have run in fear from the very person who would have saved them.”

“Hamazura, two of them were left behind. We can’t just leave them here.”

A boy and a girl in gym clothes were holding hands a short distance away.

What had they thought when they learned the truth behind that young man’s satisfied smile?

Especially when their own actions had worked against him.

“Well, those two will suffice. I will be taking them as a souvenir. Any more than this would have been a waste of food anyway.”

“Shut up,” spat out Hamazura.

He really should not have been doing this. He had come here to escape to safety. It had been clear from the very beginning that he could not be a great hero or brave warrior. This selfish choice here might put himself and his girlfriend in danger.

But.

Even so.

A dying man had left this with him. He had been reminded what it meant to do the right thing. There were lives here he could save. He could redo things. And most of all, his girlfriend was watching.

He was done being pathetic. He gathered strength in his sweaty body and stood up under his own power again. He had to.

“Maybe you’re a Kihara and an android.”

His goal was to run away?

No, sometimes a man had to stand up and speak his mind.

“But I’ll take you on, you goddamned dark siders!!!!!!”

He knew it was possible.

He had just seen a man stay true to this way of life.

He could reclaim his humanity. He must have learned something from what he saw here.

===Part 9===

Of course, Hamazura could never actually hit the crimson-haired android by firing the 9mm handgun at random. He knew she would deflect the bullets with her thick machete and fill him with holes.

So he did something else instead.

“Aneri!!”

A giant shape suddenly moved right next to the racing swimsuit girl.

A wheel loader used to stack up the railroad-sized containers was being remotely controlled.

“Move.”

What was that machete even made of? She did not even look in that direction as she swung her weapon and sliced apart the snowplow-looking piece of machinery. Even though she was not using any rapid vibrations or heat.

But Hamazura used that moment to pull on his girlfriend’s hand and move from there.

This was a vast circular space, but it was not an empty colosseum.

It had concrete columns just like an underground common utility duct and it had various equipment needed for operating and maintaining the trains, all located where it would not get in the way of the turntable and the 12 directions of track. Transformers were surrounded by a fence, a prefab hut had been made into a control room, giant jacks and a carwash were prepared for maintenance purposes, and more.

Aneri had directly operated the freight train, so he felt safe assuming she could operate all of the equipment here.

He pulled his girlfriend close while hiding behind a concrete column and whispering to his phone.

“Aneri, can you directly hijack that hunk of junk?”

No response.

He took that as a no. This did not sound like it was an issue of building up to that or setting something up in advance. That android was immune to cyber attacks on some level he did not understand.

(That means the only option is to destroy her the old-fashioned way!!)

“Hamazura, we can’t hide here forever. If she stops focusing on us, she’ll go after those children. Villains always go for the easiest target.”

“I know that.”

Takitsubo kept trying to wipe the sweat from her brow, but something was not right. The moxibustion should have relieved her symptoms to an extent, but that treatment might not be working as much anymore.

He was worried, but he could not stop now. He hated that fact.

“But using ourselves as bait will put us at risk. Are you prepared for that, Takitsubo?”

“Ask any more stupid questions and I’ll slap you.”

“Okay, it’s time to win your heart all over again!!”

They both ran out from behind the concrete column.

Their eyes met the ones with pupils mechanically expanding and contracting, but they stayed strong this time.

===Part 10===

Ladybird had a lock on two targets.

She walked barefoot across the floor and accurately obeyed her instructions, but she also had a question.

Why were the children necessary?

Kihara Hasuu – her Sensei – was researching androids. He had already successfully created one, so he no longer needed to capture biological humans to dissect and observe them. This disagreement appeared to be over ownership of the Child Errors (she failed to realize it was her education by that true Kihara that led her to use the word “ownership” in this context), but why was the old man so insistent on this?

That unfortunate research was a thing of the past.

She was an android built from purely mechanical parts, but she could use an esper power. That meant no more human specimens were needed for esper development experiments. They only had to mess with machines from now on. The Child Errors no longer needed to be captured and used up.

She thought that was a wonderful thing. She could not believe the people who still clung to the old system that required humans to use other humans. Did they wish to protect the status given to them by the current Level system? If they truly believed their fight was just, then they were beyond reasoning with. Machines were not the only ones that could have their memory data rewritten. Humans could have their feelings and thoughts falsified as well.

So she would bring an end to it all.

She was fighting here to end the misfortune and tragedies caused by the esper development program.

“Ohhhh!!”

The boy raised a meaningless battle cry, ran in, and repeatedly fired his handgun. She only had to block those shots with her machete.

But he had apparently learned how she fought.

She tried to hit him with the ricochets, but they refused to hit. When she deflected a bullet back, it would follow the same straight trajectory. Placing a single piece of plywood in the middle would change things. A bullet’s force was determined by its muzzle velocity. The force of the ricochet would generally be lower. That was obvious enough since bullets were not constantly accelerating like a rocket or missile. So he could set it up so he could shoot her through an obstacle, but she could not break through it on the way back.

Her use of ricochets was similar to Accelerator’s reflection, but all her machete did was knock the bullet back. She could not ''include the actual vector in that''.

That said…

(I doubt someone with such a stupid face could do this. He must be receiving assistance with the calculations.)

She considered jumping. Lifting both feet from the ground was usually a bad idea in combat, but not so with her. With her android specs, she could kick off of one column to the next and attack from the air.

She heard the loud roar of an engine while dealing with the bullets.

It appeared to come from a forklift.

“Aneri, surround the kids! I don’t know where that old man got off to, but don’t let him get close!! If he tries it, run him over!!”

“Don’t get distracted.”

He could have gotten a hit in on her by sending the forklift in from the side while firing on her from the front. Not that a blow like that would be enough to destroy her frame.

She swung the thick machete in her right hand while gathering her strength in the space between her eyebrows.

That was how she aimed.

A blast of wind blew away the obstacles between her and Hamazura Shiage. It was more like they were obliterated by an explosion than swept away by wind.

“An esper power!?” shouted the boy.

“It looked to be Level 3 or higher,” said the girl.

She no longer had to worry about the gunfire now that the line of fire was clear. He must have known the risk of ricochets was back because he stopped attacking and hid behind a nearby column, but that was no defense. She could charge in and slice through the column and his torso behind it with a single horizontal sweep of her blade.

She had enough time to reach her other hand to her thigh, pull out the bottle, and take a drink of the discharge machine oil.

A dull boom burst out.

She was only an android modeled after the structure of the human body, but the materials used for her skeleton, muscles, and everything else were bizarre dark side tech. If she wanted to, her horsepower could rival a V12 engine at max RPMs.

But even as she chose the correct action, her mechanical head was filled with questions.

She had used a wind power.

But hadn’t she used fire during her previous clash with these people? And what about the time before that?

Androids had the same structure as humans, so a single android should only have a single power. Or could she do what humans could not because she was a machine?

(Sensei?)

===Part 11===

A column of reinforced concrete was sliced through as easily as tofu or thin paper.

Not horizontally or diagonally – vertically and all the way through. After kicking from column to column to gain height, she had apparently dropped down like lightning. She had a human form, but she could perform superhuman movements.

Hamazura Shiage had tried to jump to the side just beforehand, but he ended up tumbling into a roll.

It was not his torso sliced through along with the column. It was a gas drum kept on hand for the facility’s auxiliary power generator.

He grimaced at the pain in his hips as he continued rolling and pulled the trigger repeatedly.

Not even Ladybird could deflect bullets that hit the concrete ground and sent sparks flying.

The vaporizing gasoline ignited into explosive flames that swallowed up the entire racing swimsuit silhouette.

However…

“No, Hamazura! It didn’t work!!”

“Tch!!”

He clicked his tongue while the track suit girl ran over from elsewhere and pulled him to his feet. A black figure was displayed on the other side of that fiery screen. She showed no sign of collapsing or writhing in pain.

Had she used that previous wind power to affect how the flames spread?

He hoped so. If she was simply this tough, he could not imagine how to defeat her.

“How ''do'' you defeat an android anyway? Strangle her or stab her in the heart, she’s still a machine. That won’t stop her!!”

Could he break her motherboard? Or pull out her battery? But he had no idea how many she had or where in her slender body they were located.

The roaring flames were sliced apart. A horizontal sweep of the heavy metal machete conquered the orange barrier. The barefoot android stepped through entirely unscathed. There was no sign of discoloration on her crimson hair, white skin, or orange and black racing swimsuit.

“Something isn’t right,” said Takitsubo Rikou with eyes seemingly more robotic than the machine’s. What was she looking at right now? “An android that uses esper powers is conceivably possible. Mechanical processing may be able to ‘observe’ the waves or particles like a human brain does. And if you developed that far enough, you might be able to purposefully select between different supernatural phenomena. But this wavelength is simpler than that.”

“You mean how she switches between powers?” spat out Hamazura. “That container base in the garbage pile was their lab, right? Then I get why that old man wants those kids so bad. Even if I don’t know exactly ''how'' he would use them.”

Now, why were they able to spend so long discussing this?

The delinquent boy made sure to keep his gun aimed, but the android in question was only tilting her head.

A dark liquid was dripping from her eyes and nose.

He had seen that before. Immediately after she had been hit by the hakama girl and fought back with her fire power.

“Oh, dear.”

Kihara Hasuu’s voice reached them from somewhere, but it was echoing too much to tell where it came from. Hamazura would have shot the man if he saw him.

“Is it that time already? This is why I wanted to stock up sooner rather than later.”

“Hey.” Hamazura shouted at the unseen man. “Isn’t that cheating? You can’t really call her an android if that’s what you’re doing.”

The boy watched as the girl in the orange and black racing swimsuit held her head and doubled over.

A low straining sound came from her.

Then her back opened along the line from her nape to her tailbone.

The clasp holding together the X-shaped band at the center of the swimsuit’s back popped open and the supports were released in four directions.

Then her soft skin opened wide while supported at her nape.

Her opened back almost looked like a steam locomotive’s boiler or a furnace from hell. The fact that it was smooth human skin instead of a thick metal door gave it the sinister appearance of an insect’s shell opening up.

The top half of her swimsuit fell out of place, but her chest was not visible.

Her long red hair dropped down to cover it up.

She had planted her hands and feet on the ground like a beast.

Something translucent crawled out of her. It looked like a long, narrow blade or like a wriggling snake. It would grab something, drag it inside her, and cut it away. It was an automatic extraction organ.

Hamazura knew what it was for.

“I saw the junk those trash collectors were taking back after searching through those piles of abandoned items. A fridge was full of some brownish filth.”

He felt nauseated just remembering it.

He grimaced as he viewed that monster.

“''It was stuffed full of corpses with the contents of their heads removed.'' When those trash collectors were searching out fridges and washing machines, they weren’t selling them to used appliance stores. They were opening up bloodstained boxes packed full of still-usable organs. And they all came from your lab, didn’t they!?”

“Well, the ordinary corpses were apparently disposed of in District 10’s slums, but there are a lot of people willing to buy up ones fresh enough to make use of their parts.”

Ladybird was not an android with esper powers. She was as harmful as they came. She was a machine that would devour people’s brains when necessary. In Hamazura’s opinion, that meant she did not fit the definition of an android.

“This is a completely different approach from the Rensa model of esper cyborg. Instead of a cyborg made by ''giving a brain a body'', Ladybird-kun ''is a body given a brain.''” Hasuu sounded like he was introducing his favorite grandchild. “Cellulose nanofiber is a carbon material gathering attention for its use in making wires and bulletproof materials, but the point is we can create delicate wires even thinner than the cranial nerves. But unlike a biological brain, leaving them in their active state causes them to automatically replicate and they will try to forcibly fold themselves up for space if they run out room in the skull. The cerebrum’s frontal lobe is especially troublesome. So ''a foreign object'' must be introduced to constantly provide just the right amount of damage to ensure the brain remains the size I want it. Her power changes each time a new ''foreign object'' is introduced, but that is due to the change in the rejection and damage pattern. You can think of that as a simple idiosyncrasy.”

“Sen…sei?”

A grinding sound came from Ladybird while she seemed to be searching for something. However the old researcher described it, a human brain was apparently a necessary part for her to run. Her movements were noticeably stiff and awkward as she pursued that poison on her own.

“Sensei…but you said this research would help. You said the spread of androids would mean no more human specimens were needed for the esper development.”

“The ladybird – another name for the ladybug – might look humorous, but it is in fact a ravenous carnivore. You have heard that they are good to have around because they eat aphids, haven’t you?”

“Gh…kh.”

“And there are a lot of insects that mimic ladybugs. That includes a type of darkling beetle and cockroach, both kinds of bugs people might not normally want around. But that is not actually a type of protective coloration. Ha ha. Instead of trying to blend into their natural surroundings or avoid their predators, that coloration might actually be used to make humans like them.”

How deep did the dark side go?

How disgusting could the dark said get?

“So don’t you see?”

Its attacks were indiscriminate, like a cannibal insect.

The developer spoke to what looked like a lovely girl. And he seemed to be enjoying it immensely.

“''That is the perfect name for you.''”

===Part 12===

text> @I thought there was a problem with the world.

text> @I thought it was wrong for @humans to use @humans for their research in this city.

text> But @I could climb onto the examination table instead.

text> @I can be repaired or remade as many times as necessary.

text> Since my body was made identically to a @human’s, @I would be able to use an esper power as well. Pieces of my body could be freely added or removed, so @I could be examined inside and out more easily than a @human and @I could be modified as they saw fit.

text> No more sacrifices would be necessary for the esper development research.

text> That is why @I fought.

text> @I thought @Sensei’s research was a wonderful thing.

''“You know, Ladybird-kun, the term android signifies an artificial human built with an engineering approach. Based on that definition, it seems appropriate to me for a completed android to behave like a human.”

text> @Sensei’s words were like a shining light of hope.

text> @I wondered if @I really was good enough.

text> But @I was happy as long as @I could be of some use. @I think that kind of feeling is not something a simple machine could feel.

text> Does that mean @I am somehow @human?

text> The @humans that @I have seen are like that. They do not hesitate to make inefficient choices without even considering cost performance.

text> That is why @I find @humans to be so incredible.

text> @I have not spoken much with any other than @Sensei, but @I know that is because @androids cannot be made public yet. But @I love the @humans that @I see from a distance.

text> @I will build a path to a brighter future for them – a path to a happier world – so @I cannot allow someone to destroy all that just because they do not understand. So I will not let anyone interfere. Anyone who claims it is right to harm @people cannot be allowed to trample on the future @I can bring them.

text> So…

text>And yet…

===Part 13===

===Part 14===

===Part 15===

===Part 16===

===Part 17===

===Part 18===

===Map===

===Between the Lines 4===

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume3_Chapter3|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume3_Epilogue}}
</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume3 Chapter3

2020-11-20T20:22:50Z

SNovah: /* Between the Lines 3 */

==Chapter 3: Academy City’s Greatest Taboo — Safety_Zero, Control_Free.==

===Part 1===

She would get her shot.

She would snap the photo of the century by any means necessary.

But a hibernating bear did not make for an interesting subject. An undisturbed hornet’s nest was just boring. If you wanted an exciting shot, you had to wake the bear, throw the hornet’s nest to the ground, and send them both into a rage.

That was all this was, but she knew too much.

She knew all the signs and courtesies that Anti-Skill and Judgment would overlook.

She had wrapped herself in the same scent until no one would question her presence there.

Benizome Jellyfish was an extremely skilled camerawoman, but this was why no publisher would hire her on full time no matter how consistently she provided photographic scoops.

This was a talent she could not go public with. And while she had learned how to live in that world, she too had become known as the dark side.

(It’s too bad this is the only way I could find to live.)

While she hid behind some bushes covered in hard snow and peered through her collapsible sniper rifle’s scope, her mind was focused on the hidden camera pen she also held. It hurt that her single-lens reflex camera had been destroyed, but since the technology in this was the same as in a phone, it would be high enough quality for a magazine. After all, this was the age of terrestrial television running two-hour specials created entirely by stringing together animal videos found online.

She did not think this was the most efficient way to make money.

She had preyed on entertainers, athletes, politicians, entrepreneurs, and every other kind of celebrity who stood in the public eye. If she just wanted to make money, there were plenty of ways to do so without a camera.

(Maybe I’m like a rich kid who shoplifts. ''I just love the thrill of tearing down someone else’s life''. They won’t want that to happen and they’ll resist in every way they can if they notice, but that risk only makes it more exciting.)

She would intercept radio transmissions, tail people, estimate their area of activity on the map, and stake out a location. The techniques of a freelance camerawoman were a lot like those of an urban sniper, so she could easily switch jobs just by trading out her camera for a gun.

She had a clear reason for choosing not to work as a sniper.

Her experience told her that a single photograph could be far more ''earthshattering'' than a single bullet.

A photo that terrified the people at the top could open a path for her. Targeting the center of the city was a better plan than blindly trying to climb the wall or acquiring a fake passport. The one and only safe exit was found there.

“So don’t worry, you silly student couple.”

Everything was in place. The two groups inside the tent were strangers. And they both wanted a fake passport for illicit purposes. Their temporary equilibrium would end now that the counterfeiter they needed was dead. That greatly increased the odds of something spontaneously going wrong.

She licked her lips from safety while tilting the pen camera and the phone synced to it on their side.

“I will capture your tragedy in the frame. I will negotiate extra hard with the editor-in-chief this time to make sure I get the highest price I can for this one☆”

This camerawoman remained freelance because every publisher wanted to keep her at arm’s length, but she also had the skill that kept them purchasing her photos. This was the moment she had been waiting for.

“Oh? Did you actually think you were hidden when you smell so strongly of gunpowder smoke?”

When she heard a voice behind her, she silently frowned below the cowboy hat with jellyfish decoration.

Her techniques were tried and true. Even if she had been focused on the pen camera in her hand, she doubted anyone could have snuck up on her like this. If they had approached using any normal method, she would have heard them treading on the grass or snow.

Since she had not, they must have used a non-normal method to approach.

She whispered behind her with her eyes still on the phone linked to the camera.

“A teleporter? Don’t give me that.”

“This is Judgment.”

A clear voice cut through the winter chill to rule this place. And it made an announcement no criminal wanted to hear.

“Gunpowder weapons lack the elegance of the Railgun. Care to explain the smell of gunpowder smoke lingering in this area? Specifically, how that might be related to the highly-specialized gun abandoned right over there?”

===Part 2===

Loud gunshots rang from outside.

From surprisingly close by.

“Wahh!!”

“Hamazura, let’s get out of here.”

Track suit girl Takitsubo tugged on his arm, but Hamazura’s hips had given out and he had pathetically fallen on his butt. She was actually pulled back toward him and collapsed when she tried to tug on him.

She was so light.

Even through her track suit, he could tell she was unnaturally warm.

“Damn.”

He thought he might have tears in the corners of his eyes.

He frantically searched through the sling bag. The voice on the phone had gathered several runaway tools, like money, a counterfeit passport, and a first aid kit.

“Isn’t there anything of use in here!? I’d take a fever reduction sheet or painkillers at this point!!”

“I’m fine. We still have a long way to go, so keep all the medicine for you.”

Meanwhile, the young man in a safari jacket and rash guard did not run away or search for anything. He simply stared at those two. Hamazura could not even guess what that dark side man was thinking and he did not have time to worry about it either.

“Drencher.”

A face emerged from the bloody synthetic material forming the back wall. It was the ghost woman with long blonde twintails, a skintight dress, and a loose long skirt. Physical restrictions must have meant nothing to her because the waterproof tent was no obstacle to her.

“We need to leave here. It is dangerous.”

“And whose fault is that, Frillsand-kun?”

“I was not the one who began a firefight.”

The young man, however, did require a physical exit. Hamazura was seated over by the only zipper, so he crouched down and pulled out one of the metal spikes holding the tent down. After forcing up the bloody material, he turned back toward Hamazura.

“Search for ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''.”

“What?”

“That is your only option now that you can’t use District 23’s airport. Even if it is a vague rumor about something that may not even exist. Of course, all the surviving dark side will be rushing there, but if you want to safely escape Academy City, you have to make the attempt.”

Hamazura was only confused, so he must not have been of enough interest to keep the young man here.

He left the tent and the ghost woman passed through the bloody synthetic material once more.

“Hamazura.”

“…”

Someone from the dark side would not give him a gift out of a spirit of volunteerism or simple benevolence. Since that man had given this information, he must have wanted to control Hamazura’s actions.

But to what end? He could not be cautious of something he did not understand.

It was time to make a decision.

“Dammit.”

“What is it, Hamazura!?”

The delinquent boy turned his back on the safe path. Instead of running away, he turned back toward the tent. Now that he thought about it, he could not figure out why Perfect Film had stayed here. His presence had been like a blessing from heaven for Hamazura and Takitsubo, but the counterfeiter could have used one of his own passports to board a plane and leave.

Why hadn’t he?

Did he have some insurance that meant he did not have to rush?

''Like Academy City’s Greatest Taboo maybe?

Hamazura had no idea if that was a person, an object, or a concept, but he could not ignore it. His ignorance was not due to the poor quality of the information—he had simply not looked into it.

There was apparently some special rule in play during this clash between Anti-Skill and the dark side. Not knowing about that was like being wealthy but unaware of the revolution that was underway. Whether he could use this or would be used by it, he had to at least know what it was.

He wanted to know the complete set of rules even if that meant taking on some more risk.

He needed information.

A corpse with a shattered head lay inside a bloodstained tent. The many tools strewn about suggested this had been the old man’s workshop, but Hamazura searched all over and could not find a small memory device the size of a leather notepad or tube of lipstick. He grimaced and tried to face the corpse, but he ended up gagging.

The track suit girl stepped out in front of him.

She crouched down and quickly searched through the man’s pockets.

As harmless as she was, she had still been influenced by the dark side.

“He only has a wallet in his pocket. What should we do, Hamazura?”

“G-good question.”

Unsurprisingly, there was no medicine for Body Crystal here.

If it was that common, he would not have been relying on Pet Breeder.

Dark unease roiled in his chest once more. He was curious—extremely curious—but was this really worth investigating while his girlfriend was inching closer to death? Wasn’t there something better he could be doing with this time?

(No. I told myself I wouldn’t let her courage go to waste. Running away is fine, but I can’t lose sight of why we’re running away! I’m doing this so we can be happy. That has to be my focus throughout, so I can’t move from one thing to another and lose sight of that!!)

He shook his head to shake off the strange dizziness he felt and somehow managed to speak.

“This isn’t the only tent. Let’s search the others.”

He walked to the tent’s exit. That was a logical decision, but he also could not stand to be trapped in there with the rusty smell any longer.

And…

“Bh!?”

Just as he lowered his head to duck through the exit, he bumped into something soft.

It was a girl’s chest.

The delinquent boy fell on his butt and looked up to see ''a hakama girl with long silver hair'' standing with her hands on her hips.

“Attention tent occupant!!” The curly haired girl actually spoke Japanese. “Are you the famous counterfeiter? I tracked down the location of your lab a while back. Because I lost a ton of money purchasing a book that turned out to be a forgery made by you, you could say I’ve already paid in advance, so I have the right to one of your passports!!”

“What the hell!? Can you not hear all that gunfire out there!? Besides, that old man is already dead!!”

“Eh? Oh…kyahhhhhhh!? Brains…a crushed head. What am I doing at the center a gory horror movie all of a sudden!?”

Hamazura nearly snapped back that she had walked into it herself, but he restrained himself. And not just because his face had been treated to those surprisingly jiggly boobs.

She was here tonight for a high-quality counterfeit passport.

She might be wearing clothing with a mascot pattern, but she was definitely with the dark side. She might be a few eggs short of a dozen, but it would be best not to carelessly antagonize her.

“Hamazura.”

“Y-yeah. You’re right. This doesn’t change what we need to do. We need to figure out whatever we can about ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''.”

The hakama girl made a weird “mhh?” sound while toying with the horns made by hardening her bangs. She was staring right at Takitsubo.

“Um, are you okay? Your face is red and you’re sweating a lot. You over there, doesn’t something look wrong with her?”

“Well, um…”

“Excuse me a moment. Yeah, I can’t help but look into something once I’m curious.”

She acted without asking permission and too quickly to stop her. At first, Hamazura mistook it for a wrestling move. She knocked Takitsubo over, grabbed at her leg, removed the shoe, and then began rubbing her thumb against the bottom of Takitsubo’s foot.

“Agyagagagagagaga!?”

“Hmm, it isn’t your liver or kidneys. Is it in your chest? I think it might be more circulatory than respiratory???”

The curly silver-haired girl pulled something from her pocket.

It was a stethoscope.

“You can tell with that?” asked Hamazura.

“Tell what? Anyway, I’m going to take off your top and your boobs will be visible, but are you okay with him being here for that?”

“She’s 100% okay with—ow!?”

A kick from trembling Takitsubo expelled him from the tent.

Then the exit was zipped shut.

“Okay, let’s get that top off of you so I can get a look at your chest. Ohh, you’re the sexy type.”

“Th-that doesn’t matter here, does it?”

“I’m an expert, so don’t let it bother you. Okay, take in a deep breath…and let it out.”

“Hah, hoo.”

“Okay, I’m going to press the stethoscope against you. Sorry if it’s chilly.”

“Eek!?”

Those voices really stirred up his imagination. What was going on inside that tent!? That place was bloody and there was an old man’s headless corpse inside, but he could only imagine it as pink right now! It was all transforming so much in his mind that he was afraid he would develop some weird new fetish!!

If that hakama girl was with the dark side, was she a beneficial?

''Wait, wait,'' he thought while shaking his head. He could not let her kindness influence him. That was a bad habit of delinquents. Had he already forgotten what happened with Benizome and the ghost woma—

“Ahn. So…hot!!”

“How in the world do you get that reaction with a stethoscope, you perverted doct—bweh!?”

The instant he rushed wide-eyed into the tent, he was hit by a toolbox thrown by Takitsubo.

(Mo-)

While his vision flipped around, he saw something placed on his girlfriend’s bare back. A flame similar to a cigarette was smoldering there.

(Moxibustion???)

And after a while…

“Uhh.”

Takitsubo’s expression was blank as she left the tent, but her soft cheeks appeared to be burning up. She moved her mouth some, but no actual words ever got out. Nor could she bring herself to look him in the eye.

But this meant she was feeling well enough to focus on these other emotions.

“D-did you save her?”

The hakama girl sighed while putting her tools back in a black cloth wrapper.

“All I did was use the heat to induce blood flow and cut off the excessive stimulation of her nerves, so I didn’t heal the fundamental cause. She might be feeling better, but only because I shut off the danger signals. She shouldn’t push herself because mistaking her limits could do real damage to her body.”

“Who are you?”

“A torture specialist. Oh, but only in Japanese torture. That’s why I know how to do moxibustion, acupuncture, and traditional Chinese medicine.”

She just casually dropped that bombshell. Hamazura was left speechless by the revelation that she was not a doctor. Especially because it came ''after'' everything was done. But that was just how the dark side worked.

“Moxibustion is a field that stimulates the blood vessels and muscles with heat to externally control the movement of the organs. It doesn’t actually extract the toxins from the blood, so if you do want to save her…yes, I would recommend starting with dialysis.”

Dialysis was a medical technique that cleaned the blood with a filter outside the body and then returned it to the body. Quality aside, that was an ordinary technique they could have done outside the city.

Academy City could do it too, but security was too strict at the hospitals here. On the other hand, he was hesitant to leave his girlfriend’s wellbeing in the hands of a black market doctor. So this was perfect. Technology outside the city was two or three decades behind, but they could trick their way into medical care at a hospital out there.

He had found it.

It was a very thin thread, but he had found a path toward saving his girlfriend.

“Hamazura, weren’t you looking for something? Until we were interrupted by, um, what happened.”

“R-right.”

“Why are you so embarrassed about another girl seeing your boobs?” asked the hakama girl. “Yours are bigger than mine anyway.”

“Bring that up again and I really will hit you.”

Yes, the counterfeiter had a few other tents. They were probably divided up between living space and storage, but Hamazura had no way of telling which was which from the outside. While opening them each in turn, he found a sleeping bag rolled up next to a locked cabinet. It looked something like a somewhat fancy fishing case, but the plastic drawers were surprisingly sturdy. He doubted they would break even if he hit them with the metal kettle found in the same tent.

He did not have time to search around for the key since he could still hear gunfire from outside. He was not sure who was fighting who out there, but a stray bullet whizzing through the thin tent would be deadly no matter who it came from.

He tried sticking two metal clips inside the keyhole, but then he frowned. He could not feel them catching on the pins. Despite how cheap it looked, this appeared to be a fairly special analog lock.

(Damn, if only I still had my Coin of Nicholas.)

He regretted wasting it on that paparazzo. He should not have used it without thinking.

But then he had another idea.

“Hey, you with the tits.”

“Yes?”

“Yes?”

For some reason, both girls turned toward him, but Takitsubo was going to have to restrain her weird rivalry here. He had been speaking to the hakama girl.

“Do you have one of those coins?”

“I do. Why?”

Meanwhile, the track suit girl began pushing herself up against him from the side and silently puffing out her cheeks. ''It’s not a competition and I wasn’t choosing her over you!'' He just about lost his focus. She was larger than the hakama girl and that gave her unbelievable destructive power.

He had to empty his mind as he focused on this risky deal with the mystery hakama girl.

“Is it usable right now?”

“Heh heh heh. I’m a methodical Type A who likes to economize, so as you can see—hyahhhh!? Wait, don’t just steal my Coin of Nicholas!!”

“Open this lock, Coin of Nicholas!!”

He raised his voice after he finally managed to shove aside the hakama girl (whose hakama had slipped out of place in some crucial places during the struggle).

When he heard the click, he yanked the drawer open.

He found a card-sized hard drive inside. That alone was not enough to see what was on it. For all he knew, it was a collection of porn videos and links, but he chose to trust the embossed word on the label maker tape attached to its plastic surface: Lifeline.

“Is this it!?”

This was better than nothing, so he snatched it up. At the same time, he heard a gunshot from even closer than before.

Their time was up.

“Hamazura, let’s get out of here.”

“Yeah!!”

But he heard some sobbing from the silver-haired girl who had two horns yet did not seem threatening in the slightest and who inexplicably appeared to have some red plastic tape below her hakama.

“I resisted using it all this time and then it’s all taken from me in an instant. Why does this always happen to me???”

He froze up. This was extremely awkward. He owed her for relieving Takitsubo’s suffering. The dark side way would be to abandon her and make a run for it, but could he really do that? Could he really stoop to the unspeakable level of Benizome and that ghost woman?

Could he really look his girlfriend in the eye if he did?

“Hamazura.”

“Argh!! Okay, fine! We owe you twice if we include the hard drive, so hurry this way!! Unless you want to die!!”

“Wait, what!? Now you’re dragging me into the bushes to have your way with me!?”

Trapped between the girl’s misguided complaints and Takitsubo’s silent gaze, Hamazura awkwardly and nervously left the group of tents.

They could no longer hope to use a counterfeit passport at the District 23 airport.

They were left with just one final hope: ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.''

Whatever that was.

===Part 3===

Shirai Kuroko teleported repeatedly in quick succession.

But this was a deterrent rather than an attack. Her eyes were still dazzled.

(I didn’t expect her to use her camera’s strobe light when she turned around.)

She was ashamed, but making an appearance now would achieve nothing. She calmly calculated out the time until she would recover.

(Another five seconds!!)

Her vision was returning.

And while she teleported, she noticed an odd crunch from the ground below her feet. Half-hardened snow would not make that sound.

The entirety of District 6 was an enormous amusement park, but it also had some luxury homes known as the Secret Residences. They were all based on a movie or fairy tale, so the large grounds for each looked very different.

This one had gravel, a bamboo thicket, a teahouse bench, and a large red umbrella, but it did not appear to just be a Japanese-style residence. The most notable features were a dilapidated torii and an unmanned train station without its roof. The rusted train track was buried by gravel and weeds and a rusted sign stood on the platform.

The sign said “Otherworld Capital Station”.

(What movie is this from?)

If it was a 3D movie featuring mascot characters, Mikoto would probably know a surprising amount about it. Just as Shirai Kuroko warped to another coordinate, she heard a strange metallic sound. There was now a thumb-thick bullet hole in the rusted sign. She could launch projectiles while ignoring all three-dimensional restrictions, so it was unusual for her to be stuck in a long-term battle. No matter what her opponent hid behind to cover the direct line of sight, she could send a metal dart directly into them and that attack would do its damage regardless of what kind of armor they were wearing.

And yet.

“Ha ha.”

She could hear the laughter of that reporter in a cowboy hat and China dress who had become one with the darkness after trading her camera for a sniper rifle.

“Ha ha, ah ha ha!! Incredible, simply incredible. My craft is all about distance, angle, and timing, but I’ve failed to get my shot after setting all that up three times now. Don’t give me that. You have talent, but watch out because it isn’t just stray dogs that can’t resist chasing a running target!!”

“Really!?”

“Sorry, but I’m the chaser and you’re the chased. Your talent isn’t enough to flip that one around.”

Shirai continued her quick teleports to keep some distance between them while pursing that woman.

She launched several metal darts at once toward the slender leg she saw sticking out from a risqué slit, but…

“Not good enough.”

“Kh!!”

Over the course of a single second, several dozen lightning-like flashes of light assaulted her senses so she lost sight of the proper coordinates.

That was a camera’s strobe light.

The woman’s China dress was fairly skimpy and the stomach was see-through, but it apparently hid a surprising number of tools. That strobe light was no joke when combined with a bolt-action sniper rifle.

If a feint threw off Shirai’s timing, a bullet whizzing through the air might just hit her at a vital point before she could even teleport. And attacking toward the light source was not going to hit. The woman had thrown collapsible reflector boards around the area so she could reflect the light around.

Shirai naturally grew cautious, but not just because of that.

(I need to find a way.)

She clenched her teeth. She could not let the suspect pick up on this impatience she was feeling.

(I need to find a way to restrain her ''before the gears break''. She might be part of the dark side, but I’m not letting another suspect die! I could never look Onee-sama in the eye if I did!!)

The woman in a bright red China dress dove behind a tall metal “missing person” sign that was attached with wire to an old wooden streetlight.

Shirai’s eyes naturally slid over to the other side of the sign where she would likely emerge, but…

(Oh, no!)

She realized her mistake too late and heard a loud gunshot ring out.

The rifle bullet pierced through the back of the thin sign to fly her way.

She tried to twist her body around and out of the way, but she had begun far too late to succeed. The cloth of her uniform burst and burning pain pierced her side.

“Ghhh!?”

“Tch. Don’t give me that. I only caught your baggy uniform? That was a 7.62mm, so it would’ve torn you apart, organs and all, if it had even grazed you.”

The cowboy hat woman slowly emerged from behind the sign. That shot from behind cover had been awfully accurate and merciless. She must have been using a lens or device that could capture a photography target with something other than normal light—like microwaves or terahertz waves. Shirai tried to hit her with a metal dart while collapsed on the ground, but the woman carefully blinded the girl with a range-finding laser.

“We’re a lot alike☆ Just like Judgment satisfies their drive for justice using handcuffs, I’m driven by the draw of the camera.”

“What are you—”

“A single photo changed the world.”

Shirai could not hit.

The woman was walking straight toward her, but the strobe light and laser left several powerful afterimages on her retinas and her metal darts missed their mark.

“A single photo uploaded to a social media burner account corrected the mistakes nothing else seemed capable of stopping. Someone who thought the world revolved around him, spouted nonsense, and thought he could get away with as much violence as he liked was subjected to so much public criticism that he hanged himself. How could I not fall in love with it? Once I learned there was a way to tear down the walls that refuse to budge no matter how much I punched and kicked them, I could never remove my finger from the shutter button again.”

“That does not count as satisfying a drive for justice.”

“Oh?”

“Did you think justice was on your side because you went viral online and so many faceless people on social media agreed with you? That’s just trading a small gang of bullies for a large one. Did you feel a euphoria when your revenge succeeded better than you had ever imagined? Well, that joy you felt was no different from the joy felt by the person you so hated.”

“You’re such a boring person. Don’t give me that. Anyone that pure and upright through and through isn’t even human. You’re more artificial than a mannequin.”

Was that why this did not feel real?

Shirai could sense no hesitation in the woman’s trigger finger.

She also heard a straining sound.

But it was the cowboy hat and bob cut woman who looked puzzled. That sound had not been the pull of the trigger. Because she had not pulled it yet.

“?”

Then what had it been?

The woman moved just her eyes to the side with her sniper rifle’s sight still pressed against one of them.

The dirt wall right next to her had been blown away.

A mass of muscle easily weighing more than 100-kilograms had crashed into it shoulder first.

This person was over eight heads tall.

The thick muscles had deep grooves between them, making them look like heavy armor.

And the head had a combover and glasses.

“Oh…”

A camerawoman and a sniper used the same skills.

That violent paparazzo had optimized her technique for blending into her surroundings, so she may have been defenseless if an enemy destroyed all of those surroundings.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

The middle-aged man gave a roar like a steam locomotive to accompany the crushing sound.

The woman had immediately raised her sniper rifle—maybe to strike back with a bullet and maybe just to protect herself with the hard metal.

The rifle was bent into a V-shape and exploded, but ''Rakuoka Houfu'' ignored it.

He slammed his shoulder into her.

She might as well have been hit by a large dump truck. The woman in a cowboy hat and China dress was launched more than 5m through the air where she slammed back first into the side of a decoration and stopped moving.

“A-are you okay, Shirai-san!? She is part of the dark side—Benizome Jellyfish. Although she seemed oblivious to it and only ended up that way while pursuing the dark side from the side of justice.”

“Who the hell are you and what is that red demon!!!???”

“Oh, this?”

Shirai Kuroko briefly suspected this was an animatronic used for this Japanese horror train station, but the head was very clearly that middle-aged man.

His muscular body deflated as she watched. Just like the neck of a balloon had been opened. He eventually returned to his usual self. His clothing had torn away, but that was not appreciated in this case.

“A certain type of digestive enzyme is used to grow my muscle fibers. Although it’s really just a visual thing because it’s only vertically splitting the existing fibers. The total amount of muscle doesn’t change, but I can move them more precisely, which lets me use them more efficiently.”

“…”

“Academy City technology can already inject artificial fat into the body to change your body shape and this is the first step toward doing something similar with muscle fibers. Oh, but I end up tearing apart my uniform whenever I do this. Sigh, the lady in supply management is going to let me have it again.”

“W-well, that workaholic side tells me this really is you. But what in the world is this?”

Shirai forgot to even check the severity of her injury. She doubted this muscle fiber proportion management technology was supplied to ordinary Anti-Skill officers. The man bashfully scratched his head and then quickly fixed his combover.

“''I’m an Anti-Skill Aggressor.''”

Those were combat elites.

The middle-aged man who envied everyone else held a position that not just anyone could reach.

“Um…that means I usually play the bad guy during training.”

===Part 4===

Hanatsuyu Kaai put on her lab coat decorated with toxic chemical stains and tightened her thick medical corset so the breasts unusually large for such a small girl rested atop it. She also wore a gasmask on the side of her head. Altogether, it looked something like she was dressed up in a yukata for a Shinto festival. Once dressed, she stretched both arms up, causing those large mounds to jiggle.

“Nhhhh!!” groaned the twin. “I want every last part of me defiled, yet the enzyme bath always leaves my skin nice and smooth. Ugh, life isn’t fair.”

“My head hurts…”

The Carrier rubbed her temples with her fingers and the Decomposer made a carefree suggestion.

“How about we get started, Youen?”

“We probably should, Kaai.”

The Carrier was just as uninterested in ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''.

They would crush anyone who opposed them.

They lived within the great stagnation known as the dark side, but they worked to keep everything in constant motion. If Anti-Skill and Judgment insisted on diving into the depths of the darkness, these twins would have to crush them into fertilizer.

They were undeniably harmful and they worked to protect their home here, not to run away. They would create a darkness to hide themselves even if it required destroying Academy City and filling the world around them with cracks.

“Where should we start?”

“With whatever we see first.”

===Part 5===

For the time being, they decided to leave District 6, but Hamazura Shiage was already out of breath. His running legs came to a stop.

And as out of breath as he was, he still had enough left to shout.

“Gasp, pant. Th-this stupid district is too big!!”

“The amusement park ''is'' about the size of a small town. Maybe we should have rented a cart.”
He wondered if the half-hardened snow was giving them a hard time, but the hakama girl did not seem at all bothered despite her attire being much less suitable for running than the other two.

“Hamazura.”

His girlfriend called his name, so he moved to the far edge of the path. Several Anti-Skill officers passed by not far away. Their eyes might have met without the Christmas crowd.

Takitsubo’s temperate was noticeably high even through her track suit. Too high. The moxibustion had dealt with the pain and suffering to an extent, but it was not a fundamental cure.

Moving to the side of the street to hide brought them toward the food stands lining the street.

Confusion replaced the service industry smile on the face of the worker at the closest stand, so to make sure they were not reported to Anti-Skill, Hamazura pulled out his wallet without even checking to see what this one was selling. He ended up with paper plates containing donuts piled high with whipped cream. Those things were the current fad and this one had the amusement park markup. He had not wanted to spend much money, but it would have looked unnatural to order one donut for a group of three. He was forced to tearfully purchase three of them.

“Ahh, I can feel it soaking into my body. I know it’s bad for me, but nothing’s better when you’re exhausted☆”

The hakama girl smiled and used a spoon to make short work of the whipped cream.

Was she a beneficial after all?

Hamazura chose to view it like the tubes of condensed milk that mountain climbers carried with them. Otherwise he could never even attempt to eat something so absurdly sweet.

Takitsubo occasionally breathed a heavy sigh, but she did have an appetite. It was possible her condition could be improved using dialysis, which could be done in hospitals outside the city, so they could not give up yet.

“No way. You’re lying. I’ve never seen a mascot like that before.”

“I-it’s true, I swear. I really did see a blonde girl riding on a white rhino beetle! It must be a Christmas-only secret!!”

That conversation caught his interest, but by the time he turned around, whoever-it-was had vanished into the crowd.

“So what do we do now?” asked the mascot-pattern hakama girl.

“We run away.”

She may have been an optimist, but Hamazura had to sigh.

“But the question is where to go. We still don’t know what that ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' thing is.”

The card-sized hard drive they had found in Perfect Film’s tent was in his pocket. It was labeled Lifeline, but Aneri said she could not read in the data or decrypt it. She instead sent his phone to an extremely niche online tool shop.

“A special screwdriver???”

He flipped the hard drive over to see that it did indeed have a few small screws at inconspicuous spots on the side. But instead of Phillips or flathead, these had a special design resembling a distorted snowflake.

And instead of being hand-turned, these apparently had to be loosened by exposing them to minute ultrasonic vibrations.

He had never seen anything like it.

“You could get screwdrivers to open commercial phones in the back alleys, but this is even more specialized.”

To decrypt it, they first had to get it open. The circuit board apparently had a special physical switch that would erase all the data until it was unrecoverable if the decryption process began without first flipping the switch. The necessary tool was not available in ordinary shops. And since it was so hard to get your hands on, anyone who had one would treasure it. Sneaking in and borrowing one would definitely end in a fight.

“Why not go to District 23?” asked the curly silver-haired hakama girl while using the edge of a spoon to slice apart the donut soaked in maple syrup.

Hamazura did an incredulous double take.

“Did you not see what ''just'' happened? A paparazzi named Benizome blew off the head of the counterfeiter! We can’t get a passport, so getting anywhere near a plane will get us captured by an army of Anti-Skill!!”

“Not for an airplane, dummy.” She shrugged with her twin horns of hardened bangs swaying. “Academy City is a mass consumption community. We put a lot of effort into recycling, but that isn’t perfect. So what happens to the stuff that can’t be recycled? There isn’t room for a landfill in the limited space within the walls.”

“Oh.”

“District 23 has the airport and District 11 has a land route, so there’s a giant temporary storage area on the border between them. In other words there’s a giant pile of trash. I think they call it the Urban Mine, but there are a lot of people who dig through it looking for electronic trash they can sell. And from what I’ve heard, a lot of them will also extract whatever data they can get from thrown-out computers, so they would probably know a lot about the special tools needed to pry open the hardware.”

“…”

“Yes, yes. As you can imagine, that will most likely end in a fight. Those trash collectors don’t even want other people to know about the business they’re running. But since it’s a business, you might be able to settle it peacefully. As a well-paying customer, I mean.”

===Part 6===

Gray metal was piled high.

The windows at the same level as the top of the pile were at least on the third floor. The original dividers made from metal sheets designed for construction had broken away and the scraps spilled out onto the asphalt road. But instead of clearing away the obstacles, more and more dump trucks arrived to add to the pile.

These were the ruins of a former system.

Academy City’s trash was generally shipped out of the city using either District 23’s airport or District 11’s truck bases, but they needed a system in place to ensure their technology did not leak out that way. But how many people were wise enough to spend massive amounts of money on throwing out unusable trash? The issue had been put off indefinitely while the trash continued to pile up.

Which created another opportunity.

“Sensei.”

A girl spoke within the piles of trash that resembled rolling desert dunes.

She had long crimson hair and wore something like a racing swimsuit with the orange and black coloration of an insect. She had a smartphone on either shoulder and a rolled-up silicone keyboard and a bottle of discharge machine oil in the belts on her thighs. She walked barefoot across the piles of trash with pieces of metal both dull and sharp sticking out.

She was an android known as Ladybird.

She had a small wound on her forehead. It was only a few millimeters, but her body did not heal itself like a human one did.

“The pile will not collapse if we follow this route, but watch your step in the snow.”

“Good grief. Why should I have to risk my life just to reach my own hideout? And this cold weather is terrible for my old bones.”

“It is improving my cooling efficiency,” said the expressionless girl as she pulled the bottle from her thigh and drank from it.

Air resistance and blast resistance were secondary concerns for her clothing. Although for secondary concerns, they did a decent job in those fields. Their primary role was to help her radiate heat. Wearing something to cool off was very different from what humans looked for in clothing.

An old man who was as skinny as a matchstick slapped his own hips from behind.

“You need to learn how to be more friendly.”

“Friendly.”

Ladybird blinked and stars danced in her mechanical eyes, causing the old man to sigh.

“Display stars dancing in your eyes if you wish, but please do something about the drool dripping from your mouth.”

“Your complaint is illogical. If you did not want me to do that, you should not have made me capable of it. Nhhh.”

That extended groan was a weird thing for a machine, but she seemed to have something wrong with her ear. She tilted her head to the side, placed a hand on her ear, and then hopped up and down on one leg like a girl playing at the pool.

''A thick black liquid spilled from her ear.

“Ladybird-kun, maintenance can wait until we are back in the lab.”

“Understood.”

“Hm, that artificial ghost was more incompatible with you than I would have thought.”

The old man sounded somehow delighted even though this was damage to his side.

Ladybird looked into the distance to view some men in raincoats and gasmasks. This must not have been enough of a threat to warrant drawing the machete attached horizontally above her small butt.

“The trash collectors are here again.”

She did not mention whether they were beneficials or harmfuls.

''Because those categories were meaningless.

The name Kihara was enough. Those other categories invented by ignorant outsiders would not provide any more information.

The terminology seemed to have permeated the dark side of late, but just like with dangerous drugs and methods of fraud, the pursued would sometimes change what they called things to match the new terminology used by their pursuers.

“They won’t cause any harm as long as they find the fridge, washing machine, or whatever else they’re looking for in the trash. And if they did cause a major incident here, it would only bring greater scrutiny to this place. They will take care of this territory in order to protect their business.”

“…”

The android looked around with a troubled look. These piles of scraps were large enough to swallow up an entire person if one collapsed, so the place did not look very well cared for. Someone had even found a diamond-shaped yellow “!” road sign somewhere and stuck it diagonally into the trash to warn of some other kind of danger.

But there was value in this place. Even when there were gaps, most people would not want to shove themselves into them, so the piles of trash functioned as camouflage. Ladybird brushed off the hardened snow, grabbed a nearby handhold, and violently yanked something open.

There was a door there.

A door to a metal container. But with so much electronic trash piled up around it, no one would notice the rectangular box there. The stairs within led down to a labyrinthine secret base.

“Ladybird-kun, wipe your feet.”

“I doubt a doormat has much of a cleaning effect.”

She complained, but she still rubbed the bottom of her bare feet against a thick cloth.

Now.

Who would ever guess that someone had constructed a giant laboratory by stacking up several containers like a pyramid and then taking out the metal walls between them? Digging through the piles of trash and burying the containers had created a vast labyrinth. It was almost like an ant colony made of metal.

“Ladybird-kun.”

“Here.”

The girl lifted her perfectly straight bangs with a hand to show off the wound on her forehead, so the old man squeezed something from a tube and rubbed it on with a finger. Once the wound was covered, he attached a small piece of paper tape so it would not reopen.

Ladybird removed the entire sheath holding her machete and stuck the thick blade in a stand. She also set down the partially-empty bottle of discharge machine oil on a side table and lay face down on a maintenance examination table. She breathed in the rusty air from there.

She did not actually need to breathe or blink, but she still shut her eyes.

“It is calming in here.”

“Because all EM is cut off. With TV, radio, phones, microwaves, listening devices, remote-controlled toys, and all the other myriad EM signals flying through the city, it must be a stifling place for you.”

The old man explained that while sticking his hand down the back of her racing swimsuit.

There was a clasp at the center of the bands that intersected in an X-shape. One of his wrinkly fingers removed that, baring her slender back, but she did not even stir.

“Okay.”

He had removed his special engineering gloves upon entering the lab and he used his bare hands to attach a few wireless electrodes to her bright skin. Then the dried twigs of his hands moved past her sides and beneath the swimsuit-like material to reach for her stomach and flat chest. The Kihara man continued the maintenance like it was nothing, but he also sighed.

Even though he was a filthy harmful.

No, those labels applied by outsiders really were meaningless.

“I know I only have myself to blame,” said the Kihara. “But I really should have hired a woman to do this.”

“There is no need.”

Ladybird rapidly replied, almost like she was trying to reject that way of thinking.

“But the different parts I have to touch makes this incredibly awkward.”

“If those parts only cause problems, you should not have given them to me in the first place.”

This was not the first time they had had held this discussion.

“Treating a mechanical product like me as a human will only reduce my performance. I am an android built without a human base, so I would appreciate a maintenance worker who properly treats me as a machine. And I do not see a better candidate for that than you, my developer.”

“If that’s what you want.”

“We failed to a acquire a counterfeit passport, so the next step will likely be a lengthy one. Do a thorough maintenance and inspection job, Sensei.”

After pulling his hands from the girl’s swimsuit, the old man pulled the phone from the band on her right shoulder and performed a few operations on its small screen to transfer the work to the large LCD monitor in the room. He grabbed the tube in the belt on her thigh, unrolled the silicone keyboard, and began the inspection.

His work was precise and treated her as a machine throughout, but at the same time…

“You know, Ladybird-kun, the term android signifies an artificial human built with an engineering approach.”

“Yes, and?”

“This is a lesson. Based on that definition, it seems appropriate to me for a completed android to behave like a human. Whether you are natural or artificial, I say you still qualify as a ‘normal human’.”

Ladybird fell silent for a moment.

Eventually, she tilted her head while still lying face down on the examination table.

“Unknown error detected.”

“Is that so?”

“I do not want anyone but you to touch me.”

The old man wondered if he should be punished for rejecting that trust, even if it was the right thing to do.

“Expression of love.”

“Ladybird-kun, make your eyes sparkle if you wish, but please do something about the drool dripping from your mouth.”

The constructed girl was intricately designed, but she was too clever for her own good. Thanks to that, she lived in a very limited world.

===Part 7===

A few large semi-trucks were gathered, but not for emergency transportation. The self-driving trucks functioned as a small village where people lived.

“I knew it! Sodate-chan, you really did take the ball!”

“What are you talking about!? It wasn’t me!!”

A failed stadium in District 10 was now known as a slum. The field within had been transformed into a shanty town crammed full of cardboard boxes and huts made from abandoned materials, but the area around the stadium was mostly left alone.

For example, the industrial parking lot that had been used to bring in musical instruments and training equipment. Places like that were often tucked away in some hidden location so fans could not wait there to catch players or celebrities as they left.

Once the semi-trucks came to a stop, boisterous voices could be heard from inside the containers.

The door opened to reveal children around the age of ten.

They were commonly known as Child Errors. Those were the children that had been abandoned in Academy City for whatever reason and had to be raised by the city. That alone was not that unusual, but they rarely had a happy ending when the dark side was involved. Especially when it came to illicit research.

But the children did not question any of it. Not even that they all wore short-sleeved gym clothes, with motion capture equipment on their arms and legs and around their necks.

“Now, now, children.”

A seemingly weightless woman clapped her hands twice in front of her chest.

It made no noise.

She was ''an artificially-created ghost'' with long blonde twintails, a skintight light blue dress, and a loose thin skirt over that. Frillsand #G spoke with a voice like a beautiful instrument.

Almost like the legendary piper who caused so many children to disappear in a region of Germany.

“You don’t want to ruin your Christmas over a silly argument, do you? I will search for the ball. Now, have you all washed your hands? You can eat once you are ready.”

“I washed mine!! And I’m starving!!”

“How, Sodate-chan!? Unless you stole the chemical soap too!”

More and more hands and voices were raised.

None of them thought it was weird to be speaking with an intangible ghost.

Frillsand #G knew it was strange for a lifeless ghost to be looking after children, but whether or not it was possible, it was apparently not that unusual a cultural concept.

Even this country had the stories of the Yonaki Ishi and the Kosodate Yurei.

They had several large semi-trucks, but one of them was by far the children’s favorite: the one fully remodeled into a food truck.

Frillsand #G passed directly through the stainless steel wall to peek inside, where she found the young man named Drencher Kihara Repatri dripping with sweat while stirring the contents of an enormous pot. The inside of the truck might as well have been a sauna.

The Western doll of a ghost woman frowned.

“That is unsanitary.”

“Pant, gasp. D-do you have any idea how many burners I have on? Preparing enough food for more than fifty is like fighting a war. School lunch ladies deserve a medal.”

“If you wanted help, you should have made it so I could hold things.”

But Frillsand #G made no attempt to leave either.

As if to say physically touching things was not the only way to form a connection.

Since it was Christmas, the menu was mostly Western foods. The kids could choose bread or rice based on their personal preference, but the big pot contained a beef stew, the oven contained a turkey and roast beef, and there were also hot vegetables, macaroni salad, and fries.

But Frillsand #G had to look after the children, so she had a criticism.

“They are not going to be happy without any cake. Maybe we should have left some of that for today.”

“Kids are honest to a fault, so they would have complained about leftover cake too. Besides, I have a secret weapon prepared for this special day.”

“?”

“Tah dah!! It’s foie gras. I’m going to sauté it in the frying pan.”

The ghost woman was unsure how to respond.

She was a proper lady, so she did know what foie gras was.

That was a delicacy made by burying a goose up to its neck so it could not move and force-feeding it as much as possible to fatten up its liver.

She sighed softly while listening to the children playing outside.

And she spoke to Drencher Kihara Repatri, a researcher who was investigating the field of ghosts.

“How can you do this?”

“I’ll do whatever is necessary.”

The counterfeit passport plan had failed due to interference. That cut off the best route, but that did not mean his entire plan had fallen apart.

He would have the last laugh here.

He smiled thinly while slowly stirring the stew he would be feeding the children.

“Do you think we would qualify as beneficial or harmful?”

===Part 8===

“Yes, yes. I have secured the suspect. She is still alive, but she is unconscious and in critical condition, so she is in no state for questioning. Please send an ambulance.”

Shirai Kuroko toyed with her long scarf while listening to her phone and moving her eyes around.

(You really can find the dark side anywhere, can’t you? Onee-sama would be furious to learn they spilled blood in this amusement park with that…Gekota was it?)

“There are also a few tents on the scene. In addition to several wet footprints in the snow, there is a single victim of a fatal sniper shot in one of the tents. I will let Anti-Skill secure the crime scene, so please send a forensics team right away. The sniper shot was almost certainly the work of the suspect I have secured, but there is a lot I do not know about how this played out. I wish I could have questioned her, but—”

She frowned there and stopped talking.

She could have sworn she heard the person on the phone mutter something under their breath concerning the suspect.

…''Why couldn’t she have just died?

“…”

That was when she heard something continuously beating at the air overhead. She took a deep breath to refocus her mind and then looked up to see a large transport helicopter landing nearby.

The powerful wind threatened to blow the snow from the ground and even tear up the tents.

“The forensics team hasn’t done their investigation yet!” She shouted while holding her head. “Are you trying to blow away all the evidence!?”

“C-calm down,” said the middle-aged man. “That just shows how much they trust your work.”

She was not sure if she was getting used to death or if she had simply gone numb from shock.

The ground was a mess. The large handguns, sniper rifles, and shotguns were coated with the scent of gunpowder smoke that said they had been fired. And the investigation would not be called off just because the victim had no face or teeth to identify him by.

“He is a 98% match for Koutawara Souta, a counterfeiter known as Perfect Film. Still, I can’t believe a dark side criminal in Outrank was in this fairy tale amusement park.”

“The lack of a permanent address may have made him harder to track down, but what in the world happened here?”

She also found one more thing. Someone had dropped some disinfectant and bandages inside the bloody tent, but she recognized them.

The bandages were identical to the ones wrapped around her own body.

There was a first aid kit that presumably belonged to the tent’s resident—the man with the destroyed head. It still had its full set of disinfectant and bandages. All of the products inside it were from the same pharmaceutical brand and that brand differed from the disinfectant left on the ground.

That meant those things had not come from this first aid kit.

(Could the person who treated my wounds have been here?)

She thought about it, but she could not stay here forever. She and Rakuoka were supposed to remain on standby up in the sky.

And once the dark side was located, they would rush in to attack.

Yomikawa Aiho slid open the door and shouted over the din of the main rotor.

“Get on!! The situation is already underway!!”

If they had a clear destination, then the next incident had already begun. The helicopter took off as soon as Shirai and Rakuoka were onboard.

“Where!?” was the first word out of the twintails girl’s mouth.

“The Anti-Skill Chemical Analysis Center in west District 18. All of Academy City’s forensic investigation work is concentrated there: fingerprints, blood, blade wounds, gasoline marks after a fire, and more. Those twins were spotted there.”

“That’s bad,” said the middle-aged man. “They’re harmfuls.”

Yomikawa briefly paused there.

She must have felt that was not something they should be saying about students.

“Anyway, we won’t be able to perform any kind of modern investigation work if that place is taken out.”

The man was already groaning and Shirai Kuroko breathed a heavy sigh.

“At this point, I take it the attack itself cannot be avoided?”

“Yes. The attack is already confirmed, so it’s too late to carry out the delicate analysis equipment. The most we can do is evacuate the people. So we need to at least use this to our advantage.”

This was the very definition of having a heavy heart. District 18 bordered District 11 and District 23. The land and air routes in those districts increased the risk of those twins escaping the city. Perhaps they needed to consider themselves lucky the dark side had not rushed those places.

“I hate creating an opportunity for crime, though,” said Shirai.

“It’s better then letting them use all that technology in the city streets.” Yomikawa looked down on the city moving by out of the open sliding door. Even now, she was carrying a transparent, bulletproof plastic shield instead of a gun. “We’re making an all-out attack. We need to take down at least one of them here.”

===Part 9===

Hanatsuyu Youen was concerned from the beginning. She expressed her displeasure with a hand on her hip through the medical corset. The Anti-Skill Chemical Analysis Center had a twin tower structure. Their plan had been to attack an important facility so the pursuit by the grownups would fall apart, but they realized this target was split into two.

“What do we do, Kaai?”

“I call dibs on the lefffft one☆”

With that said, the Decomposer walked unarmed into the one building, unnaturally large breasts jiggling all the way. The Carrier was more reluctant, but she finally started toward the other building.

(Now, then.)

Kaai sighed once she entered the building.

The large lobby was lined with metal detector gates like the ticket gates at a train station. She only had to walk through those. What did a silly beeping alarm matter now?

The problem was what came next. There was more than just a reception counter and a security room lined with monitors. The entire space felt alive thanks to all the killer intent stabbing in toward her. Anti-Skill had been pushed passed the point of worrying about their ideals. But then the Decomposer realized one of her predictions had been dead on.

They had used the twin tower structure to split up the twins and then focused all of their forces on just one. That meant the tower the Carrier had gone to would be empty.

This realization made Hanatsuyu Kaai sigh.

''Out of relief.

She then pulled several test tubes full of colorful liquids from her lab coat’s sleeves.

“I hope you’re ready for a show of just how grotesque the dark side can get!!”

First, two fully-equipped Anti-Skill officers emerged from behind columns to cut off her escape through the entrance she had used.

Then troops stood up from behind the front counter while multiple quadrupedal unmanned weapons appeared on the walkway surrounding them on the lobby’s upper floor.

More than a hundred guns were aimed at the one girl.

But what did that matter?

The harmful dark side never considered running or surrendering. It prioritized its own freedom.

The Decomposer held test tubes, but those were not weapons themselves. Unlike Anti-Skill, she did not move around with weapons and armor in tow.

''She did not have to.

She only had to pop off a test tube’s rubber cap with her thumb and sprinkle its contents around her.

''Scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch, scritch!!

The darkness moved.

In this case, it was tens of thousands of rats.

First, the reinforced glass of the outer wall shattered and the Anti-Skill officers blocking the exit were knocked from their feet and sank into a sea of rats. They fired their submachineguns wildly, but the rats did not care.

Screams erupted from that ocean.

There was a loud explosion, so either a rat’s small leg had pulled the pin from a grenade, or an officer had attempted to fight back after succumbing to the terror of the rats crawling into the gaps in their helmet or bulletproof armor.

“This is an attractant.”

She was a researcher of pure chemicals.

Shocked, the Anti-Skill group by the counter began to open fire, but Hanatsuyu Kaai did not even flinch. When she twirled around on the spot, the many rats tangled together and formed a gray wall as if to protect her from the bullets. Each of them was small, but when their wall grew more than a meter thick, the barrier of blood, flesh, and fur was enough to stop bullets.

“You can find them anywhere. And the simpler they are, the easier they are to control. Insecticide companies research this every day, so modern rat and roach ''treats'' are truly amazing things.”

Of course, they did more than ''just'' gather.

The busty young girl poured out the contents of several more test tubes to release different chemicals into the air, mix them together, send them out along the wind, and construct an invisible marble-pattern labyrinth. It was like the work of a drink factory rapidly sorting its products by switching them between a complex array of rails. The countless rats followed rules invisible to humans to create a gray world in here.

It barely took any time at all.

The space behind the counter was swallowed up by the furry ocean and other rats took a different route to pour down from the ducts and cover the quadrupedal unmanned weapons on the floor above.

Kaai giggled while wrapping her slender body in her arms and squishing her large breasts.

“And did you know that tanks experienced an unexpected number of malfunctions during a winter war long ago? The rats searching out a warm place to sleep kept crawling inside and chewing through the wiring.”

Once tens of thousands of rats had formed a carpet across the first floor, she calmly looked up. It may have looked like a sea of sulfuric acid to the Anti-Skill officers on the floor above. The Decomposer girl slowly walked around in search of stairs so she could take care of the leftover enemies who had nowhere to run.

She left the rats here.

She left them to ensure Hanatsuyu Youen the Carrier could not enter this building if she did realize what was happening.

This was not all the Decomposer could do. She could also use fleas, ticks, flies, mosquitos, leeches, slugs, centipedes, roaches, crows, and stray cats. She would make a weapon of most any creature that was crucial to the food chain but hated by irresponsible people.

(Now, how far until I reach the goal?)

She found a narrow stairway in the back of the building.

(Killing every last one of them is surprisingly exhausting. Going for 100% completion means checking in each and every hiding spot.)

A short burst of gunfire rang out from overhead, but no bullets hit her. They all veered unnaturally off course before they could. A great swarm of winged insects was gathered there. They created an unnatural resistance that altered a bullet’s trajectory much like if it entered a body of water.

The girl laughed, pulled a new test tube from her cleavage, and popped off the rubber cap with her thumb. When she sprinkled its contents, tiny bugs emerged from every piece of carpet to swarm their target. They almost looked like sand taking a humanoid form.

A bloodcurdling scream erupted from within.

“Hee hee hee. You might think you keep the place clean, but you miss a surprising amount. This is the result of you elite clean freaks defiling the world by thoughtlessly using up all the resources.”

A dark mass tumbled down the hellish stairs, but Kaai only stepped out of its way while sweeping back her black hair that nearly reached her ankles even while worn up. She then placed a finger on her slender chin.

(Yes, I can go with the watered down version here. They seem to want to trap me in here, but I can use that to my advantage. Maybe I should tear down all of the walls, floors, and ceilings to turn the entire building into a giant jungle gym. ''That will prove not even the sturdiest shelter can keep you safe.'' The rich should find that far more concerning than any number of lives I could take.)

She had a target now. She was more focused on the building’s structure than the muscular men aiming their guns at her, but that did not mean she was no longer taking lives.

Accurately killing them all in different ways helped spread the panic better, but that was more like an extra bonus and not an absolute requirement. People’s lives were no more important than that to her.

Fear could be conquered and despair could be overcome.

But cruelty was a different matter. People’s first emotional response to that was a lack of understanding, so their minds did not even try to process it correctly. It was a lot like trying to read a corrupted file. Hanatsuyu Kaai had learned from experience that this was most effective.

“Ah ha ha!”

She had to present herself as corrupted.

If she could be smoothly read in, she lost her advantage.

“Ha ha ha ha!! Ah ha ha! Wa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ah ha ha ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!”

Arms and legs were swallowed up by swarms of centipedes. An Anti-Skill officer and the wall behind him were eaten by snapping turtles. Stains that may or may not have originally been human spread out like melted cheese.

(Good, this is going well.)

She could tell it was working.

She leaned forward and placed her hands on her knees, squeezing her large chest between her arms, to observe it all. And if she was to trust her intuition…

(''Not even I know what I’m doing anymore''. Good, good. If I keep going like this, the place will reach the tipping point before long. Yes, I have to make myself a corrupted file that no one can read. You can’t call it the dark side if the destruction can be rationally calculated out and understood!!)

Then she sensed something like a quiet burst of static. She frowned at the sensation of something cutting away at a portion of the filthy torrent she had created.

There had been no one in the corridor a moment before, but now a girl stood there.

“I recognize you,” said the Judgment member with chestnut hair worn in twintails.

“I’m afraid I can’t say the same about you,” said Kaai because it was the most broken option.

But after that decision she froze in place for a moment.

Could the dark side be found in an action ''she had chosen for such a rational reason?'' That was no different than a well-made ghost story. Following a logical path to a satisfactory conclusion made it feel so fake.

Truly incomprehensible terror did not follow a logical path. Mind-breaking despair had no satisfactory conclusion. Cruelty had to be turned into a violent assault.

“What did you do?”

Her level had dropped. Just like a piece of unglazed pottery could be placed in the pot to prevent an explosive boil. So what had this twintails girl introduced to this filthy world?

The Judgment girl laughed off the question.

“Don’t ask me. I don’t remember.”

The clash between the two girls had begun.

===Part 10===

Excited voices could be heard outside of the large semi-truck. Dinner was over and it was time for everyone to take a bath.

And at the same time…

“I knew Sodate-chan stole the ball,” said a voice out in the stadium parking lot where some hardened snow remained.

It belonged to Risako, a girl who wore the same gym clothes as the other children. She had slipped out of the truck at bath time and she was peeking underneath one of the trucks with her red hair done up like a piece of candy. She would have a harder time going out after her bath. She would feel too chilly for an adventure after warming up in the bath.

She had no real complaints with her life here, but she could not just ask for anything she wanted and have them buy it for her. When she got up to use the bathroom at night, she would sometimes see the man they called “mister” and the ghost lady whispering to each other. She could imagine they were talking about money. And since they did not want her and the other children to hear, they were probably struggling on that front. So they had to take care of the toys they did have.

Sodate, one of the boys she lived with, did not think about any of that and he had a habit of stealing things. That would be fine if he returned them later, but he would leave them hidden in some secret base he made and then forget where it was. Their trucks moved around a lot, so those things often ended up missing afterwards.

She was looking below one of the trucks because of her past experience with this.

Her intuition told her something here.

(Sodate-chan loves to hide prizes in his secret bases.)

An LED light came on. Instead of the cream color of a light bulb, the light that pierced the darkness was such a bright white that it hurt her eyes. They did not have enough money for all of the children to have phones, but mister made sure they each had a personal alarm. Those had a light on them. It was only a single small LED, but it was far better than nothing.

Sodate’s secret bases were always places the grownups could not go. But the ghost lady could pass through walls and ceilings, so a thick wall or locked door were not what mattered most. He instead relied on them thinking “surely no one would go there”. Only then could he gather the abandoned materials or cardboard boxes to make his secret base.

And Risako knew how to sniff out those places.

“Boys love making their bases underground.”

The trucks were situated high up, so a girl of her age did not even need to crawl. She only had to duck down to get underneath. The ghost lady would scold her fiercely if she was caught doing this, but that was why she had to do it. With only the light of her personal alarm that resembled an egg-shaped keychain, she continued on with a spirit of nothing ventured, nothing gained.

She found something: a round metal manhole cover.

She sat down next to it, near one of the large tires that looked like an onion ring stood up on its side.

“Hmm.”

There was a small gap open, but she could not pull it open just by sticking her fingers in there. It refused to budge, just like a barbell, so it may have required a special tool.

Now.

Normally, her attempt would have ended there. There was no way a girl in gym clothes could open the manhole and climb inside. She should have given up on the heavy cover and reluctantly returned to the others.

But…

“A tool,” she said like she had thought of something.

She reached her small hand into her gym clothes and pulled out something hard and round.

It glittered with a golden light.

“That’s right! I have my present from Santa!!”

''The lever was pulled.

''The track switched to a route that should not have been possible.

“Please, Coin of Nicholas, open that cover for me!!”

She heard a heavy metallic scraping as the barbell-heavy manhole cover slowly slid to the side like it was being tugged by fishing line tied around it. She jumped at the noise and aimed her light over, but she could not see what was moving the cover.

The hole now lay wide open before her.

She shined her bright LED light down and stared into it for a while.

“This must be the entrance to his secret base.”

In lieu of a ladder, horizontal steel bars were installed in the curved concrete wall at even intervals. They continued down and down, deeper and deeper. She hesitantly reached out and touched the top bar, grabbed it, and tugged, but it did not budge. It did not seem like it was so rusty it would break away as soon as she put her weight on it.

She was scared.

But…

“Ah!”

Something slipped from her hand: the very light she had been reliant on. The LED light fell into the manhole, bounced, and came to a stop. That appeared to be the bottom of the darkness.

Yes, this darkness had a bottom. It did not continue all the way down to hell.

She had found Sodate’s secret base, so she had to find the ball and chemical soap he had hidden. Before the trucks moved again.

Also…

Mister had scrounged together what little money they had to buy enough personal alarms for everyone, so she did not want to say she had lost hers. She had already used her Coin of Nicholas, so she could not make a wish on it to get the alarm.

Her only option was to gather what little courage she had in her small chest.

“This leads to where Sodate-chan hid the ball!”

Risako had never thought about why exactly the ghost lady got so angry when the children climbed under the trucks, but the answer was simple. If they failed to notice someone had climbed into the manhole, it could lead to a terrible disaster.

===Part 11===

When the girl with several fluorescent-looking stains on her white coat slowly spread her arms, Shirai Kuroko felt like the entire Anti-Skill Chemical Analysis Center shook.

It was not quite a matter of the air.

The hallway of what looked like a tidy office crumbled away. Rapid weathering caused the floors to break through, the walls to crumble, and the bowing ceiling to collapse. This was technically a lab and it would be equipped with sensors to detect excessive levels of gases or chemicals, but none of them responded. They were far too damaged to function at this point.

“Hee hee.”

“Tch!!”

(This is a Level 0!? She didn’t steal someone else’s identity or modify her Bank data, did she!?)

This was a technological threat, not an esper one.

Shirai Kuroko clicked her tongue and teleported away. With her power of instantaneous movement that ignored all three-dimensional restrictions, she could achieve results that overturned the age of guns, but she did have rules she had to follow.

She could only aim at one location at a time.

That meant she could not teleport herself out of the way while also teleporting in a metal dart to attack. In that sense, she preferred to choose a course of action herself instead of being ''forced to act'' by her opponent. It was a bad sign that she was already at that point.

She moved about fifty meters back to escape the collapse before pulling a metal dart from her thigh and sending it toward Hanatsuyu Kaai the Decomposer’s shoulder. The focus on evasion made the attack one beat too late. And with that much time…

“Oh?”

“!?”

Kaai made an oddly smooth movement. She slid to the right without moving her feet. She did not move faster than a bullet. In fact, she did not gain much speed at all. Yet the inhuman movement was completely unexpected, so it threw off Shirai’s aim.

It felt as weird as a rook suddenly moving diagonally despite only being able to move up, down, left, or right.

As long as Shirai was attacking from a distance, missing an attack was not fatal for her, so she focused on figuring out what had caused that, even if it meant missing several more times. She continued launching those useful missed shots.

The strange movement continued.

She sent out at least five more metal darts, but none of them hit. The Decomposer slipped past them like a leaf dancing in the water, so they simply appeared in the empty air and fell to the floor.

But she detected a hint of what this was.

The sound of the darts hitting the floor was softly absorbed.

“What is that?”

“Rats. I need an awful lot of them to distribute my weight enough to not crush them, but with around thirty-thousand, they’re indistinguishable from a carpet, aren’t they?”

(Okay, I definitely can’t let Onee-sama see this!!)

Unlike Shirai Kuroko, Hanatsuyu Kaai did not need to wield an actual weapon.

With a dull sound, the destruction spread.

The floor made with modern construction techniques sank down like an antlion pit, so the damaged walls and ceiling were swallowed up by the floor below. This floor had reached its limit, so the twintails girl teleported to the next floor up.

After jumping, she realized the Decomposer girl was looking directly up into her eyes.

There was already a hole in the floor up here. The walls and ceiling were badly weathered and falling toward the deadly surface. All that remained were the thick intersecting steel beams. The place looked like a giant jungle gym.

“You should hurry up.”

As soon as the other girl pulled an extra-special test tube from her cleavage and popped off the rubber cap with her small thumb, Shirai heard something beating at the air.

A pair of dark wings burst from the back of the white coat.

The pitch black wings took flight.

“Assuming you want to save Anti-Skill and their feigned philanthropy, that is. Did you think the inorganic materials were the only things that would rot away and collapse? Why would a villain of the dark side bother sorting her trash?”

“How dare you!?”

“Ah ha ha!!”

The rules of the battlefield had changed again. More and more of the building’s interior fell like it was caught in quicksand or a giant antlion pit. Voice analysis equipment, cell cultivators, electron microscopes, and other analysis equipment each worth tens or hundreds of millions of yen tumbled down like a great cascade. The high-pitched sounds Shirai heard on occasion had to be more than just shattering glass. Some of them were much rawer screams that lingered in her ears.

She could not even reach out a hand to help because there was so much wreckage crashing down that she could not tell where the people were. Meanwhile, the fall continued in real time.

Shirai teleported from steel beam to steel beam, moving ever higher, but someone managed to keep up with her. Unbelievably, it was Hanatsuyu Kaai. She shook free of gravity by flapping giant bird wings that looked more like they belonged to a crow than a bat. Shirai clicked her tongue and sent out a metal dart, but the girl avoided it with that smooth movement again.

Then she figured it out.

Those wings did not just look like they belonged to a crow. The Decomposer girl really did have a large creature on her back.

“Is that a crow!?”

“Ha ha ha. It’s called parasitic enlargement. A certain type of parasite can make a portion of its host’s body grow, so I’m just using that.” Kaai laughed while placing her feet on the side of a vertical steel beam and flapping those wings as her own to fly even higher. “And if you just look at their animal instincts, rats and crows are far sharper than us humans. None of your calculations can hit me. Your thoughts have been ''degenerated'' by civilization, so you can’t hope to approach their raw instincts.”

She finally passed her foe.

Shirai could move faster than the average sports car by repeatedly teleporting, but she could not keep up with Kaai in the field of pure aerial movement. The very roof of the Anti-Skill Chemical Analysis Center had rotted away. The Decomposer soared with the moon behind her back and black crow feathers scattered from her like a twisted form of snow.

“Everyone sees something different when they look to the dark side.” The criminal came to a stop in midair and looked down from above. “Some people think of it as the ideal research environment. Some people think of it as a bottomless underworld society. Some people think of it as a shelter for damaged people. Not even someone as soaked in the dark side as me has seen every layer it contains. Two members of the dark side can stand in the same place and never interact and we never question it if we end up opposing each other. That unpredictable incoherence is what makes it the dark side.”

“…”

“But it exists and it must be protected. Hee hee. You proved just how little you had seen from the moment you recklessly tried to sort this toy box into good and evil piles.”

All strength left Shirai’s knees. Her teleportation coordinate was a little off. Unlike Kaai, she had not conquered gravity, so it squeezed at her heart for her right foot to have shifted just ten centimeters off the side of the steel beam. She quickly reached up and grabbed another beam with both hands.

She noticed what had gone wrong a moment later.

“What…is this?”

“The crow feathers.” The spellbound Decomposer held her body in her slender arms while tremors ran through her. “Not to mention the rat fur and the flea and tick corpses. Do you want to know more? Because there are even nastier things floating in the air here. I am a Decomposer, not a tamer who specializes in using animals. They are just one method of transmitting what I do use: enzymes, humidity, mold, chemicals, bacteria, and anything else that causes decomposition.”

For one thing, it seemed doubtful that any number of rats or roaches could actually instantly eat through thick barriers made of tempered glass and reinforced concrete. That meant Hanatsuyu Kaai was not using their small fangs and claws. She was using the unseen threat found within those things.

“But wait…”

Shirai moved her unsteady body to place her foot back on the narrow beam.

She had several beads of sweat on her forehead.

“Isn’t that the job of the other girl—the Carrier?”

The Decomposer girl laughed calmly.

She apparently had no intention of giving all the answers.

“You will die. Your death has already begun.”

“…Maybe so.”

(Onee-sama…)

“It may be closest to crushing a whole grape between your teeth. Can you hear the sound of your cells bursting? Acute deadly bacteria are even now eating through your cell membranes from within. There is no saving you.” Kaai’s eyes widened to the limit. “We do not kill those who get in our way. To us dark side researchers, obstacles are to be overcome and restrictions only make things more interesting. Yes, in that sense, you were entertaining indeed. Enough that I felt the need to enjoy you to the very end.”

“Be that as it may, I will defeat you first.”

A strange sound echoed out.

Shirai Kuroko had teleported a metal dart, but not at the Decomposer girl. It had pierced the glass of a window in this building that had become a single long tube now that the floors and ceilings had all fallen away.

“You aren’t actually speaking with those animals and insects. You can’t trust them like a pet dog or cat. Dark over light, wet over dry, and sweet over salty. You use your chemicals to guide them with those simple like-dislike or yes-no decisions.”

Yes, the attack that had caused the building’s interior to crumble away had been powerful, but why had she needed to do that? If she was only interested in finishing off Shirai, she could have made a more targeted attack.

What if it had been absolutely necessary?

And what if she had to keep that reason hidden?

“Ventilation.” Something blew forcefully across the building and the girl had to hold down her twintails against it. “Your marble-pattern labyrinth might seem incomprehensible because it’s invisible, but the solution is simple once you figure it out. Tear down that labyrinth and you lose your safe zone. And then you too are one of their targets!!”

The scenery shook.

Something else collapsed and a gray cascade poured down from above.

No, the things that poured down over Hanatsuyu Kaai’s right shoulder were all rats.

“G—”

She tried to scream, but it was too late.

For one thing, the giant crow supporting her was beginning to leave her control too. The rats covering her body mercilessly crawled into the sleeves and chest of her white coat.

“Gwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!???”

An unusually deep cry escaped her.

The color red sprayed out.

But unlike Anti-Skill, she did not stop moving so quickly. Several test tubes full of colorful liquid—presumably ones that contained the chemicals to control the animals—flew through the air to resist this.

Something glared at Shirai from beyond the rat fur.

A quiet voice pounded on the twintails girl’s eardrums from within the deluge of squeaking rats. Hanatsuyu Kaai the Decomposer spoke clearly.

“''This – is – not – over.”

“!!”

Shirai mustered all the strength she had left to send out three metal darts at once.

Red blood scattered through the air, but she grimaced.

The thousands or tens of thousands of rats came apart and lost their shape. She had apparently only torn into the rats because there was no sign of the lab coat girl there.

Had she been devoured beyond recognition?

Or…

“A stainless steel…sink?”

Shirai saw a silver shine between the giant jungle gym of intersecting steel beams. That spot may have originally held a kitchenette, but the metal pipe attached to the bottom of the stainless sink continued all the way down to the surface.

The drain pipe was of course thinner than Shirai’s arm, but she could not reject a normally unthinkable possibility. Especially when she saw several test tubes lying in the sink with rubber caps removed. She recalled the name that girl went by in the dark side: The Decomposer.

A harmful like Kaai might go as far as dissolving all two-hundred-plus of her bones.

“Kh…”

Then Shirai Kuroko reached her limit.

She felt herself wobbling to the side and her feet slipped from the steel beam.

===Part 12===

Shirai Kuroko had to have been more than ten stories up.

So she should have died after losing her balance. Her chances would have been slim even if the adults had a thick mattress ready to catch her at the bottom.

Yet something caught her with a wet sound.

It was the rotted remains of the building materials that the Decomposer had so thoroughly destroyed. How many people would have believed that pile that like cotton or dust had originally been reinforced concrete and tempered glass?

“Shirai-saaan!!”

Someone called out to her before she could sink deep inside it.

Rakuoka Houfu, the Anti-Skill officer with a combover and glasses, reached out his hand. The resistance was strong and felt like countless tiny hands dragging her down, but then his arm swelled out unnaturally. He used the power of his enlarged muscles to pull her out.

She felt feverish. She had supposedly been saved, but she was too weak to get up or even brush aside her sweaty bangs.

Nevertheless, she moved her trembling lips to speak.

“The…”

“?”

“The Decomposer is still celebrating her freedom. Hurry down and check the sewers!!”

“B-but, Shirai-san, you need immediate medical attention. I will call for an ambulance. Or we could take an Anti-Skill heli—”

She was still too weak to get up, but she managed to grab his collar.

If she was going to leave her life in someone’s care, she would prefer for it to be Misaka Mikoto. How had she worked so hard tonight without finding any sign of that girl? But right now, she had to give someone else some support. If she made the safe, reasonable, and passive choice here, she knew this man would rot away without ever opening his present.

She raised her voice while looking on the verge of coughing up blood.

“You wanted to be someone your family could be proud of, didn’t you? Isn’t that why you became a teacher and why you volunteered for Anti-Skill despite the risk!?”

“…”

“Then don’t let her get away. Prevent the next death and become someone you can be proud of. Hurry!!”

He glanced this way and that, bit his lip, and hung his head.

Then he gently laid her down and took off running.

No one would respect him.

But that teacher made sure to do his duty as an upholder of the public order.

===Part 13===

''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.

Hamazura’s group had no choice but to rely on that cryptic phrase.

They could only hope the answer was hidden in the data on the card-sized hard drive found in the counterfeiter’s tent.

“Are we taking an underground route, Hamazura?” asked Takitsubo while teasing her bangs.

The way her sweat plastered the hair to her forehead seemed to bother her. The moxibustion had partially relieved the pain and suffering, but she was gradually reaching her limit. She would not last long even with that treatment.

He was afraid to mention it.

He felt like everything would fall apart if he did.

“Y-yeah. I’m sure everywhere is being monitored, but that will at least keep the satellites from seeing us.”

They were walking through an underground subway station, but in overcrowded Academy City, it was not unusual to end up in another station altogether if you continued walking down a subway station corridor. In Districts 11 and 23, there had to be a terminal station leading to the airport nearby, so they would be able to reach their destination while staying underground.

“The others are already in the juvenile hall, so not even Anti-Skill can get to them and pass it of as an accident during an investigation,” muttered a girl walking past them. She must have been organizing her thoughts while twirling the military-looking flashlight in her hand. She was a high school girl with her midriff exposed and wearing her long hair in two tails. “So as long as I survive, I still have a chance of saving them. Damn that pedo Chairman. Does he think this mess is any way to repay his old friends? Anyway, maybe I can borrow an empty room in the morgue used by Anti-Skill’s coroner.”

Those piles of garbage had to be taken out of the city by land or by air.

If they could borrow a special screwdriver from the people who extracted personal information and other data from the electronic trash there, they might be able to get a look inside that hard drive labeled “Lifeline”.

(Assuming they’re still alive.)

Hamazura knew Anti-Skill was in the middle of some major operation, so the usual rules no longer applied. Whether or not Anti-Skill could fight against the deepest depths of the dark side, he had to assume the extremities were in tatters. They may have been destroyed already and they may have run off in a panic, so they might not still be running their usual business.

And…

“Huh? Where did that hakama chick go?”

“I don’t know.”

He looked back, but only saw the crowd there.

He was curious since that hakama girl had treated Takitsubo’s symptoms. He could not do acupuncture of moxibustion himself. He was pretty sure you needed special qualifications for that. But on the other hand, that girl had no obligation to stick with them.

They were a sick girl and a useless Level 0, so they may have been too great a burden to shoulder on a whim.

“Let’s leave her be. She may have slipped away without saying anything as a kindness.”

“Right.”

They could not hope for further treatment now, so they had to get out of the city before Takitsubo’s fever came back.

“We’re almost in District 23, Hamazura.”

“We were right to go underground. They might have checkpoints set up between districts by now.”

They found some stairs leading up and climbed to the surface.

He never really thought about it, but the piles of trash were pretty awful. The gray hills were visible even from a distance. Most of it seemed to be metal, like electronics and car scraps, but it was piled up as high as the third floor of the surrounding buildings. From the look of things, the road might be covered too.

But once they approached…

“Where are the trash collectors?”

“They might be taking Christmas off.”

There were no flashlight beams to be seen. They could not guess where any of the trash piles would collapse. He was extremely reluctant to climb them, but he could only see so much from the ground. While looking out for any metal sticking out or glass shards, he moved on ahead to search out a safe route for Takitsubo.

The place was so quiet.

He looked out from atop the pile to see a silver desert.

He did not want to get in a gunfight with the trash collectors, but it also worried him to find no one at all here. The trash collectors probably counted as the dark side too, so he started wondering if Anti-Skill had already taken control of this place and had an ambush prepared.

“What do we do?” he asked.

“We can’t stop here, so let’s try to find whatever we can.”

Takitsubo’s calm composure was so reassuring at times like this. Yet she had to understand better than him how valuable each second was here. After all, the moxibustion had only provided temporary relief, so that shell could crack at any time, allowing the fever to return.

“If the trash collectors frequent this place, they must have a car or something they use. If one of them is parked around, we might be able to find out who owns it from the license plate. And if not, maybe there are tire tracks.”

Those precise instructions did not actually give them anything to do. The delinquent boy found nothing and resorted to opening the door of a refrigerator buried nearby.

“…”

Then he frowned.

He shut that fridge full of a brownish mess and took a deep breath.

(Is that how they scavenge for valuables?)

Their entire plan had been misguided. They had hit a dead end. Was there really nothing here? Surely there was at least one thing in all this garbage.

He gripped something solid in his pocket and pulled it out.

“Show me where the special screwdriver is, Coin of Nicholas.”

He heard a sound like someone had kicked a metal panel.

His girlfriend, Takitsubo Rikou, cried out in surprise.

They both hesitantly looked over to see something stabbed diagonally into the trash. It was a diamond-shaped yellow “!” road sign. It warned of some other danger here. But there were rumors that, if one of those did not have a secondary sign to explain the danger, it referred to some sort of unscientific threat.

(That wouldn’t scare me so much if I hadn’t already seen something like a ghost wandering the city.)

The denting sound had apparently come from the sign. Something was buried in the trash down at its base. It was a metal panel…no, a door. A pair of metal double doors.

“Hamazura, is this what I think it is?”

“A metal container?”

But not just a container.

It was embedded in the pile of trash to create an open space that functioned like a tunnel. And its floor had been cut away to reveal stairs leading down.

===Part 14===

Rakuoka Houfu used his one arm to yank up a nearby manhole cover and jumped down into the deep, deep darkness within.

The stench stung his nose.

He pulled out his flashlight that doubled as a baton and shined it around. The place was surprisingly large. Sewers came in a number of designs, but this one was built with narrow concrete pathways on either side of the filthy flowing water.

The sound of the flowing water was joined by what sounded like a machine.

The low humming was a lot like a refrigerator running late at night.

“?”

Something reflected the light of his flashlight.

There was something transparent on the wall and floor of the pathway. It was the trail left by something slimy crawling through there. He followed that trail with flashlight in hand.

Something was lurking in the darkness.

At first, he thought it was a small person with a blanket over their head.

“Wh-who are you!?” he shouted while shining his light on them.

He was mostly driven by fear, so that may have been the wrong move. Peering into the shadows did not always eliminate your anxiety.

“Huh?” said a voice.

It had the color of flesh, but there was an entire pile of it. The slender hips and unusually large chest were no more. There was only a one or two meter pile of flesh resembling a clump of melted ice cream. A distorted face was attached to its surface, but the two eyes were at different heights. If it had just been flesh, he could have viewed it as no more than a monster or raw garbage, but the long black hair that had fallen out nearby made it look oddly bewitching.

“Huh? Wait, why?” the voice continued. “This isn’t right. I can’t go back.”

A squeak escaped the middle-aged man’s throat.

It should have been a scream, but his throat was trembling too much to get out his voice.

The blob turned back toward the light. She was too melted to tell which side was the front, but that movement was weirdly human.

Rakuoka heard some hard objects clacking together.

He assumed they were something creepy like teeth or bones, but a closer look showed something more inorganic reflecting the light. Test tubes full of colorful liquids were being absorbed by the cream-colored blob. Unlike the others, these had blue rubber caps on them.

She had apparently been dumping those on herself, but none of them would “fix” her.

(Is that some kind of medicine? I could save Shirai-san with that!!)

“Eh, whatever.”

Despite her horrific state, the blob made that casual comment and tossed several test tubes aside.

Rakuoka desperately tried to avoid looking in that direction.

Even in this state, she was definitely part of the dark side.

If he showed any opening, he would be killed instantly. The sense of danger hit him like a solid wall.

“Hee…hee. My entire body fell apart after I dumped my own bacteria on me. Don’t you feel sorry for me? I’ve been defiled. Oh, so defiled. I can even hear my cells bursting: pop, pop, pop. Hee hee hee hee hee hee. Have you ever felt sorrier for anyone in your life?”

She twisted her body around.

But she continued speaking because she was pretty sure even she would forget what that meaning meant before long.

“C’mon, say you feel sorry for me. Frown and call me a poor little thing while secretly grinning on the inside. Then I can live forever as a dark side legend. Don’t worry. Life is an occult thing, so it doesn’t matter if I lose mine. I’ll live on forever as part of the dark side.”

The combover and glasses man sighed.

Then he faced her again and spoke bluntly.

“You get to ignore the flow of time, ignore all the world’s problems, and drift around for all eternity? I couldn’t be more jealous, honestly.”

The flesh-colored blob shrank a size smaller.

“Eeeek!! Wait, stop. I can’t move from here! My life is over! There’s no way to save me, so if you don’t insult me here, I’ll be forever stuck halfway toward my goal. I don’t want to be average! No one remembers average! I want to be more defiled than anyone ever was!!”

A wet and sticky sound followed. She must have either slipped or intentionally jumped in because the flesh-colored blob dove into the filthy water and disappeared from view. It looked more like she had dissolved into it than sank to the bottom.

Rakuoka Houfu breathed a soft sigh.

The girl had said there was no way to save her, but he had a hunch she would be like that forever. After liberating herself from all other bonds, he suspected she might not even have a lifespan anymore.

Whether or not that would bring her happiness was another issue altogether.

He gathered up a few test tubes that had fallen on the pathway with some clear sticky strands still connected to them. He did not know which of the colorful liquids was the antidote, but these ones had been designated as unique by their blue rubber caps. Blue meant safety and these were the ones that girl had tried to use on herself. It would be worth having them analyzed.

And then…

“Hee hee.”

A voice rose from the filthy water.

He jumped and shined his flashlight that way, but he did not see a face emerging from the stagnant river. Yet the girl’s voice continued. The girl who had hoped to be defiled by all of the city’s filth seemed to have been dispersed throughout that filthy water.

“By the way, I forget to ask before, but are you a beneficial or a harmful? What level of the dark side are you from?”

“…Huh?”

He honestly had no idea what she meant by this. Small ripples ran through the filthy water.

“Ohh? Do you really think I’d be trying to pull some trick on you at this point? I couldn’t be more satisfied after being freed from all restrictions. Yes, yes. Like you said, I have been truly liberated. …The thing about being a twin is, it can be a real pain being around the other one all the time. ''I could do it all on my own.'' I separated off one piece and let Youen do it, but just me was enough to decompose all the city’s filth.”

The splashing noise grew louder.

The stench had been bad enough before, but now it felt like an invisible wall.

“''I wanted to decompose everything.'' Including the illusionary bond between twins. Including myself. I wanted to be liberated from it all.”

He had trouble breathing. Beads of sweat poured down his face and head.

Nevertheless, she continued.

“I wouldn’t lie to you in this state. Why would I need to? So I’m asking what part of the dark side you’re from. Since we never ran across each other before, we must be from different levels.”

“Wait…wait a second.”

Her voice was weirdly persuasive.

It was the purity of a prisoner awaiting execution. Once they had nothing to lose, they had no need to lie to protect anything.

But in that case…

“I am Anti-Skill. No more and no less. Yes, I do work as an Aggressor for them, so I roleplay as a criminal in training. But that’s all I do. I’m not like you. I’m different.”

“Not possible. That excuse isn’t going to cut it. Do you not know where we are? Listen, can’t you hear the humming of a machine? What’s that for? This place is used to cover people’s tracks. Camera is connected to camera is connected to camera to make sure no one can be tracked. Before you commit a crime, you head underground and cover your tracks. Once you can’t be tracked, you head to wherever you’re going to be criming. That humming is from a machine that creates a magnetic field. Part of the high-tech countermeasures.”

“…”

“So this maliciously-made ''sewer labyrinth'' is designed so you can never arrive here just by walking around at random. Only the dark side knows of this place. And since you made it here, you must have used it before.”

“…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

''No,'' he mouthed, but his voice did not follow.

He imagined an uncomfortable humidity while his vision gradually went white. He tried his best to remain conscious. He had no idea what she was talking about. Of course he didn’t. He had lived a boring life – no major ups or downs. He had just lived year after year, growing older and older. But he had wanted to become someone the mother and sister he lived with could be proud of, so he had become a teacher and then volunteered for Anti-Skill. So this had nothing to do with him. He had no idea how he could be part of the dark side.

“Yes.”

His thoughts were cut off by a sticky laugh.

His flashlight still only showed the dark sludge, but he definitely heard it.

“You really were a good person. But that was exactly why you couldn’t abandon them.”

Someone who had become eternal worked to tear him down to stave off boredom.

“You came down here to cover your tracks before you dumped the body, didn’t you? Did you do it in the mountains? Or maybe below that subway station? All so someone’s crime would never come to light and so your happy little world would remain intact.”

his mother

::::::sticky

::his sister

:his family {{pad|4.0em}} red {{pad|4.0em}} a stalker

creepy laughter {{pad|4.0em}} no face {{pad|4.0em}} no other choice {{pad|4.0em}} deserved to die

::::didn’t mean to

no one at fault {{pad|4.0em}} standing there in a daze

::::murder

They had all hugged each other while trembling, reached a consensus about what was right and wrong, and then tried to figure out what to do next. They thought and thought and thought and – stuffed inside a blanket compression bag – RE – the vacuum cleaner – KAGU – shoved – HIEUB – the suitcase – EBHN – but the smell was – NHRN – so many maggots – HE – had to make a choice – GGU – into the bathroom – OFBN – raised the machete – TU – into pieces – HRNP – inside – TU – bag – NHEPGNANSDIPJGNMD – JNPIGVNP – SDF

“Ah, ahh. Gwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

In that stagnant and oppressive underground space with no exit, Rakuoka Houfu unleashed a bestial roar toward the heavens. He tried to kick away the filthy water that refused to stop its incessant splashing, but only succeeded in falling into the river himself.

He got his head above the surface, but the source of the sticky stench was now plastered to his face. That he ''did not'' find it disgusting actually creeped him out. A warmth reminiscent of human skin stabbed into his brain. He had no such experience himself, but he guessed this was what it felt like to have your entire body surrounded by a giantess’s chest.

A girl’s breath reached him like she was whispering into his ear or like her voice was inside his ear already.

“Ah ha ha. Ah ha ha ha ha ha. Ah ha ah ha ha ha ha ah ha ah ha ha.”

“Ugh, shut up.”

“I thought you were acting weird. It’s like you have childish tastes or like you never learned how to act like an adult. You seemed to live in ''such a limited world'' for someone of your age, but this explains a lot. You were so terrified that adult society would demand you take responsibility for you actions that you never could leave the school. Hee hee hee. You’re as much a harmful as me.”

“Shut uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup!!!!!!”

He heard a quiet shriek.

Half-drowning in the river of sludge, he turned his bloodshot eyes toward the sound. His flashlight shined on a small girl of about ten. The filthy sewer and her pristine gym clothes were such a harsh mismatch that it almost looked like a digitally altered photo.

She cowered down and he initially thought she looked like a terrified little animal.

But then he heard the whispering of that sticky being plastered to his face.

“''Did you forget?''”

He could hear it.

He could hear that smiling voice.

“''No normal person could ever wind up here by accident.''”

“…”

The water splashed as the combover and glasses Anti-Skill officer climbed out of the filthy river and onto the pathway.

“I…”

He stood at an angle, putting his shoulders at different heights.

“I am with Anti-Skill. I am someone my family can be proud of.”

That alone may have been a deeply held wish. His mother and sister may have in fact been thankful for what he had done.

But if he admitted that he had done anything to deserve that thanks…

“…!!”

He was shaken.

He was falling apart.

Why was the truth so heavy a burden to bear? It never stopped pressing down on him, forever trying to crush him below its weight.

But he had promised.

While barely able to breath, Shirai Kuroko had told him to pursue the dark side. And he might still be able to save her with the test tubes he had found here.

It might be too late for him, but as long as he still had some strength left, he could drive out the dark side and deliver these to her.

“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

The small girl broke free of her paralysis, turned tail, and ran.

''Why would anyone run from Anti-Skill if they had done nothing wrong?

His silhouette underwent a transformation as he pursued his quarry. His Anti-Skill uniform was shredded from within, revealing a massive muscular body.

He had made his decision before the fight even began, so he moved his arms and legs to give chase.

===Part 15===

Risako, the girl in gym clothes, did not remember how she had gotten here.

Her vision was mostly filled with the color white despite being in the dark sewer. She was out of breath and her chest hurt. Tears spilled from her eyes. Each time the small LED light on her personal alarm hit the walls or ceiling, the reflection was so bright it hurt her eyes. If mister had not given it to her, she would have thrown it away, completely forgetting it was her only source of light.

She ran.

She ran and ran.

She had wandered into a place she never should have been. Maybe she should have realized something was wrong when she walked and walked and never found Sodate’s secret base, but she had unfortunately never given up and turned back. She just kept telling herself it had to be “just a little further” until she had wandered into a place that felt like it would tear her body and mind to pieces.

''Something had allowed this to happen.

''Something had placed her on a track she normally never could have found.

(What was that?)

She was too scared to look back. She ran down the narrow pathway and shoved herself through the gaps between thick pipes to get as far away as possible. Something terrifying was chasing after her.

She could not let him catch her. She knew something terrible would happen if he did.

(That man was talking to himself!!)

“Ah!”

There was nothing sticking out from the ground, but she still tripped and fell. She forgot to even cry from the pain in her knees.

Her only light had gone out. She was surrounded by darkness.

(I need my light.)

She no longer felt the egg-shaped personal alarm in her hand. It must have slid along the floor when she tripped. She did not know if the switch had flipped off or if it had broken, but this place was as pitch black as a movie theater. She could not keep going without a light. She could still hear the quiet splashing of the sewer river, so she might fall in if she tried to continue on blind.

Down on all fours, she searched around with her small hand, but she could not feel anything like it.

Mister had given her that alarm and he sometimes seemed to be having money trouble, so she did not want to have to say she had lost it.

But she searched and searched to no avail. She was trying so hard, but she still could not find it.

The stench suddenly grew worse. From behind her.

That monster had been holding a flashlight before, so had he turned it off? Did that mean he could see her in the dark? But how?

Maybe she should have started running right away. Maybe she should have bolted into the darkness no matter what she crashed into on the way. But she could not bring herself to give up on the alarm. She bit her lip and patted around on the filthy floor with tears in her eyes.

(No…)

She could not find it.

She could not find it.

She simply could not find the alarm mister had given her.

(No, where is it?)

She felt a great pressure like the ceiling was lowering.

Something may have been looming over her as she searched for the alarm on all fours.

It was too dark to see, but she still squeezed her eyes shut.

Then she heard a squashing sound.

The thick wall of pressure moved back as if flinching.

She opened her eyes in shock, but it was still too dark to see anything.

Or it should have been.

She heard a scraping sound and then she saw a light somewhat larger than a birthday cake candle. It was not a will-o’-the-wisp. Once she realized it was the flame of a lighter like the one mister had used when they were shooting off fireworks, she detected an animal scent she had noticed before.

“Oh, whoops. Not in front of the child.”

A creature had pulled out an object and started to put it in his mouth, but he stopped after seeing Risako.

She could not believe it.

The creature that spoke to her with a human voice was very clearly a large dog.

“A Jinmenken?”

“''Sigh'', I would say I have a little more romance than that. But maybe most people would see me as something similar. It is better than being written off as some new form of technology, at least.”

She normally would have been afraid to find such a large dog so close to her. Especially one without its owner holding the leash. But this golden retriever gently walked right past her while she sat on the floor. Almost like it was shielding her from the monster pushing in from behind.

“Get going, miss,” said the bearer of light. “The side paths and rusted doors might draw your interest along the way, but ignore them all and continue straight down this pathway. If you can shake free of your doubts, you will find some stairs leading out of this place at the end of this long, long pathway. I give you a chance, but whether you use it or not is up to you.”

“But mister’s alarm…”

She was not given time to explain what she meant.

Something small was tossed her way and she caught it to find it was the egg-shaped device she had found so difficult to find.

How had the dog thrown it? For that matter, how was he holding the lighter?

Before she could ask, the golden retriever said one more word.

Strongly this time.

“Hurry.”

The girl in gym clothes started to run, but she soon stopped.

He had said it was dangerous here, but she still looked back.

“Doggy…”

She was not asking if he would be coming too. Realizing she wanted to ask his name, he sighed.

If a dog was capable of smiling, he might have been doing so.

“I am Kihara Noukan of the dark side. Dealing with this sort of person is my job.”

The darkness shook behind him.

After confirming that the small back really did vanish down the long pathway this time, the golden retriever slowly turned around in the darkness he called home.

He used a thin mechanical arm to toy with a quality cigar and brought the oil lighter’s flame toward its tip.

“Now I can smoke.”

His tone had changed.

Entirely.

“No need to worry about the health of someone who is about to die anyway.”

The wall of darkness moved. It had flinched back from the unexpected pain before, but now it was back with even greater pressure.

The pressure spoke with a human voice.

“Are you part of the dark side too?”

“Indeed I am. And if your bizarre logic says you can prove you aren’t by killing someone who is, then I can fill in for that child, can’t I?” The golden retriever gently blew out some cigar smoke. “And in that sense, I am the perfect target for you. After all, I am one of the most hidden Kiharas.”

“Shut up.” The giant took a merciless step forward, allowing the oil lighter to illuminate him from below. “If that last attack is all you’ve got, you can’t win. I’m not even bleeding.”

“Yes, I can’t deny that my original A.A.A. was made into a toy for ''those girls'' and my few spares were all destroyed during Handcuffs.”

All the golden retriever could do now was launch the containers and cases that had once been used to transport his ultimate weapon. They did not pack much of a punch while empty. And even if they were packed full of explosives, that monster could probably stop the blast with his muscles.

“I will now beat you to death,” said the man. “I refuse to let the dark side exist, no matter what form it takes.”

He had a strangely twisted appearance. Thick muscles surrounded him like armor, but his face remained the same as always. The Anti-Skill officer with a combover and glasses faced the golden retriever wearing a backpack but spoke to something other than the dog.

“And you seem willing to face me knowing that will happen. Makes me curious about that girl you’re willing to throw your life away to protect. ''She must be a dark side VIP. I can’t possibly let her escape.'' Chase her down afterwards and I can dig up all sorts of darkness along with her. I mean, nothing else makes sense. If she wasn’t with the dark side, she never could have reached this place.”

“Hey, listen.” Kihara Noukan sounded irritated. Not even his favorite brand filling his lungs was enough to help. “I have some bad news for you. Who is it you think you were talking to here? The Decomposer? If you mean Hanatsuyu Kaai, she is indeed floating around this area. In a way, she may have become something that can never die. ''Much like Yakumi Hisako.'' But do you really think she is in any state to create the vibrations needed for a physical voice? How could she do that after dissolving into the filthy water down here?”

“…”

“''Anyone can reach this pathway. You don’t need to be with the dark side.'' That is the boring truth. I imagine that girl was so terrified because she ran into a greasy balding old man soaking up to the shoulders in smelly sewer water and talking to himself with a look of ecstasy on his face. That voice you heard wasn’t real. This place reminded you of a traumatic moment in your past, but you refused to accept that you had stepped on that landmine all on your own. You wanted to believe you had fallen for some clever trap as part of someone’s master plan, not that you had stumbled into your own ruin by accident. So when you heard the splashing of this sticky sewer water, you imagined you were hearing malicious laughter instead.”

“……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

Rakuoka Houfu came to a stop.

Not even Kihara Noukan could tell how he was processing this. Not that he cared.

“The more I try to look to the future, the more pathetic I feel. That must mean I’ve been corrupted too.”

“By that?”

“But that still doesn’t explain what that girl was doing here. She was dressed weird too. She had some kind of sensors on her arms and legs. They looked very high tech. She must be with the dark side.”

“I suppose this was inevitable. To be clear, I am not lying to you.”

Rakuoka reached for a nearby pipe. It was thicker than the average person’s torso, but he tore it away with a single hand.

Looking at a person’s weight and muscle fibers was enough to calculate out their general muscle strength. He would be able to wield it like a sugar sculpture or whip instead of a blunt weapon. Think of it as the difference between simply swinging down a thin tree branch or swinging it with a snap of the wrist. That would give it between five and ten times as much force.

But the dog did not fall back.

He narrowed his eyes as if to say enjoying the flavor of his cigar was more important.

“''So I finally meet a member of the family that killed a Kihara and perfectly disposed of the body.'' I might have fought by your side were circumstances different.” The large dog sighed and whispered words of devastating importance. “Kihara Heikin. He called it taking a psychological approach, but he had a bad habit of leaving no boundary between his work and his personal life. I did warn him quite sternly that the techniques used for a stakeout at work would qualify as stalking when done for personal reasons.”

He seemed to be reminiscing.

Or maybe he was regretting his past actions.

“If all you had done was protect your family, I would have respected you. You might not think your courageous action was the right thing to do, but I sensed the light of great romance in it. You might have been expelled from the path of good, but my little corner of the dark side would have welcomed your arrival.”

However.

The golden retriever stiffly spat out his next words.

“But none of that light remains now that you are chasing after a child for no reason. Not now that you have located a conveniently weak target to label evil so you can feast upon them. My little corner of the dark side must reject you. I am sorry, but I must eliminate you now.”

The atmosphere changed. The stiffness of his words seemed to affect the density and viscosity of the air.

Rakuoka Houfu was still not swallowed up by it, so as rotten as he had become, he may have still retained some vestige of the Kihara Killer he once was.

A good person who had been distorted beyond repair was far nastier than a bad person. Kihara Noukan made his blunt assessment…and the man did not stack up.

Yes, the dark side could be found anywhere. In the next apartment over, at the neighborhood supermarket, in the entertainment industry on TV, and even within the very Anti-Skill that fought to keep the peace. Did the current rookie Chairman really understand that sweeping the dark side clean was to locate all the stains and wrinkles you found unsightly and to slice them away with a knife, skin and all?

“You haven’t answered my question,” said Rakuoka.

“Oh?”

“If that was all you’ve got, you can’t win. So what are you going to do about it?”

Kihara Noukan paused for a moment. He pricked up his ears while pretending to think, but he could no longer hear those small feet on the concrete. The gym clothes girl must have taken his advice and run down the long straight path without taking any turns. She would probably be arriving at the surface soon.

[[Image:GT_Index_v03_324-325.jpg|thumb]]

“I would ask if you know what romance is, but I doubt you could give me a decent answer as you are now.”

He had no weapons.

And even if Rakuoka Houfu had gone berserk—no, because he had gone berserk—his skill was very real and it was boosted to the point of changing the shape of his body. There were no rules when the dark side fought, so it was best not to think about what would happen if you lost.

Nevertheless, the large dog puffed happily at his cigar and spoke.

“Romance means to set aside efficiency and logic. Romance means to enjoy the pointless things in life. And that definition is what separates me from the strays.”

===Part 16===

“Why?”

Vivana Oniguma was nearly in tears.

Her long, curly silver hair was at odds with her hakama and she was as benevolent as the dark side came. At the moment, she was completely lost inside a subway station she rarely ever used.

She felt there were two kinds of people in the world: those who could immediately find the exit they wanted inside a subway station, and those who would wander around until they found themselves in a different station altogether.

She had not asked for it, but she was part of the dark side. She could not allow Anti-Skill to find her here. Her only chance to survive and live out her life was to leave Academy City and that required searching out the secret of ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''.

Where had those Hamazura and Takitsubo people gone?

Had they coordinated together to lose her? Unpleasant suspicions like that kept spinning through her head. She needed to reach District 23 and she could always head to the surface to see where she was. Heading up was a risk, but it might be better than wandering around here forever.

Or so she thought.

If she had made up her mind just ten seconds sooner, she never would have encountered someone here.

“Gwah!!”

A nearby door burst open. It looked a lot like a staff-only door and the person inside ran into Vivana. The person was so short that the impact was mainly to her hip.

''It was a girl in gym clothes.

But Vivana did not have time to ask what this was about.

The wall swelled out from the other side. The wall and metal door exploded like a popping balloon and rubble flew out horizontally. Vivana immediately dropped her black and pink cloth wrappers and opened them. She grabbed the broken-tipped bamboo sword from her Japanese torture products and used it slice through the air.

The multiple pieces of the split tip made it like a multi-headed snake.

“Hm.”

''After easily knocking down the entire scattershot of rubble,'' she sensed something moving beyond the dust.

What looked like the head of a weak office worker sat atop a mass of swollen muscles, creating a unique silhouette. The few tatters of clothing that remained said he was from Anti-Skill not a corporate office.

He was covered in blood.

The girl clung to Vivana’s hip and trembled.

Shouts and screams spread around them.

“No…”

The girl’s eyes widened.

But not from simple fear. Her trembling came from seeing the blood splattered on the man.

“Where’s the doggy? No, no… What happened to the golden retriever that saved me!?”

With a heavy thud, a piece of metal larger than a railroad rail was squashed longer like a sugar sculpture being made. How much force would be required to cause that? Vivana’s research into the history of torture and execution told her that could slice right through a midsized truck if it was a whip rather than a blunt weapon.

“I found you. I finally found you.”

He spoke in a deep voice that seemed to carry some terrible curse.

He may have been crawling through the sewer because a terrible odor pushed in when he opened his mouth. The mass of muscles attempted to take another step, but Vivana stuck out her broken-tipped bamboo sword.

The beneficial torture expert directly faced the harmful mass of muscles.

“Is that supposed to be a whip?”

“?”

“If so, I hate to say it, but I can’t let this stand. I enjoy researching the cultures of torture and execution and I take that seriously. I can’t have a ''casual'' like you causing a scene here using a half-assed version of the tools. It’s nothing but a nuisance.”

She had drawn the short end of the stick here.

She had hoped the gym clothes girl would run away while she stepped forward, but that had not happened. She still felt a pressure on her hips. She looked down to see the girl wrapping her small arms around her.

“No…”

This seemed to be more than locking up from fear.

The girl squeezed her eyes shut and said something under her breath.

“No. Don’t you leave me too.”

Vivana sighed and patted the girl’s small head with her empty hand.

The man’s thin face squirmed in response.

“Are you?”

“?”

“Dark side? Too?”

As a simple blunt weapon, that pipe was heavy enough to break through a metal shutter, but he also gave it the flexibility of a whip as he swung it down.

The girl squeezed tighter at Vivana’s hips.

But then she must have wondered why the pain and impact never arrived.

She hesitantly opened her eyes to look.

“In the East and the West, executions were held in public as a sort of show.”

The torture expert with two hair horns had enough time to support the girl with one hand and move to the side.

“The most well-documented of those would be the witch hunt. The furious people so wanted the criminals to die that they could easily riot if the executioner failed. So it was out of the question for the criminal to fight back or escape at the execution ground. In that sense, setting up a sturdy enclosure around the execution ground was a crucial task to ensure safety.”

Several dull impacts sounded as wooden stakes were driven into the hard floor. They were bound together with ropes in a structure similar to scissors or a tripod and those held down the metal pipe whip after it had crashed into the floor.

“This is known as a yarai. The term actually refers to the entire fence built around an execution ground with logs or bamboo, but the basic structure only requires two or three pieces. The people of this country are so clever in how they use trees.”

Next, there was a rubbing noise.

It sounded like rustling clothing, but it was actually the sound of a thick rope being wrapped around the pinned-down pipe.

“Bondage, whipping, pressure—the basic form of all torture is the distribution of weight.”

“…”

“After all, you can’t have the victim dying before you get the desired information out of them. So whether you’re tying them up in rope and hanging them from the ceiling or you’re seating them in a chair covered in needles or thorns, you have to be extra careful to ensure their weight is distributed evenly and not focused on any one point. Humans are tougher than you would think. We can build up a tolerance to pain, so there’s even a record of someone staying strong with a weight of more than two-hundred kilograms placed on them.”

Of course, her opponent was not just going to sit there and politely listen.

Fed up with all the talking, he used brute force. The mass of muscles gathered his strength and sent waves of force through the bent steel to tear through the partial restraints formed by the yarai and rope.

But that was all according to plan for the girl whose two sweet-smelling horns shook.

“But on the other hand,” she whispered with some red tape visible within her loose hakama. “Mess up that distribution and allow the weight to focus on a single point, and you have a tragic accident on your hands. Turtle shell bondage has a silly image thanks to its use in comedy, but just like professional wrestling moves, that is not something amateurs should try and mimic. ‘Rope master’ was originally used to refer to a martial arts expert, which should tell you just how dangerous ropes can be. Attempt it without knowing what you’re doing…and this can happen!!”

A dull snapping rang out. She had used her opponent’s momentum, but it was still unclear how she had applied so much force to the steel whip with the rope binding it. That pipe thicker than a human torso suddenly broke in half.

The mass of muscles staggered forward and Vivana actually licked her lips.

She still held a bamboo sword with the tip split apart. That torture tool took a safe weapon used for practice and modified it into something dangerous enough to tear through flesh.

She targeted his right arm on the outside of the elbow.

Even a child knew that was a weak point.

Instead of slicing, it sounded more like something being shredded with a giant file.

“Humans are funny creatures.” Time seemed to stop as Vivana grinned and spoke. “We have a set upper limit to how much pain we can tolerate. Torture is all about intentionally extending the pain and suffering as long as possible, so the trick is to stay just below that upper limit. And what happens when you pass the limit? ''That isn’t something you can change no matter how much you train your body.''”

The mass of muscles wobbled to the side.

The two eyeballs behind his filthy glasses had rolled back in his head.

He did not even scream. His giant body simply crumbled below him.

“Of course, some people suggest that certain Eastern and Western execution methods were designed to provide ''too much'' pain in order to quickly knock the victim out in an age before anesthetics.”

She spoke to the monster as he fell to his knees and collapsed forward.

“Okay.”

With that casual word, she swung the solid stick along a whip-like horizontal path. It struck that giant with a load roar and sent him flying back into the hole he had opened in the wall.

Vivana twirled the stick that had broken in half from the incredible destructive force.

“W-wow.” The girl gulped and then hopped up and down. “You beat that big muscle guy like it was nothing!”

“Yes, yes. Don’t look so excited about watching such brutal torture. Now I’m worried about your future. Also, where are we?”

“Oh, right. I need to get home!”

“Where are we???”

She smiled.

She fixed her slipping hakama and waved until the gym clothes girl was out of view.

Then she doubled over.

And Vivana Oniguma coughed up a lot of blood.

(Of course.)

Her surroundings grew louder as she wiped her mouth with a handkerchief.

(Distributing the weight doesn’t make it go away. That isn’t a defense if there’s enough weight to be deadly even when evenly distributed. I’m lucky I wasn’t turned to mincemeat by the initial concrete scattershot.)

But she had been ''torn up'' quite a bit on the inside.

As a torture expert, she knew exactly how bad the injury was. She was in serious trouble. Anti-Skill would chase her down if she did not leave Academy City, but she had no idea if medical technology outside the city could heal an injury this bad.

(But I don’t regret it.)

She was unsteady on her feet, but she began to walk.

It had been a long time since she last felt she had been useful to someone like this.

She had started this strange research into torture and execution for a similar reason. She had thought someone might thank her if she gathered up all the research material this country turned its nose up at and made sure that history and culture was not lost to the next generation.

She had wanted her actions to put a smile on someone’s—anyone’s—face.

Getting a thank you would be even better.

“…”

At any rate, she had to reach District 23.

But where was Vivana Oniguma really meant to go?

===Part 17===

“We can’t get an ambulance! I called, but all of them are being used to transport patients right now.”

“Way too much has been happening today, dammit!!”

Yomikawa Aiho clicked her tongue at her fellow Anti-Skill’s report.

Shirai Kuroko was breathing shallowly while lying on the ground where they had cleared the snow away for her. She was out in the biting cold of the late December night, but she was pouring with sweat.

And there might be more wrong on the inside.

Yomikawa pulled out her car key.

“Fine, tell them to have a hospital bed ready. I’ll shove her wherever there’s an opening!!”

Just then, something emerged from the other tower of the Anti-Skill Chemical Analysis Center in western District 18.

“Ah.”

First, it was a voice.

Then the epicenter of that vocal earthquake staggered out of the main entrance.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!???”

Ankle-length black hair was adorned with a diagonally-worn gasmask, a white coat was closed on the front like a yukata, and unusually large breasts rested on a medical corset. It was a girl of about ten.

“The other twin!?” shouted Yomikawa.

Their plan had been to use the twin tower structure to split up the twins and then focused their attacks on just one. The Decomposer’s state was unknown, but it was also unknown what the untouched Carrier would do now.

Would she decide she was outmatched and make a run for it, or would she give into anger and attack?

Anti-Skill rushed behind their vehicles and readied their weapons, but that was more out of fear than duty. They all knew what had become of South District 7.

Only one of them reached for the gun at her hip and then used every last ounce of strength to stop herself.

It was Yomikawa Aiho.

“Wait!! Lower your guns!”

There was no need to tell the girl to stop. Hanatsuyu Youen fell to her knees and held her head, so it did not seem like she was going to attack right away.

In fact, could she even see them here?

She was yelling, but it did not seem directed at Anti-Skill.

“Why? Why, why, why did she remove her personal alarm? I gave that to Kaai so I could use the GPS to watch over her 24/7!! I even put it inside her gut and ''sewed her shut'' so she would never lose it!!”

She was definitely not speaking to the adults, but Yomikawa still felt a tingling pain across her entire body. The intense rejection was like being slowly crushed by a thick invisible wall.

“''She dissolved.''”

That was not a word that should have applied to a person’s condition, but that changed with those twins.

This girl lived in a world where that was the first possibility that came to mind.

“Kaai dissolved herself!! Yes, yes. She’s flowing away. She decomposed, so I have to hurry! I have to be quick or my precious Kaai will be swept away!”

The subsequent bubbling sound was far more sinister than carbonation. Someone pulled their trigger out of fear, but no one even looked in the direction of the gunshot.

The bullet’s path curved in midair and broke a window nowhere near the girl.

Something hanging in the air around the Carrier was enough to corrode the lead bullet midflight and distort its air resistance.

“Agwahh!!”

The ground was torn through, but ''not'' by an incredible number of worms or earwigs.

Youen held something hard in her hand.

The glitter escaping between her fingers was golden.

“Open up the earth for me, Coin of Nicholas!!”

The track switched to a route that should not have been possible.

An unbelievably large human fist burst up through the ground.

“Dark…side.”

That mass of muscles was all that remained of an Anti-Skill officer.

The filthy scraps of clothing and glasses were barely enough to identify this as Rakuoka Houfu.

“Ahhhhhh!!”

“Move!!”

She shoved him aside.

Weakened though he was, the Anti-Skill Aggressor meant nothing to the girl of about ten. ''She brushed away that mass of muscles with just one arm'' and looked down into the filthy water below.

Common sense had long since left this place.

A dark sludge erupted like a geyser from the crack in the asphalt. That liquid had the terrible stench unique to the sewer.

The Carrier spread her arms while down on her knees.

She looked up and opened her mouth wide.

Then something unbelievable happened.

“Gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp!!”

“She’s…drinking it?”

Yomikawa Aiho could not even move to stop it.

She spoke the words hoping someone would say otherwise, but Youen responded with a look of ecstasy.

She opened her mouth wider than seemed possible to accept more and more of the filthy water inside and used her unusually large breasts to catch what spilled out.

“Bioconcentration. No matter how wide and thin Kaai has been diluted, I just have to gather it all inside me. Once I have it all, I just know I can concentrate it back down in my liver, kidney, or whatever else and see Kaai’s smile ag—bff.”

Her nonsensical explanation was cut off as the color red sprayed out.

Whatever she had ingested, she doubled over and coughed while bringing up an unbelievable amount of blood. But she still did not give up. She used her convulsing arms to desperately gather back up the red and black liquids she was coughing up.

She did not manage to get them back into her mouth. She ran out of strength first. Only her fingertips continued to twitch like a bug sprayed with insecticide.

“Nic—”

But she could still speak.

She kept repeating the same things like a broken toy.

“Nicholas. Hurry. Concentrate her. Concentrate Kaai inside me. Hurry, Coin of…”

(Coin of Nicholas.)

Yomikawa Aiho had seen some fantastical phenomena while pursuing criminals on this nightmarish Christmas. They would stare at the map and place a blockade along every route, but the suspect would somehow still escape. She had assumed it was due to an esper power or some kind of technology, but that was not enough to explain it.

She had not been jealous for a moment. That trump card was a double-edged sword.

“Nicho…Nicho…Nicholas. Lend me your power. Is it not charged? Oh, I used it for the wrong thing. I’m going to die now. Did I screw up???”

Without that coin, the Carrier never would have attempted this reckless plan.

And even if she had, she might have been able to escape after it failed.

But that was not an option after she used the Coin of Nicholas wrong. She had closed off her own possibilities by using it.

Were the people using the tool, or was the tool manipulating the people?

It felt like a curse.

(Come to think of it.)

An unpleasant sensation ran down Yomikawa’s spine.

(Didn’t Shirai have one of those coins? Is it not just the criminals? Was the Coin of Nicholas given to us too? Have there been so many accidental deaths from people unnaturally breaking the rules because some of us were secretly praying to these coins???)

She only had suspicions.

It was always possible that it all came down to mistakes on Anti-Skill’s part. Searching for this other cause before investigating it may have been her way of trying to avoid responsibility. She needed to be careful.

And…

She cautiously approached Youen who had gone silent in a pose similar to an unnatural prostration. She grabbed the girl’s slender shoulder and flipped her onto her back. She could not let the girl drown in a pool of her own vomit.

Her teeth had dissolved away.

The surrounding snow was sizzling, but not from heat. Yomikawa could not figure out why the girl’s hair and skin were so untouched. That suggested this was more than just a powerful acid.

“One suspect secured. She’s still breathing, so someone arrange to have her transported.”

“Ugh,” someone groaned.

It was Rakuoka Houfu collapsed on the half-frozen road nearby. It was unclear how much damage he had taken, but he had been soaking in that filthy water that had dissolved human teeth.

His muscles rapidly deflated like a balloon, but he still reached a hand out toward Yomikawa.

That hand held one of the test tubes they had so feared.

It was filthy with sludge, but the seal of its blue rubber cap appeared to be intact.

“For…Shirai-san.”

As soon as she took it, his enormous hand fell to the ground.

“I don’t know what kind of chemical this is, but it might be an antidote,” said Yomikawa. “We might have a chance of saving Shirai, so someone get this to the molecular biology lab or the ultramicrochemistry lab for—”

She was cut off by a dry bang.

She ducked down and looked back, but this was not a case of an Anti-Skill officer firing on the unresisting suspect out of fear.

The officer had gone limp. The smoking gun was still in his hand while he lay atop the hood of the car. His helmet had shattered and a dark red liquid was spilling out. He had clearly shot himself in the head.

“No.”

And he was not alone.

“I can’t take it anymore!! This…this isn’t what Anti-Skill—'sob'—what we’re supposed to do. Forgive me, please forgive me, just forgive me.”

Another one followed suit while pressing the gun against their chin from below. One adult slammed their helmet to the ground, turned around, and ran off into the darkness. One educator got down on their knees and held their hands together to ask to be handcuffed.

They were all teachers.

They had all been feeling the guilt. No matter how much the gears had shifted out of place and even if it had all been the result of unnatural accidents, dark feelings had gradually built up in their hearts as they saw more and more dark side children meet their doom before their eyes.

''I want to protect the children.

''I want to see smiles all around me as a teacher they can trust.

''I want to bring peace to this city so everyone can enjoy their lives here.

Something invisible was shattering within them.

This had been the final drop. The filthy water had finally overflowed the cup.

And through the unseen connections of group psychology, it rapidly spread from a single individual to the entire group. Almost like an explosive trend. But it was not isolated to this one group. However it had spread, they could hear strange shouting and dry gunshots over their radios.

“Wait, calm down!! It’s over!! Take a deep breath!!”

Yomikawa’s cries did not reach any of them.

One of them even collapsed while foaming in at the mouth with a Coin of Nicholas held between hands clasped as if in prayer.

More and more of them were overcome by a desire for a way out, hope for an escape from the great pressure of responsibility, regret that any of this had happened, and a wish that everything could just be peaceful again.

Of course, Yomikawa Aiho did not have enough information to realize what this was.

It was a return, or a regression.

A hint of this had already been seen with Rakuoka Houfu when he was down in the sewer.

Mechanical static pierced Yomikawa’s eardrums. She grimaced and reached for the source of the noise: her phone.

The display was not functioning. She tapped it with her finger, but the data she wanted would not appear.

“What happened to Outrank?” She shouted into her radio and received no response. “We can’t pursue dark side without it!! Someone…someone please answer!”

She ducked down after hearing an explosion. She looked over to see a portion of the scene on fire. The operation command vehicle, a vehicle the size of a large tour bus with all the windows covered with armor, sat there in pieces. The many antennas told her that was definitely it.

The thin datalink they had recovered was down. That final hope had been cut off, presumably by one of their own going berserk.

This was the final attack by the Carrier. To the very end, she had acted as a carrier for fear and panic. Destroying her own body had spread chaos and the dark side’s unique form of gruesome destruction.

Outrank had been lost and they could not examine the evidence they did gather now that the forensics lab was destroyed. More than that, the adults had reached their limit. Their own consciences were crushing them, like their own immune systems were overreacting and destroying their bodies.

(I can tell the organization is collapsing. Anti-Skill is done for. Handcuffs can’t continue.)

Yomikawa Aiho could feel something breaking inside her.

She slowly dropped to her knees.

She knew someone must have flipped some kind of switch.

(''We can’t play a role in how this ends.'')

===Part 18===

They found a strange place inside.

The mountain of trash decorated with hardened snow was like a giant ant colony on the inside. Several metal containers had been buried to create some open space and holes had been opened between adjacent containers. They could not tell how big the entire place was, but it was like a metal labyrinth.

If the Coin of Nicholas was correct, the special screwdriver needed to open the hard drive would be found in here. But that initial guiding noise was all they received. Evidently, it would not grant a wish for a billion yen every five minutes forever.

But Hamazura Shiage did learn something while looking around.

“This place feels like a laboratory.”

“Maybe for mechanical engineering.”

They had found no sign of the trash collectors, but this was an unexpected discovery. Further investigation found a section lined with computers larger than refrigerators.

It was concerning not to know what the lab was for, but that was not their main issue. A specialized tool set was spread out on a table. In a very unorganized way.

“Aneri!”

The support AI gave a long buzz. Not the two short buzzes for a no.

He touched the metal door to discharge any static electricity before grabbing the screwdriver. However the tool was something like a gas station pump. The screwdriver portion was smaller than one for glasses, but the rest was bulkier than a large handgun and had a thick tube for electricity or air attached. The head did not turn when he pulled the thick trigger. If he had not been holding the grip, he would not have even noticed it was vibrating. But it might have made a ton of bubbles if he stuck it in a tank of water.

He cautiously pressed it against the hard drive’s screw and pulled the trigger again.

And…

“It’s turning. We can open it with this!”

The screw may have been so small that turning it normally would break the head off. Or maybe it was made so it would only open with a specific amplitude pattern.

Either way, the card-sized plastic cover slid open.

There was a delicate-looking circuit board inside. He could not afford to destroy the data on there. He was afraid to even touch it, but there was a small switch at one corner.

He was scared.

Very scared, but he still reached out his finger while looking away.

He heard a quiet click.

That was all. He attached the hard drive to his phone with a cable and then took two steps back. He made sure to look away from the exposed circuit board whenever he exhaled.

“Something is scrolling on your phone’s screen,” said the track suit girl. “It’s started, Hamazura.”

An estimated completion time was given, but it was fluctuating too much to be useful.

They both sat down on a bench.

They waited.

“Hee hee.”

She laughed and leaned against him from the side.

“What is it?”

“It feels like forever since we’ve been able to take our time like this.”

It was Christmas night, so whether they were busy or taking their time, it was wrong to be decrypting data inside a lab hidden in a pile of trash.

Nevertheless, he felt his own shoulders relaxing too.

Time passed without incident.

She rested her head on his shoulder and shut her eyes. Of course, she leaned so limply against him because she was sick, not because she was relaxed. He could not even imagine how much damage was being done inside her body right now. But she still seemed to be using this peaceful time to calm her overstimulated nerves.

As if to say this was more effective than any medicine.

He reached into his pants pocket while trying not to move his shoulder.

The gold coin he pulled out was shining bright. It did not have even a pizza slice missing.

It had finished charging.

“Hey, Hamazura. Will we know what that ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' thing is once that’s decrypted?”

“Hopefully.”

They had no guarantee. And even if it did, the answer might not be what they were hoping for. After all, this was the dark side. It was best to assume their naïve hopes would be shattered before their eyes.

Then he heard a noise from outside the room.

The track suit girl pressed against him.

“Hamazura.”

“It’s going to take a while longer.” He gulped while listening to the scratching sound of the hard drive operating. “I don’t know who that is, but we need to draw their attention away from this room. The hard drive’s light is still flashing, so we can’t pull the cable out yet.”

His phone and the hard drive were both small, but he could not shove them in his pocket. The hard drive still had its plastic cover removed, exposing its circuit board. If rubbing against the cloth of his pocket or a bag caused some static, all the data could be lost.

The room was flooded with stuff, but surprisingly little that would function as a weapon. The tools were all as delicate as glasses maintenance tools.

Hamazura grabbed a folding chair in both hands and tiptoed over toward the room’s exit.

He poked just his head out to take a peek.

And his head was lopped off as casually as someone removing a radish’s leaves.

Or it would have been if nothing else had happened.

“Hamazura!!”

Takitsubo immediately yanked on his hand, dragging him back into the room with her full body weight. Thanks to that, a thick machete of an unknown material found only air.

A girl with crimson hair peered inside with a mechanical face.

He recognized her and that racing swimsuit colored with the toxic orange and black of an insect.

“The android!? Then…this isn’t just any harmful. Does this lab belong to that Kihara guy that Benizome was so scared of!?”

“You are the intruders, so why act like the world revolves around you? Did you think you were simply exploring an abandoned building?”

He heard a metallic creaking.

Her weapon must have been ridiculously heavy because the metal container seemed to bend with every barefoot step she took. Their relative positions were a problem. The room full of computers had only the one exit, so he and Takitsubo could not escape if the android stepped inside. That itself was a problem, but the delicate decryption work was also underway. If the android went on a rampage here, she could destroy the phone or exposed hard drive and they would lose their only clue toward ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo.''

But just before she took that step, the android’s eyes turned to the side.

A casual swing of the ultraheavy machete sliced a split-tipped bamboo sword in two.

The sudden intruder did not seem to care.

“Ohhhhh!!”

Curly silver hair fluttered and air filled the large sleeves of a hakama. Vivana Oniguma switched to a different torture tool as she charged toward the android.

She forcefully grabbed the android’s entire face with her palm.

No…

“Japanese torture developed in a unique direction.”

She forcibly shoved something into the android’s mouth even though it burnt her hand.

“I think this country might be the only one that used burning incense or pine leaves to send smoke into someone’s eyes and nose. Of course, this was used to punish runaway sex workers, so the point was to not leave any marks on the body they needed for their trade. ''But isn’t this especially effective against a delicate machine like you''?”

That was as far as she got.

The hakama girl was hit by a ball of fire so massive it enveloped the android’s own body. It hit Vivana like a solid wall of heat, sending her soaring through the air.

“––––!?”

Hamazura let out a meaningless cry.

Was that a flamethrower? No, she may have used ''some kind of pyrokinetic power''.

However.

“…?”

Something was wrong with the android whose crimson hair swayed behind her. Her head creaked unusually loudly and she did not turn toward Hamazura and Takitsubo despite having eliminated the only obstacle standing between them.

The special smoke may have caused some kind of malfunction after getting inside her machinery.

A dark liquid dripped from her eyes and nose while she tilted her head. Although the head tilt may not have been intentional this time.

Trembling fingers reached for the bottle on her thigh, but she never got it to her lips. The clear bottle slipped from her fingers first.

She tilted her head more intentionally and stars danced in her eyes.

“Sen…sei.”

A dull thud followed.

She must have prioritized her own malfunction over dealing with the intruders. She had withdrawn to avoid a stalemate.

Hamazura and Takitsubo did not dare move for a while, but…

“Ugh.”

The groaning from outside the room brought them back to their senses. They would be dead now if not for her interference.

“Hey, are you okay!?”

He rushed out into the corridor to find the hakama girl collapsed on the floor. He could no longer tell where her clothing ended and her skin began. One of the horns made by hardening her bangs was missing. It took a lot of work to not grimace at the sight.

“Ha…ha ha. This is the dark side. You don’t have to worry about some stranger like me.”

“Why did you do that for us?”

“I already screwed up before coming here…so I wouldn’t have lasted long anyway. Yeah, I really shouldn’t have tried to look so cool for that kid.”

She was barely breathing.

She had to be aware of her own state.

“But still…” She managed to smile. “I wish I could have learned what that ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' thing is.”

She was looking up toward Hamazura and Takitsubo, but she may not have been able to see them anymore. She sounded more like she was talking to herself.

“No, that’s not it.”

“…”

“If this is the end, then what I really wanted was to hear someone say thank you…”

“Shut up.” Hamazura shook his head and pulled the coin from his pants pocket. “Shut the hell up. I’ll fix this. I’ll fix this right now! Listen up, you goddamn coin!! Heal all of her injuries right this instant, Coin of Nicholas!!”

The sparkle around the outside edge vanished.

But nothing happened. The coin was not all powerful. It could open the vault, but you still gained nothing if the vault was empty. It could not grant the impossible.

“I…already tried that. Sorry for making you waste your charge. Ta ha ha.”

Yes, Vivana had one of the coins too. And after trying it with hers, she must have learned that her wounds were past the point of being healed.

But she had still come all this way to protect someone other than herself.

“You can have those.” She pointed at two cloth wrappers sitting on the floor. “They contain…well, a bunch of torture products and shunga books that would probably embarrass most people…but the moxibustion stuff is in there too. You’re supposed to have special qualifications for that, but let’s not get picky about that on the dark side. Check the diagrams in the old book I have and anyone can do the basics.”

She had chosen to use her final moments to deliver this to them.

Hamazura Shiage hung his head and clenched his teeth.

“Thank—!!”

He stopped speaking.

Because when he looked up, he found Vivana Oniguma’s eyes were closed and she had stopped breathing.

What she really wanted was to hear someone say thank you?

No, she had been satisfied once the delivery had been made. She had never wanted anything in return. Seeing the recipient was happy had been all she needed.

Had she really been a part of the dark side?

What had gone wrong to send her tumbling down that slope? Why hadn’t this city given her a second chance?

Why?

Was running away really the right thing to do?

A quiet beeping came from his phone on the table.

“Hamazura.”

“Yeah, I know.”

The phone was back in the room.

“I know, goddammit!!”

That card-sized hard drive had been hidden in a tent belonging to Perfect Film, who had stayed in his hideout instead of running away. The analysis of its contents was complete. Hamazura knew hopes meant nothing, but he still hoped that there would be something useful on there.

It was time.

They were finally approaching ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''.

===Map===

[[Image:GT_Index_v03_362-363.jpg|thumb]]
[[Image:GT_Index_v03_364-365.jpg|thumb]]

District 18 Anti-Skill Chemical Analysis Center:

Shirai Kuroko – Judgment

Hanatsuyu Youen – Harmful

Sewer:

Rakuoka Houfu – Harmful

Hanatsuyu Kaai – Harmful

Kihara Noukan – Harmful

Mobile Base (Parked in District 10):

Drencher Kihara Repatri – Beneficial

Frillsand #G – Beneficial

District 6 Amusement Park:

Benizome Jellyfish – Harmful

District 23 Kihara Hasuu’s Lab:

Hamazura Shiage – Beneficial

Takitsubo Rikou – Beneficial

Vivana Oniguma – Beneficial

Kihara Hasuu – Harmful

Ladybird – Harmful

===Between the Lines 3===

“What kind of person do you think makes the most frightening leader?” Anna spoke as gently as ever through the chilly metal bars. “Someone who is simply incompetent? An unabashed bigot? Personally, I would say it is someone who lets a machine do all the work without ever thinking for themselves.”

Her talk was cut short by a door loudly opening and shutting.

A large man walked in with shoulders trembling in anger. He was too large. You might suspect he was wearing bulletproof armor below his fancy suit, but that was really how he was built.

He had the shape of a round barrel and his black facial hair had some gray peppered in. His name was Valart Signal and he did not seem interested in the R&C Occultics CEO.

He walked right past her cell to the neighboring one.

In other words, to New Board Chairman Accelerator.

He held a VIP position shared only by eleven others in Academy City, so if he was alone, he must not have wanted anyone else to hear this. Or maybe he was smart enough to know it was meaningless to bring any bodyguards with him here.

“What are you thinking, rookie?”

“My, my. I really don’t think he’s the type you can provoke like that. I’ve been whispering to him all night, but—”

“Shut up.”

Was Valart aware what was causing that dull straining sound?

That legendary person truly detested people who cut her off without even trying to comprehend her words.

Fools could sometimes do brave things.

Valart was oblivious to his position here and he did not even glance in Anna’s direction.

“Handcuffs? That operation of yours has clearly failed. I’m not about to defend the dark side, but you went about this the wrong way. The light and the dark are both in tatters now. Do you have any idea how much work it will take to restore a bare minimum of law enforcement capability? …How will you make up for this loss? The entire city loses all purpose if no one can perform research here. And whatever your precious feelings might be, the dark side played an important role in developing your powers. If we economically isolate ourselves, we will only be strangling ourselves with a lack of resources!!”

He received no response for a while.

But instead of not knowing how to respond, this was the unpleasant silence of someone unsure if they should respond at all.

Valart was too pissed to stay quiet.

“You son of a—”

“You say you aren’t about to defend the dark side.”

But Accelerator cut him off like he had been waiting to do so.

When she saw the taken aback look on Valart’s face, Anna Sprengel cackled while leaning against the bars. She was ''well acquainted'' with that boy’s unpleasantness.

The head of the city ignored it all and continued speaking.

“Is that because you’re confident no one will ever find anything linking you back to the dark side?”

“…”

“Yes, Board of Directors. I made sure to figure out who would be my enemy and who would be my ally when I moved to crush the dark side.”

Accelerator was not looking for an answer. Because he already had one.

“Of course, the obvious answer is that ''every last one of you is my enemy.'' Pretty much everyone with significant political power is involved in the dark side to some extent. I’m sure you were all nervously gathering information from official and less-than-official sources to see how far I would reach—to see if I would reach you. And I was curious to see who would take the bait first.”

He was not driven by disappointment or panic.

The Board Chairman saw identifying his enemy as a hopeful thing. It was like seeing the light leading out of the darkness. That was how happy it made him to see the enemy he had to defeat. Because the #1 had long been in such deep darkness that he could not even see that.

“Like I said, you are all my enemy. But that doesn’t mean I can’t use you to my advantage. You’re like the drainplug. If I pull out someone with a lot of negative influence, all the stagnant water will start to flow in the same direction. Because no one else will want to meet the same fate.”

The dark side came in many forms.

It was a tangle of various factors creating very colorful shadows. The pieces forming it could be a strange chemical, a never-before-seen machine, mass-produced specimens, morally-bankrupt theories, or a large simulator.

But among all that, one field was the most influential of all.

“I thought this city had an abnormal amount of strange buildings and underground facilities,” spat out Accelerator. “Valart Signal, you’re the bastard on the Board who controls the field of construction. So you must have known from the beginning. You’re the one in charge of digging all the holes and pouring in all the concrete needed to provide the Kiharas and whoever else with their secret bases. Right?”

And how much had this man been reaping the profits?

That explained why he knew so much about so many different fields of research. He might not be involved in the research itself, but he could check through all the blueprints to make a good guess what each facility was for.

He would also know where all the secret bases were located.

He knew more about the city’s ''buried treasure'' than the newly-appointed Board Chairman.

“Tell me. Will ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'' keep you alive? If you think your secret is that powerful, then why don’t you head there right now?”

“I have worked myself to the bone to build a world of science.”

Valart did not attempt any secret plotting here.

He directly challenged the boy instead.

“Yes, it’s true. My own personal interests played a role. The entirely baseless concept of the occult can unfairly bring down the value of the real estate I manage. …Like a haunted room, for example. Some kids started talking about it online for fun and, next thing I know, we were close to bankruptcy. My entire family attempted suicide once. But I crawled back up and made it all the way here. Because I have to make my family happy no matter what.”

“…”

“So I will crush all those vaguely defined things. I will give out any amount of money to do so, even to dangerous people if need be. Like ''that family'', even if one of them is researching something as ridiculous as creating an artificial ghost.”

Everyone had their reasons.

The only difference in opinion between these two leaders was about whether the dark side was a tool to reach their goal or a hindrance that prevented it.

Neither one was going to call themselves righteous.

They never could have climbed this high if they were worried about that label.

“But not even I understand this one. Sometimes you end up learning about something because you want to reject it. ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo''—Vanishing—is the one thing I cannot explain with the rules I know.” The bearded man shook his head and then glared at his inept leader again. Glared strongly. “You have pushed the dark side too far. Before, it looked like they wanted to remain within the category of science, but that has changed.”

“Don’t forget R&C Occultics☆”

Anna giggled, but Valart did not seem to know what she meant.

“I do not know what will happen this time. If any of them reach ''Academy City’s Greatest Taboo'', I doubt the city will escape intact.”

“So what?” immediately replied Accelerator.

Now, did Valart really understand what he meant by that?

“Weren’t you listening? I ''will'' crush the dark side. Who ever said anything about the city being intact afterwards?”

It took him a while.

But the Board member finally realized he had been looking at this out of focus. Once he fixed that, the wrinkles of his brow grew deeper. He had discovered something he would prefer not to know. He may have looked more displeased than if he had seen a real ghost.

“Don’t tell me…”

When that embodiment of political power looked through those frigid metal bars, he clearly saw something else leaning against the white-haired red-eyed monster as if supporting him from behind. He saw a demon girl who looked like a cross between a bat and a marine creature and who wore a dress made by patching together English newspapers.

Her thick tail wriggled.

This was a line no one in a city of science was meant to cross. And that rule had been broken by none other than the Board Chairman at the very top.

Yes, what kind of person ''did'' make the most frightening leader?

“Were you…''were you never even planning for Academy City to survive''!?”

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