Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume1 Chapter2 (section)

===Between the Lines 3===

The low tremor reached that windowless room as well.

“So it’s begun.”

“…”

“You must have known what this meant from the beginning, Yomikawa. Idealism is powerless against reality, so if you try to force your ideals onto reality, there is bound to be a fierce backlash.”

When Yomikawa Aiho had first learned who the new Board Chairman was, she assumed she had misheard.

But when she had heard what he said, she had been willing to follow him.

He had said he wanted to rid Academy City of its dark side.

He had said he wanted to eradicate all of those wicked and hopeless experiments.

That was what everyone in this city had wanted but no one had managed to pull off.

Also, things had changed once Accelerator had taken the position of Board Chairman. He had created Operation Handcuffs. He was a true monster who no one could touch with direct violence or indirect influence, yet that #1 had still said the right thing with no fear whatsoever.

No one wanted to create tragedy.

Perhaps even those men and women in white coats believed that as they dedicated themselves to their research.

With the exceptions of trueborn freaks like the Kiharas or the higher ups who were fixated on enriching and empowering themselves, people could not escape their own conscience. No matter how much they fortified themselves with logic to justify their actions, they would still be plagued with nightmares of the students they had sacrificed. Every single night.

So someone only had to create an opportunity.

A truly powerful leader only had to take their side.

“Everyone already knew what my Achilles heel was.”

“Last Order.”

“The people who are more comfortable in the corrupt darkness were bound to attack there first. If they can’t make any headway through official channels or backchannels, they only have one option left: take someone I care about hostage and use that to negotiate.”

But if Accelerator gave into his anger and rushed outside, he would only be repeating the cycle. The white monster had not called Anti-Skill Officer Yomikawa Aiho here to discuss that.

Yes.

“Send me to the prosecutors and have me indicted.”

“Kh.”

“''Why do you think I turned myself in?'' This is your job, Yomikawa. You’re the only one I know who can handle the rest of this.”

This was not some secret base of the new Board Chairman’s.

Nor was it a mysterious lab.

This room belonged to Yomikawa Aiho and Accelerator was an uninvited guest.

This was an Anti-Skill station. Specifically, it was a secret interrogation room not displayed on any official diagrams, where a minimum number of officers would make a final check before beginning the actual investigation of largescale corruption, bribery, or other cases that required the utmost secrecy before law enforcement made their move.

She knew this was an emergency.

Still, she had been surprised when she saw someone she did not recognize in control of her usual workplace.

She was the one who had asked who that guard worked for.

She had assumed the rest of the Board of Directors had taken over and sent one of their pawns in as a guard. She had never imagined the man worked for the new Board Chairman himself. Even if he had the power of the #1, that seemed too careless.

The stage was not yet set.

No one was in agreement, so there was bound to be backlash once the confusion set in.

“I will rid Academy City of its dark side and I can’t leave any exceptions. I asked you to write up a charge sheet, didn’t I? I’ve killed more than 10,000 living humans, even if they were clones. And after that, I irresponsibly stayed in the dark side and fired guns all throughout this peaceful city while claiming to be helping. Someone like that can never be allowed out on the streets again. I must be placed behind bars no matter who tries to stop it.”

“The Board Chairman has complete control over Academy City. The 12 Directors below you are only for show. And whatever we might like to think, the rules never say the Chairman has to be a good person. I’ve never heard of someone that powerful just turning themselves in.”

“So what? That just means the system has always been broken. …Don’t make me laugh. If the rules differ from what everyone wants, then you’ve clearly found yourself a problem in the rules needing fixing.”

Who had been at fault? The answer was obviously Accelerator.

A Kihara had developed his powers and old Board Chairman Aleister had guided that monster down the path of murder for his own purposes, but it was still Accelerator who had actually done it.

But the #1 had been involved in far too much of the darkness.

How many people’s hands would be cuffed from this one boy’s testimony?

Of course people would be coming out of the woodwork to prevent this from happening.

Not because they were his good friends; because they had to protect their own future.

“You will never again leave prison.”

“I am aware of that.”

“Even if you are tried as a juvenile! Even if your sentence is reduced for cooperation with our investigations!! It just isn’t enough. The computer has already run some preliminary calculations. At this rate, your sentence will be for 11,000 years!!”

“Way too short. Around a year per murder? What kind of joke is that?”

“Why?” Yomikawa muttered under her breath.

The #1 did not look away.

“Didn’t I tell you? I can’t leave any exceptions. I’m the #1 and the Board Chairman, so I have to lead by example.”

Yomikawa Aiho was supposed to be a protector of the law.

But when she handcuffed an esper run amok, it was so they could be rehabilitated and have a second chance. That was why she would never aim a gun at a child. No matter how dangerous an esper they were, she had to create a situation where she could hear them out.

However, Accelerator would have no future.

This might be the right thing to do, but then who would save him?

“What about the clones?” she asked. “Once this is all investigated, their existence will come to light. That’s around 10,000 people who violate international treaties. Society might not accept them.”

Did clones have human rights or not?

Academy City had once answered no and repeated cruel experiments using them. And Accelerator was the one who had dirtied his hands there at the insistence of the researchers. They were undoubtedly the victims there, but the people in the outside world might not see it the same way.

If they too answered no and even saw the clones as a threat, they could be “disposed of”.

However…

“That’s why I have to make sure they’re safe.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think they’re safe now? If they’re discovered, then that’s the end for them. How is that safe? I need to correct that unnatural balance and make sure they have solid footing to stand on. They were victims in all this, so why do they have to continue keeping their heads down and hiding? Unlike me, they deserve a free life out in the open.”

Accelerator had only one hope of accomplishing that.

The white monster pointed his thumb back at his own chest.

“I’ll be the villain.”

That was the natural result.

In fact, it was unnatural for it to have not happened yet.

“I’ll gather all the attention of the media and the scientific society and accept all of the criticism myself. I’m the ridiculous genius, I’ve got all the political power now, and I’ve even got money too. That’s exactly the kind of asshole people will just ''love'' to see go down in flames. All the news will be focused on me and they’ve only got so much space for info in their articles. They’ll aim for impact and focus on the guy who went around murdering clones instead of the clones themselves. And who cares about the people spreading rumors? A lot of time will have passed before the media is sick of attacking me. And then it’ll be like a flat soda. Focusing on the clones after that won’t move the masses to action. People jump on these bandwagons because they’re bored with their own lives. These are the people who find themselves bored even with all the excitement out there to find, so they’re experts at living boring lives. Once they grow tired of a topic, their interest in it is forever dead.”

That was why he could not cheat the system.

He could not use his special authority as Board Chairman to pardon himself after being found guilty and he could not live behind bars but emerge as a heroic Board Chairman whenever there was a problem needing solving.

There could be no exceptions.

The person most deserving of punishment had to be appropriately punished and that had to be shown off to both Academy City and the rest of the world.

They had to show that true justice existed here.

They had to show that they had moved past the absurd age where the evil laughed and the good were left in tears.

Otherwise, nothing would change.

If he tried to use any tricks here, that would create a distortion and those aware of the secret would eventually create a new darkness.

He had always spat on the self-serving acts of the adults. He had punched at the filthy concrete wall and shouted in rage, wondering how they could do things like that.

And now that child held the position of Board Chairman.

So it was time to show them.

He would let the world know he was not all talk.

He would walk a different path than Board Chairman Aleister.

“It all starts here,” whispered Accelerator. It may not have been obvious without paying close attention, but the #1 and new Board Chairman was clenching his back teeth. “This is also an issue of how much I can trust Academy City. If I get worried, can’t bear it anymore, and ''break through that wall to go save that brat,'' then it’s all over. That would create an exception and those shitheads from the dark side could have their way. So I have to trust that the giant system of Academy City will save that brat without me creating an exception.”

That may have been nothing more than a fantasy.

Accelerator himself had peered into the darkness plenty of times himself. He knew there were truly hopeless people out there and that it was absurd to think justice would win out in the end. Everyone knew it, but breaking the rules gave you an advantage. The shittier a person you were, the more technology you could surround yourself in and the more mercilessly you could fire on the good people who were bound by the rules. At the very least, it had always been that way in Academy City. There were times when the good guys did not arrive in time and the good guys who did arrive did not always win. If he wanted absolute certainty, then he could not rely on someone else; he would have to go rescue Last Order himself.

He was indeed a monster, so there was a violent part of him that was going wild inside him right now. It told him the rules did not matter and he should break out of here right this instant. Villains would always betray you in the end. Some eloquent speech about being reformed was not even worth listening to. He needed to pin them down, crush them, tear them apart, and grasp safety for himself. Even the greatest villain could not betray you if they were a corpse. And what other choice did he have if he was going to protect that young life? What could make a more beautiful story than dirtying his hands to allow someone he cared for to live their life out in the open?

But.

Even so.

“I will trust it,” said Academy City’s #1 and new Board Chairman. That incarnation of slaughter turned fearsome dictator spoke the words like he was suppressing bubbling magma within himself. “''I will trust this city. I will trust that it is worth throwing out the rest of my life to protect. If I can’t trust the city I rule, then I don’t deserve to rule it in the first place.''”

Was it Yomikawa who had said he had changed?

It was this monster who had said she was one of the ones who had changed him.

Which was why this monster had retaken a human form and could continue to fight like this.

Even if it meant clenching his teeth and bearing with it all alone.

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