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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume1 Epilogue

2020-02-20T16:38:10Z

2600:1700:B6E0:2760:4490:5DCF:F45F:6C37: /* Epilogue: Snow and Crimson Cover All — White_End.(and_Merry_Xmas!!) */

==Epilogue: Snow and Crimson Cover All — White_End.(and_Merry_Xmas!!)==

It was over.

But they could not forget one fundamental fact.

“Ugh.”

“Wait, are you okay!?”

“Touma, your clothes aren’t just a little stained with blood. They’re soaked red.”

The pointy-haired boy could not be blamed for feeling woozy. Nothing would change that he had been stabbed in the side by Maidono Hoshimi. Misaka Imouto had roughly sewn him up, but the wound was still there. Plus, he had fought back-to-back battles against Maidono and Neoka and been slashed by glass and metal shards all across his body. Kamijou Touma was definitely headed to the hospital this Christmas Eve. He could only hope he would not be there long.

Night had fully fallen.

“Neoka, huh?”

“I doubt there is anything more you can do for him here,” dryly said Othinus from his shoulder. However, she did know how to support her understander boy. “But you too must play a role in creating an Academy City he will accept. The city will not change if the person at the top calls for change. The rest of the people need to respond to that call or that person will simply be isolated up there.”

Anti-Skill must have given up on climbing the long, long stairway. They belatedly rushed in on a large tiltrotor craft, so Kamijou’s group left Neoka Norito, his doctor, and his helicopter pilot in Anti-Skill’s care while they made their way back to the ground level. It was a 70-story building and none of the elevators were working, so it would have felt like being stranded in the middle of the city if not for Misaka Mikoto’s magnetic power.

“There weren’t this many people here before.”

“Isn’t that because it’s Christmas Eve?”

Kamijou Touma was bloody, had run around throwing punches, and still did not know if he was being held back or not, so when he was thrown out into the frozen city night, his hopes for a romantic night had finally dropped to devastating levels, but then he saw something.

He saw a small miracle.

“Th-the old chef?”

“What’s with you?” asked Mikoto.

“Give me a sec!! The old ramen chef is here!?”

He forgot all about the pain in his side as he parted the crowd to chase someone’s back and circle around in front of them.

It was indeed that old chef.

When asked if the ramen was made with chicken or seafood, he would answer “I dunno. Some kinda chemicals?” right in front of the customers. But he had sold a small serving of ramen the size of a rice bowl for the students headed home from school. Kamijou had thought the old man’s shop had been lost to the strange onslaught of donut shops, but here he was. Academy City’s soul was not dead yet!!

The old man wore a headband even on Christmas Eve and he pointed like a used car dealer.

Kamijou was bloody as could be, but that old man reacted the same as ever.

He was a true man who never strayed from the path he had made for himself.

“Whatever form it takes, I need a shop to do business, but I can’t stand to push around a cart in this cold. I was thinking of moving up to a food truck next. I hope I can get started again before the New Year.”

“Oh, ohhhh.”

“This place is offering a cheap used one for about 20,000 yen.”

“Ohhhhhh!! It’s really you. Only you would have such a messed-up sense of standards!! I so missed this complete lack of tact where you serve customers food made in a food truck so cheap I can only imagine every past owner ended up dead under mysterious circumstances! This is the rich kind of afterschool snack that those fad donuts could never provide!!”

Kamijou was as bloody and fired up as a pro wrestler after a fight outside the ring, so he failed to notice the girls he had left behind staring at him with their mouths forming small triangles.

After the old man said he was planning to use an app-based delivery service since hiring a delivery boy was too expensive, Kamijou waved goodbye and left him to his business. He had finally found some good news. Now he only ever had to tap his phone’s screen to eat that chemical-laden ramen that seemed even more artificial than plastic. He could not believe the kinds of insanity the dawn had in store for him. The ramen that man served was dangerous enough when you could carefully watch him make it, so who knows what would end up in the bowl when the entire transaction was handled remotely? This was sounding like Russian Roulette Lite or something!

His hopes and expectations were running wild.

Kamijou smiled brightly while watching that departing old man who was not dyed by any of the bright Christmas colors of this decorated city full of happy couples.

What an excellent sight for the end of the year.

“Let’s make sure next year is a good one,” he said without really thinking.

“Do I need to remind you that it’s currently Christmas Eve?” asked Mikoto. “Did you just get caught in some kind of temporal anomaly or something?”

Anyway, the many people out here did not seem to care about the recent commotion. There were friends, siblings, and couples walking and smiling together to form a strange crowd in this city of colorful lights.

But.

They had not resolved the most fundamental issue.

“That dealt with Neoka, but there is still that outside group he was working with,” said Othinus from his shoulder. “R&C Occultics, a giant IT company that has crawled its way into all sorts of industries using fortunetelling and good luck charms. The world is developing in yet another odd direction.”

Data could spread to any part of the world using the internet.

This crowd here might look happy, but no one could be certain of that. Plenty of boys and girls here were messing with their phones. While they looked like they were smiling together in good cheer, what exactly was displayed on those screens? It could come from simple curiosity, or it could be fueled by a serious complex, but after accessing the website for a mysterious company and learning of the existence of a different form of the supernatural, who would actually try to use it? The seeds had already been sown, so the dormant threat was only going to grow. It was unlikely this problem could be solved solely by Academy City and the science side. Nor could it be solved solely by the magic side magicians outside the city.

This enemy was clearly aiming for the gap between them.

A failure to cooperate would mean time lost and R&C Occultics’s influence would be growing all the while. Until they eventually reached a point where you could not get rid of them even if you wanted to, like air conditioning or cellphones.

When looking at the entire world population, espers were a minority.

They had been a powerful minority who everyone had envied.

But.

What if everyone in the world could now use magic?

What if it spread to the point that it need not be hidden and everyone accepted it as normal?

''Espers could not use magic.

Those who could not use magic would gradually decline as a weak minority.

But.

Was using that as a reason to fight back really and truly the right thing to do?

What if a new age arrived and that desperate resistance became judged as an evil action?

“…”

(If that really is their aim, then they’ve found one hell of a way to turn things around.)

Their enemy was a complete mystery.

They did not even need to cross Academy City’s wall and sneak in.

They could create an endless supply of powerful foes just by sharing information.

“It’s snowing.” Index looked up with the cat in her arms. “It’s really snowing! We’re going to have a white Christmas, Touma!!”

Kamijou smiled a little.

There was an unseen threat out there, but they had dealt with everything within arm’s reach. So couldn’t they forget all about it and bask in their victory for one day at least? If they never stopped worrying, their spirits would break before the next enemy even showed up. So couldn’t they enjoy themselves on Christmas?

But just as he started thinking that way…

“Hm, hm, hm hm♪”

He heard a little girl humming.

And he recognized the voice.

He looked back without thinking and a look of utter displeasure appeared on his face. This was the sticky(?) little girl who he had found behind the convenience store last night and ended up carrying around while chased by delinquents. Even in the frigid night, she was still not wearing any real clothes. One of her hands did hold a thin red cloth up to her smooth chest to barely cover herself, but he could not tell if that was an article of clothing or a bed sheet.

However, Index, Misaka Mikoto, and Othinus were here.

This was more than a case of “Danger: Do not mix!”

The little girl’s eyes had perfectly locked onto him. And her gaze was filled with the negative joy of someone who had spotted a possible source of entertainment!!

She spoke.

She definitely spoke while looking right at him.

“Found you☆”

“Please no! I haven’t reached a save point yet!! Beat me up here and I won’t be able to recover!!”

He put up his defenses before anyone could do anything, but she did not care. She slipped through the crowd with shocking ease and moved right up to the trembling boy.

“Merry Christmas,” whispered her childish lips.

She held a phone in her hand.

It was the same one she had held when they first met.

And she was clearly operating it in some way with her small fingertip.

“Just a quick update to the homepage. Sorry about talking about work like this.”

“You…”

“''R&C Occultics''. It has reached the point of a trend, but I still need to directly look after it until it really gets on track.”

Othinus’s eye widened in shock.

Needless to say, she was not reacting to the negative little girl’s state of undress.

“Wait, are you…?”

“Othinus?”

“Get away from her, human!! She is like me in a way!! Except she has deviated from being a Magic God to become-!!”

None of it mattered.

The little girl placed her index finger to her lips.

Everyone recognized that gesture of silence, but how many people in the modern age knew it had its origins in an ancient Egyptian ritual?

She grinned and spoke with her finger still on her lips.

“Does my apparent age bother you? I have not taken this pitiful form of my own free will, I assure you. Doing ''that'' is such a pain, but this is a special day, so perhaps I should make the effort.”

She toyed with something in her small hand.

It was colored too sinister a black to call a large piece of hard candy.

So it was better called a pill.

A change came over her.

She was a beautiful woman boldly showing off her curvy figure, she was an alluring woman with her long strawberry blonde hair worn in what looked like flat fried shrimps, and she was a witch who had adorned herself with rose symbols.

[[Image:GT_Index_v01_339.jpg|thumb]]

To sum up, she was…

“''Anna Sprengel''!! I had heard of you, but I never thought you existed in a physical form!”

Even that god shouted in disbelief of what she was seeing.

That legendary magician was a high-ranking member of the ancient magic cabal known as the Rose and she had given permission to found the Golden cabal, said to be the world’s largest. She had not even glanced at the position of Magic God, which was said to be the final objective of all magicians. Right now, she draped her arms around the neck of the boy right in front of her.

“Now, let’s try this again.”

Everyone was watching as she made an obvious declaration of war with that black pill in her mouth.

“Merry Christmas, my amnesiac enemy. You looked good out there today.”

Her lips met his.

And a pill-flavored attack pierced to the depths of Kamijou Touma’s brain.

<noinclude>
{{Toaru_Nav|prev=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume1_Chapter4|next=Toaru_Majutsu_no_Index:GT_Volume1_Afterword}}
</noinclude>

Horizon:Volume 7C Chapter 81

2020-02-20T16:34:15Z

2600:1700:B6E0:2760:4490:5DCF:F45F:6C37:

==Chapter 81: Messenger in an Unseen Place==
[[Image:Horizon7C_0803.jpg|thumb]]
''Grasping how you

''Differ from others

''Is the key to victory

'''Point Allocation (Caste)

Sakon gasped.

…''Oh.

“Is it over?”

Her voice was hoarse.

She tasted iron. The roar had split her throat open, but it was rapidly regenerating.

She took a step back and viewed the enemy.

The wolf had been squashed flat. She knew just how bad a state the enemy had to be in. Once, to confirm her own regeneration power…

…''I had part of me crushed.

It had hurt so bad all her focus had been on expressing that and the people around her had found it disturbing despite being the ones to suggest the test. But in order to keep the Emperor safe, she did feel like making sure he could regenerate from that state was an important test.

But a normal person was not going to fare well after a hit like that.

In fact, her hair really was crushed completely flat.

'''Kohime:''' “Um, Onitakemaru-san?”

'''Onitakemaru:''' “Yes?”

'''Kohime:''' “You know how, um, well, her hair had all that round stuff in the back? What is that called?”

'''Onitakemaru:''' “You mean her potter’s wheel hairstyle?”

'''Kohime:''' “Th-that is not what it’s called! It must have some nice, fancy name! And what do you know about potter’s wheels? They didn’t use those for the Jomon pottery of your time, did they?”

'''Onitakemaru:''' “How old do you think I am!?”

'''Kohime:''' “Anyway, um, three of those round pieces of ‘pottery’ really have been crushed flat.”

'''Onitakemaru:''' “Wait.”

“Huh?” she asked, so he explained.

'''Onitakemaru:''' “I thought that enemy had 5 pieces of hair pottery.”

Onitakemaru checked the images recorded during the battle.

Musashi’s 5th Special Duty Officer was the Mito Lord and the future Vice Shogun and she did indeed have 5 pieces of “pottery” on the back of her head.

Three were closer to her body and two were placed behind those.

If she was squashed flat while on all fours, the top two would either slip between the lower three or stack on top of them.

'''Onitakemaru:''' “There should be 5 of them. Even if the top 2 aligned perfectly with 2 below, we should be seeing 4.”

He sensed urgency.

There were three.

What would lead them to see that number? He continued checking the images recorded during the battle and he discovered something.

'''Onitakemaru:''' “Kohime! Fall back!”

He belatedly realized that the chains protecting the wolf had disappeared along with their mandible swords. And…

'''Onitakemaru:''' “That wolf is collapsed on her side!”

They were seeing three rolls of hair because she was lying on her side and her hair had shifted a bit out of place.

If she had been on all fours, her back would have been pointed upwards, so why had her orientation changed? The impact should have hit her from more or less directly above.

The mobile shell stepped back, but a sudden attack reached it.

…''From below!

A vermilion color was launched from the silver wolf’s position and it skimmed just off the ground.

It was a chain – a single silver line. It shot forward like a shell and flew. It shot upwards at the midpoint between her and them to aim for their stomach. But he took aim, and…

“…!”

Kohime acted on reflex. She had a decent reaction speed. She took a step back and swung her right sword in from below.

Even the sharpest attack was meaningless when blocked with a surface.

With a solid clang, the vermilion blade was deflected into the sky. The chain flew upwards in a wavelike pattern, but…

…''Oh, no!

Onitakemaru realized what the enemy had been trying to do: block their view.

They could see silver in the center of their vision. The sense of vision being used to view and target the enemy was focused on the wavelike line of the silver chain that extended diagonally down toward the enemy.

That blind spot was skinny, but there was still a direct line between them and the enemy they could not see.

'''Onitakemaru:''' “Kohime!”

The word “danger” sprang up in Onitakemaru’s mind.

…''She saw right through us!

He was the one taking aim and guiding their attacks and defense.

He was reliant on the mobile shell’s vision. That might seem normal, but it was unthinkable for a true expert. Because…

…''A true expert can react to unseen opponents outside their field of vision!

They were not fully reliant on their eyes.

The 360-degree vision had been prepared to make up for that deficiency, but since Kohime could not adapt to that, they were forced to pursue the enemy with footwork and movement.

Kohime’s attacks and defense were reliant on the front-facing sight devices in the mobile shell’s face.

The range of that vision was the same as a human’s, although the range beyond that could be shown to her by bending it.

But there was still a limited range to her vision.

And the enemy had figured out ''that range''.

Knowing her visual range allowed the enemy to create a blind spot. By sending a chain from the edge of her vision to the center, the area behind it would be a blind spot.

That was exactly what the enemy had done.

When and where had she figured out that visual range? And…

'''Onitakemaru:''' “Damn you.”

He saw the enemy getting up.

She rose from the dirt while indeed lying on her side.

She was unharmed.

She had taken no damage beyond some squashed hair. As for how…

'''Kohime:''' “A hole!?”

She stood in a hole dug long to east and west. Its width was exactly same as a mandible sword.

Another Silver Chain rose from the hole after her.

And when she turned around toward them, two mandible swords flew in from below the Silver Chain crossing through the air.

…''Kh!

Onitakemaru moved his armor. He used his power assistance to help Kohime evade faster than she could react on her own.

But he was too slow.

The mandible swords pierced into the shell using the gaps in the armor on her arms.

“Honestly.”

Mitotsudaira reached for her crushed hair and forcefully brushed it off.

With a brief inflation sound and some ether light shards, the hair returned to normal, although it was still a little kinked.

“And after my king groomed it for me and everything.”

She turned around and saw two movements.

The mobile shell let out a cry of pain in response to the pierced arms and the Silver Chains flew back toward her since their job was done.

She caught the blades they carried to her and she stepped out of the hole and onto the grass.

…''That was a close one.

She had noticed the enemy’s blind spot when she had decided to use the midair footholds like steps.

She had noticed how they reacted while she was rapidly circling around them.

A clear change had come over their attacks and counterattacks, so she had deduced they were using the mobile shell’s functions.

But strangely, the enemy had used ordinary movements to follow her. Instead of attacking behind themselves without turning to look, they had always turned to keep her in front of them.

That told her they had a blind spot for some reason or another.

The blind spots to either side had been the obvious ones since the enemy had always rapidly turned to match her movements to either side.

The other blind spots would be created by the vertical range of their vision, but she had not known how to determine that.

Until, all of a sudden, she had managed to do just that.

It happened when she attacked at the enemy’s chest from midair.

When their armor had moved on its own to defend, the blade had flown back behind the mobile shell.

The enemy’s head had not moved when that happened.

They had not seen it.

That had told her of a blind spot from their jawline to their chest.

Thus, the trick to defeating this foe was to move directly below them, where she could ignore the mobile shell’s assistance. She had realized that was her only option.

“The roar was not part of the plan, but you did well, Silver Chains.”

While she was down on all fours, the Silver Chains had moved below her to dig a hole large enough for her to lie in on her side.

The two mandible swords had helped hide her and the trick had been made in the instant the enemy’s swords had blocked her from view. By rolling into the hole and hiding her body below her hair, she had gotten the enemy to approach, bringing that blind spot almost all the way to her.

“That was a close one.”

She brought a hand to her body and smiled.

She indicated the reason why this had been possible at all.

“I am still growing, but without this body, I never could have fit in that hole.”

'''Gold Mar:''' “Is this a new version of the Flat Chest Evasion?”

'''Worshiper:''' “How about we make a flat chest stealth action game? Y’know, where you have to hide in the gaps between the furniture and wall. Oh, and it would be perfectly logical to make the player character a little girl no older than 10, which would delight me. Mitotsudaira-kun could be a DLC character that people of other religions could buy.”

'''Silver Wolf:''' “No more crazy plans while I’m trying to fight!”

Mitotsudaira inhaled and looked to the enemy.

The mobile shell was moving both arms.

Sakon grabbed the hilts of the mandible swords piercing her arms and pulled them out.

Her wounds were being regenerated and it had to hurt quite a bit, but if she could push through that…

“I will take you on,” said Mitotsudaira with her weapons at the ready.

The enemy made her move.

She raised the swords pulled out of her own arms and stepped forward.

She poured her top speed into her entire body with the very first step. This swift attack was using the mobile shell’s power assistance. She was crouched low as she charged in, as if to say she did not care if her blind spot had been discovered.

Meanwhile, Mitotsudaira took a certain action.

She bent the Silver Chains in preparation while leaping backwards.

Sakon sensed a trick in the silver wolf’s backwards movement.

Letting her continue would be dangerous, so Sakon had to defeat her before she made her next move.

“––––”

She had already inhaled and her throat had regenerated, so that just left…

…''The roar!

She launched her long range attack that could be described as a roar impact.

She opened her mouth and shouted like she was biting at her opponent.

“Att-”

But she never got the “ack” out. An earsplitting noise beat her to the punch.

“Loo!”

It was a shout.

The wolf standing in front of her released a bestial cry toward her.

“Wow.”

Asama heard the wolf’s voice not just in her ears but in the core of her body.

Mitotsudaira’s shout was a sharp thing different from a howl.

It was short, but it carried all the way here and Asama sensed meaning in it.

…''Come to think of it, she gets this from her mother, doesn’t she?

Loup-Garous were manifestations of fear. This girl carried the queen’s blood in her veins. Whether she wanted to or not, her roar would stimulate people’s fear and shake their hearts even from a distance.

“Yes, this is incredible,” said Neshinbara in the middle of the deck where he had sign frames spread out so he and Noriki could monitor the situation. “When she howled back at London, it reached pretty much all of us. While it was night, it had the Armada battle’s artillery fire to contend with, so how far does her voice reach?”

So…

“I am sure she must breathe deep to pull it off, but when she makes a proper roar, any ordinary voice will be shattered by it.”

Sakon was hit by the vocal counterattack.

…''Wow!

She was embarrassed by, but confident in, how loud her voice was.

This was the first time she had heard anyone capable of matching it.

If she had kept her voice going without hesitating, she might have been able to push through it, but this had come as too much of a surprise.

“…”

Her striking command failed. It shattered deep in her mouth and shredded her throat.

“Kah, ah!”

It failed while being pushed out, so blood sprayed from her mouth.

Her lungs also lost their breath. She nearly inhaled the blood in her throat instead.

“Hh, ah.”

Her instincts had her move in search of air.

She tilted her head back to clear her throat and she sucked in oxygen.

'''Onitakemaru:''' “Kohime!”

As soon as she heard his voice, she saw something in the very bottom of her vision.

Musashi’s wolf had sent a burst of speed toward the bottom of Sakon’s throat.

…''Incredible.

That girl had not hesitated to wield her power against Sakon.

She slammed a sword straight into Sakon’s throat.

Mitotsudaira worked to end this fight.

She sent a mandible sword wielded by a Silver Chain toward Sakon’s throat and jabbed upwards with all her strength.

The blade sank in up to the hilt, destroying Sakon’s brainstem and slicing on out the other side.

The upwards jabbing motion sent the mobile shell’s throat up into the air, causing the entire body to rise up.

In that instant, Mitotsudaira slipped between Sakon’s legs.

While running, she sent a Silver Chain into the air behind her without even looking back.

…''Caught it!

While Sakon nearly collapsed backwards but held her ground, the Silver Chain wrapped around her throat from behind.

The chain also grasped the mandible sword piercing her throat.

Mitotsudaira used all her might to tug on the chain from behind Sakon. The chain was wrapped around Sakon’s neck like a noose.

“…!”

Mitotsudaira used a burst of speed while pulling on her enemy’s neck with the chain.

Sakon’s entire body was yanked from the ground while the wolf used her burst of speed to accelerate.

She ran.

She ran full speed toward the entrance of the forest 15m ahead. Specifically, toward an especially large tree there.

“This ends here!”

In something like a javelin throw, she slammed Sakon into the large tree from the back of the neck first.

The wolf forced that impact onto the enemy.

This was the same as slamming Adele and Raging Beast against enemies. Her familiarity with the action had allowed her to optimize it, so she slammed the black mobile shell into the large tree at her top speed.

The solid impact shook the field.

The high speed combined with the mobile shell’s weight affected the wedge passing through Sakon’s throat.

The mandible sword through her neck pinned the black mobile shell to the tree, which was 2m thick.

The sword stabbed in and the great speed meant it did not even cause the tree to split.

That would not be easily removed.

Instead of splitting, the tree tilted.

The impact caused roots to snap and leaves to rustle while the tree collapsed as a restraint for Sakon.

The only sounds were of branches falling and other branches swinging back into place after being caught by the falling tree. After that, the only sounds were the fleeing morning birds and…

“–––––”

There was no more movement. The black mobile shell remained lying there on the tree.

Only Mitotsudaira was still standing.

…''I did it!

She inhaled and raised her voice for something other than a roar. She thrust her right hand into the air and made her announcement.

“The enemy commander Shima Sakon has been defeated by Musashi Knight and Aoi Toori’s First Knight Mitotsudaira ‘Silver Wolf’ Nate!”

It was over.

Onitakemaru watched the wolf steady herself and leave the forest.

'''Onitakemaru:''' “I suppose I should have expected this from someone who will eventually call herself the Vice Shogun. We discovered some flaws in our combat technique, so this was a learning experience.”

Confirming the situation was part of admitting defeat and he understood that.

'''Onitakemaru:''' “Can you move, Kohime?”

“Ah…ow.”

The blade through her throat had destroyed her brainstem and pinned her to the tree. Since she was not entirely incapacitated, her ability apparently isolated the injured area and created a “gap” there if she remained in that state for long enough.

Her neck was currently split down the center to allow the blade passage through.

That kept her alive, but her breathing and circulatory system were having difficulty. Once the blade was removed from her body, she would need time to return to normal and time to refamiliarize herself with that, so…

…''She cannot return to the battle. And…

'''Onitakemaru:''' “Sorry. My command transmission system was severed at the bottom of the neck, so I can only move my arms.”

He worked to grasp what she was saying by reading her lips instead of listening and he artificially played it back as sound.

'''Kohime:''' “Ow, ow, ow, owww.”

'''Onitakemaru:''' “How are you feeling, Kohime?”

'''Kohime:''' “Um, uh, well, uh.”

She started crying.

'''Kohime:''' “I-I’m so sorry. I just did everything wrong at the end there.”

'''Onitakemaru:''' “Does that frustrate you?”

'''Kohime:''' “Y-yes.”

“Then that is good enough,” he said.

'''Onitakemaru:''' “If you had insufficient strength, the fault lies with me. The Shogun should have been able to make even a complete amateur win this, so your loss was due to my insufficient assistance.”

'''Kohime:''' “Y-you can’t try to place the blame on yourself.”

'''Onitakemaru:''' “Why not?”

“Testament,” she said.

'''Kohime:''' “L-losing gets you punished. I read about it on the divine network. You’ll be tortured and corrected, but you were already assassinated despite being Shogun three times, so I can’t let you be tortured now.”

'''Onitakemaru:''' “Damn you!”

But he did sigh despite not actually breathing. He was simply in a sighing mood.

'''Onitakemaru:''' “Then we will have to count on the others here.”

But he had seen something in the two of them.

'''Onitakemaru:''' “You will grow stronger, Kohime.”

They had barely spoken at all before this. Their teamwork and cooperation needed considerable work. So if they put in that work from here on…

'''Onitakemaru:''' “We can grow stronger! Together!”

Mitotsudaira moved her body.

…''I need to hurry around north to protect my king.

After moving out onto the grassy field, she saw two people approach from her right: Narumi and Tomoe Gozen.

They both raised a hand in greeting and caught their breath after catching up to her.

“This is looking like trouble, isn’t it?” said Narumi while looking up.

“Eh? Look''ing'' like trouble? I thought I just dealt with the trouble.”

“Can you not see this? Or is it such a largescale change you failed to notice?”

Tomoe Gozen pointed east, toward Nördlingen.

Something was odd about that 1km city.

“It’s night?”

A dark blue starry sky existed above Nördlingen.

It gradually faded into the rest of the sky, making it look like there was a hole in the morning sunlight.

“Wh-what in the world is that!? Some kind of illusion!?”

“If anything, wouldn’t you describe it as Bolshoi-esque?” asked Narumi.

“I suppose so,” agreed Mitotsudaira, earning a glare from Tomoe Gozen.

“That is a spell field. Niwa has activated a theatre spell against the Musashi group cutting across Nördlingen. What a pain,” she said while glancing over at Nördlingen. “It is probably an exceedingly largescale acoustic spell.”

A commotion had broken out on Musashino’s bridge.

Suzu had been managing the tilt and other aspects of the ships using the Musashi model, but she had suddenly sat down on the floor.

“Suzu-sama!? Over.”

When “Musashino” called out to the girl, “Kokubunji” hurried over to her.

Suzu had fallen onto her butt with her hands draped limply at her sides, but when “Kokubunji” tried to touch her…

“Kh!? Over!”

An Asama Shrine warning sign frame appeared between her hand and Suzu. It said “danger”, “no touching”, and “possibly impure”.

“Suzu-sama is impure!? Over.”

“Judge. Some sort of impurity must have stained her after spending so long with that class. Over.”

“Judge. Then the entire Musashino bridge staff should send a request to give her time for cleansing and recuperation during summer break. But how is Suzu-sama’s condition, “Kokubunji”? Over.”

“Judge. She is…”

“Kokubunji” kneeled neck to Suzu and tilted her head.

“She is asleep. Over.”

Tadaoki found himself collapsed on the stone pavement.

…''Huh?

He was in an unfamiliar city. No, it did look somewhat familiar, but that was only because it followed the standard patterns for a European city. But he also immediately noticed things were not right because…

“It’s a Protestant city.”

He got up and looked around to see none of the cross-style information displays or simple cathedrals that were everywhere in Catholic cities. He only saw Testament-style information displays and simple churches.

He looked up and saw a wall. It surrounded him in all 360 degrees. The city wall was everywhere, he could see something he should not have, and he could not see something he should have.

“The Musashi is nowhere to be seen.”

No, if his memories were correct, there should have been fleets waging battle from the eastern and western sky.

He could not see or hear any of that. Instead…

“What’s with this night sky?”

In every direction, he could only see clouds, stars, and the color of late night in the sky.

''This is weird,'' he thought. ''Am I dreaming?'' But when he stood up…

“…?”

Just to be sure, he checked inside his pants.

It was sky blue.

This was real life. He did not want to admit it, but it was. ''I am so killing that guy after all this is over.

But if this was real life…

“Wait.”

What had happened to the Battle of Nördlingen? And he had been on his way to the Nagaoka residence, so what had happened with that?

“Where are they?”

He found them.

The first he spotted was Musashi’s Vice Chancellor.

She was near him with her hips lowered to the stone pavement and her spear standing upright, but…

…''Is she asleep?

He could see several other people who had stopped moving. The vassal who had taken the lead was collapsed like she had just completed one hell of a head-first slide. The ninja and his wife were dangling from the roof with the wife in the ninja’s arms. ''He hasn’t hanged himself, has he?

Musashi’s Chancellor was collapsed on the road alongside his sister, but they were both in Y-poses. Maybe it was an entertainer thing. For that matter, the arms were forming a V-shape, so were all of Musashi’s leading members entertainers? But anyway…

“Hey!”

This was the battlefield. He had no idea what was going on, but now was not the time to be sleeping on the job.

“Wake up already.”

While telling them that, he opened a ''lernen figur'' and checked the time.

…''2 AM!?

How could that be right? He had already confirmed this was not a dream. Besides, the date was still the same as when they had begun their attack.

But they could not go back in time. It would certainly be convenient if they could when it came to reaching the Nagaoka residence in time, but he did not expect reality to do them any favors.

“Damn.”

He decided to start by waking up the Musashi Vice Chancellor.

She had carried him here, after all. But when he reached for her shoulder…

'''Asama:''' “No, don’t!!”

The sudden voice stopped Tadaoki’s hand.

''That was the Asama Shrine’s, um, the very mature-seeming girl.'' He looked around to see where she was watching him from, but he still could not see the Musashi anywhere in the sky. The voice continued regardless.

'''Asama:''' “Um, you are the Nagaoka boy, right? I have managed to confirm your coordinates, but please do not touch any of the others.”

'''Okaaa:''' “What’s going on?”

'''Asama:''' “That is a massive theatre spell. All of Nördlingen is performing a powerful version of ‘nighttime sleep’. Everyone asleep in there is a part of Nördlingen’s performance, so touching them will trap you in it as well.”

'''Okaaa:''' “Performance?”

“Yes,” said the Asama Shrine Representative.

'''Asama:''' “At its foundation, this spell is meant to awaken the spirits that manage the corresponding area and use those spirits as actors to take control of that entire land. Nördlingen’s land has a very close connection to the ley lines, so with some negotiation skills, you could probably convince the local spirits to willingly participate. But accomplishing that in mere minutes would take considerable skill. Now, this means having the local spirits perform songs and dances, but those songs and dances would be treated as spells in this case, so the extent of the local spirit’s management would be automatically made into those spells’-”

''Does she ever stop!? Crap, but I can’t help but keep listening either. Is this some Shinto prayer power? Or is it her Shinto sales talk skill? Come to think of it, I’ve seen her on a late-night informercial before! That was from Musashi!? Wasn’t that the one where the man hosting it would put on this weird accent when announcing the day’s special Shinto product? Ikeda-senpai always tried to do an impression of it and failed miserably every single time. Anyway, she’s the real deal, so she’ll probably try to sell me something if I’m not careful.

But as he nodded along with her explanation, she finally finished up. He still did not really get it, but…

'''Okaaa:''' “So is all of Nördlingen ‘asleep’ right now?”

'''Asama:''' “Yes, the spirits’ control allows them to put the sky, air, and ground to ‘sleep’. In fact, the ley lines themselves are ‘asleep’, so this is a very dangerous situation. If you touch someone here or anything closely related to their everyday lives, that will create a spiritual connection and the performance will spread to you as well, so please do not touch or even look too closely at any of the people around you.”

'''Okaaa:''' “I can’t even look at them?”

'''Asama:''' “I hate to say it, but it works the same as impurities. If you view, touch, or place yourself in the same mindset as them, you too will be made impure.”

''In that case,'' thought Tadaoki.

'''Okaaa:''' “Why wasn’t I affect-”

He realized the answer before finishing his question.

…''The hearing defense spell!

He had been given that spell during the transport ship’s descent because he was not used to such things.

'''Asama:''' “Your hearing is being protected by Ootsubaki, an Asama Shrine affiliate. As an entertainer god, Ootsubaki must be able to resist Nördlingen’s performance. You could say this is more about an entertainer god’s stubborn pride than it is about hearing protection.”

''Okay, okay, okay, okay. Enough already.

'''Okaa:''' “Um, then what should I do?”

'''Asama:''' “Leave Nördlingen as soon as possible. And then-”

Static suddenly filled the audio.

The entire transmission became white noise and then silence.

…''The signal was cut off!?

Did that mean the spell field was growing more powerful? But…

“I guess I need to get out of here.”

“I think you will find that is much easier said than done, Nagaoka Tadaoki-kun.”

He heard a voice coming from atop the wall on the north end of Nördlingen.

At some point, a line of people had appeared there.

There were a lot of them. Most carried musical instruments in their arms or on their backs. And at the center of them all…

“Five Great Peaks #2, Niwa-senpai!”

<noinclude>
{{HorizonNavbar
| [[Horizon:Volume 7C Chapter 80|Chapter 80]]
| [[Horizon:Volume 7C Chapter 82|Chapter 82]]
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</noinclude>

Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume1 Chapter4

2020-02-20T15:16:38Z

2600:1700:B6E0:2760:4490:5DCF:F45F:6C37: /* Part 3 */

==Chapter 4: Interaction with Another World, the Starting Point — “R&C OCCULTICS Co.Ltd.”==

===Part 1===

Magic was a supernatural thing that should have been hidden from the world at large and carefully managed.

But after several large battles, doing so had become difficult.

And then a new disaster struck.

“Wouldn’t you like to know your compatibility with your crush? Fill in this online form with your names, birthdates, and your troubles and a professional fortunetelling group will accurately calculate your fortune together.”

It had appeared on the internet.

No one knew in what country its headquarters were located.

Nationality could be a vague matter when it came to giant IT companies, but in this case, no one could even explain where such an enormous company with so much capital had come from.

“Having trouble finding a new home? Then why not have the land or building assessed for you? Send us plans of the model room and a professional appraiser will calculate out your quality of life there based on the cardinal directions and ley lines.”

It had likely begun as a fortunetelling site.

They had gathered countless people’s personal information in the name of helping them with their troubles. And in the case of romantic compatibility, they would receive private information on a third party without their consent, so it was a very efficient method. The collection of people commonly known as the magic side was powerless to stop the giant corporation as it spread like an amoeba.

After all, they had no experience with someone so loudly announcing the existence of magic but also remaining entirely hidden.

And while the science side was in control of the internet, they could not properly detect the threat. A site producing firearms or poisons would be one thing, but they saw no issue with a fortunetelling site that sold occult goods.

So they did nothing about it.

R&C Occultics was growing by the second and it ignored the barriers between all things while setting its sights on the entire world.

“Bad luck is no reason for concern. With the right information, you can ward off bad luck. Ordinary herbs are all you need to purify that bad energy! Click the following link for a witch’s potion that only requires plants available for purchase at any florist and a siphon coffee maker.”

For example, in Academy City.

Inside and outside, science and magic. The attack used the internet to ignore those divisions altogether.

How many people had used their phones on this one day?

''While they were smiling and heading out to meet someone, what was it they were actually viewing on that small screen?

“Tip: Answer just 10 simple yes-or-no questions and, like magic, this AI form will accurately pinpoint what is troubling you and find the perfect witch’s potion you need right now. Help us teach the AI with your input!”

That unique environment was already rooted in the supernatural and there were obvious power differentials between people. The powerless espers and even some of the adults would have a complex about that. Students made up 80% of the population and adults only 20%. Plus, the children had powers much greater than any “mere adult”. Not all of those adults would have accepted that state of affairs.

If only they too had some kind of power.

And once they started thinking that way, what if they came in contact with R&C Occultics…and thus with magic?

“Magic is nothing difficult. With a third-generation 3D printer that can do colors, you can create your own spiritual item – such as a Symbolic Weapon for one of the four elements – at the click of a button. A list of products and blueprint data for specific models of printer can be found here!”

A great number of people would have found this information.

There were no statistics on how many of those would actually act on it.

“Basic breathing and meditation techniques can be easily learned with simple training sessions that only take 10 minutes a day. The lecture videos are divided out by skill level and can all be found here for free! You can simply watch for now, but make sure to consider purchasing any equipment you deem necessary.”

But Academy City’s espers were different from normal people, so it was not hard to imagine there would be devastating malfunctions and side effects if they attempted to use a different and unknown form of the supernatural. Those who failed to consider that simple fact may have already collapsed in a pool of blood in their dorm rooms.

And what about the adults?

They were still normal people, so what would happen when they used the supernatural for the first time?

“If you are dissatisfied with anything about your life, why not take matters into your own hands?”

True chaos was beginning.

The division between magic and science was no longer the obvious one between inside and outside Academy City.

It was now the adults and the children.

The divisions of hostility took a marble pattern within a single city.

And it was all the work of some unknown figure who had to be laughing somewhere out there.

“When the world cheats you, cheat right back. R&C Occultics will supply you with true magic to support your efforts to achieve a better life!!”

===Part 2===

Flames roared as they consumed oxygen.

“''Feuerel''. Construct a fictional port between Au and Cu, aka Path 14.”

“Damn you!”

Kamijou obliterated the thrown fireball with his right hand, but that was not Director Neoka Norito’s only weapon.

“Tch!!”

Mikoto clicked her tongue and raised her hand, but not toward Neoka himself.

She messed with one of the VTOL fighters stopped elsewhere on the rooftop and used the main flaps and the jet engine to forcibly turn it around without a specialized towing vehicle. Then she made a horizontal sweep with the 20mm autocannon installed on the fighter craft.

However, the man in a fancy suit still did not bat an eye.

“''Erdeel''. Construct a fictional port between Sn and Fe, aka Path 9.”

The ground was as flat as an aircraft carrier flight deck, but it suddenly swelled up and a thick rock shield appeared.

He had now used fire, water, wind, and earth.

“You’ve got as many options as a video game, don’t you!?”

“Who said I am limited to those four? ''Schmetterlingel'' Construct a fictional port between Au and Hg, aka Path 16.”

A swarm of glowing butterflies appeared out of thin air. Unlike before, they could not even guess what kind of attack this was. Were their wings as sharp as razors, did they scatter toxic scales, or did the patterns on their wings confuse the eye and knock you out?

The swarm took the form of a torrent as they flew toward the VTOL craft Mikoto had hijacked and swallowed it up. The machine visibly rusted over, corroded, lost its shape, and exploded. And after that detour, the butterflies flew toward Kamijou’s group once more.

What did they actually do?

There was no need to figure it out. Mikoto repeatedly launched lightning spears from her bangs, realized those only slipped unnaturally through the swarm without any effect, and then pulled an arcade coin from her skirt pocket.

Whatever these things were, they could affect metal badly enough to eat into and destroy a fighter craft.

She flicked the coin up with her thumb and then unleashed a Railgun that traveled at thrice the speed of sound, scorched the air, and destroyed everything in its path. The glowing torrent of butterflies was blown away and eradicated.

But…

“How?” Kamijou gulped and unintentionally raised his voice while trembling in fear. “How did you get this!?”

“I thought a high schooler would be more up to date on the latest trends. You can access this from anywhere now. Although I will admit I was the one who gave it a little push by having my cracking servers make enough parallel posts to bring it to the top of the Japanese language trending lists.”

Kamijou was flabbergasted.

The terms this man was using were something even an amateur like him could understand.

“''Anyone can do this now''.”

“No way.”

It couldn’t be.

This was not something he had found in an ancient library or deep in some ruins.

“''The tides are turning.''”

“Please tell me you’re joking!! This can’t be true!!”

This was worse than leaving your bankbook out on the roadside. Was he saying this kind of thing had been put out there where anyone could see it!?

“This began when my automatic investment algorithm detected signs of ''something interesting brewing'', but if I claimed it as my own, it would be too easy to trace it back to me. So I spread it around as a form of camouflage. Just like it is much ‘safer’ to use an ordinary mass-produced knife than a fearsome gun brought in from overseas. Ubiquity is excellent at throwing off pursuit.”

Index was focused on a different aspect of this.

If Neoka Norito really was using magic, then she would know where to look much better than Kamijou Touma or Misaka Mikoto.

“Exodus?” She was Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the grimoire library who had memorized at least 103,001 grimoires, and she opened her mouth to reveal it all. “No, this isn’t even a sanctifying vocalization. Are you simply adding ‘el’ onto the end of random German words to create a random angel each time you need one!?”

“Please, call it Minimum Collision Theory.”

“But!!”

“I do not particularly care if that is only a way to focus your mind properly, or if something occult is actually in the works. I only care that I have a technique that works and that I can use to escape this situation.”

There was no hesitation in the man.

Yet even Academy City espers were always aware on some level of the possibility that they could lose control of their powers. This was proof that he viewed his power differently. He had the fearlessness of a baby who had never touched a hot tea kettle before.

Had he never considered that he would do more than just burn his hand if this continued?

“I agree that it is a silly-sounding method, but history has apparently proven it effective. In a time when angel worship was heating up to the point of ignoring the Son of God, people apparently crudely created all sorts of angels never once seen in the Bible. And it was all ended by…was it Pope Zachary?”

They all heard something akin to a clockwork contraption.

“What is that?” groaned Misaka Mikoto like she was having a nightmare.

The devices that left his sleeves were a lot like assassination handguns. The double-barreled handguns were the size of cards, so they could easily be overlooked while hidden in the palm. These were magical tools known as spiritual items. In place of steel barrels, they had glass containers reminiscent of vacuum tubes, each with a girl smaller than his index finger enclosed within. With two guns and two barrels per gun, there were four such girls in all.

And those mystical girls had halos over their heads.

These guns weaponized the supernatural.

Had he taken inspiration from Maidono Hoshimi, or had he been the one to teach her to control her power like that?

“''Lichtel''. Construct a fictional port between Pb and Au, aka Path 7.”

His whisper brought a clear change to one of the glass containers. The hair, clothing, and halo of the girl in the sealed space changed in response to the man’s voice.

They became a glowing white light.

“Here it comes, Touma!!”

“If you think you can respond in time to stop light, then just try it.”

The man smiled and then the vacuum tube girl came apart.

She transformed into a massive amount of light that was unleased from the clear muzzle.

And the instant it touched the air outside the glass tube, a tremendous attack shot straight forward.

===Part 3===

Neoka Norito was on Academy City’s Board of Directors.

Yet once he realized he could not win if he remained inside the science side, he had reached for the magic found in the outside world.

Such a horrific example of cheating.

But in that case, he could hardly complain if Kamijou cheated in his own way.

[[Image:GT_Index_v01_296.jpg|thumb]]

“''Othinus''!!”

“''I thought you’d never call, human''.”

A blonde girl of only 15cm popped out from within Kamijou’s jacket. She wore a black witch’s hat and a distinctive eyepatch. She wore a thick cape that covered a lot of her body, but the outfit below was as revealing as a swimsuit.

She was a Norse god, albeit a downsized one.

She sat on the boy’s right shoulder and then kicked that shoulder with her slender leg.

That slight stimulation shifted the position of his outstretched right hand.

As a result, his palm accurately caught the warship-class beam weapon that could accurately shoot down even ballistic missiles. Whatever it might be, magic was magic, so his Imagine Breaker could instantly negate it upon contact.

“Kh.”

Neoka did something with his fingers and a smoothly curved mass appeared within the vacuum tube that had lost its master. It took the form of a girl who could be dyed in any color.

“That is severely lacking in inspiration,” spat the small girl haughtily crossing her arms. “You have free use of the supernatural at your fingertips and all you do is recreate a warship weapon that can be created with machines easily enough? Your magic is weeping. But what else should I expect from someone without a tragedy warranting engraving a magic name in their heart?”

“''Explosionel''. Construct a fictional port between Fe and Au, aka Path 12.”

“How is that different from Feuerel?”

Othinus actually sounded exasperated now.

But Neoka did not aim this at Kamijou’s group. The girl became a mass of red, unraveled in the air, and was fired on the ground nowhere near them before triggering an intense explosion.

Othinus did not bat an eye.

“This is a simple adaptation of a sanctifying vocalization. A familiar and tangible metal is used to envision an invisible Sephirah and, much like a woodpecker, an extra ‘nest’ is embedded in the pathways between the tree’s spheres in order to alter the rules of the world. The Sephiroth are guarded by the angels, so is creating a fictional angel supposed to create a fictional sphere? I see. Fair enough. That is very much the kind of spell I can imagine a puny human coming up with. A truly hardheaded and boring type of magic that traps your infinite imagination in the realistic frameworks of metals or elements.”

While Kamijou Touma’s vision was blocked by the flames and smoke, gravity shifted.

“Othinus, what was that exp-whatever it was!?”

“Explosion. It’s pronounced almost identically to the English, you failing student.”

“Hey, I still might not be held back!!”

He had assumed it was some kind of gravity magic, but apparently not.

The helicopter carrier flight deck of a rooftop must have failed to survive the explosion and it was now tilting while falling apart.

He heard two familiar girl’s voices from beyond the smoke.

But he could not reach them.

“Touma!”

“Wait, you idiot! Do you ''want'' to fall!?”

Or rather, he had his hands full with himself.

He could not keep his footing as the rooftop rapidly tilted and he started slipping down like it was a slide. There was nothing to grab onto with his hands either.

“Dammit!!”

“That foolish villain is surprisingly cautious,” casually stated Othinus from his shoulder. “Eliminating any unknown elements took precedence for him, so he decided to split us up from the grimoire library and Academy City Level 5.”

He slid right off the edge of the skyscraper, but fortunately, he was not thrown out into the empty air. The next floor down jutted out a lot, so he fell into the garden there. The garden was larger than a tennis court, but Neoka’s explosion had left it unrecognizable. This place seemed like it might collapse too.

And there was someone else there.

Neoka Norito had also slid off the rooftop.

“What is that?”

This seemed to be an honest question.

As a member of the Board of Directors and a magician, he was a huge cheater, but now he had encountered something he did not understand.

Which was why he had focused his attacks on it to separate it from the others.

While keeping the two assassination handguns at the ready, he glanced down at the tiny girls loaded in the glass barrels.

“I’ve never heard of anything like that. It doesn’t appear to be one of the ''filaments'' I have in the flasks here.”

“This is what you get when a fool tries to use magic without knowing what he’s doing.” Othinus sighed in complete and utter exasperation. “How could you take step one into the world of magic without knowing of the Magic Gods who act as the final goal there? Yes, yes. ''I’m not getting into the details here, so if you want to know about this god here, you need only look back into the vast annals of history''.”

“Othinus, I want to punch this asshole out right this instant and I want your help doing it.”

“Of course you do. If you couldn’t deal with a smalltime guy like this, you would make a mighty poor understander for a god, human.”

She spat out those words, but there was a look of enjoyment in the eyes hidden below her witch’s hat.

Her analyses were not quite the same as Index’s.

Hers were more aggressive and had a way of maliciously tearing down their opponent’s dignity.

“There is nothing original about his magic. It’s really just rehashed Golden stuff. To efficiently control the colorless and formless angelic power known as Telesma, the world’s largest magic cabal ''invented and split apart'' the names of 72 angels. What he is using here comes from a verse in the Old Testament book of Exodus. Magicians before the Dawn would extract the text they wanted from Exodus and create temporary angels by adding ‘el’ or ‘yah’ to the end. That is why you will hear a bunch of unfamiliar names in the lists of the 12 angels of the zodiac or of the archangels. This fool’s spell is no more than an adaptation of that. Angel names are simply a way of using high-level calculations to extract specific meaning from the full text, but adding a slight modification to the end of the word isn’t going to give you the full power of that thing.”

“As long as it gives me the power I wish, I do not care about the rest. Format is of no matter to me.”

“Is that supposed to be a reference to 19th century Hermeticism, you uneducated fool? Hermeticism was an attempt to explain all of the world’s mythologies and religions with a single combined theory based on Western ideas, but it was a pathetic attempt that forced their own reasoning onto any words or numbers they failed to understand. The very fact that a god is currently standing before you as an independent entity should be enough to show you that Hermeticism alone cannot explain everything in the world. Or do you intend to continue using that world map that is hopelessly inaccurate when it comes to anything outside of the conception of Europe invented by the Romans? Keep in mind that magic is always advancing.”

“''Schneide-''”

“''Too slow''.”

In the middle of their conversation, a high-pitched shattering sound shook the air.

The Director had supposedly used his left gun in a surprise attack, but without even uncrossing her legs, Othinus had struck Kamijou’s shoulder with her tiny heel. That stimulation shifted the position of his right hand just enough for him to shatter a steel blade before he even knew what had happened.

As soon as a lead-colored girl’s head stuck out of the vacuum tube, she shattered and transformed into countless razor blades that scattered outwards like a shotgun. Kamijou only realized what had happened after the fact.

“Your weakness is your limited stock of four and the requirement to state their name when you are switching from one to another. The attack we already know is easily dealt with and the movement of your mouth is enough to warn us of a new attack incoming. So no matter how you use your spell, ''it will never function as a surprise attack''.”

“…”

“When fools feel cornered, they run to god instead of trying to solve things themselves. I imagine you were that type, but it ends here. A cheaply-bought power will only provide a cheap resolution. What kind of life did you live before this? You should have found some deeper lessons there.”

Othinus said it all while crossing her slender legs on Kamijou’s shoulder.

And she made sure her haughty words tore into the core of the man.

“Why did you choose to resort to magic, former rescue squad member?”

Now it was the boy who felt left behind by it all.

“Rescue…squad?”

“Yes, human. I can tell from the distinctive way he fires those guns. They look like assassination weapons, but the way he always aims a little high is a habit picked up from firing rescue guns that launch ropes. He is used to aiming toward someone but not at them because he must send a gas balloon into the water near the panicked drowning person so they can grab onto it before running out of strength. By aiming too high, even a missed shot will leave the balloon’s rope nearby, so the drowning person can either grab onto that when it falls or onto the balloon itself when the rope is reeled back in.”

“Shut the hell up!”

The man’s veneer of politeness had been stripped away.

Neoka Norito was the kind of person who would injure himself and feign being the victim to keep Anti-Skill away.

He had received help from a doctor on that air ambulance, but that did not mean he had no medical knowledge himself.

That knowledge would actually increase the suspicions if he had done it himself, so he had wanted someone else to do it so none of his idiosyncrasies or techniques could be seen in it.

“If you had managed to engrave a proper magic name in your heart, you may have made a decent enough magician, but you screwed it up. Having a righteous goal does not always lead to a righteous conclusion. Choose the wrong methods and an attempt to save someone can kill them instead.”

Silence followed.

There were some territories in which no one was allowed to tread.

Finally, he spoke in a truly quiet voice.

“I did save them.”

From a logical standpoint, speaking here had no meaning. It seemed odd to Kamijou. But since Othinus had managed to draw these words from him with a single attack, they may have lived in a world other than the magic side. This was a man who had discovered magic without knowing the proper route for such things, so Othinus pinpointing his flaws may have helped pull out whatever was jamming the gears.

So he did not resist.

Kamijou had seen a fair number of magicians himself. They would face the world’s cruelties, gnash their teeth at their own powerlessness, and then reach for the most secret of techniques. Normally, people would not reach for the occult unless they experienced something requiring them to choose to beseech god or to fear him. So the life of a magician may not have been a happy one, but they had all found pride in that life.

No matter how much was taken from them and no matter how stormy a life they had lived, they had always carried that pride with them.

Neoka Norito had reached for that power for a much cheaper reason, so searching his own heart here may have been the first real step he had actually taken on that path.

“I saved so many people. From the flames, from factories full of chemical smoke, and from the eye of the storm of sorrow created by their own rampaging esper power. …And what do you think happened to those people afterwards?”

Kamijou had no way of answering that.

Why couldn’t it be that they lived happily ever after?

Neoka Norito must have believed that to be the case at one point.

But something else had happened.

“''They became targets of curiosity.''”

This was not at all what Kamijou had expected.

The Director smiled with a sticky look in his eyes and his bizarre guns still aimed.

“If they had evacuated sooner or if they had been more careful, they would not have had to bother the firefighters and the people’s tax money would not have been wasted. Complete strangers criticized them on and on and on and on. …But they couldn’t have possibly prevented it. Some disasters are truly unpredictable and anyone who happened to be there would end up seeking out an expert for help!! I explained that as one of those experts!! But they couldn’t bear it. They were crushed by a responsibility they never should have had to carry. The people we risked our lives to rescue wasted away and finally ‘disappeared’! And you know I don’t mean that literally, I hope. In Academy City, you are trapped within walls covered in countless lenses, so how can someone disappear!?”

Was the visible or invisible side uglier?

Or was it the area in between? Or was there no distinction between the two in the first place?

Kamijou had occasionally heard mention of the dark side, although he had been fortunate enough not to have been directly taken into it very often.

But Neoka’s argument here changed how he viewed that.

The darkness was not just something to be feared; it was also necessary to gently surround people and give people security and sleep. In this digital society with cameras everywhere, no one could physically disappear, so that darkness was especially necessary in this twisted city.

“The darkness was necessary in this city with nowhere to hide!! There must be a dark space beyond prying eyes where people can soothe their wounded minds and bodies before returning to the light once more. I won’t vouch for all of it and I have no interest in letting the dark side take control of Academy City. But still!! There were people who could only find peace of mind in that stagnation!!”

This city had been designed by Aleister, so it made no sense for a territory to chaotically grow to such a large scale if it was truly unnecessary, meaningless, worthless, and valueless.

It was the gentle quiet that surrounded all injured people regardless of social standing. It was the veil that protected the weak from the harsh artificial lights so rudely trying to bring light to every last nook and cranny. It was ''the dark side''. Was the only real problem that some had started using it as a hiding place for wicked research?

This twisted clean freak had targeted innocent Last Order, pushed Maidono Hoshimi onward when she had no choice in the matter, and never done anything to dirty his own hands.

But thinking on it now, that made sense.

Everyone had at least one thing they refused to compromise on.

And this man had never had a way to fight himself.

No matter how much he trained his body, he had never been given a chance to learn techniques he had never before deemed necessary. When he had heard a voice calling for help within the flames or smoke and when he had seen a small hand sinking below the water, he had rushed or dived in no matter where he happened to be. He had physically and mentally trained himself to the limit for that one purpose.

But that was why he had never learned to repel people’s malice.

He had lost much due to that.

He had cried, lamented, and raged.

Wanting to change, he had turned in a different direction and become something that feasted on the city’s malice to use it for his own purposes.

He had gone that far to protect the sanctuary of that dark shade.

And when he still felt fear even then, he had reached for further power.

“So I will protect it,” declared one of the Directors who stood at the top of the city. “I will protect that bedroom full of gentle darkness where the bright sun cannot reach. I will protect that silent cradle where you will never be woken by an unexpected explosion. I will protect that safety net that catches and saves those who slip through the cracks!! It need only be a small portion of the city, but when people reach a point where they want to disappear from this world, there must be a place where they can take their time and rediscover themselves. And I will break any taboo to protect that dark side. I am even willing to become a demon that does not belong in this city of science!!”

This viewpoint also existed.

There were people who viewed the dark side in that way.

When Kamijou Touma heard it all, he doubted he could understand even a fraction of the anguish this man had gone through. He could not even imagine rescuing people only to see them sink down into the quicksand time and time again.

But.

Even so.

Kamijou Touma did not look away as he spoke.

“Don’t give me that crap.”

He rejected it.

This man had his reasons for doing all this, so it would be rude if the person here to stop him were still having doubts.

The time had come for Kamijou Touma to stand up to Neoka Norito with his words and his actions.

“You said yourself you’re willing to become a demon.”

“…”

“So while you talk about eliminating tragedy, you knew from the beginning that you were an exception! You knew from the beginning that you would be sacrificing Last Order to protect the dark side and you knew there would always be people who continued to suffer like Maidono!! You wouldn’t be changing anything. You might think you’re controlling the dark side, but ''it can’t be that easy''!! You’re already being controlled by it!! And the fact that you’re already creating new tragedies yourself is all the proof anyone needs!!!!!”

Kamijou did not know if the dark side really did function in the way this man claimed.

That albino #1 might know better than him.

But Kamijou Touma was the one here right now.

So he had to be the one to stand up to this here. For all his grumbling about misfortune, he was still one of the lucky ones. Because he had never been stained by the dark side, he could take an external view of it now!!

“The dark side might disappear today.”

He had to look the man in the eye.

He had to glare back at him.

He had to trust in the skepticism he felt. The scale of the issue did not change the outcome. What had he seen so far? He could never accept that Director Neoka Norito’s conclusion was the correct one.

“So a Director like you shouldn’t be clinging to the dark side. You should be remaking Academy City so it can protect everyone without the dark side!! I mean, you aren’t even talking about a fundamental solution. This clearly isn’t even about the survival of the dark side! It’s about creating a world where the people you rescue from the fire and smoke can live happy lives free of suffering!! That might be a crazy dream for a kid like me, but you might be able to do it now that you’ve worked your way up to the Board of Directors!! Am I wrong!?”

The boy had no money or political power.

It may have been strange that he could even directly stand up to a monster like this.

But…

“Don’t run from it, Neoka.”

It was one-on-one.

A puny boy who simply lived in the city bared his fangs against one of the Directors who ruled it.

Because he knew he absolutely had to do this here.

“You never should have resorted to violence. And you definitely shouldn’t have cheated by relying on magic. What you needed was to put in the honest effort that’s unavailable to a brat like me who only has violence in my deck. It might not be dramatic, but you could have made progress, step by step! Then you could have changed things. The invisible power balance of the adults? You could have made it all visible if you had wanted to!! Whether you pulled up those who had fallen or caught those who were going to fall further, at least it wouldn’t have been this kind of ''safety net that only takes further lives''!!”

“I see,” said Neoka while aiming his right gun, but not at Kamijou. “''Feuerel''!! Construct a fictional port between Au and Cu, aka Path 14!!!!!!”

Something could be heard breaking.

A red girl with a glowing halo unraveled into a mass of light that scorched the air in a straight line.

But that sound was not the girls Kamijou knew being roasted by the flames. It was the sound of him moving in between and destroying the deadly blast with his right fist.

“Makes you tremble, doesn’t it?” Neoka Norito laughed. “Not with your body, but in your soul!! This is neither scientific nor unscientific. This is what it means to have people you care for targeted. This is what it feels like to witness the moment of a life being taken! There is no logic here. I am not doing this because it is the right thing. ''This is all I have.'' I cannot even imagine how to rescue people any other way!!”

“Human,” called Othinus from his shoulder. She sounded exasperated and somewhat pitying. “Further conversation would be meaningless. He must know better than anyone that things have fallen apart for him, but he refuses to accept it. You could easily lose this, unless you receive some help from a god like me.”

“Othinus.”

“I will lend you some shrewd knowledge, but you must be the one to fight. Are you ready? You are both reckless and indescribably soft, so I imagine ''you are starting to want to save this man'', aren’t you?”

With a dull sound, that puny boy clenched his right fist in order to win out in this clash of wills.

“If…” Kamijou Touma roared while ignoring how bloody his body was. “If there’s a chance!!”

“You must do it yourself. Show him the power you once used to save a god like me.”

===Part 4===

Neoka Norito raised both assassination guns.

A single boy was headed toward him.

The man had four glass barrels. The tiny girls within, who could be easily dyed in any color, were how many cards he had in his hand. So what would he load in there? How could he defeat this boy and have his way?

Fire? Water? Wind? Earth? Or some other kind of power?

He had to think.

And the young Director smiled quietly.

He let go.

He dropped those strange products of magic and tightly clenched his empty hands.

For the first time, the boy and the small figure on his shoulder both looked taken aback.

As soon as the twisted assassination guns hit the solid floor, the man moved.

He tore through the air to rush forward.

“You’re in trouble, human!!”

“I know that!!”

This was a former rescue squad elite. Assuming he had maintained his powerful body, a mere high school boy like Kamijou Touma did not stand a chance physically. And his Imagine Breaker was no more than a bloody fist when no supernatural powers were involved.

Yes.

This was the best possible answer.

This boy had faced the esper power of Academy City’s #1 and the ultimate magic of a true Magic God, ''but what he feared most was the ordinary martial arts that anyone could learn.

“Oh.”

But there was no turning back now.

Neoka Norito intended to win this even it meant throwing out his pride. He was challenging the boy using his rescue squad body, not his power as a magician or a member of the Board of Directors.

Kamijou Touma had pushed him to this point.

This was the Neoka Norito he had most wanted to see.

So how could he turn away now?

How could he patiently keep his distance and face the man the smart way!?

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

He roared and stepped forward.

Two full-power fists crossed in the air.

A dull sound followed.

Kamijou Touma definitely heard it ringing in his skull rather than his ears.

In a pure competition of arm strength, he was no match for the man.

Neoka’s fist had slammed into his cheek, but Kamijou’s fist felt nothing. It had wandered right past this powerful foe’s face.

He had failed to land the cross counter.

''However.

“Did you think…”

Kamijou Touma’s brain was rattled, but he could still move his fist.

So he spoke.

“''That was just a punch''?”

“!?”

His knees were already shaking and he did not have enough strength left for a fierce rush of attacks.

So he simply opened his clenched fist.

Specifically, he revealed what was hidden in that palm right next to the man’s face. It was his own blood. He flicked his fingers to launch the drops of blood soaking so much of his body.

But.

Even that could be used to blind an enemy if used well.

“Sorry about the cheap move.”

“Tch!!”

The man used his fingers to wipe the blood from his eyes and shook his head, but an opening was an opening.

Blood would coagulate, especially when exposed to oxygen or other living things.

“From the moment I heard you were in a rescue squad, I knew I couldn’t win if it came to a fistfight. So I had to think up some way of winning even if it was dirty and underhanded. Just like you did!!”

After having his head rattled, Kamijou did not have the strength left to redo this from square one.

But he still gathered what strength he had.

“But if this is the only way I can protect the people I care for.”

Neoka Norito could not see, so he would probably rely on his ears instead.

If Kamijou feared pure martial arts, he only had to make sure his opponent could not use them. But Neoka could not crawl around in search of the spiritual items on the floor while blinded. If he was going to win, he too had to keep using his fists.

“And if you’ve trapped yourself in some nonexistent bonds of your own creation.”

But that was exactly what Kamijou wanted.

[[Image:GT_Index_v01_320.jpg|thumb]]

No matter how much they might understand each other now, they were still enemies. Kamijou could not have the man stalling until he collapsed from blood loss, so he opened his mouth to make sure that did not happen. He used noise and his voice to direct Neoka toward him. Because he was too weak to charge toward the man himself.

And this time, he really would deliver the finishing blow.

“Then I’ll destroy that illusion of yours!!!!!!”

This punch was the most he could manage.

After feeling the tactile feedback in his wrist and seeing the man collapse to the floor, Kamijou Touma fell to his knees and then collapsed alongside the man.

===Part 5===

The powerful tremors and gunfire had stopped at some point.

The white-haired and red-eyed monster named Accelerator remained seated on the floor with his back against the secret interrogation room’s thick door. He had one leg stretched out and one bent up with his arms around the knee while he looked up at the ceiling. In that pose, the #1 confirmed something had come to an end.

That monster never had set foot outside that door.

Even though he could have obliterated this pathetic battle in less than a second if he had used his power as Academy City’s #1.

“Ee hee hee. Are you sure that was a good idea?”

“Shut up.”

Nothing was more irritating ''than the temptations of a demon''. And just as he whispered into empty air, he heard something.

It was not quite a creak, but a definite sensation reached his back pressed against the door.

“It’s over, says Misaka as Misaka informs you.”

“…”

“Can you hear Misaka? This is a thick door, so maybe you can’t.”

“Oh, shut up. Do I have to respond to every little thing?”

After a quiet sigh, he finally answered.

The “atmosphere” was not a tangible thing. It would be undetectable even by the Academy City devices that could measure the faint and invisible AIM Diffusion Fields that espers emitted.

But.

This conversation definitely changed something.

“There is no stopping you, is there? says Misaka as Misaka asks despite knowing the answer already.”

“Got a problem with this?”

“If this is what you have decided to do, Misaka will go along with it.”

That obedient statement may not have been a pleasant thing to hear when paired with the path the clones had taken to reach this point, but Accelerator detected a slight difference there.

Laws and morals.

The general public’s definitions of fortune and misfortune.

This had nothing to do with those established values. She was not obeying Accelerator’s words as a command; she had assessed them for herself and decided she agreed. It was a subtle issue and hard to put to words, but the two could not have been more different. Last Order could hear what Accelerator had to say and choose to either agree or disagree with it.

The white monster decided he could not allow anything to change that.

''The demon floating in front of him'' grinned without saying a word.

“This is for the best.” He spoke softly while placing the decisive piece in front of the king. “This incident showed me my will can reach every part of this city to act in my stead. I can see and move through the entire city while remaining behind bars.”

Yes.

Academy City was a den of the worst possible people. All sorts of people went unsaved even when things were successfully resolved and there were countless fools who would remain fools until the day they died.

But there were also people who would give him what he wanted.

They were not all part of a special category like him. Ordinary teachers would gear up in bulletproof armor and rush to the scene as Anti-Skill, EMTs would transport the injured to the hospital, and doctors would fulfill the duties of their job. And it was not limited to those professionals either. Ordinary students and office workers would work to suppress the chaos and wonder if there was anything they could do without relying on some kind of special talent.

Not all of them needed to punch out the villains.

People could demonstrate plenty of strength simply by clearing the path needed for the heroes who would protect people’s ordinary lives and spring to action whenever they saw a problem. There had to be dramatic events playing out everywhere and the people bringing together that great power were not even aware of what they were accomplishing. People who could do the ordinary things were strong in their own way.

He had sensed that here.

Maybe idealism was not enough and maybe reality was cruel, but he had sensed that this city was worth trusting.

“So this is for the best. It’s high time I gave up the title of ‘white monster’. That’s no more than a name that was forced onto me, so it’s time I removed that boring uniform they gave me. How can I call myself the true strongest if I can’t even do that?”

“…”

“You don’t have to stick with me. I’m choosing this path for myself, so you can choose a different path for yourself. As soon as this feels too heavy to bear, you can throw me out.”

“Misaka will come visit you. She can choose for herself and she chooses to come visit you every day! says Misaka as Misaka can’t stop trembling!!”

“You dumbass,” spat out Accelerator.

But the only person who could see the look on his face then was ''the supernatural demon''.

There was a special sort of mirror on the interrogation room wall, but he had zero intention of looking in it.

No one else could understand.

There were as many ways for people to form bonds as there were people. So what was wrong with everyone having their own unique way?

He could not stop the girl’s tears without letting her lean on him, but he could not bind her with his words either.

So that human had just one thing to say.

It was just harsh enough in a way only they would understand.

“I won’t be waiting.”

===Between the Lines X===

Hm.

Well, that should be enough for Set 1.

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume1 Chapter4

2020-02-20T14:45:00Z

2600:1700:B6E0:2760:4490:5DCF:F45F:6C37: /* Part 1 */

==Chapter 4: Interaction with Another World, the Starting Point — “R&C OCCULTICS Co.Ltd.”==

===Part 1===

Magic was a supernatural thing that should have been hidden from the world at large and carefully managed.

But after several large battles, doing so had become difficult.

And then a new disaster struck.

“Wouldn’t you like to know your compatibility with your crush? Fill in this online form with your names, birthdates, and your troubles and a professional fortunetelling group will accurately calculate your fortune together.”

It had appeared on the internet.

No one knew in what country its headquarters were located.

Nationality could be a vague matter when it came to giant IT companies, but in this case, no one could even explain where such an enormous company with so much capital had come from.

“Having trouble finding a new home? Then why not have the land or building assessed for you? Send us plans of the model room and a professional appraiser will calculate out your quality of life there based on the cardinal directions and ley lines.”

It had likely begun as a fortunetelling site.

They had gathered countless people’s personal information in the name of helping them with their troubles. And in the case of romantic compatibility, they would receive private information on a third party without their consent, so it was a very efficient method. The collection of people commonly known as the magic side was powerless to stop the giant corporation as it spread like an amoeba.

After all, they had no experience with someone so loudly announcing the existence of magic but also remaining entirely hidden.

And while the science side was in control of the internet, they could not properly detect the threat. A site producing firearms or poisons would be one thing, but they saw no issue with a fortunetelling site that sold occult goods.

So they did nothing about it.

R&C Occultics was growing by the second and it ignored the barriers between all things while setting its sights on the entire world.

“Bad luck is no reason for concern. With the right information, you can ward off bad luck. Ordinary herbs are all you need to purify that bad energy! Click the following link for a witch’s potion that only requires plants available for purchase at any florist and a siphon coffee maker.”

For example, in Academy City.

Inside and outside, science and magic. The attack used the internet to ignore those divisions altogether.

How many people had used their phones on this one day?

''While they were smiling and heading out to meet someone, what was it they were actually viewing on that small screen?

“Tip: Answer just 10 simple yes-or-no questions and, like magic, this AI form will accurately pinpoint what is troubling you and find the perfect witch’s potion you need right now. Help us teach the AI with your input!”

That unique environment was already rooted in the supernatural and there were obvious power differentials between people. The powerless espers and even some of the adults would have a complex about that. Students made up 80% of the population and adults only 20%. Plus, the children had powers much greater than any “mere adult”. Not all of those adults would have accepted that state of affairs.

If only they too had some kind of power.

And once they started thinking that way, what if they came in contact with R&C Occultics…and thus with magic?

“Magic is nothing difficult. With a third-generation 3D printer that can do colors, you can create your own spiritual item – such as a Symbolic Weapon for one of the four elements – at the click of a button. A list of products and blueprint data for specific models of printer can be found here!”

A great number of people would have found this information.

There were no statistics on how many of those would actually act on it.

“Basic breathing and meditation techniques can be easily learned with simple training sessions that only take 10 minutes a day. The lecture videos are divided out by skill level and can all be found here for free! You can simply watch for now, but make sure to consider purchasing any equipment you deem necessary.”

But Academy City’s espers were different from normal people, so it was not hard to imagine there would be devastating malfunctions and side effects if they attempted to use a different and unknown form of the supernatural. Those who failed to consider that simple fact may have already collapsed in a pool of blood in their dorm rooms.

And what about the adults?

They were still normal people, so what would happen when they used the supernatural for the first time?

“If you are dissatisfied with anything about your life, why not take matters into your own hands?”

True chaos was beginning.

The division between magic and science was no longer the obvious one between inside and outside Academy City.

It was now the adults and the children.

The divisions of hostility took a marble pattern within a single city.

And it was all the work of some unknown figure who had to be laughing somewhere out there.

“When the world cheats you, cheat right back. R&C Occultics will supply you with true magic to support your efforts to achieve a better life!!”

===Part 2===

Flames roared as they consumed oxygen.

“''Feuerel''. Construct a fictional port between Au and Cu, aka Path 14.”

“Damn you!”

Kamijou obliterated the thrown fireball with his right hand, but that was not Director Neoka Norito’s only weapon.

“Tch!!”

Mikoto clicked her tongue and raised her hand, but not toward Neoka himself.

She messed with one of the VTOL fighters stopped elsewhere on the rooftop and used the main flaps and the jet engine to forcibly turn it around without a specialized towing vehicle. Then she made a horizontal sweep with the 20mm autocannon installed on the fighter craft.

However, the man in a fancy suit still did not bat an eye.

“''Erdeel''. Construct a fictional port between Sn and Fe, aka Path 9.”

The ground was as flat as an aircraft carrier flight deck, but it suddenly swelled up and a thick rock shield appeared.

He had now used fire, water, wind, and earth.

“You’ve got as many options as a video game, don’t you!?”

“Who said I am limited to those four? ''Schmetterlingel'' Construct a fictional port between Au and Hg, aka Path 16.”

A swarm of glowing butterflies appeared out of thin air. Unlike before, they could not even guess what kind of attack this was. Were their wings as sharp as razors, did they scatter toxic scales, or did the patterns on their wings confuse the eye and knock you out?

The swarm took the form of a torrent as they flew toward the VTOL craft Mikoto had hijacked and swallowed it up. The machine visibly rusted over, corroded, lost its shape, and exploded. And after that detour, the butterflies flew toward Kamijou’s group once more.

What did they actually do?

There was no need to figure it out. Mikoto repeatedly launched lightning spears from her bangs, realized those only slipped unnaturally through the swarm without any effect, and then pulled an arcade coin from her skirt pocket.

Whatever these things were, they could affect metal badly enough to eat into and destroy a fighter craft.

She flicked the coin up with her thumb and then unleashed a Railgun that traveled at thrice the speed of sound, scorched the air, and destroyed everything in its path. The glowing torrent of butterflies was blown away and eradicated.

But…

“How?” Kamijou gulped and unintentionally raised his voice while trembling in fear. “How did you get this!?”

“I thought a high schooler would be more up to date on the latest trends. You can access this from anywhere now. Although I will admit I was the one who gave it a little push by having my cracking servers make enough parallel posts to bring it to the top of the Japanese language trending lists.”

Kamijou was flabbergasted.

The terms this man was using were something even an amateur like him could understand.

“''Anyone can do this now''.”

“No way.”

It couldn’t be.

This was not something he had found in an ancient library or deep in some ruins.

“''The tides are turning.''”

“Please tell me you’re joking!! This can’t be true!!”

This was worse than leaving your bankbook out on the roadside. Was he saying this kind of thing had been put out there where anyone could see it!?

“This began when my automatic investment algorithm detected signs of ''something interesting brewing'', but if I claimed it as my own, it would be too easy to trace it back to me. So I spread it around as a form of camouflage. Just like it is much ‘safer’ to use an ordinary mass-produced knife than a fearsome gun brought in from overseas. Ubiquity is excellent at throwing off pursuit.”

Index was focused on a different aspect of this.

If Neoka Norito really was using magic, then she would know where to look much better than Kamijou Touma or Misaka Mikoto.

“Exodus?” She was Index Librorum Prohibitorum, the grimoire library who had memorized at least 103,001 grimoires, and she opened her mouth to reveal it all. “No, this isn’t even a sanctifying vocalization. Are you simply adding ‘el’ onto the end of random German words to create a random angel each time you need one!?”

“Please, call it Minimum Collision Theory.”

“But!!”

“I do not particularly care if that is only a way to focus your mind properly, or if something occult is actually in the works. I only care that I have a technique that works and that I can use to escape this situation.”

There was no hesitation in the man.

Yet even Academy City espers were always aware on some level of the possibility that they could lose control of their powers. This was proof that he viewed his power differently. He had the fearlessness of a baby who had never touched a hot tea kettle before.

Had he never considered that he would do more than just burn his hand if this continued?

“I agree that it is a silly-sounding method, but history has apparently proven it effective. In a time when angel worship was heating up to the point of ignoring the Son of God, people apparently crudely created all sorts of angels never once seen in the Bible. And it was all ended by…was it Pope Zachary?”

They all heard something akin to a clockwork contraption.

“What is that?” groaned Misaka Mikoto like she was having a nightmare.

The devices that left his sleeves were a lot like assassination handguns. The double-barreled handguns were the size of cards, so they could easily be overlooked while hidden in the palm. These were magical tools known as spiritual items. In place of steel barrels, they had glass containers reminiscent of vacuum tubes, each with a girl smaller than his index finger enclosed within. With two guns and two barrels per gun, there were four such girls in all.

And those mystical girls had halos over their heads.

These guns weaponized the supernatural.

Had he taken inspiration from Maidono Hoshimi, or had he been the one to teach her to control her power like that?

“''Lichtel''. Construct a fictional port between Pb and Au, aka Path 7.”

His whisper brought a clear change to one of the glass containers. The hair, clothing, and halo of the girl in the sealed space changed in response to the man’s voice.

They became a glowing white light.

“Here it comes, Touma!!”

“If you think you can respond in time to stop light, then just try it.”

The man smiled and then the vacuum tube girl came apart.

She transformed into a massive amount of light that was unleased from the clear muzzle.

And the instant it touched the air outside the glass tube, a tremendous attack shot straight forward.

===Part 3===

Neoka Norito was on Academy City’s Board of Directors.

Yet once he realized he could not win if he remained inside the science side, he had reached for the magic found in the outside world.

Such a horrific example of cheating.

But in that case, he could hardly complain if Kamijou cheated in his own way.

[[Image:GT_Index_v01_296.jpg|thumb]]

“''Othinus''!!”

“''I thought you’d never call, human''.”

A blonde girl of only 15cm popped out from within Kamijou’s jacket. She wore a black witch’s hat and a distinctive eyepatch. She wore a thick cape that covered a lot of her body, but the outfit below was as revealing as a swimsuit.

She was a Norse god, albeit a downsized one.

She sat on the boy’s right shoulder and then kicked that shoulder with her slender leg.

That slight stimulation shifted the position of his outstretched right hand.

As a result, his palm accurately caught the warship-class beam weapon that could accurately shoot down even ballistic missiles. Whatever it might be, magic was magic, so his Imagine Breaker could instantly negate it upon contact.

“Kh.”

Neoka did something with his fingers and a smoothly curved mass appeared within the vacuum tube that had lost its master. It took the form of a girl who could be dyed in any color.

“That is severely lacking in inspiration,” spat the small girl haughtily crossing her arms. “You have free use of the supernatural at your fingertips and all you do is recreate a warship weapon that can be created with machines easily enough? Your magic is weeping. But what else should I expect from someone without a tragedy warranting engraving a magic name in their heart?”

“''Explosionel''. Construct a fictional port between Fe and Au, aka Path 12.”

“How is that different from Feuerel?”

Othinus actually sounded exasperated now.

But Neoka did not aim this at Kamijou’s group. The girl became a mass of red, unraveled in the air, and was fired on the ground nowhere near them before triggering an intense explosion.

Othinus did not bat an eye.

“This is a simple adaptation of a sanctifying vocalization. A familiar and tangible metal is used to envision an invisible Sephirah and, much like a woodpecker, an extra ‘nest’ is embedded in the pathways between the tree’s spheres in order to alter the rules of the world. The Sephiroth are guarded by the angels, so is creating a fictional angel supposed to create a fictional sphere? I see. Fair enough. That is very much the kind of spell I can imagine a puny human coming up with. A truly hardheaded and boring type of magic that traps your infinite imagination in the realistic frameworks of metals or elements.”

While Kamijou Touma’s vision was blocked by the flames and smoke, gravity shifted.

“Othinus, what was that exp-whatever it was!?”

“Explosion. It’s pronounced almost identically to the English, you failing student.”

“Hey, I still might not be held back!!”

He had assumed it was some kind of gravity magic, but apparently not.

The helicopter carrier flight deck of a rooftop must have failed to survive the explosion and it was now tilting while falling apart.

He heard two familiar girl’s voices from beyond the smoke.

But he could not reach them.

“Touma!”

“Wait, you idiot! Do you ''want'' to fall!?”

Or rather, he had his hands full with himself.

He could not keep his footing as the rooftop rapidly tilted and he started slipping down like it was a slide. There was nothing to grab onto with his hands either.

“Dammit!!”

“That foolish villain is surprisingly cautious,” casually stated Othinus from his shoulder. “Eliminating any unknown elements took precedence for him, so he decided to split us up from the grimoire library and Academy City Level 5.”

He slid right off the edge of the skyscraper, but fortunately, he was not thrown out into the empty air. The next floor down jutted out a lot, so he fell into the garden there. The garden was larger than a tennis court, but Neoka’s explosion had left it unrecognizable. This place seemed like it might collapse too.

And there was someone else there.

Neoka Norito had also slid off the rooftop.

“What is that?”

This seemed to be an honest question.

As a member of the Board of Directors and a magician, he was a huge cheater, but now he had encountered something he did not understand.

Which was why he had focused his attacks on it to separate it from the others.

While keeping the two assassination handguns at the ready, he glanced down at the tiny girls loaded in the glass barrels.

“I’ve never heard of anything like that. It doesn’t appear to be one of the ''filaments'' I have in the flasks here.”

“This is what you get when a fool tries to use magic without knowing what he’s doing.” Othinus sighed in complete and utter exasperation. “How could you take step one into the world of magic without knowing of the Magic Gods who act as the final goal there? Yes, yes. ''I’m not getting into the details here, so if you want to know about this god here, you need only look back into the vast annals of history''.”

“Othinus, I want to punch this asshole out right this instant and I want your help doing it.”

“Of course you do. If you couldn’t deal with a smalltime guy like this, you would make a mighty poor understander for a god, human.”

She spat out those words, but there was a look of enjoyment in the eyes hidden below her witch’s hat.

Her analyses were not quite the same as Index’s.

Hers were more aggressive and had a way of maliciously tearing down their opponent’s dignity.

“There is nothing original about his magic. It’s really just rehashed Golden stuff. To efficiently control the colorless and formless angelic power known as Telesma, the world’s largest magic cabal ''invented and split apart'' the names of 72 angels. What he is using here comes from a verse in the Old Testament book of Exodus. Magicians before the Dawn would extract the text they wanted from Exodus and create temporary angels by adding ‘el’ or ‘yah’ to the end. That is why you will hear a bunch of unfamiliar names in the lists of the 12 angels of the zodiac or of the archangels. This fool’s spell is no more than an adaptation of that. Angel names are simply a way of using high-level calculations to extract specific meaning from the full text, but adding a slight modification to the end of the word isn’t going to give you the full power of that thing.”

“As long as it gives me the power I wish, I do not care about the rest. Format is of no matter to me.”

“Is that supposed to be a reference to 19th century Hermeticism, you uneducated fool? Hermeticism was an attempt to explain all of the world’s mythologies and religions with a single combined theory based on Western ideas, but it was a pathetic attempt that forced their own reasoning onto any words or numbers they failed to understand. The very fact that a god is currently standing before you as an independent entity should be enough to show you that Hermeticism alone cannot explain everything in the world. Or do you intend to continue using that world map that is hopelessly inaccurate when it comes to anything outside of the conception of Europe invented by the Romans? Keep in mind that magic is always advancing.”

“''Schneide-''”

“''Too slow''.”

In the middle of their conversation, a high-pitched shattering sound shook the air.

The Director had supposedly used his left gun in a surprise attack, but without even uncrossing her legs, Othinus had struck Kamijou’s shoulder with her tiny heel. That stimulation shifted the position of his right hand just enough for him to shatter a steel blade before he even knew what had happened.

As soon as a lead-colored girl’s head stuck out of the vacuum tube, she shattered and transformed into countless razor blades that scattered outwards like a shotgun. Kamijou only realized what had happened after the fact.

“Your weakness is your limited stock of four and the requirement to state their name when you are switching from one to another. The attack we already know is easily dealt with and the movement of your mouth is enough to warn us of a new attack incoming. So no matter how you use your spell, ''it will never function as a surprise attack''.”

“…”

“When fools feel cornered, they run to god instead of trying to solve things themselves. I imagine you were that type, but it ends here. A cheaply-bought power will only provide a cheap resolution. What kind of life did you live before this? You should have found some deeper lessons there.”

Othinus said it all while crossing her slender legs on Kamijou’s shoulder.

And she made sure her haughty words tore into the core of the man.

“Why did you choose to resort to magic, former rescue squad member?”

Now it was the boy who felt left behind by it all.

“Rescue…squad?”

“Yes, human. I can tell from the distinctive way he fires those guns. They look like assassination weapons, but the way he always aims a little high is a habit picked up from firing rescue guns that launch ropes. He is used to aiming toward someone but not at them because he must send a gas balloon into the water near the panicked drowning person so they can grab onto it before running out of strength. By aiming too high, even a missed shot will leave the balloon’s rope nearby, so the drowning person can either grab onto that when it falls or onto the balloon itself when the rope is reeled back in.”

“Shut the hell up!”

The man’s veneer of politeness had been stripped away.

Neoka Norito was the kind of person who would injure himself and feign being the victim to keep Anti-Skill away.

He had received help from a doctor on that air ambulance, but that did not mean he had no medical knowledge himself.

That knowledge would actually increase the suspicions if he had done it himself, so he had wanted someone else to do it so none of his idiosyncrasies or techniques could be seen in it.

“If you had managed to engrave a proper magic name in your heart, you may have made a decent enough magician, but you screwed it up. Having a righteous goal does not always lead to a righteous conclusion. Choose the wrong methods and an attempt to save someone can kill them instead.”

Silence followed.

There were some territories in which no one was allowed to tread.

Finally, he spoke in a truly quiet voice.

“I did save them.”

From a logical standpoint, speaking here had no meaning. It seemed odd to Kamijou. But since Othinus had managed to draw these words from him with a single attack, they may have lived in a world other than the magic side. This was a man who had discovered magic without knowing the proper route for such things, so Othinus pinpointing his flaws may have helped pull out whatever was jamming the gears.

So he did not resist.

Kamijou had seen a fair number of magicians himself. They would face the world’s cruelties, gnash their teeth at their own powerlessness, and then reach for the most secret of techniques. Normally, people would not reach for the occult unless they experienced something requiring them to choose to beseech god or to fear him. So the life of a magician may not have been a happy one, but they had all found pride in that life.

No matter how much was taken from them and no matter how stormy a life they had lived, they had always carried that pride with them.

Neoka Norito had reached for that power for a much cheaper reason, so searching his own heart here may have been the first real step he had actually taken on that path.

“I saved so many people. From the flames, from factories full of chemical smoke, and from the eye of the storm of sorrow created by their own rampaging esper power. …And what do you think happened to those people afterwards?”

Kamijou had no way of answering that.

Why couldn’t it be that they lived happily ever after?

Neoka Norito must have believed that to be the case at one point.

But something else had happened.

“''They became targets of curiosity.''”

This was not at all what Kamijou had expected.

The Director smiled with a sticky look in his eyes and his bizarre guns still aimed.

“If they had evacuated sooner or if they had been more careful, they would not have had to bother the firefighters and the people’s tax money would not have been wasted. Complete strangers criticized them on and on and on and on. …But they couldn’t have possibly prevented it. Some disasters are truly unpredictable and anyone who happened to be there would end up seeking out an expert for help!! I explained that as one of those experts!! But they couldn’t bear it. They were crushed by a responsibility they never should have had to carry. The people we risked our lives to rescue wasted away and finally ‘disappeared’! And you know I don’t mean that literally, I hope. In Academy City, you are trapped within walls covered in countless lenses, so how can someone disappear!?”

Was the visible or invisible side uglier?

Or was it the area in between? Or was there no distinction between the two in the first place?

Kamijou had occasionally heard mention of the dark side, although he had been fortunate enough not to have been directly taken into it very often.

But Neoka’s argument here changed how he viewed that.

The darkness was not just something to be feared; it was also necessary to gently surround people and give people security and sleep. In this digital society with cameras everywhere, no one could physically disappear, so that darkness was especially necessary in this twisted city.

“The darkness was necessary in this city with nowhere to hide!! There must be a dark space beyond prying eyes where people can soothe their wounded minds and bodies before returning to the light once more. I won’t vouch for all of it and I have no interest in letting the dark side take control of Academy City. But still!! There were people who could only find peace of mind in that stagnation!!”

This city had been designed by Aleister, so it made no sense for a territory to chaotically grow to such a large scale if it was truly unnecessary, meaningless, worthless, and valueless.

It was the gentle quiet that surrounded all injured people regardless of social standing. It was the veil that protected the weak from the harsh artificial lights so rudely trying to bring light to every last nook and cranny. It was ''the dark side''. Was the only real problem that some had started using it as a hiding place for wicked research?

This twisted clean freak had targeted innocent Last Order, pushed Maidono Hoshimi onward when she had no choice in the matter, and never done anything to dirty his own hands.

But thinking on it now, that made sense.

Everyone had at least one thing they refused to compromise on.

And this man had never had a way to fight himself.

No matter how much he trained his body, he had never been given a chance to learn techniques he had never before deemed necessary. When he had heard a voice calling for help within the flames or smoke and when he had seen a small hand sinking below the water, he had rushed or dived in no matter where he happened to be. He had physically and mentally trained himself to the limit for that one purpose.

But that was why he had never learned to repel people’s malice.

He had lost much due to that.

He had cried, lamented, and raged.

Wanting to change, he had turned in a different direction and become something that feasted on the city’s malice to use it for his own purposes.

He had gone that far to protect the sanctuary of that dark shade.

And when he still felt fear even then, he had reached for further power.

“So I will protect it,” declared one of the Directors who stood at the top of the city. “I will protect that bedroom full of gentle darkness where the bright sun cannot reach. I will protect that silent cradle where you will never be woken by an unexpected explosion. I will protect that safety net that catches and saves those who slip through the cracks!! It need only be a small portion of the city, but when people reach a point where they want to disappear from this world, there must be a place where they can take their time and rediscover themselves. And I will break any taboo to protect that dark side. I am even willing to become a demon that does not belong in this city of science!!”

This viewpoint also existed.

There were people who viewed the dark side in that way.

When Kamijou Touma heard it all, he doubted he could understand even a fraction of the anguish this man had gone through. He could not even imagine rescuing people only to see them sink down into the quicksand time and time again.

But.

Even so.

Kamijou Touma did not look away as he spoke.

“Don’t give me that crap.”

He rejected it.

This man had his reasons for doing all this, so it would be rude if the person here to stop him were still having doubts.

The time had come for Kamijou Touma to stand up to Neoka Norito with his words and his actions.

“You said yourself you’re willing to become a demon.”

“…”

“So while you talk about eliminating tragedy, you knew from the beginning that you were an exception! You knew from the beginning that you would be sacrificing Last Order to protect the dark side and you knew there would always be people who continued to suffer like Maidono!! You wouldn’t be changing anything. You might think you’re controlling the dark side, but ''it can’t be that easy''!! You’re already being controlled by it!! And the fact that you’re already creating new tragedies yourself is all the proof anyone needs!!!!!”

Kamijou did not know if the dark side really did function in the way this man claimed.

That albino #1 might know better than him.

But Kamijou Touma was the one here right now.

So he had to be the one to stand up to this here. For all his grumbling about misfortune, he was still one of the lucky ones. Because he had never been stained by he dark side, he could take an external view of it now!!

“The dark side might disappear today.”

He had to look the man in the eye.

He had to glare back at him.

He had to trust in the skepticism he felt. The scale of the issue did not change the outcome. What had he seen so far? He could never accept that Director Neoka Norito’s conclusion was the correct one.

“So a Director like you shouldn’t be clinging to the dark side. You should be remaking Academy City so it can protect everyone without the dark side!! I mean, you aren’t even talking about a fundamental solution. This clearly isn’t even about the survival of the dark side! It’s about creating a world where the people you rescue from the fire and smoke can live happy lives free of suffering!! That might be a crazy dream for a kid like me, but you might be able to do it now that you’ve worked your way up to the Board of Directors!! Am I wrong!?”

The boy had no money or political power.

It may have been strange that he could even directly stand up to a monster like this.

But…

“Don’t run from it, Neoka.”

It was one-on-one.

A puny boy who simply lived in the city bared his fangs against one of the Directors who ruled it.

Because he knew he absolutely had to do this here.

“You never should have resorted to violence. And you definitely shouldn’t have cheated by relying on magic. What you needed was to put in the honest effort that’s unavailable to a brat like me who only has violence in my deck. It might not be dramatic, but you could have made progress, step by step! Then you could have changed things. The invisible power balance of the adults? You could have made it all visible if you had wanted to!! Whether you pulled up those who had fallen or caught those who were going to fall further, at least it wouldn’t have been this kind of ''safety net that only takes further lives''!!”

“I see,” said Neoka while aiming his right gun, but not at Kamijou. “''Feuerel''!! Construct a fictional port between Au and Cu, aka Path 14!!!!!!”

Something could be heard breaking.

A red girl with a glowing halo unraveled into a mass of light that scorched the air in a straight line.

But that sound was not the girls Kamijou knew being roasted by the flames. It was the sound of him moving in between and destroying the deadly blast with his right fist.

“Makes you tremble, doesn’t it?” Neoka Norito laughed. “Not with your body, but in your soul!! This is neither scientific nor unscientific. This is what it means to have people you care for targeted. This is what it feels like to witness the moment of a life being taken! There is no logic here. I am not doing this because it is the right thing. ''This is all I have.'' I cannot even imagine how to rescue people any other way!!”

“Human,” called Othinus from his shoulder. She sounded exasperated and somewhat pitying. “Further conversation would be meaningless. He must know better than anyone that things have fallen apart for him, but he refuses to accept it. You could easily lose this, unless you receive some help from a god like me.”

“Othinus.”

“I will lend you some shrewd knowledge, but you must be the one to fight. Are you ready? You are both reckless and indescribably soft, so I imagine ''you are starting to want to save this man'', aren’t you?”

With a dull sound, that puny boy clenched his right fist in order to win out in this clash of wills.

“If…” Kamijou Touma roared while ignoring how bloody his body was. “If there’s a chance!!”

“You must do it yourself. Show him the power you once used to save a god like me.”

===Part 4===

Neoka Norito raised both assassination guns.

A single boy was headed toward him.

The man had four glass barrels. The tiny girls within, who could be easily dyed in any color, were how many cards he had in his hand. So what would he load in there? How could he defeat this boy and have his way?

Fire? Water? Wind? Earth? Or some other kind of power?

He had to think.

And the young Director smiled quietly.

He let go.

He dropped those strange products of magic and tightly clenched his empty hands.

For the first time, the boy and the small figure on his shoulder both looked taken aback.

As soon as the twisted assassination guns hit the solid floor, the man moved.

He tore through the air to rush forward.

“You’re in trouble, human!!”

“I know that!!”

This was a former rescue squad elite. Assuming he had maintained his powerful body, a mere high school boy like Kamijou Touma did not stand a chance physically. And his Imagine Breaker was no more than a bloody fist when no supernatural powers were involved.

Yes.

This was the best possible answer.

This boy had faced the esper power of Academy City’s #1 and the ultimate magic of a true Magic God, ''but what he feared most was the ordinary martial arts that anyone could learn.

“Oh.”

But there was no turning back now.

Neoka Norito intended to win this even it meant throwing out his pride. He was challenging the boy using his rescue squad body, not his power as a magician or a member of the Board of Directors.

Kamijou Touma had pushed him to this point.

This was the Neoka Norito he had most wanted to see.

So how could he turn away now?

How could he patiently keep his distance and face the man the smart way!?

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

He roared and stepped forward.

Two full-power fists crossed in the air.

A dull sound followed.

Kamijou Touma definitely heard it ringing in his skull rather than his ears.

In a pure competition of arm strength, he was no match for the man.

Neoka’s fist had slammed into his cheek, but Kamijou’s fist felt nothing. It had wandered right past this powerful foe’s face.

He had failed to land the cross counter.

''However.

“Did you think…”

Kamijou Touma’s brain was rattled, but he could still move his fist.

So he spoke.

“''That was just a punch''?”

“!?”

His knees were already shaking and he did not have enough strength left for a fierce rush of attacks.

So he simply opened his clenched fist.

Specifically, he revealed what was hidden in that palm right next to the man’s face. It was his own blood. He flicked his fingers to launch the drops of blood soaking so much of his body.

But.

Even that could be used to blind an enemy if used well.

“Sorry about the cheap move.”

“Tch!!”

The man used his fingers to wipe the blood from his eyes and shook his head, but an opening was an opening.

Blood would coagulate, especially when exposed to oxygen or other living things.

“From the moment I heard you were in a rescue squad, I knew I couldn’t win if it came to a fistfight. So I had to think up some way of winning even if it was dirty and underhanded. Just like you did!!”

After having his head rattled, Kamijou did not have the strength left to redo this from square one.

But he still gathered what strength he had.

“But if this is the only way I can protect the people I care for.”

Neoka Norito could not see, so he would probably rely on his ears instead.

If Kamijou feared pure martial arts, he only had to make sure his opponent could not use them. But Neoka could not crawl around in search of the spiritual items on the floor while blinded. If he was going to win, he too had to keep using his fists.

“And if you’ve trapped yourself in some nonexistent bonds of your own creation.”

But that was exactly what Kamijou wanted.

[[Image:GT_Index_v01_320.jpg|thumb]]

No matter how much they might understand each other now, they were still enemies. Kamijou could not have the man stalling until he collapsed from blood loss, so he opened his mouth to make sure that did not happen. He used noise and his voice to direct Neoka toward him. Because he was too weak to charge toward the man himself.

And this time, he really would deliver the finishing blow.

“Then I’ll destroy that illusion of yours!!!!!!”

This punch was the most he could manage.

After feeling the tactile feedback in his wrist and seeing the man collapse to the floor, Kamijou Touma fell to his knees and then collapsed alongside the man.

===Part 5===

The powerful tremors and gunfire had stopped at some point.

The white-haired and red-eyed monster named Accelerator remained seated on the floor with his back against the secret interrogation room’s thick door. He had one leg stretched out and one bent up with his arms around the knee while he looked up at the ceiling. In that pose, the #1 confirmed something had come to an end.

That monster never had set foot outside that door.

Even though he could have obliterated this pathetic battle in less than a second if he had used his power as Academy City’s #1.

“Ee hee hee. Are you sure that was a good idea?”

“Shut up.”

Nothing was more irritating ''than the temptations of a demon''. And just as he whispered into empty air, he heard something.

It was not quite a creak, but a definite sensation reached his back pressed against the door.

“It’s over, says Misaka as Misaka informs you.”

“…”

“Can you hear Misaka? This is a thick door, so maybe you can’t.”

“Oh, shut up. Do I have to respond to every little thing?”

After a quiet sigh, he finally answered.

The “atmosphere” was not a tangible thing. It would be undetectable even by the Academy City devices that could measure the faint and invisible AIM Diffusion Fields that espers emitted.

But.

This conversation definitely changed something.

“There is no stopping you, is there? says Misaka as Misaka asks despite knowing the answer already.”

“Got a problem with this?”

“If this is what you have decided to do, Misaka will go along with it.”

That obedient statement may not have been a pleasant thing to hear when paired with the path the clones had taken to reach this point, but Accelerator detected a slight difference there.

Laws and morals.

The general public’s definitions of fortune and misfortune.

This had nothing to do with those established values. She was not obeying Accelerator’s words as a command; she had assessed them for herself and decided she agreed. It was a subtle issue and hard to put to words, but the two could not have been more different. Last Order could hear what Accelerator had to say and choose to either agree or disagree with it.

The white monster decided he could not allow anything to change that.

''The demon floating in front of him'' grinned without saying a word.

“This is for the best.” He spoke softly while placing the decisive piece in front of the king. “This incident showed me my will can reach every part of this city to act in my stead. I can see and move through the entire city while remaining behind bars.”

Yes.

Academy City was a den of the worst possible people. All sorts of people went unsaved even when things were successfully resolved and there were countless fools who would remain fools until the day they died.

But there were also people who would give him what he wanted.

They were not all part of a special category like him. Ordinary teachers would gear up in bulletproof armor and rush to the scene as Anti-Skill, EMTs would transport the injured to the hospital, and doctors would fulfill the duties of their job. And it was not limited to those professionals either. Ordinary students and office workers would work to suppress the chaos and wonder if there was anything they could do without relying on some kind of special talent.

Not all of them needed to punch out the villains.

People could demonstrate plenty of strength simply by clearing the path needed for the heroes who would protect people’s ordinary lives and spring to action whenever they saw a problem. There had to be dramatic events playing out everywhere and the people bringing together that great power were not even aware of what they were accomplishing. People who could do the ordinary things were strong in their own way.

He had sensed that here.

Maybe idealism was not enough and maybe reality was cruel, but he had sensed that this city was worth trusting.

“So this is for the best. It’s high time I gave up the title of ‘white monster’. That’s no more than a name that was forced onto me, so it’s time I removed that boring uniform they gave me. How can I call myself the true strongest if I can’t even do that?”

“…”

“You don’t have to stick with me. I’m choosing this path for myself, so you can choose a different path for yourself. As soon as this feels too heavy to bear, you can throw me out.”

“Misaka will come visit you. She can choose for herself and she chooses to come visit you every day! says Misaka as Misaka can’t stop trembling!!”

“You dumbass,” spat out Accelerator.

But the only person who could see the look on his face then was ''the supernatural demon''.

There was a special sort of mirror on the interrogation room wall, but he had zero intention of looking in it.

No one else could understand.

There were as many ways for people to form bonds as there were people. So what was wrong with everyone having their own unique way?

He could not stop the girl’s tears without letting her lean on him, but he could not bind her with his words either.

So that human had just one thing to say.

It was just harsh enough in a way only they would understand.

“I won’t be waiting.”

===Between the Lines X===

Hm.

Well, that should be enough for Set 1.

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Toaru Majutsu no Index:GT Volume1 Chapter3

2020-02-20T14:21:26Z

2600:1700:B6E0:2760:4490:5DCF:F45F:6C37:

==Chapter 3: A Dark Conspiracy and a Barrier Gone — Enemy_Use_XXX.==

===Part 1===

Kamijou’s vision spun wildly around.

If he slammed into the ground, he was dead. The special knife stabbed into his side would shred his organs and blood vessels if he did. He knew that, but he could not just sprout wings and fly. Once his feet left the ground, he could not recover.

However, that did not happen.

Because…

“Are you okay? asks Misaka to confirm your condition while catching you.”

A gentle sensation saved his life.

This was not just the soft skin of a girl. Not only had she caught him without touching the knife, she had used her body like a spring to eliminate the impact.

But he did not have it in him to thank her right now.

He ignored his aching body and pointed straight up while the young girl held him in her arms. This should have been a flat asphalt road, yet there was now a two or three story cliff there.

“Please! Help Last Order!!”

Misaka Imouto did not respond.

In fact, she gently lowered him to the ground and began checking over his wound.

“Hey?”

“By grazing your liver, it threaded the needle between several different blood vessels. This location may have been intentionally chosen to make it difficult to remove, says Misaka while grimacing at the cruelty.”

“What are you doing? Forget about me! You need to pursue her or we’ll lose them!!”

“Misaka cannot do that.” The girl shook her head with no emotion in her eyes. “Misaka will respect our higher unit’s free will and let her do as she wishes, but her opinion still reaches Misaka through the Misaka Network, explains Misaka.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She does not want to reward your kindness by abandoning you. And this Misaka agrees, says Misaka to establish her own opinion.”

He clenched his teeth so hard he thought they would break.

He reached for his own side and grabbed the handle of the knife.

More than a burning pain, he felt an iciness along his spine form the slight tremor passing into his body through the weapon. This told him all too well that a foreign object had torn into his body and the sharp metal remained there. That unrealistic sensation caused his vision to darken as if with static and his breathing picked up pace. His mind was off balance. Before long, he would collapse backwards and the force would cause him to gut himself.

“Oh.”

But instead, he tightly gripped the knife’s handle and gave a merciless tug.

“Ohhhhh!!!???”

He felt a slippery sensation, but was that blood? To be blunt, any other possibility would be even worse. Removing the blade plugging the wound caused him to start bleeding a lot more, but he had to ignore that now. He tossed aside the unnecessary blade.

Breathing deeply would only harm him here.

He held his breath for a bit and the illusionary static slowly faded from his vision. He had apparently started hyperventilating.

He was soaked with sweat despite the chilly air and he glared over at Misaka Imouto.

The world was wobbling around him.

If he lost any focus, he would pass out almost immediately.

But.

He had to say this.

“Kah, ah… I-is that good enough? Now you don’t have to look after this useless SOB.”

“That is not even remotely-”

“Shut up!! I wasn’t looking after all of you because I wanted anything in return! I’m just doing whatever the hell I want, so quit attaching price tags to it and trying to manage it all!! Who made you the good deeds police? You might as well be nitpicking every little thing people do!!”

All his shouting accomplished nothing.

He wobbled and nearly collapsed, so she gently supported him.

“Misaka shall sew up your wound. A bandage is not enough to stop this level of bleeding, says Misaka to state the objective facts.”

“…”

“Misaka would really like to administer painkillers or provide a transfusion first, but are you willing to go through with this as is? asks Misaka to receive your final confirmation.”

“Go for it. I just need to keep this goddamn body moving for another minute or even ten seconds. As long as it lets me save that kid.”

The goggles girl pulled something like a sewing kit from her skirt pocket. The actual tools may not have been all that different, but it was sealed up in plastic. This was a disposable first aid kit.

“We do not have time to prepare a sterile environment in a sealed-off operating room, so Misaka will provide field medicine sterilization. This will hurt like hell, warns Misaka.”

“Just do it.”

“Then enjoy this big-old splash of ethanol.”

He screamed and his vision filled with firework-like afterimages.

This was more than just pain, but she calmly restrained his arms and legs to make sure he did not further tear open the wound in his side.

“Misaka will sew up the wound once the convulsions have stopped. That means Misaka will be passing a needle through the already sensitive wound and sewing it shut with thread, explains Misaka. Doing this without anesthetic will be a living hell, so consider yourself warned.”

“A-and if you do use anesthetic?”

“You will likely wake up around this time tomorrow in a sterile hospital.”

He was having trouble breathing, but he still moved one trembling finger.

Raising that particular finger formed a gesture one should never direct toward a girl like this.

“Hell no.”

“You’re so cool, says Misaka while grasping the needle between tweezers.”

Again, he screamed.

Feeling an explosion of pain atop an already excruciating injury was a rare experience. His teeth chattered as he tried to clench them and bear with what felt like having all five senses shattered into a million pieces. He came close to accidentally biting his tongue.

“Do not worry, says Misaka to state her conclusion.”

“What do you mean?”

“Misaka is not about to unconditionally accept every part of Academy City, but she knows that the depth of its dark side is matched by the warmth of its soft side. So do not worry. We can catch up to them without you carrying all the weight yourself, states Misaka. This city contains that sort of opportunity as well.”

In other words…

“You are not the only hero. That is what I am trying to say, explains Misaka with a wink.”

===Part 2===

[[Image:GT_Index_v01_159.jpg|thumb]]
The Santa costume girl stood on a relatively gently-sloped part of the asphalt cliff that rose up at an angle.

“Now, then.”

As powerless as this hostage was, she did not want the girl struggling.

(My head is so hot in this hat and wig. But I have to keep them on for a while longer still.)

The girl of 15 or 16 tossed out a bandage roll that spread out all on its own before hitting the ground. This was a controlled rope that could bind, constrict, and kill on its own. It had originally been serpentine duct tape that could safely wrap around and seal off leaks in gas or steam pipes at accident sites that would be too dangerous for a person to approach. As she watched the rope automatically bind Last Order’s limbs and mouth, the girl pulled a handkerchief-like cloth from the chest of her Santa costume. She spread it out to reveal the kind of large white bag often seen at Christmas scenes.

It took her less than two minutes to pack up her poor “gift”.

The cosplay girl reached for the side of her miniskirt and pulled a smartphone from the top of her white kneesock.

“Maidono here. Things have taken a turn for the better, so I was hoping I could meet you directly and explain the result. Is now a good time for you?”

The words from her mouth and the violence surrounding her were like polar opposites.

The asphalt ground had risen up, the structure below the concrete was flooded, and the nearby buildings were shaking like willow branches in the wind. All of this had of course been noticed, so sirens were blaring as Anti-Skill vehicles rushed in from all directions.

(That sounds like a V10 with hydrogen explosions, but those Fugaku sports sedans don’t generally have E-chargers installed. These are custom models for those civil servants, not for civilian use. These must be those unmanned pursuer vehicles that were introduced lately. Weren’t they called Hammerhead Sharks?)

They looked like slim sports cars built low to reduce air resistance as much as possible, but they actually had the engine in the rear and the hood was stuffed full of composite armor. Those weapons on wheels were meant to stop rampaging drivers and otherwise dangerous drivers by safely and swiftly catching up to them with no one onboard and then crashing into the target vehicle to stop it. After the press conference announcing them, they had been mocked as an “eye for an eye” policy.

With several of them linked via high-speed wireless internet, those weapons could force even a 20-ton truck off the road.

They were not meant to be used against an unprotected person.

But the girl going by the name Maidono tossed the bag over her back and used her other hand to stick her phone between her cheek and shoulder. With that hand now free, she simply pulled the index finger in towards herself as if telling them to come at her.

That was all she did.

A moment later, the asphalt ground rose up along with the dark soil and concrete structure below. Unable to respond to the makeshift ramp in time, the Hammerhead Sharks flew by over her head, crashed into the third-floor windows of a nearby building, and stopped moving.

These were unmanned machines, so had they only been meant to get an idea of how powerful she was?

A manned unit would be coming next.

“Yes, yes. You probably just heard an explosion, but it’s nothing to worry about. Just cleaning some things up afterwards. I have safely secured the gift. To be honest, if we just want to get Accelerator to self-destruct, wouldn’t it be easier to just wring her neck and kill her? Eh? We can’t? I had a feeling you’d say that. I will send the gift to the designated point.”

They must have originally planned to attack from the safety of the sky after using the unmanned Hammerhead Sharks to secure the ground. She looked up at the noisy helicopter rotors and saw a total of four fully-equipped powered suits attached to a round observation helicopter, two on each side.

With the faces fully covered, she could not judge their age or gender, but she could easily imagine the looks on their faces. The emotions of fear and confusion were oozing from the gaps in their armor.

She did not care if they could see her.

She had altered her color sample with the wig and colored contact lenses.

Her makeup was thick for being seen with the naked eye, but she had applied a noticeable pattern to be seen through cameras and sensors, much like a kabuki actor. She only had to ensure they could not use facial recognition or photo sharing to locate her official data. The surveillance society of the digital age had eliminated crime? No, it had only created a new dilemma where crimes that left no electronic record could not be proven to legal standards. If a convenience store was robbed in broad daylight, what would happen if the security cameras were not running? People would simply suspect the poor clerk was behind the whole thing.

“Yes, I’m dealing with it now.”

With a wave of her finger, Maidono tore a wagon-shaped window washing robot from the side of a building and threw it. The observation helicopter had to be fairly maneuverable, but it was flying between buildings and its exposed companions were clinging to either side. It could not make any sharp movements that might shake them off. But that hesitation prevented it from dodging the mass of steel, allowing a direct hit that sent them all tumbling to the surface as a giant fireball.

“When will I be done? I already am.”

(These are post-Denmark models, so that much of a crash and explosion shouldn’t be enough to kill them. I can’t say the same for the helicopter pilot, though.)

“We can handle Anti-Skill and Judgment in the usual way. If you send enough violence their way, the confusion causes their chain of command to break down. The internet will go a little nuts over it, but there are plenty of crooked ‘experts’ out there. Those filthy adults will lie and claim none of what happened was possible, all so they can cover up their mistakes in the initial investigation. If we get them to make enough of a fuss, it will create the perfect camouflage to hide our own involvement. No one will see through to the truth.”

She was a natural at cleaning up messes.

Peace of mind was no more than a prey lured out using destruction as bait.

“Yes. Given what we’re dealing with here, the amount of attention needed is going to be pretty high, but that is not a problem. It is still within acceptable bounds.”

She earned points by thoroughly eliminating the people and things that got in her master’s way. She reached for unease to search out, snatch up, and offer peace of mind to that master. She would use concerts, festivals, parades, and other events with abnormal security routines and where a lot of outsiders would be present and then she would ''choose a conspicuous costume that actually helped her blend into the background.''

“I am aware of that,” she said cheerfully.

She was the kind of person who would walk right past a dying old person while preoccupied with her phone.

“I agree that we cannot have the dark side eliminated on some idiot’s whim. Not everyone in the world hopes for a world without crime. Academy City has only kept such a massive lead over the rest of the world by constructing and preserving an isolated space where the rules need not apply. You have seen that in the world of money and me in the world of fists. Neither of us can survive without the dark side, can we? …Oh, please. I at least know it’s true for me since you ''remade me'' to be that way.”

She could be as noticeable as she liked.

In fact, it only worked as camouflage if it was noticeable.

It had to feel like stepping beyond the bounds of reality and wandering into a nightmare. By creating such a grotesque and psychedelic world, she could ensure that boring reality could not keep up.

The festival of doom was already beginning.

Today was a day to kick back and enjoy the festivities.

(By destroying those specific pipes, the water department will close a few floodgates to prevent the filthy water from leaking out. I have control of the waterflow, so after confirming the bag is watertight, I can toss it in the river and let the collection team fish the trash out downstream. But the scenario says I need to hold their attention on the surface so they don’t notice that.)

Had she used the word trash because she was reminded of herself?

The ground was far from clean. It was littered with glass shards and metal fragments, as well as the bags and phones dropped by fleeing students. Cracks ran through the asphalt and it rose up in some places. But when she saw some chopsticks fallen at her feet, she quietly clicked her tongue.

“One question.”

Her long blonde hair swayed as she looked overhead with the phone still held between cheek and shoulder.

But she was not viewing another helicopter.

“I can ignore the invisible power balance this time, right? If someone tries to obstruct my work, I can eliminate them by force without calculating out the necessary expenses?”

She looked up at one of the skyscrapers swaying in the wind like a bamboo thicket exposed to a crosswind.

Instead of the roof, she looked to the girl clinging to the wall and staring quietly down at her.

“''For example, I can go ahead and kill anyone who opposes me, even if they’re one of the Level 5s?''”

===Part 3===

Academy City’s #3 was the strongest girl when it came to pure electricity generation.

In other words, this was Misaka Mikoto.

“You stabbed him.”

She used magnetic power to cling to the wall at the 44th floor of a building that included office space on the lower levels and apartments on the upper levels, but magnetism was not the only thing she could do. Traveling along the ground would have taken too much time given the extreme confusion and damage there, so she had chosen this other path. A Level 5 could reach for this level of freedom for ''no other reason than that''.

“And on Christmas Eve when we were enjoying ourselves!! You’re a natural when it comes to ruining the mood, aren’t you!?”

The situation here was exactly what Kamijou Touma had predicted earlier.

Splitting up into two teams gave them an advantage. While the villain pursued the boy, Mikoto’s team had managed to track them down and move in from behind.

Misaka Imouto had been sent to support the boy on the surface, but she did not need to deliver a finishing blow to the villain. Once she got the boy out of the way, Mikoto could handle the rest.

She moved from that 44th floor to another building’s 38th floor and from that 38th floor to yet another building’s 52nd floor.

She was even holding a certain girl while moving freely between buildings in midair.

The small calico cat in that silver-haired girl’s arms was struggling, perhaps because of the EM waves.

Unlike the well-trained Sisters, it would have been too risky to let her move along the ground while it littered with glass and rubble.

“Short hair!! That monster Santa turned the corner, but that’s not the biggest problem. Do you see that plaza across the bridge? What is with this country!? It looks like it’s full of red Santas! She’ll blend in with them at this rate!!”

(No, if she only wanted to hide from our elevated vantage point, she would only have to move indoors or underground. Is she intentionally staying visible to distract us from something else?)

Mikoto realized something and ran full speed along the vertical wall while holding Index in both hands. A deadly attack burst through the thick reinforced glass just below them. The brand-new sports cars lined up in the well-polished display area were crashing out through the window one after another.

There was no rumble from their engines.

The squealing of thick rubber would be from forcibly pulling the cars out with some kind of power while their tires were not turning.

The #3 was not about to be hit by an attack like that, but it did destroy the glass she was using as footing, making it hard to continue clinging to the wall here. She used magnetism to jump to the opposite building’s wall while clicking her tongue.

“Tch!!”

She was a powerful esper who could use the Lorentz force to launch an arcade coin at more than thrice the speed of sound.

Her magnetism was powerful enough to stop a car plowing toward her.

And yet even she was forced to stay on the run. Her power had the upper hand when things like its breadth of application were included, but when came to the simple power to move objects, she could not compete in this game of tug of war. Their enemy had the greater power output. So if she was still not considered a Level 5…

(Is she the kind of genius that can only use her power for spying or stalking or something? Where has such a powerful esper been lurking in the shadows all this time!?)

That girl was a threat, but Mikoto could not lose sight of what really mattered.

That blonde Santa did not have to defeat her in a fight. In fact, wearing herself down in this fight had to have been an unexpected expense for the girl. Combat was a risky choice that unavoidably scattered material evidence all over the place and increased the number of witness accounts. Not fighting had to be the best option if available.

Win or lose, this fight would only work against her.

So for this girl in the world’s most conspicuous camouflage, what was the ideal result and what was her win condition?

Mikoto only knew one thing for now.

(She’s definitely after Last Order.)

Mikoto hated how coldly she could work through the calculations at times like this.

The #3 always stood on the borderline.

She was one of the few people who could get involved in both the sunny and dark sides of Academy City. Of course, just like all the people who had peered into the dark side, she had not ended up in that position out of choice.

(She has such a powerful ability, but she made sure not to harm that girl. That means killing her isn’t her goal. She won’t want us rescuing Last Order or a stray shot accidentally killing her. That means she will be taking Last Order somewhere safe no matter what it takes. That’s her goal! So where is Last Order!?)

All of those conspicuous actions were camouflage. When a stage magician made some large sweeping motion, they were actually drawing the audience’s eye while they performed some trick under the table.

This was where a girl with a perfect memory came in handy.

“The bag is gone.”

“?”

“The monster Santa was carrying a white bag before, but it’s gone!”

(Did she throw it in that river!? But that water has to be freezing!)

Mikoto started to look downstream of the concrete-banked river that intersected at a right angle with the bridge the Santa-costumed assailant had used, but she stopped her head.

The Santa girl put away the phone she had been using to speak with someone, freeing up her hands as she turned toward Mikoto. Her long blonde hair spread out behind her like something from a shampoo commercial. She placed her miniskirted butt on a drum-shaped cleaning robot located nearby and crossed her legs while aiming her hands toward the sky.

She made finger guns.

Both index fingers were aimed high up at the building where Mikoto was and she winked.

That alone might have looked like a playful gesture, but…

“Here it comes,” said Mikoto.

Stage magicians did not train just for when things went well.

If so, their shows would be little different from clockwork doll performances.

The pros would have several recovery scenarios prepared in case their attempt to draw the audience’s eye failed and their trick was about to be revealed. If it looked like an audience member had seen through the trick, they would call out to that person, draw them into the scenario, and remake the near failure into fuel for a new surprise.

In other words, the enemy would now be contacting them in earnest.

“Here it comes!!!!!!”

===Part 4===

“Not bad. It’s been a while since someone dodged three of my attacks in a row,” whispered the girl seated on a random cleaning robot.

She was enjoying the situation.

She wanted the dark side to continue because she could not live without this sort of excitement.

She tore objects from the buildings and threw them at her opponent: first a crane atop a building under construction, then a giant broadcasting parabolic antenna, and lastly a clear glass pool jutting out partway up a building. But none of them hit. She would have won right away if her opponent had acted out of pride and attempted a direct competition of strength, but once that opponent grew concerned she might be no match for this girl in pure power output, she had focused solely on dodging. That was the only reason she was still alive.

Maidono noticed the #3 briefly turn her head in a different direction while soaring through the air. They were currently engaged in a deadly battle, so that girl’s life was at risk. No one could look aside when they suddenly found a dump truck charging toward them.

So she must have spotted something important.

Something she thought she should prioritize over the death fast approaching her.

(So did she notice?)

If so, rushing into the crowded plaza and vanishing into the sea of Santas would not be enough. She had to kill that girl to fully cut off that line of investigation.

But more importantly…

“How should I spend my Christmas Eve?”

(I really want to get this all done with by 7 tonight. My school life might be built on lies, but I have made some promises. I do want to cut up those donuts with cheap plastic forks so we can all share them together.)

Light flashed up in the sky.

She could not avoid lightning by starting to run after seeing the light. Or she shouldn’t have been able to. But she was even humming as she slammed the heel of her boot against the side of the cleaning robot she was riding, causing a malfunction in the robot’s obstacle avoidance routine and making it move to the side. It only moved the length of a single human step to the side, but that was enough to cause an unnatural change in the lightning dropping vertically toward her. It instead split apart a Christmas tree located nearby. To intentionally use the tree as a lightning rod, she only had to picture a right triangle formed by the ground, the top of the tree, and her own position and adjust the angles to work out a safe distance for herself.

She even seemed to hear a tongue click from far overhead.

And now it was her turn.

“Found you.”

For fire safety purposes, some large wooden boxes were being carried to the rooftop using a window washing gondola instead of the indoor stairs or elevator. She “grabbed” at them and launched them to the side. Those containers were the size of a slender girl, so the #3 had to launch high-voltage spears from her bangs to blast them into pieces.

But did the #3 realize those boxes contained someone’s work tools?

A Japanese Christmas was far removed from the solemn atmosphere of a holy night.

Those electric attacks had triggered the professional fireworks meant for a countdown event during the night.

“Whew!!”

The Santa girl whistled while watching the tremendous explosion.

With a deafening boom, the midday sky was obscured by a whitish smokescreen. That might not be enough to kill the other girl, but fireworks used the principle behind a flame test, where specific materials would create flames of certain colors when ignited. And the materials used for fireworks were generally powdered copper, lithium, tin, or other metals.

Meaning…

(After the initial blast and flash of light, she has to contend with the smokescreen. That will blind her in the ordinary sense and it will also function as ''metal chaff'' that will mess with any microwave radar she might be using! And at that height, a single second’s delay can be deadly!!)

The explosive blast also destroyed a rooftop sign, but the girl only raised her index finger overhead. The metal sign had to weigh more than 20kg, but that was enough for it to come to a complete stop in midair. When she lightly swung her finger to the side, the sign sharply stabbed into a nearby concrete wall. She did it all as casually as operating a smartphone’s touchscreen.

Her Telekinesis was powerful enough to directly grab the underground structure spreading across the entire city and shake it hard enough to create a new fault line, so this actually qualified as delicate work for her. Stopping it was not the impressive part, holding it in place without crushing it was.

Telekinesis, aka psychokinesis.

That was such a popular ability that it was counted as one of the two major categories of esper power: PK and ESP. If someone was making a site or pamphlet meant for outside audiences, their primary examples would likely be using PK to bend spoons and ESP to read a face-down card. In fact, some academics even used telekinesis as a catch-all term for all powers that had physical effects, including teleportation and thoughtography. In the simplest form, it was the power to move objects with your mind.

Of those that could ''produce force out of nothing'', hers was probably the strongest.

The only reason she had not been given the title of Level 5 was because the adults saw no alternate uses or economic value in her power.

That power was too specialized for killing and destruction.

To the point that announcing her existence to the world could lead to as many international risks as announcing their possession of NBC weapons.

“Now, then.”

The blonde Santa looked over.

A portion of the polished glass was broken, so the target girl (who carried a silver-haired nun) had given up on clinging to the delicate wall and had apparently jumped inside a random room instead. It was not a bad adlib, but it was sorely underestimating the Santa girl’s power.

''Who ever said she could not destroy an entire 50-story building?

“The estimated number of deaths would be just under 2000. I do so love being freed from my usual restrictions about such things☆”

Maidono grinned and aimed her right index finger toward the entire building. And she pulled that finger straight down.

The skyscraper shrank to about half its height.

The destruction was much like crushing an empty can under the heel of your shoe.

But that was not her true attack. She was only setting the stage by bending all the doors and windows to seal her target within a giant cage. The humans within would not be dead. Not yet, anyway. Skyscrapers had a lot more gaps than the people walking through them thought. There were ducts, base isolation structures, cable pathways, and plumbing. Halving the height was not enough to crush the people within. Of course, they would be unable to stand and forced to crawl and the metal doors would be crushed and stuck in place, so it would certainly feel cramped.

(No sign of the target forcing open an exit and emerging. Well, she can’t rely on the original plans anymore. I’m sure she could blast through a concrete wall, but I bet she’s afraid of frying the people buried alive in there. Of course, that hesitation is only going to get everyone in the building crushed soon enough. Life is full of ironies, isn’t it?)

She only had to point her left index finger toward the building as well.

Maidono Hoshimi’s Telekinesis could crush that 50-story skyscraper to the size of a softball. The intense heat caused by the compression would make it glow like lava, but it would not even be allowed to drip down as a liquid. Just like the core of the earth was supposedly made of molten iron and nickel, yet it still managed to remain a solid.

But a moment later, she swung her left hand to the side in the exact same pose. The finger gun looked silly, but that was an absolute weapon coming from Maidono. Something had happened that forced her to aim that second trigger elsewhere. The Santa girl whispered a question while aiming at two targets at once like she was wielding dual handguns.

Her butt rose up from the cleaning robot and her boots touched the ground.

Playtime was over.

This irregularity was beyond what the stage magician’s recovery scenarios could handle.

“What brings you here?”

The threat took the form of a boy.

Bloody Kamijou Touma went ahead and answered her.

He used a word that did not at all suit Christmas Eve, when everyone was meant to be smiling together.

“Revenge.”

===Part 5===

How was he supposed to remain calm?

Kamijou Touma’s heart was racing wildly and his throat felt so dry he could have sworn there was an invisible film coating it. He felt like his voice would crack if he was not careful.

Plus, nothing he could do would erase the fact that he had been stabbed.

His opponent was the kind of person who would do that sort of thing without batting an eye.

The wound in his side had only been roughly disinfected and sewn up. His lost blood had not been replaced and the throbbing pain continued to plague his mind. In fact, if the blood loss had not left him feeling so woozy, he might have been writhing around from the pain.

Nevertheless, he had made it here.

He was here to reward the good will of the girls who had taken over while he was out of the fight.

And.

He was here to reclaim Last Order from this absurd cruelty.

It could all be a bluff, but he had to gather every ounce of willpower and courage he had.

Revealing his weakness would do nothing to improve things here. And if things got any worse, something he could not afford to lose would be shattered. Things had fallen to a point that even an amateur could tell that. It was painfully obvious.

So.

He had to make sure that did not happen.

“Are you sure you don’t have your priorities backwards here?”

The Santa girl smiled quietly while aiming her index fingers at two different locations.

The boy’s breathing really did catch in his throat.

She had not hesitated to target him with a weapon far more frightening than a knife.

“You have to choose between defeating your enemy and saving your friends, so are you sure you want to waste time playing with me here?”

“If that were true, you wouldn’t be so chatty,” he said while taking a page out of the girl’s book.

He formed a finger gun with his right hand and pointed it at the drum-shaped cleaning robot that Santa Claus had been sitting on before. With its freedom returned, that machine was slowly moving off again.

Don’t tremble.

Don’t look away.

Simply making the effort to keep his words flowing smoothly could turn the tide. He could grab at what was slipping from his grasp and lift it back up. From his opponent’s perspective, this had to be an eerie sight. It looked like the enemy soldier she had utterly defeated and even stabbed in the gut had returned like nothing had ever happened to him.

He had to make himself look like something illogical.

If his presence here made no sense, then he could throw her off balance.

This was Academy City, where people either refused to accept the unscientific or could only accept it by restating it with scientific terminology.

But at the same time, Kamijou Touma did believe in luck.

Although it primarily hit him in the form of cruel misfortune.

“That bag you threw in the river was a bluff. When you’ve got something to hide, you aren’t going to transport it in a way someone could track down so easily. That was why you needed to create ''at least two different escape routes.'' Your recovery scenario was to gather attention on the river while you let the robot containing Last Order escape to safety. Right?”

His voice did not crack.

He could still do this.

Willpower was not enough to overcome blood loss, so he honestly felt a cold sweat on his brow and was overcome by intense dizziness with every breath he took.

He heard the crackling of sparks.

The cleaning robot had changed direction.

No, it had been hijacked. A girl with short chestnut hair stood not far away. She looked just like Misaka Mikoto but was not. Even the mass-produced military clones known as the Sisters could hijack control of a cleaning robot.

“Maidono.”

The Santa girl slowly moved her finger.

She moved her right index finger from the distant building and pointed it at him. That put both finger guns on him. She apparently saw him as enough of a threat to require everything she had.

“My name is Maidono Hoshimi. Nice to meet you.”

“Another bluff.”

Don’t let her draw you in.

He pictured their exchange of words like waves crashing together. He had to draw her in. So even if it was not like him, he had to grin and respond with the look of an absolute know-it-all.

Kamijou Touma kept his mind from falling into darkness and recited the magic words.

“A criminal would never use her real name at the scene of the crime. But adding on more camouflage here must mean you’re even more scared than I thought.”

The deadly battle began with what sounded like the city itself being destroyed.

He could guess her power was Telekinesis.

She had demonstrated enough power to slice apart buildings, lift up the road and the ground below it, and freely tear apart water and gas pipes.

Right and left.

Having two points from which to wield her power gave that power a much wider breadth of applications.

What had happened just now?

A station wagon parked on the curb was lifted up overhead and then it was torn down the center like someone slicing through soft bread. The diesel fuel within its gas tank splashed everywhere. Sparks from the battery ignited that and fire poured down. Kamijou managed to roll out of the way, but then the remaining scraps rushed in from the left and right like a giant’s boxing gloves.

Imagine Breaker in his right hand could suppress the supernatural power, but then the uncontrolled wreckage would crush him.

So he kept his momentum going and slipped below the guardrail dividing road from sidewalk. He twisted his body to keep rolling so he could use one of the thick supports as a shield instead of the long horizontal metal panel.

The shock-absorbing metal structure stopped the front half of the station wagon, but he did not have time for a sigh of relief.

With a dull sound, his vision blurred and he found himself tossed more than five meters into the air. The ground below him had explosively risen up to function like a ramp.

Five meters might not seem like much, but as seen in the Ippon Seoi Nage of judo, even a single meter could knock someone out if they were not ready to hit the ground. Worse, this was an asphalt ground covered in glass shards and heavy metal scraps.

“Kh!!”

He immediately reached out and grabbed at the trunk of one of the Christmas-decorated roadside trees. The thick light cable tore and swung around like a whip and, once he blocked that, the tree snapped off at its trunk. But it did not simply fall over like normal. It unnaturally rotated vertically like it was flipping 180 degrees upside down.

If that continued, he would have been squashed like a bug hit by a hammer, but that did not happen.

By letting go of the tree trunk instead of trying to hold on, he was not caught in the vertical rotation and was flung away instead. Specifically, he crashed back-first into the center of a giant polyurethane Christmas present decoration in front of a candy shop.

With her right finger gun still at the ready, the Santa girl going by Maidono twirled that slender index finger in a small circle.

She could indicate the same target with both fingers.

By pulling the fingers apart, she could tear the target apart. By pushing them together, she could compress it. But by shifting the points of force a bit out of alignment, she could provide rotation. Her power would be dangerous enough if she could only set a target with her fingertip and indicate movements with a flicking motion, but by using both hands, she could also ''alter the vector''.

Her long blonde hair swayed as she quietly assessed his performance.

“You never stay still, do you?”

“You sure do. Are you a stationary cannon?”

He could do this.

The veil was still functioning. For better or for worse, the Santa-costumed assailant had shown too much of her power. That had to be a sign of her fear. She was afraid of ''an esper with an unknown power''.

So she wanted to believe showing off her power would cause her enemy to reveal their own, or that her pure brute strength could end it without needing to solve that mystery.

That ridiculous violence was of course frightening.

But once he saw her fear there, even that violence felt like a mask.

The more powerful the attack she used, the more her fear showed through.

(I can still win this. I’m the one making enough waves to draw her in.)

The girl pointed her index fingers high in the sky. It almost looked like she was posing for a photo, but that was actually the sign of a coming aerial bombing. She “grabbed” something in the sky and swung both hands down to slam it toward him.

He could not think of that as empty space above him.

There was air there.

(She isn’t limited to solids?)

Kamijou felt the gears of his mind jam. This was bad. The unknown always swallowed people up and blanked their mind.

She had shaken him.

His body was already in bad shape, so if the same happened to his mind, he had no chance of winning.

He had to figure this out and fast.

He could not stop here. He had to grease the wheels of his thoughts.

Otherwise, he would be swallowed up and crushed.

(This is not a freaking joke!!)

“Tch!!”

He quickly removed his belt and wrapped it around a nearby roadside tree as a lifeline. The mass of air crashing down from above might be enough to give him a light concussion, but after the wind slammed into the ground, it would scatter in all 360 degrees in search of a way out. If he only prepared for the impact from above, his feet would be scooped out from under him and he would be sent tumbling for dozens of meters.

Plus, the road was littered with small pieces of asphalt and glass shards.

What if the wind gathered those up and chucked them toward him?

The road was enveloped in an explosion even more gruesome than a directional mine that scattered countless metal balls in a fan shape to instantly negate a charge made by 50 enemy troops. This was like cleaning out the bath’s water pipes.

He could only cling to the back of the thick tree and bear with it.

The hard bark was stripped away as if by a giant file and the Christmas light cables and small branches were torn away into the wind. If he took just one step from behind that trunk, his flesh and blood body would not last even a single second.

But that was not what really mattered.

He raised his voice while sounding on the verge of coughing up blood.

“Misaka Imouto!! You’re okay, right!? Then don’t lose sight of that cleaning robot and chase after it!!”

Yes.

The girl using the pseudonym of Maidono was not really trying to kill Kamijou here. She was only trying to get away with that container carrying Last Order. And she had to cut off all pursuit. This flashy attack was no more than a stage magician preparing to do something below the table.

That was the entire purpose of this indiscriminate explosion of wind.

He did not know if she assumed the cleaning robot could move through the storm of glass and metal since it did not feel pain or if she had intended to launch the robot away with the wind, but he had to do more than simply endure this immediate threat. Defeating this girl was meaningless if the robot got away.

And he had figured something out from this.

(This whole time, she has never “grabbed” and thrown around an actual person with her Telekinesis.)

If she only needed to remove Last Order from the scene, that would have been fastest method. Either by throwing the hostage or by using her power on herself to fly. Even when she had launched Kamijou into the air, she had done so indirectly, by lifting up the ground below him when it would have been easier to directly grab and throw him.

Yet she had not done that.

No.

Once the storm died down, he let go of the belt wrapped around the tree and rushed out from behind the tree trunk.

He began a charge along the shortest route toward the blonde Santa.

She of course aimed both index fingers at him, but…

“''You can’t do it'',” he immediately announced.

This mostly seemed like an attempt to convince himself of that fact to put himself at ease.

He had to understand this or he would be swallowed up. He had to tell himself he was the one making the waves and attacking her. He was not the only one who would want the upper hand psychologically and who would be willing to lie to hold onto that. But once he considered why he wanted to make that kind of bluff, he could actually see through to her fear.

He forced himself to bare his fangs while going for a psychological cross counter.

Yes.

“At the very least, you can’t ‘grab’ living humans!! Maybe it’s about the material, like protein or something, and maybe the other person’s mind jams your power, but it’s something!!”

If that was true, she would be unable to directly stop his charge.

Her power may have been similar to a poltergeist that caused furniture to move around on its own in an old mansion. It was said those cases were often the work of an undiscovered naturally-occurring esper known as a Gemstone, especially a small child whose power spontaneously erupted during a period of high stress. This girl may have been able to consciously wield that same power.

She could grab things and move them around.

She had to stop him with an indirect attack and that would create a moment’s delay.

So he only had to arrive before that happened.

In close quarters, a knife was stronger than a gun. Similarly, he did not have to fear her power once he was right in front of her!!

“So?”

That was when she separated her index fingers.

She moved them far to the right and left.

She had been just a bit faster. She had “grabbed” something and then she directed those two fingers toward him again.

Much like jaws snapping shut.

“Why should that matter?”

A dull tremor followed.

The two giant buildings on either side of them were torn from their foundations and mercilessly crashed together with Kamijou Touma in between, erasing him from the scene altogether.

===Part 6===

“Phew.”

(I miiiight have overdone that. I can smell gas leaking out.)

Maidono Hoshimi sighed.

She had no limitations this time, meaning she could kill as many people as necessary to achieve her objective. But that attack had clearly been excessive and meaningless. From a stage magic perspective, it was like the magician shouting at an audience member in anger when they were about to discover the trick.

She had slid two skyscrapers two building-widths to the side from the left and right. Those buildings were too heavy for cranes to move and too unstable for workers to enter them, so they would have to be demolished to clear this major road. And since she had torn them from their foundations, she had also torn through the electric, gas, and water lines. The gas line was especially problematic. Since she could sense the artificially added odor, she was at risk of being blown up if the conditions were right.

Nothing would be more foolish than performing a “cutting yourself in half” magic trick and accidentally doing it for real.

It was crucial to always ensure your own safety first.

In that sense, the Santa girl was a second-rate illusionist for failing to immediately confirm her own safety.

“…”

After a short silence, she looked away.

Her blonde wig spread out as she turned 180 degrees away from the seam between the two buildings that were smashed together so tightly not even a sheet of paper could fit between them.

(Those two should manage to crawl out of that half-crushed building before long. It would probably be safer to wait for them to come out and make sure I kill them than crush the building and assume I got them. If I’m not absolutely certain they’re dead, it might worry my client.)

But more than that, she could not keep her thoughts off of something else.

There was no direct cause and effect there. It annoyed her to still feel fear of someone she had supposedly defeated, but she had to listen to what her own subconscious was telling her.

(That boy gave that ordinary clone some instructions. I need to deal with her, retrieve the cleaning robot, and finish transporting Last Order. Is that all? That should end it. This is looking more and more like a lonely Christmas for me.)

“I need to go eat one of those cream-covered donuts somewhere. Using a knife and fork to break apart the reddish-purple chocolate and the tower of matcha cream will rid me of this bad mood.”

While somewhat grumpily going over her plans, she noticed something else.

Her phone had been going off for a bit now.

She grabbed the vibrating mobile device and it was exactly who she expected.

“That was unnecessary,” said the person on the phone.

“You think I don’t know that?” she responded.

“Then why did you do it?”

“Shut up. It was you adults who made me like this.”

She was burning with a quiet anger.

But quiet did not make it any less dangerous.

“''I can’t use chopsticks.''”

That was an odd thing for a high school girl to say.

And it was accompanied by a tone of deep, deep resentment.

“Does that not sound like much to you? It probably doesn’t to those of you who took it from me, but when you can’t do something that everyone else can, it binds your heart far more than any of your calculations could have told you! I can only manipulate things with my index fingers. Because you made me that way. You sprung it on me without warning, calling it nothing more than an ‘optimization’ for my power!!”

She had been the class rep who could do anything.

She had not been all that much smarter than anyone else and she was certainly not the most athletic person. But when it came to trivia or manners, she was always the easiest one to come to. She had found a place for herself there.

So she could never allow herself to stumble in those ordinary things. And yet…

“It’s like I’m a small child. Whenever we’re chatting at school or eating out after school, I’m always reaching for the fork or spoon while curling up in fear that they’ll realize the truth!!”

She noticed the person on the phone had gone quiet.

But that was not someone who could be overpowered into silence. This silence almost certainly came from exasperation. They were not foolish enough to get rid of useful personnel for purely emotional reasons, but this had still been a mistake on her part.

She intentionally regulated her breathing before continuing.

“I will do as instructed because I too need the dark side. But please stop expecting anything more than that from me. Conforming to society? Adapting to the situation? I can’t. You should know that as one of the ones who ''removed'' that ability from me so you could manipulate me more easily. So I will do this the simplest way I can. Just as you so selfishly hoped I would.”

She could tell some lengthy orders were still coming, but a puzzled look appeared on her face as she held her phone.

Then she quietly clicked her tongue.

“Excuse me,” said the blonde Santa.

She loathed that person, but she also could not leave her work undone. Grades and family background were useless in the dark side. It was all about results. She could not let those slip if she wanted to survive.

“I still have more to tell you, but I must return to my job.”

She had enough of a reason to hang up now.

Namely…

“I’ll tell you why that should matter.”

“…”

She heard a voice.

An unbelievably simple male voice came from behind her.

But how? How in the world???

During their previous fighting, she had known the boy was covered in sweat and bluffing every step of the way. It had partially been to apply psychological pressure to her, but it must have also been to keep himself going after getting stabbed and beaten up so much. That method could certainly be effective, especially in Academy City where battles were often based on esper powers. And as a standard method, it had been easy for Maidono, a master of underhanded tricks, to see through it.

But what was this?

Was there some further trick she had not seen?

Or had the situation really and truly moved beyond her tactics?

Someone other than herself spoke so smoothly and loquaciously it was hard to think it was entirely calculated or entirely uncalculated.

Which one was it!?

“If your Telekinesis can only move inanimate objects, then it all makes sense. I was wondering why you weren’t counted as a Level 5 with that much power, but I think I get it now. I certainly wouldn’t want your power. Misaka’s highly adaptable powers and the psychological powers of the #5 ''who I’ve heard rumors of'' sound like a lot more interesting options if I could trade powers with someone for a day. There’s just no way I could see your power being on that same highest rank.”

“………………………………………………………………………………………………………………”

The gears in Maidono Hoshimi’s mind ground to a halt.

Her planned timetable truly did fall apart here.

“You can’t save anyone and you can’t make anyone smile. All you can do is destroy.”

He sounded almost regretful, like he had seen someone else horribly wounded.

“How did you end up like that? …I did hear you say something about being unable to use chopsticks.”

With the stiff movements of a rusty doll, she turned 180 degrees again. She was supposed to have the initiative here, yet someone else had forced her to turn around.

And there he was.

That completely ordinary boy stood there like normal.

With blood soaking his side.

He was sweating a disturbing amount for the December weather and his face was haggard and pale.

Yet he refused to collapse.

Plus, not even his bones should still be intact. That attack had not been something you could overcome through the psychological boost of some bluffing.

“How did you do that?”

“How do you think?”

“I used two skyscrapers standing more than 50 floors tall! Was my maximum weight limit of 100 thousand tons not enough, or are you saying you can hold back nuclear aircraft carriers with your arms!?”

“I wasn’t caught in the clockwork traps of some ancient ruins. The buildings had windows and doors on their ground floors. Tackle through one of those and there was a whole hollow floor for me there. If you were going to do that, you should have kept going until both buildings were squished flat, like metalworking with gold leaf.”

And besides that.

Or because of that.

He had heard her mention the chopsticks.

She only had herself to blame for not checking on the corpse, but still.

She had lied to her friends and deceived everyone in her everyday life to keep that secret, yet it had slipped out so easily here.

Psychological pressure?

A psychological boost?

This was beyond anything words like that could influence.

“I’ll kill you.”

“You can try.”

“I’ll kill you!!!!!!”

Most likely, these emotions were not really directed at the pointy-haired high school boy in front of her. He was just getting caught in the crossfire. But she could not hold it in any longer. She had soaked in the dark side to the point of no return. She knew that so well that it almost made her laugh, but this was something she could not stand.

She felt like it had all been a waste of time.

Even that twinge of pain she always felt in her heart.

Even that patchwork school life she had held together by deceiving those ignorant people.

She could feel an unidentifiable noise rising from the depths of her mind. She could feel it, but she could not stop it. This was the annoying part of the human psyche. Things had derailed further than even she had ever imagined.

“Yes!! Yes, it’s true!! I can’t do something everyone else takes for granted. I can’t manipulate those two little sticks in one hand and I can’t pick up food with them! I can’t use chopsticks!! All I can do is hold them in my fist and stab the food like a small child!! But you wouldn’t understand what it’s like to have the adults steal from you what no else ever has to even think about!!”

“Stole from you?”

“Modern technology can erase specific information from the brain without harming the brain cells themselves. There is, technically speaking, a chance of recovery, but I imagine the only person who could truly do that would be Academy City’s #5.”

It felt like her head was swelling.

Her temperature kept rising from within, which threw off the rhythm of her breathing.

Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes as she yelled at him.

“But if you send a massive amount of information to a specific part of the brain to rewrite it and then repeat the process over and over, you can leave it truly beyond recovery. It’s known as the signal slide method. My mind was optimized for using this power. By removing what wasn’t necessary!!”

So she could not use them.

All so she could fully focus her nerves on her two index fingers.

She could no longer perform a task she had managed with ease before – and that even kindergartners could do.

“Makes you want to laugh, doesn’t it?”

Her lips had grown loose.

But not because she was smiling.

There were children out there who could not write or do their times table. And after hitting a roadblock at a point everyone else passed without issue, they could make no further progress and fell off the rails of their school life.

She had been the same.

And terrified of what people would say if they found out, she had kept it a secret.

“All I want is to enjoy eating with my friends without having to worry about all this. All I want is to eat at a restaurant without hunching over and fearing everyone is watching me. That’s all I want, but the next thing I knew, my feet were caught in the quicksand I couldn’t escape!!”

Something could be heard slicing through the air.

She had pointed her finger at one of the glass shards at her feet and launched it at her target with a flick of her finger.

Her maximum weight limit was more than 100,000 tons.

After using two entire skyscrapers, she now used a clear needle of only a few millimeters.

Human senses would adapt to stimuli and make corrections without the person being consciously aware of it. The average person would have been stabbed through the forehead before they could adjust to this sudden change in scale.

“I see.”

“!?”

This was odd.

The boy was not shaken.

All of a sudden, his right hand was raised with its perfectly ordinary palm directed her way. That was all it took for it to fall apart. The glass shard that should have shot through her target from only a few meters away fell powerlessly to the ground.

He had broken it.

He had torn through it.

He had destroyed Maidono Hoshimi’s power itself, which was something like an invisible ropeway.

Yet he said nothing about that.

But not because he was interested in hiding his trump card.

It was more like he had something more important to say.

“Then do you feel a little better now?”

“Huh?”

She did not understand.

But his words seemed to force their way into the blank in her mind.

“I mean, you haven’t been able to tell anyone about all this, but you just got it all off your chest. So how was it? Maybe it was painful and embarrassing and maybe it made you want to stomp and writhe round, but do you feel some relief in getting it all out there?”

Why did he sound like he knew what he was talking about?

People acting like they understood should have been the most infuriating thing, yet his words hit home.

After some thought, she fell silent for a bit.

She had no objective proof of this, but could it be?

“You too?”

“…”

“Did you lose something too? No, did you have something stolen from you too!?”

She could guess that there was something special about this boy’s right hand. And that was what he used now.

He formed a finger gun with it and aimed at his own temple.

“''My memories.''”

“No.”

“''I’m missing everything before this past summer. A full 15 years’ worth.''”

He was not speaking particularly loudly.

He did not make any grand gestures and he did not add any dramatic tone to his voice. If he had played it up in that way, a pro like her would have seen through it right away. But she saw none of that. Which was why she felt the weight of his words.

That realistic sound seemed to make the air itself harden.

The truth was not a kind thing.

She knew that all too well as someone who protected herself by soaking in the dark side. In fact, she knew the unvarnished truth could be used as a weapon to scar people’s psyches.

“Although it was apparently just the episodic memories, so unlike you, it doesn’t really affect my day to day life. I can’t objectively prove it, much like your chopsticks thing.”

Was that possible?

How was that allowed?

She had had things to cling to for support. Even when she had killed people while working for the dark side, she had still been focused on protecting her connections to other people. It was those very connections that had made her so ashamed of what she could not do, made her lie to hide those things, and made her sink ever further into the quicksand.

But.

Did she want to quit just because it was hard? No.

No matter how much it had torn her heart to pieces, she never wanted to lose those memories she had made with those people. It was those very connections that had given her the strength to keep going in the darkness. She had wanted to keep that small light within her.

Yet that was what had been taken from him?

“Then how?”

The words spilled from her.

She had been avoiding it from beginning to end, but now she found herself seeking the answer.

“How can you possibly ''keep going''!? Your case is far worse and you can’t reclaim what you lost no matter how hard you try, so wouldn’t it be easier to just resent whoever did this to you!? How!?”

He was a normal boy.

He might be accustomed to fighting abnormal battles, but he was still far too naïve deep down.

As someone soaked in the dark side, she could tell that all too well. Simply having another place to live made him fundamentally different from her.

Who had done that to him?

The answer honestly did not matter. When you lost something, it was like being given an excuse to resent the entire world around you. After all, no one noticed what was happening, no one protected you, and now it was too late. You could shout those things to excuse whatever you were doing. He had essentially been handed the absolute privilege of being the victim.

But.

The boy shook his head.

“''That wouldn’t be easier.''”

“…”

He lived in a different world.

“That path is one of pain. I don’t think I could bear it. That’s why I’ve hidden my memory loss for so long. Although it was a terrible act and full of holes, so some people still figured it out. But that’s why I won’t rely on intangible things like memories anymore. I mean, we’ve got a whole world out there. I’d be missing out if I didn’t enjoy that along with everyone else. Smiling and running around together is the much easier path.”

His values were fundamentally different.

Which was why they could not reach an understanding.

“So how about you?”

Yet his voice would not leave her ears.

She could not drive those words out of her mind even though they made no sense to her.

“We lost different things and in different ways, so I’ll ask you what it’s like. Is it really that comfortable being forever bound by what you lost? You can’t use chopsticks and there is no changing that. ''But don’t you want to become someone who can look at that and say ‘so what’?''”

“I can’t.”

“You can.”

“It’s not that easy!! You can’t just add in something new to fill in the gaps!! This isn’t a simple case of one plus one equals two!! The same amount of data doesn’t mean the same contents. This must have taken a lot out of you too, so stop trying to force it. ''I mean, I can’t imagine how hard it would be to lose your memories''. That’s way worse than not being able to use chopsticks! You have to be way more dead inside than me!!!!!”

“I lost my memories and they’re never coming back. ''So what?'' I’ve made it this far, although I’ll admit it took me a while. But where are you right now? What part of this long path is most comfortable for you?”

Then what explained this?

Where had the two of them differed?

These were not the words of some outsider who did not understand her pain.

There really was someone worse off than her.

So how had that boy managed to make this decision?

“I don’t think I really had a reason.”

“…up.”

“I lost something. I had something taken from me. Yeah, it hurts, but that doesn’t give me the right to do whatever I want. Actually, it’s not even about what’s fun or what’s painful. I just don’t want to be ''that kind of person''.”

“Shut uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup!!!!!!”

The ground more than the air gave a roar. Then the asphalt rose up right next to Maidono Hoshimi. And it did not end there. That was merely the catapult. A tunnel was pushed up from below. An entire subway track was tossed up to the surface.

There was no warning whistle.

Based on all the lenses and sensors added to the front, it was probably an unmanned train. It may have been a freight train carrying Christmas products, but it would not have mattered even if it was manned.

The 8-car mass of metal bent and tore through the air while mercilessly charging toward Kamijou Touma. In terms of pure physical destructive force ''and nothing more'', this was more powerful than Academy City’s #3 Railgun. And this was not based on her power. The train itself was only moving with its electric motor.

But.

However.

“I’ve seen a lot of people, even after losing my memories.”

He moved a meter to the right.

That slight movement of his feet was all he did.

He simply sidestepped the range of those predetermined rails.

He ignored the deafening roar of destruction as he kept his eyes on her.

“I’ve seen elite Level 5s and I’ve seen dropouts who couldn’t make any progress no matter how much they struggled. I’ve seen a smoker magician who couldn’t protect the person he cared for most and I’ve seen a Saint who was always followed by tragedy due to no fault of her own. …It’s not just us. Everyone is carrying pain no one else will ever understand, but they clench their teeth and continue to fight. This isn’t a small enough world to warrant tearing it to pieces just because of our own personal reasons!!”

Then.

Then what was she supposed to do?

Changing how she felt would not cause the world to take her side.

The cruel reality would remain unchanged.

After everything she had done, she could never leave the dark side. Looking back at the bloody path she had taken made her feel queasy. She needed that resentment that told her she had been justified in her actions. By only ever looking ahead, she had been able to believe she could reach that ridiculous future where she would one day laugh with her friends without any of these worries.

Even though, deep down, she had known that was never possible after she had killed her first person.

Deep down, she had given up at that point, making it easier to kill the second and the third.

“Yeah.”

She heard an odd sound.

This did not come from her power. She had not done anything at all.

“So if you’re going to agonize over this all on your own and if you’re going to waste the opportunities you’re given because you let those intangible things bind you…”

Then what had made the sound?

She looked up and saw that boy quietly but strongly clenching his right hand.

She saw him form a fist.

And she heard his words.

“Then I’ll destroy that goddamn illusion until not a scrap remains.”

===Part 7===

One step.

Kamijou Touma only needed the courage to take that one step and he could end his battle.

He had been stabbed in the side and Misaka Imouto’s quick sew-up job was far from perfect. Then he had forcibly twisted his body around to dodge and defend against Maidono’s attacks. He could not even imagine what things were like below his clothes right now. The wound might even be worse than when he was originally stabbed.

But.

Even so.

(I will end this.)

He had to save Last Order no matter what.

His lack of memories and Maidono’s inability to use chopsticks were not Last Order’s fault.

He had to stop Maidono Hoshimi.

Adding onto her crimes would not return the thing she wanted. All that would await her after this battle was more of the same harsh reality. But if she did not stop here, she could never go back. He could not allow her to move even further from the world she dreamed of.

There was no more room for tricks.

They both knew where the other stood. Trying to draw each other in with further words would accomplish nothing. He only had to bring this to an all-out head-on collision.

He understood her and she understood him.

That understanding was more than sufficient.

So.

They did not need a final signal.

“I swear I will end this! Here and now!!”

She aimed her two finger guns at him.

This was a hopeless enemy.

They lived in two different worlds.

But for some reason, it looked like she was smiling. Her face was crumpled up on the verge of tears, but he still could not help but see a smile on her lips.

Finally.

For the first time.

It was like she had found a friend she could reveal her ugly and violent truth to.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

They both roared.

Kamijou Touma clenched his right fist and ran forward while Maidono Hoshimi wielded her two Telekinetic fingers that could move an entire nuclear aircraft carrier.

The ground rose up and broken pipes were exposed.

Flames and shockwaves erupted around him, but the boy ducked low and clenched his teeth to charge through while the large screen installed on a building wall dropped down like a guillotine. Glass and metal shards scattered in all directions and red cuts appeared on Maidono’s own cheeks. She had not expected this herself, but that no longer mattered to her. The screen crashed into the ground, shattered, bent, and bounced back up while she once more “grabbed” it with her two index fingers. She separated the two fingers and that LCD device larger than a tour bus was torn more easily than toast and the two halves were raised up like a giant’s fists.

A cloud of gray dust filled the air.

It threatened to hide everything, but that did not happen.

Kamijou Touma ran full speed toward the Santa girl who was vanishing behind the gray curtain.

She would be enveloped by the intangible dark side and be taken beyond anyone’s grasp.

He refused to let that happen.

He moved as if to give his thoughts a tangible form.

“Are you immortal!?” she shouted, despite likely realizing otherwise.

She threw a right straight and a left hook. Those arms could have knocked the average car up to a skyscraper rooftop, but Kamijou dodged them just by swinging his body.

This was not some special ability. He was not entrusting this to luck or the divine.

He would protect.

He would save.

And that applied not just to kidnapped Last Order but to Maidono Hoshimi as well. If all he had to do was reach out to the person in front of him, he could suppress the shaking of his legs. When you got down to it, that right fist was all he had. If he was going to end this, he had to get close. So he would do it. The powerful explosions and sharp glass and metal shards flying about were irrelevant. If he could not save her without reaching her, then he would make sure he got close enough to do so. He clenched his teeth and swallowed the pain.

''Yes.

''Needless to say, he was soaked with blood.

He was not escaping this unscathed. The wound in his side was not the end of it. He was being pummeled by shockwaves and pierced by blade-like fragments. Dark red blood was leaking from all over his body, but he had decided from the beginning that he would take this one step here. That decision allowed him to move. That was all there was to it.

“Don’t worry.”

It did not matter if it was only for 10 seconds, 5 seconds, or 1 second.

He just had to keep his body moving a little longer.

If he managed that, he could tear apart the chain of tragedy that had trapped Maidono Hoshimi in the spider’s web!!

“You might never again use chopsticks, you might have everything taken from you, and you might end up behind bars, but I will never abandon you!!”

An intensely dull sound – a more violent one than expected – reverberated through the broken streets.

His right fist slammed into her.

What was on that dark side assassin’s mind when that dull strike hit her cheek?

She did not scream even once.

That girl, who had wanted to be normal more than anyone else, dropped to the ground.

===Part 8===

How far you had to go to properly restrain a powerful esper was an extremely tricky question, but it was obvious enough in this case that the trigger was her index fingers. Kamijou borrowed some duct tape that must have rolled in from a nearby construction site, folded unconscious Maidono Hoshimi’s hands into fists, and wrapped duct tape all around them up to the wrists. Then he put her hands behind her back and bound them there.

(Maidono, huh?)

He peered at her face while still crouched down.

That girl could not do what most anyone else could.

If Kamijou had remained fixated on his lost memories, he could have ended up much like her.

(What can a normal high school boy like me even do for her?)

“Touma!!”

“Whoa! That’s not a Santa costume, so why are your clothes so red!?”

Meanwhile, the other girls gathered around.

Misaka Mikoto descended a building wall while carrying Index.

“I’m more impressed that you got through that without a scratch on you. And that you got outside at all while the elevators weren’t working.”

“Ugh, my hair and coat are so dirty. I so hope that place didn’t use asbestos. We couldn’t do anything about the half-collapsed concrete and the combination of broken gas pipes and power cables was absolutely terrifying! It took some doing hacking the smart tower and shutting the gas off. Without that, I would’ve been here a little sooner.”

Misaka Imouto also returned while dragging along a cleaning robot with some yellow and black construction rope.

“Is Last Order in there?” asked Mikoto.

“Presumably, but we cannot carelessly open it before checking for nonelectronic traps using a glass fuse, says Misaka to show off how useful she is.”

At some point, that clone had learned the same rhetorical tricks as an office worker who wanted to get out of doing any real work.

But anyway…

“Take care of this, will you?”

Kamijou tossed over the phone he had found on Maidono, but for some reason, the two girls with the same face began fighting over it.

“This is a delicate task where max power output is irrelevant, so you wound Misaka by implying she would be no help here, says Misaka while making sure to show off that she is nothing like the ill-mannered Original.”

“Then how about we hold a cyber-attack benchmark competition? You can hook yourself up to the entire Misaka Network if you like. Also, who are you calling ill-mannered?”

“Then the prize can be one of those fashionable donuts. Misaka will order one via a bike delivery boy and we can see who has it unlocked before they arrive, suggests Misaka.”

“Deal. But isn’t the point of those to be decorated in your own lucky color?”

They continued bickering while pressing their cheeks together and staring at the phone’s screen. They may have been competing to see who could crack the passcode first, but they looked more like two friendly sisters.

Then Index cut in from the side.

“Isn’t it 58051?”

[[Image:GT_Index_v01_220.jpg|thumb]]

“You can’t just guess a random number and hope it’s- ehh!? You’re kidding! Why does my analysis say it’s 58051 too!?”

“Leave it to the occult girl to show off an occult power, says Misaka while trembling at this paranormal phenomenon. Misaka has heard that astrology and fortunetelling use math and statistics, but what exactly happened here?”

“Yay, a donut for me☆” shouted Index.

The toxic-looking item covered in whipped cream was delivered by bicycle and was inside Index’s stomach in short order. This put her on ''their'' side too. Their happy Christmastime was too blindingly bright for the pointy-haired boy to watch from his position in the shadows.

Phones were treasure troves of information.

They knew nothing about Maidono Hoshimi, including her real name.

If she had been acting alone, this would be the end of it, but if she had been working with someone else, the threat to Last Order was not yet over. Could they turn this girl in to Anti-Skill, breathe a sigh of relief, and get back to enjoying Christmas Eve, or did they have to remain on their guard? Even if they were amateurs and they were wasting their brainpower thinking about this, they could not rest easy without figuring that out first.

But.

Mikoto tossed the phone to him without even looking at the screen.

“Here.”

“?”

“I don’t know what happened, but you’re the only one with any right to look in here.”

Was that true?

He liked to think so, but he was honestly not sure.

Spying on someone else’s phone was a scummy thing to do. The links to ebooks and videos about etiquette stood out the most. Those likely had to do with using chopsticks. She seemed to be avoiding books meant for little children, probably because it would have wounded her pride too much.

He could sense raw adolescent humanity oozing from those lines of ordinary digital text.

The album contained quite a few photos, but strangely the blonde girl was in none of them. He initially thought these were all photos she had taken of her friends, but he finally realized she had been hiding her identity with a wig and color contact lenses.

When he crouched down and removed the wig from the unconscious girl, he found a surprisingly innocent-looking girl with a bob cut.

That same girl was the most common person seen in the album.

The phone did not seem to contain her real name anywhere, but it might be possible to reveal her identity by analyzing the people and background objects in the photos. He could not think of any reason to do that, though.

“…”

All the girls in the photos were smiling.

But those scenes were all something she had created to cover up and hide her complex.

Maidono Hoshimi had to be a false name.

She had been living a life much like someone who always had to choose the clothes that would cover up the tattoo they had gotten long ago. Except in her case, someone else had forced her into that situation.

(This is all stuff you can’t communicate with nothing but your fists.)

“Misaka.”

“?”

“I’ve looked through most of it, but it’s too normal. She didn’t seem to have another phone either. I don’t really know what kind of world the dark side is, but you need some tool to let people contact you if you work there, right? This phone must have a secret space hidden in it.”

“I’ll look, but is there anywhere I should check first?”

“There’s nothing in the call logs or address book, so I just want to know who she was contacting.”

“Got it,” said the middle school girl as she casually accepted the phone and the task.

And before long…

“There really is nothing.”

“What?”

It seemed unusual to him for Mikoto to so readily throw in the towel.

But for some reason, she was grinning.

“Basically, this phone is only used to connect to a dedicated server that acts as a remote digital lockbox for all her work documents and contacts. So even if she does drop her phone or have it stolen, she only has to sever that one line to prevent any sensitive information from leaking out.”

“So we’ve hit a dead end? It looked like she was sending Last Order somewhere, so there must be someone else who was to pick her up.”

“Yes, ''normally'' anyway.”

Mikoto winked and shook the borrowed phone.

It gave off a monotone beep.

“And we’re in. Okay, you’re up again.”

“No, I doubt there’s anything from her private life in there. And if it’s work info, we can all see it.”

The phone displayed a screen he did not recognize and it contained a list of filenames. Even the file extensions at the end were unfamiliar to him. He tried tapping a few, but the text within was incomprehensible to him. It was not the same as the legal contracts adults would sign, but the level of confusion he felt was about the same. It was filled with so much jargon and roundabout phrasings that he could not get any of it into his head in a sensible form.

“Shall Misaka summarize it for you?”

“Please.”

“Basically, this is related to the Board Chairman, says Misaka to keep it short.”

“''To him?''”

Kamijou sounded confused.

The “him” here was not the human known as Aleister. It was the person who had taken over that position after Aleister.

That person had a strong connection to both Misaka Mikoto and Misaka Imouto.

And more importantly, to Last Order.

“Yes, assuming this file is accurate.” Mikoto gently nodded. “This says the new Board Chairman has begun eliminating Academy City’s dark side, but the people who are more comfortable in the dark side or cannot escape it oppose that decision. So they want an effective bargaining chip.”

“…”

The Board Chairman’s plan had to be much easier said than done.

Even if you announced that ideal, the people trembling in fear might not come forward to testify and others might be opposed to the very ideal itself. And once everything fell apart and the attempt failed, the first target of retribution would be the one who had hoisted the flag and led the charge.

And he had immediately shown how far he was willing to take this.

“First, he will reveal his own crimes,” continued Mikoto.

“What?”

“It looks like he means it. He’s going to reveal everything he’s done, primarily the more than 10,000 clones he killed in that experiment. That way he can show there are no exceptions. He seems to think that’s the only way to drag the fearful skeptics out into the sunlight. …And he has in fact turned himself in at an Anti-Skill station.”

“He turned himself in!?”

“He certainly doesn’t strike me as the type to do that, but apparently it’s true.”

His punishment would not be altered by the conditions and timing of this act. Once his crimes came to light, he would have to pay for them. And it seemed unlikely he would ever again emerge from behind bars.

Misaka Imouto tilted her head while looking through the files.

“Does this mean the new Board Chairman is resigning the position before the year is even out? asks Misaka. And what good is this effort if the next Board Chairman brings back the dark side?”

“The Board Chairman has the right to resign and choose his replacement, but the system is not made for anyone below him to remove him from that position. Just like teachers casting votes in the faculty room can’t get the principal or the school’s board chairman fired.”

Academy City was a giant educational system Aleister had created ''to achieve his own goal'', so he would not have constructed it in a way that let others interfere with his actions.

Meaning…

“So does he think he can pull it off if he uses his authority as Board Chairman to run the city from behind bars?” wondered Kamijou.

“He must intend on seeing this through to the end. What is it with the people at the top of this city closing themselves up behind thick walls?”

Anyway, they now knew why someone would want Last Order.

One side wanted to destroy Academy City’s dark side and the other side wanted to stop that.

It was a lot like a direct clash between the light side and dark side of the city. That meant an entire half of the city would be after Last Order. Maidono Hoshimi had only been the vanguard. Pulling back now was not a fundamental solution.

“Isn’t there something more?”

Without even thinking, Kamijou Touma began searching for an enemy.

“Isn’t there someone else? Like an obvious mastermind behind it all!? If this is only a sporadic wave of lone wolf villains attacking, then we can never rest again!”

Error messages suddenly flooded the screen.

Someone had noticed them.

But instead of cutting off the connection, it looked more like the data itself was being erased.

“There is one person managing all that frustration. And I’m betting they’re the one supplying the money and weapons needed to take action.”

But that did not stop Mikoto.

They were not interested in evidence they could use in court.

They only needed to know the name of the mastermind behind this incident. And this rushed erasure of the server’s data only seemed to confirm that the data there was legit.

So Misaka Mikoto read the data out loud even as it was erased.

“Neoka Norito. One of the twelve on the Board of Directors.”

===Part 9===

With a heavy pop, Misaka Imouto managed to remove the round lid at the top of the drum-shaped cleaning robot she had captured. She must not have detected any of the traps she was concerned about. Kamijou was surprised to see they opened up like that. It looked like they would normally require a special screwdriver other than a Phillips or flathead, but she had apparently directly turned the screws using magnetism.

The inside was almost entirely hollow, providing enough space for a small child to fit while curled up. But since there was no garbage inside, this must have been one Maidono had prepared (i.e. stolen) to transport Last Order.

Anyway.

Last Order was unconscious, but she seemed unharmed when Misaka Imouto reached under her arms and pulled her out.

Her limbs and mouth were bound by a special controlled rope, but it did not appear to be a trap. And an electronic device like that was no match for Mikoto.

“Hm? But if a clone like her couldn’t get this electronically-controlled rope off of her, does that mean I really am superior when it comes to cyber-attacks???”

“Why must the higher unit’s failure cast doubt on the quality of the Misakas as a whole? wonders Misaka while trembling at this unwelcome speculation. The command tower had better learn her lesson.”

Fortunately, Last Order must have been a valuable hostage because she had no noticeable injuries. Even if that was to use her for malicious purposes, it was still a stroke of good luck considering the massive damage that Maidono Hoshimi had done to the Christmas Eve city around them.

Index asked a question with the calico cat still on her head.

She asked about the definitive crossroads they were approaching.

“Touma, what do we do now?”

“Good question.”

If he was being honest, a simple high school boy like him could not see the big picture here.

He imagined it had something to do with what the grownups wanted and the overall power balance within the city, but that did not mean he could see any of the specifics. You could not perform surgery or disarm a bomb based on a vague sense of “I think I kinda, sorta understand”. It was probably impossible for him to reach the right answer using pure logic at this point.

“First, I’d like to know what kind of person this Neoka is.”

Kamijou Touma was not the type to remember who ran the city or even who his own school’s principal was. This had nothing to do with his memory loss; he simply never interacted with them. He knew of those twelve ultra VIPs at the top of Academy City. They may have been something like a head of state’s cabinet, but that was exactly why he had no idea who they were. People tended not to remember much beyond the actual president or prime minister at the very top.

He never would have needed to know who they were if he lived a normal life.

“The officially released info says he’s a big name in the security industry,” explained Mikoto. “With bigshots like the Board of Directors, they’re mostly pretty old, but he’s actually quite young for the group. That said, he’s still not a child like us.”

“I see. Do important people like that have a list of achievements on the government website or something?”

“Hell, he’s got his own social media account.”

Kamijou was having trouble following along already. Weren’t these criminal masterminds supposed to be veiled in mystery in the depths of a subterranean secret base or something?

But when he took a look at Mikoto’s phone, he saw a very official looking page. It was all so neat, tidy, and squeaky clean that it had no real human warmth to it. Even the sign in front of a corporate headquarters building would feel a bit warmer than this.

The young man looked good in a suit, but he did not have the look of a businessman.

He was more like a high-profile entrepreneur or film actor. Maybe it was how he looked too young to be one of those executives in suits and maybe it was the muscle tone visible even through his suit. Then again, who could say how edited the photos on his social media page were. It was even possible the man in the photos was a body double.

“What do you mean by the security industry? Is that another way of saying he sells weapons? asks Misaka while cutely tilting her head.”

“Pipe down, you flirt,” snapped Mikoto. “And no, it isn’t that. It looks like his work is in the fields of firefighting and disaster prevention. He donates a lot of money to charity and volunteer programs. …Of course, that might all be camouflage to hide his true colors.”

This was not a case of good suppressing evil.

Nor was it a case of creating an evil more powerful than justice so they could rest easy.

The truly hopeless people would ally themselves with good and justice. They would manipulate those things to their own benefit and, when that was not enough, they would rewrite those systems altogether.

“Firefighting and disaster prevention don’t sound particularly dangerous at first glance, but you could do scary things by abusing those systems,” said Mikoto. “Disaster rescue robots could be converted into weapons, or you could even artificially create your own disaster.”

Whatever the case, he was one of the twelve VIPs who ran Academy City.

Maidono Hoshimi had only been the vanguard.

He had to have something of his own. He stood at the top of Academy City which ruled over all the world’s science and technology, so he was bound to have all sorts of bizarre tech all to himself.

He sat on ''the'' Board of Directors.

In truth, they were only pretending they knew what he was like based on rumors and online information. Because fighting against an unknown entity was too frightening. In the worst case, this could be a fight that ''never ended'' no matter how much they struggled.

They could not challenge him on a whim.

They should have tried to avoid making contact with him at all costs.

But…

“If he’s cheating the system, he must be in a position that makes that necessary.”

“Touma?”

“We can’t ‘see’ any of the political power, hierarchy, or power balance of the adults and there’s no way we can get a feel for it right away. But we do know that Neoka Norito has been living the good life by throwing that unseen power around. He’s sure to use that unseen power before clenching his fist. He used dirty tricks, threw money around, abused his authority, and set so many people in motion, but it wasn’t enough. ''That'' is why he finally resorted to violence.”

It was obvious.

It was the most basic of facts, but using violence came with risks. Director Neoka could use violence to protect his position, but that would be meaningless to him if his use of violence was exposed and he was placed under social pressure. That villain was clearly fighting for himself, so he would not want to bring peace to Academy City by sacrificing himself.

Which meant…

“We fight.” That was Kamijou Touma’s decision. “If we let things keep going like this, who knows when it’ll end. The enemy will try attacking over and over and we’re dead as soon as we let our guard down for even a moment. We can’t leave this in a situation where a single mistake spells our doom. So now is our only chance. We can’t see the power balance of the adults, so none of us can say if the conditions providing us this chance will still be around tomorrow or the day after that.”

They could not let this happen to Last Order. Or to Maidono Hoshimi for that matter. And the same could probably be said for the still-unseen enemy who would attack next, and the one after that.

Neoka Norito.

That piece of garbage had remade charity and volunteer work into his own bullets and allied himself with good and justice so he could create countless tragedies without dirtying his own hands. His twisted form of cleanliness had robbed so many people of their possibility and distorted their lives.

The dark side.

If he really wanted to protect that shadowy utopia, he should stand in the line of fire himself.

Maidono could not use chopsticks.

Kamijou pictured her face as she bit her lip and held back the tears over that pain no one else understood.

Just like Accelerator had Last Order, Maidono Hoshimi had her chopsticks complex.

That godawful adult had used those things as a shield to manipulate children to his will. He did not clench his fist, pit his will against his enemy’s, or join any kind of battle at all. He stole people’s lives and used them for his own purposes, but he considered that a sign of his own intelligence and did not see the need to bother interacting with them.

The tragedies would not end unless he was stopped.

No matter what.

“Let’s end this.”

The enemy was currently weakened.

The rules of the adults had failed here, so he had been forced to stoop to the juvenile and violent rules of the children. Meaning he had chosen to abduct young Last Order and use her as a hostage.

But if he had descended from his unreachable ivory tower and he was now within reach…

“We need to grab him by the collar before he can ascend out of reach once more.” That was Kamijou’s answer and conclusion. “This will probably only be an option today. He’s been weakened because ''someone else'' was fighting back out there, but we can’t say when he’ll recover from that. So we should use this chance and finish what ''someone else'' started. Otherwise, we’re right back to square one. Last Order will be captured, Accelerator’s plan will fail, and someone will have their life stolen from them so they’ll act as a new pawn in Maidono’s place. The only person laughing then will be that crazy clean freak Neoka!!”

“Misaka is fine with that, says Misaka to express her agreement.” The expressionless goggles girl had more to say. “Setting aside how you intend to locate and attack Neoka, it is frankly miraculous that this has been simplified to the point that it can be resolved through fighting. Forcibly settling things today would likely be a much more effective and optimal choice than letting this chance go and retrying it when the conditions are tangled with politics and economics, says Misaka to further explain her reasoning.”

“So is this the extent of the cavalry?” asked Mikoto. “Counting Last Order sleeping here, that’s only 5. Oh, I guess it’s 6 if we include the kitty on your head there. He’s sure to be a huge help.”

“Eh? I’m just glad to not be alone this time,” said Touma. “I’m not used to having so much help.”

“…”

“…”

For some reason, Index and Mikoto both glared at him. The pressure was intense.

Being alone was so sad.

And…

“About that.” Misaka Imouto raised her hand. “Since Neoka Norito was trying to capture the command tower, wouldn’t it be suicidal to bring her with us? Whatever form the fight takes, Misaka thinks we should keep Last Order away from it, suggests Misaka.”

“But wouldn’t it also be dangerous to leave her alone?” responded Mikoto. “We don’t know how many people Neoka has hidden out here, so she could always be abducted again while we’re fighting.”

“Which is why Misaka will list off what we need. First, we need fighters to defeat Director Neoka Norito. But if we let the command tower escape, we cannot leave her alone. That means we also need fighters to protect her, explains Misaka while raising two fingers. So wouldn’t it be best to split into two teams?”

She made it sound simple, but who would be on each team?

Kamijou could negate all forms of the supernatural and Index had an unbeatable interception ability when it came to magic, but they were both weak to normal firearms. Misaka Imouto was strong against guns and knives, but she could not deal with extreme supernatural powers. Mikoto had a seemingly almighty power, but removing her from the front line would reduce their odds of defeating Neoka Norito. They were a well-varied team when together, but their pros and cons stood out once they were separated.

However, Misaka Imouto had an idea about this.

“Misaka thinks it would be best to use her as the command tower’s bodyguard, says Misaka while pointing at her own face.”

“Eh? You?” said Kamijou.

“Your skepticism bothers Misaka, so she will remind you of her skill with all firearms and her ability to use the city’s security with her electrical power.”

“But can you beat someone on Maidono’s level like that?” asked Mikoto. “You can’t, can you?”

“Wake that scum up right this instant. This Misaka will kick her ass in short order, says Misaka while rolling up her sleeves to show how eager she is.”

She was being a little too motivated here, so Kamijou quickly restrained her. Fists that would not protect anyone’s smile were entirely meaningless.

The mass-produced girl expressionlessly struggled (while still being hugged from behind), but she also continued speaking.

“More importantly, Neoka Norito does not want the new Board Chairman’s crimes – that is, the past project that the Misakas were a part of – to come to light, correct? ''Misaka can fight by using herself as a hostage.'' We are both clones, the command tower and an ordinary serial number, so if Misaka fights while drawing attention using her gunfire and Radio Noise power, it should give them some trouble, says Misaka to list off the expected conditions of the battle.”

She had a point.

Kamijou certainly agreed that they could not bring Last Order with them to the front line. Dangling that treat in front of the kidnapper’s eyes would be foolish in the extreme.

But it still was not enough.

Misaka Imouto’s logic only worked on the assumption that Neoka Norito’s side was trying to resolve this in secret and thus their attacker would withdraw rather than risk revealing their actions to society at large. For example, they would end their attack if they saw a live broadcast of the scene from a TV station’s camera or a livestream from a phone.

However.

(He gave so much freedom to Maidono Hoshimi.)

Yes, they could not trust in that assumption.

No matter how big this got, you could still cover it all up if you had enough power. So if Neoka decided he only had to get through today, no matter what it took, Misaka Imouto’s plan would not work. Even in front of a TV camera or a livestreaming phone, he or his troops would move in to kill or abduct the fleeing girls.

So they needed something more.

They had to play some other powerful card to deter their enemy.

“This might be a complete rejection of his work and efforts, but we’re under no obligation to play along.”

“Touma?”

“Misaka Imouto, we’ll leave Last Order with you, but can I suggest a destination to escape to?”

“Misaka may not use it, but you are free to make suggestions.”

Kamijou Touma breathed in and out.

And he ruined someone’s plans with a smile.

“''Accelerator is holed up in an Anti-Skill station, right?'' Take Last Order there and fortify yourselves there too. Then Academy City’s strongest will fight off Neoka’s troops for you.”

The #1 could not leave himself.

He would trust in Academy City’s ability to purify itself.

That was all well and good, but it only meant they had to set up a situation where Accelerator could protect Last Order while still behind bars. He could remain there in the same building and fight to protect himself from the attackers. And if he happened to save some civilian who happened to be here? Well, that was just a coincidence.

Kamijou Touma did not understand all the tricky grownup politics and whatnot.

He thought the Board Chairman was incredible for leaving the world of pure violence and fighting in that more complex world.

But.

Even so.

''Accelerator was the one who should be protecting that kid.'' Not even counting issues of efficiency and logic, that was just how it was meant to be. Kamijou Touma was temporarily looking after Last Order, but there was another world in which she was meant to spread her arms and run free. He had to make sure that rule was followed. No matter what.

“Uh,” groaned Last Order with her eyes still shut.

Thinking back, this had been strange from the beginning.

Had she left her usual place and searched out her original, Misaka Mikoto, because she had realized what was happening and come for help? Had there been something only she could see using the sharp eyes of a young child that Kamijou, Mikoto, and the others had already lost? Maybe so and maybe not. It was also possible she had sensed some vague fear and just ran around with no destination in mind. Just like a child pacing around with their pillow after having a nightmare.

But so what?

What did it matter if this came from cruel reality or a baseless dream?

Kamijou did not want to abandon people who were afraid and suffering. He and the others had found her, so they had to notice what was going on with her and they had to act on that knowledge. They might not be able to save the entire world right away, but they could save the people they saw right in front of them, one by one.

A human out there had bet on the fact that the scales of the entire world would be tilted just a little if everyone attempted to do the things even they could accomplish. When all the good parts and the bad parts of the world were weighed against each other, he had bet it would tilt ever so slightly toward the bright side.

So they would show him that the world he hoped for did indeed exist.

In the world Academy City’s #1 dreamed of, perhaps no one would ever again be led astray for someone else’s purposes like Maidono Hoshimi had. And even if they were, perhaps they could create a kind enough society to give them a second chance. They could not just hope someone else would do it. Kamijou and the others had to become some of the small gears within Academy City who would help make it happen.

They had to believe.

They had to make their own bets, just like he had.

Kamijou Touma looked to each of their faces in turn: Index, Misaka Mikoto, Misaka Imouto, and Last Order. And then he made a blunt declaration of war.

“Let’s give ‘em hell.”

===Part 10===

There was a lot of noise all of a sudden.

Yomikawa Aiho had been speaking with Accelerator in the Anti-Skill station’s secret interrogation room, but she was now contacting someone else.

He lightly clicked his tongue while seated across from her with his feet up on the clear table.

“So what’s all this about?”

“A girl just arrived at the main entrance with Last Order. And while carrying one of Neoka’s protegees, who is unconscious.”

He just about fell back onto the floor in his cheap chair.

Yomikawa’s custom tablet was displaying the security camera footage, so he could tell this was not a joke. Instead of a stationary camera installed near the ceiling, this was a body camera attached to an officer’s chest.

An expressionless girl stated her purpose here while making double peace signs for some reason.

“Boom. Misaka is submitting an individual and electronic evidence related to illegal activity by Director Neoka Norito. The server itself was wiped clean and this phone only holds some slight traces of the data, but looking through it should reveal information on his home base, explains Misaka in a thorough enough way to ensure even an idiot would understand. Hooray.”

“You just said everything Misaka wanted to say! says Misaka as Misaka stares in shock at the line thief!”

“The Misakas are all one giant Misaka, after all. But make no mistake. This Misaka is on Team Level 0, says Misaka while winking and striking a pose with her right hand. Kerpow☆”

The #1 groaned while clenching his teeth so hard he was afraid he would break them.

“Have those clones never even heard of reading the atmosphere?”

“But they have set things in motion.” Yomikawa must have gotten sick of the excess formality because she stripped off her black jacket. “Anti-Skill can’t throw out people seeking protection and we would be very grateful to receive some conclusive evidence on Neoka. This will let us head out and attack instead of passively fortifying our defenses.”

“It won’t be that easy. We’re talking about the biggest shithead of them all with deep roots in the dark side. He will have something up his sleeve.”

“Are you suggesting he has more espers like the one just brought to us?”

“…”

“If so, I will remind you that ''saving those kids is part of our job.'' We can’t just ignore this.”

Accelerator breathed from his nose.

“You’re a dumbass,” he grumbled.

“What are you even talking about? You’re the one that bet on this kind of power existing alongside all the darkness in Academy City. And I refuse to disappoint you there.”

With her removed jacket in her left hand, Yomikawa Aiho brought her feet together, stood straight, and saluted with her right hand.

“Anti-Skill Chief Yomikawa Aiho reporting for duty. I will now leave on an emergency deployment to bring this all to an end.”

“Suit yourself.”

===Part 11===

Evening had fallen.

Based on the information they had taken from Maidono Hoshimi’s phone, Neoka Norito had his base in a giant building in District 15, which acted as Academy City’s largest shopping district. With a shopping mall and movie theater on the lower floors, fancy corporate offices on the middle floors, and luxury apartments on the upper floors, the skyscraper was a symbol of wealth and power. The topmost floors acted as the Director’s mansion.

“Just like the powerful people of old.” Misaka Mikoto put her hands on her hips while looking up at the 70-story building from below. “The foolish lord looking down at the city from the top of his towering castle. Or maybe he wishes he could live in those older times.”

“I’m not quite sure what you mean, but I always thought the corrupt and rich were really cautious about their own life,” said Kamijou. “How do you protect that place? With a building that tall, isn’t he afraid of being trapped during a fire or attack?”

“He’ll have a personal VTOL craft on the roof. There’s as much space as a helicopter carrier’s flight deck up there, so he has room. He can also send several remote-controlled ones out along with him to make it harder to target him with anti-air missiles.”

“Well, isn’t he rich.”

Index was looking all around while carrying the calico cat in both hands.

“I saw that person before,” she said.

“Index?”

“Same with that woman and that person eating ice cream. They were in different clothes before, though.”

“Then Anti-Skill is making their move,” said Mikoto.

You could not fool Index’s perfect memory. Anti-Skill officers must have been taking up position in the area while slipping past any mechanical surveillance by frequently changing their clothing and makeup. Since technology was available to good and bad alike, surrounding a target while avoiding detection had grown very difficult.

That building was undoubtedly Neoka Norito’s castle, but it did not belong to him alone. The mall on the lower floors, the offices on the middle floors, and the apartments on the upper floors meant a lot of ordinary people would be coming and going, allowing anyone to move almost up to the very top floors.

There were thick doors in the way and the elevators had several layers of security applied, but they could still break through the ceiling from the floor below to reach him. It was unlikely Anti-Skill intended to just attack the main entrance.

“So what do we do?” asked Kamijou.

“We can let Anti-Skill climb up from below like normal. We wouldn’t accomplish much more than them if we took the same route.” Mikoto pointed straight up. “If he’s going to escape, it will be with his rooftop VTOL craft. So if we can take the rooftop beforehand, it should have a huge overall impact. And no one will notice us if we climb the wall with magnetism. So…”

A moment later, explosives flames erupted from the windows on the highest levels of the building she was pointing at.

They gasped because they had no clue what had just happened.

This undefinable occurrence just about left Kamijou’s mind blank. Much like a computer that had forcibly tried to read a corrupted file. This unexpected event violently ate into his mind, swallowed up his thoughts, and tried to drag him into the deadly depths of the water.

Neoka Norito.

He had caught a glimpse of who that man was before actually seeing him. Unlike Maidono Hoshimi, this man had to be someone who created his own waves. The tiny waves a child like Kamijou could create by gathering up all his courage and willpower would be crushed so very easily.

However…

“Wha-?”

“Don’t just stand there, Misaka!! The glass is falling!!”

He had to force himself to keep going.

No matter what might happen, they were done for if they came to a stop and the gears of their minds jammed. Time would cruelly pass them by and that delay would force them to accept a horrific conclusion to it all.

So.

His words acted like a slap to the cheek.

After he shouted at her, Mikoto frantically took action. She used magnetism to forcibly move some Christmas decorations like giant stockings and a huge Christmas present and she placed those above the plaza and major road in front of the building. Who knows how much blood would have soaked the ground around the crowd there otherwise.

There was no direct damage done, but there was some chaos. Someone in a snowman costume rolled wildly along the roadside and a reindeer girl selling toxic-colored donuts from a food truck quickly shut off the gas, perhaps fearing secondary damage from a panic.

“Wh-what just happened?” asked a dazed Index.

Kamijou bit his lip because a bad idea had just occurred to him.

Just like with Maidono Hoshimi, this was a stage magician’s sleight of hand. That explosion ''would cut off the standard route of pursuit''.

“Neoka predicted Anti-Skill would be arriving at his castle.”

“So he set his house on fire!?”

“Right when Anti-Skill was showing up. What if it turns out that Anti-Skill took no damage, but he alone suffered from a fire in his home?”

He had never spoken with any of the Directors, but he had seen bits and pieces of how they did things.

They were a twisted sort of clean freak that never wanted to dirty their own hands, so they always had “shields” prepared allowing them to safely win.

And if you viewed this situation from that perspective…

“''He’s using the rules as a shield.'' That’s the most effective method against the people who are supposed to protect the peace here. He’s going to completely flip this on its head and make himself the victim. Anti-Skill didn’t do anything, but what happens if he points at them and claims they nearly got him killed while forcing their way into his home as part of an illegitimate investigation with insufficient evidence to back it up? Anti-Skill will take all the blame, the investigation will end, and he’ll remain free to go around destroying all the inconvenient evidence!”

The methods meant to empower the good would instead be used to attack the good.

And Anti-Skill was not ''paid'' enough to continue searching for a villain that might not even exist.

Before even reaching him, they could already see just how nasty a foe this was.

“B-but we handed Maidono Hoshimi over to Anti-Skill,” said Mikoto. “Her phone had real evidence on it, so isn’t Anti-Skill following proper procedure in coming here!?”

“Which is why he needs to buy enough time to go and ''eliminate Maidono now that she has escaped the dark side''.”

Kamijou did not wait even a second before responding and even Mikoto went pale and fell silent at his answer.

Neoka was not acting alone. He had plenty of fighters on Maidono’s level and he would have released them into the city. Something would be moving toward the Anti-Skill station where Misaka Imouto and Last Order had gone. The #1 was there and it would take a lot to break through that barrier, but there was no guarantee that Neoka could not provide a lot.

They could not let his plan continue.

They did not have a feel for the adult power balance, so they had to end this today before that became an issue once more. They could never turn this around then.

(Think.)

Kamijou clenched his teeth.

They could not let the confusion sweep them away. There had to be a way to retake control.

They could not give in to fear.

There was no need to narrow their range of freedom at the thinking stage. They had to come up with ideas based on an ideal version of themselves, like they were a Hollywood star or a mysterious special forces unit.

The answer had to be hidden beyond that leap of logic.

Especially in Academy City where so much craziness could be made a reality with technology.

(If he’s going to weasel out of this with a cheap act, he’ll need to make it look good. In stage magic terms, this is an escape artist’s trick. Escaping the box before it explodes is all well and good, but the audience won’t be satisfied if he’s just standing there in some other place.)

“He’s nearby.”

“?”

“Neoka Norito is somewhere around here!! Pointing at Anti-Skill and accusing them will be most effective in front of a large audience, so he’ll show off the injuries he gave himself and use that as a shield to bludgeon them with by blaming it on their attack!!”

In that case, they more or less already had the answer.

If Neoka’s intention was to influence people’s view of the situation to reverse the positions of attacker and victim, get the people on his side, and throw the investigation into confusion, then he would want people to see Anti-Skill entirely unscathed while he was all bloody. That meant he would have to harm himself. But could an amateur really do that to himself? He would not want to accidentally lose too much blood and Anti-Skill and the doctors were experts at viewing injuries. They would probably see right through a self-inflicted wound only meant as an act.

So what would he want most right now?

The stab wound in Kamijou’s side started to throb and make its presence known.

He did not need any special knowledge for this one. He only had to use his own personal experience.

Yes.

“A medical facility,” said Kamijou.

He knew he could not wound himself like that as a form of disguise. If he accidentally nicked an important artery or an organ, the wound would quickly grow fatal.

Of course he would be terrified.

He would want to rely on a medical professional.

Neoka was apparently an expert in firefighting and disaster prevention, but this was about his authority as part of the Board of Directors. Just like the chief or superintendent general of the police was not the best police officer, he might not have the actual skills of those fields himself. And even if he did, he would not want to sew up his own wound with the dirty sewing needle and fishing line he had lying around. That could even lead to an infection of some kind. Partial knowledge would lead to fear and he would get someone else’s help to make up for the gaps in his knowledge.

So…

“If he is going to injure himself, he’ll want a sterile environment and a doctor with all the proper knowledge. ''And this needs to be done in absolute secrecy''. That building is a single giant complex, so it’s bound to have a clinic, a medical room for treating anyone who falls ill, or…” The boy’s eyes stopped on a specific point. “Or at least a first aid kit!! Is the parking garage underground? A surprising number of minor injuries happen there, due to people getting their finger caught in a car door or dropping their luggage on their foot when trying to load it into the trunk, so they might have some specialized emergency equipment along with the fire extinguisher and AED!”

He began running before he had even finished speaking.

That would not provide the sterile environment, but it may have been worth it to Neoka to have something mobile that he could carry with him or have removed from the scene.

Kamijou ran down the slope and into a concrete space larger than a soccer field.

But.

“Th-there’s nothing like that here,” said Index while looking all around.

There was a fire extinguisher at the base of a concrete pillar and an AED in a metal box on the wall, but…

“There’s no first aid kit. Could he have already taken it away?”

“…”

Had Kamijou misread this?

It was possible someone as absurdly rich as Neoka would have a personal doctor who never left his side, or he could feel even more desperate than they thought and had decided to injure himself despite the risk.

But Mikoto looked up above.

“It might not be a first aid kit.”

“What do you mean?”

“I said the roof is like a helicopter carrier, didn’t I!? So he can have an air ambulance parked up there. Some of those have more equipment than the average medical room!!”

Why had he started by blowing up the very top floors?

Because that would destroy the elevator pulleys, making the elevators unusable and delaying Anti-Skill’s arrival. Meanwhile, he could appropriately injure himself in the air ambulance and then have the helicopter itself fly away. That would of course require altering the airport’s control data. That might sound absurd, but he would not have let Maidono Hoshimi make such a mess of things if he ever thought he could be captured. He definitely had what it took to pull this off. Once the exhausted Anti-Skill officers had finished running up 70 flights of stairs, he could point at them while all bloody and say the magic words: ''How could you do this!? These injuries are your fault!

“He definitely gave this some thought, but not enough,” said Mikoto while kicking down an elevator door in the parking garage.

The elevator would never arrive no matter how much they pressed the button, but that was no problem for her. She gave a belligerent smile while staring up the elevator shaft that looked like a gaping mouth of hell leading high into the sky.

“Did he forget we’re in Academy City? I can tear through this puny barrier like it’s nothing!!”

Yes.

She was Academy City’s #3 Level 5, the Railgun. Magnetism was only a secondary effect of her power, yet it was all she needed to cling to the skyscraper’s wall.

===Part 12===

It took no time at all.

The elevator shaft was surrounded by thick steel beams on all sides, so it may have been easier to climb with magnetism than the reinforced concrete walls. The elevators would have fallen after their wires were snapped, but they fortunately did not get in the way. There was apparently a boiler room and other facilities located below the parking garage.

Misaka Mikoto held Kamijou and Index while jumping straight up like this was some kind of ride.

The building was about 70 stories tall, but it took them less than a minute.

There was no need to destroy the elevator door on the roof. The explosion had already bent everything outwards along with the gearbox.

What they found outside was apparently a heliport.

Gray asphalt covered an area just as large as the parking garage – which meant the size of a soccer field – and white lines were drawn all over it in a pattern that an amateur had trouble making any sense of. Mikoto had said it functioned like a helicopter carrier, but it almost looked like a runway to Kamijou.

She had said he would have multiple VTOL crafts and there were in fact three fighter craft, like something out of a movie, stopped on the edge of the roof. However, the white lines formed large boxes around them, so were those hangar elevators like the ones on an aircraft carrier?

Mikoto had said they could be remotely controlled and their pure firepower was frightening too.

However, Kamijou’s group needed to focus on something else first.

Those gray military craft were accompanied by a pure white one. This helicopter was a lot larger than the four-passenger ones used by TV crews. If the four-passenger ones were analogous to an ordinary car, this was more like a van.

It was an air ambulance.

“Misaka!!”

“That’s a crucial piece of evidence, so let’s be clever about how we retrieve it.”

With a dull zap, black smoke burst from the base of the main rotor. She had apparently messed with the rotation rate to damage the engine. If it could not fly on its own, it could not be removed from the scene. And with the bloody medical devices remaining, the Director’s cheap act would be far less convincing.

Kamijou’s group cut across the aircraft carrier flight deck of a rooftop and approached the white helicopter.

The sliding door was open and someone awaited them with a smile.

“Perhaps I should have had the injury done before the explosion. But I would have had no explanation for the injury if the explosion failed to trigger, so I wanted to make sure it worked first.”

“You’re Neoka Norito, aren’t you?”

“That’s Director Neoka Norito to you. I am on the Board, after all.”

The man’s face twisted into a smile while seated on a stretcher and with his wrist held out toward the female doctor next to him.

This was the same person in the photos on the suspiciously clean social media page.

Did that mean he had not edited the photos or used a body double?

He looked maybe 30. Now that they were face to face with him, he definitely felt like an adult, but he seemed more like a friendly homeroom teacher than a principal or vice principal. He wore a fancy suit and had the look of a young entrepreneur who had only ever known success from the moment he was born.

He also seemed like the type to be a twisted sort of clean freak. Maybe it was due to seeing what happened with Last Order and Maidono, but he did not look like someone who would dedicate himself to charity and volunteer work.

Mikoto had likened him to the powerful people of old.

Or as someone who wished he could live in those older times.

The elderly all said the younger generations had it too easy, but those comments had come to a stop at some point. This man was one of the powerful from that newer era.

Electricity crackled and high-voltage sparks scattered from Misaka Mikoto’s bangs.

“Anyway, I’m glad we got here before you could injure yourself. You’re aware this is checkmate, right? Even if you blew up your room with real Anti-Skill equipment you illicitly acquired, you can never brush aside the suspicions with this air ambulance here. No matter how clever a statement you write for the press conference, you’ll have a hard time selling that you got first aid done ''in an air ambulance that just so happened to be waiting on the roof before the explosion''.”

“Probably so.” He gave a snort of laughter. “Which means I’ll have to kill all of you. You could have avoided this fate if you hadn’t spied on me here. On the other hand, some dead kids to blame on Anti-Skill is sure to get the bored common folk on my side all the easier.”

“How do you propose doing that? I’m the #3, so I hope you don’t think firing a bullet at me is going to accomplish anything.”

Neoka seemed stunned she would even suggest such a thing.

Still seated on the stretcher, he tilted his head and answered her.

“I mean, I could always do this.”

Another fearsome explosion erupted out, but this one was pinpoint targeted at Misaka Mikoto.

It happened so suddenly she could not possibly have reacted in time.

If Index had not tugged on her arm with both hands and if Kamijou had not held his right palm out front, her body might have been obliterated beyond recognition.

But what was that?

What just happened!?

He was not holding any kind of weapon, but something had definitely happened.

“Stand back!!”

This time, Misaka Mikoto placed an arcade coin on her right thumb.

This was the Railgun.

Academy City’s #3 Level 5 was named for it. It could not be more obvious what would happen if a mass of metal fired at thrice the speed of sound hit a flesh-and-blood human, but that basic fact may have slipped the girl’s mind. She had decided the person in front of her was dangerous enough to warrant it.

And she was not exactly wrong.

If not for the fact that even this was not enough.

“Construct a fictional port between Au and Cu, aka Path 14.”

With a high-pitched ringing in their ears, ''the world blurred.

The elite from the Board of Directors was a moment faster due to his lack of hesitation.

He spoke only a single word.

“''Feuerel''.”

This time.

This time something really did fly in at a supersonic speed and ravaged Misaka Mikoto’s soul.

Her weapon was eliminated.

What had that voice command activated? The arcade coin on her thumb was meant to produce great firepower, but something massive struck it and it melted into the color orange.

The attack shot right by her cheek and scorched the air.

Kamijou had been watching from the side, but he had not managed to see what it was that had flown by.

(What?)

''Neoka.

''Neoka Norito had yet to even get up from the stretcher.

(What just happened!? The Directors are the elite few adults who control Academy City, so is he hiding some kind of technology that can overpower us!?)

“Now, then.”

The man slowly stood from the stretcher. He removed his expensive-looking watch, placed it aside, and put on the jacket the doctor handed him.

No one could do a thing.

The monster took a casual step down from the air ambulance.

With a single word, he had taken control of something unseen and bent something inviolable to his will. He seemed to be saying he would play by the childish rules of the children like Kamijou until he had taught them a lesson using this violence.

What was his science?

Kamijou could not figure out what this man’s science was.

“What did you do?”

He had been caught off guard with his right hand still held out in front.

Not only had the mystery attack come as a surprise, but ''his hand had negated the first one''. So whatever this was, Neoka Norito was using a supernatural power.

Why had Maidono Hoshimi remained struggling in the darkness when she had so much power?

He felt like he understood now. At the very least, Neoka Norito would not be bitten by his own pet dog. He would be able to overpower a Level 5 by force and put a chain around their neck!

The young Director shrugged.

“You come rushing at me ready to attack and then you act all offended when I fight back?”

“What did you do!? ''I thought Academy City’s esper development only worked on children''!!”

Academy City’s monsters could be divided into two general categories.

The first was the children with powerful abilities, such as Accelerator and Misaka Mikoto.

The second was the adults who found military uses of next-gen tech said to be more than 30 years ahead the rest of the world.

But this man was different. Did he not belong to either category!?

“It is simple,” he said while loosely spreading his arms like he was welcoming his enemies. “''Feuerel'' Construct a fictional port between Au and Cu, aka Path 14.”

“!?”

Immense flames appeared out of thin air before spiraling and gathering around the man’s right hand.

Was this an esper power?

“No!”

“''Wasserel''. Construct a fictional port between Hg and Ag, aka Path 20.”

It was his left hand this time. The water must have been compressed quite a bit to increase its pressure because it produced a straining sound like an old rope as it gathered around his hand.

This was bad.

Kamijou had no idea what this was, but he could tell it was bad news!!

Then the man made a casual motion. He brought his two hands together in front of his chest. Almost like he was clapping just the once to gather attention from his listeners.

And he made an announcement.

“The two are different, but their essence is equal. So let us combine them to arrive at a new solution.”

That was all it took for a fearsome water vapor explosion to erupt and to cover the entire rooftop in steam hot enough to boil a chicken white in three seconds.

The VTOL fighters stopped on the edge of the roof creaked and the air ambulance he had left shortly before rolled onto its side. The steam must have passed the 100-degree barrier several times over, so if someone contacted that without any kind of special gear, it would be just like being thrown into a steam oven.

“''Windel''. Construct a fictional port between Pb and Fe, aka Path 8.”

A purifying wind whirled around to allow Neoka Norito to stand in the center of the explosion without batting an eye.

And…

“I see. So this is the Imagine Breaker I have heard so much about.”

“!!”

Kamijou clenched his teeth while holding out his right hand to protect the two girls.

This was too much.

An adult using an esper power was breaking the rules in the first place, but he had wielded fire, water, and wind, one after another. One power per person was an absolute rule, but had he also broken through that barrier ''while he was at it'' to become a theoretically impossible Dual Skill!? Was his power so great he had to split it up using that voice control!?

“Is this really so surprising?” The one who had broken through the barriers made it sound so simple as he smiled and whispered. “This is no more than Minimum Collision Theory.”

“?”

“For example, exposing a nitrogen atom to powerful alpha rays will cause the number of protons to collapse. As a result, you will have an entirely different element, such as hydrogen or oxygen. There is no need to rely on a Personal Reality to manipulate the visible phenomena.”

Then was this a product of science?

Had it not left that category?

Kamijou was growing ever more confused, but…

“No matter how complex the world is, you only have to simplify things by cutting them down to a manageable size. Just like elementary particles are made up of only so many different particles. And just like light only has two states – a wave or a particle. I have merely simplified things in a way that allows me to view the composition of all things from a different angle. Using Minimum Collision Theory.”

(No.)

That sounded like an explanation, but it was not.

The example about nitrogen did not connect to what he had demonstrated. He was forcibly stuffing it all into one big box, but was that categorization really accurate?

Wasn’t he stuffing something entirely different into the wrong box?

Besides, Academy City’s esper powers were a way of forcibly shifting how one observed reality by viewing the world before your eyes with a set of values that only existed in your own head.

That might sound all-powerful, but it only provided the one filter. So an esper who controlled fire would not have a filter for water and an esper who controlled water would not have a filter for wind. Trying to carry both filters at once would only reduce the extent of the “shift” in your observations and you would fail to produce either power.

That was not something you could switch between using a voice activated command. Your Personal Reality would stick with you for your entire life. It was hard to control even for the esper it belonged to, so a lot of kids had trouble developing theirs well. Not even the #5’s strongest psychological powers would be able to freely switch this back and forth. If she could do that, she would likely have been known by a different esper name. Because if she had succeeded in that, she could have developed more than just those psychological powers.

In other words…

“You aren’t using a Personal Reality?”

“I believe I already said so.”

“I know that! That ‘box’ you’ve created for yourself isn’t the point!!”

The box was clearly mistaken.

But was the thing in that box not even an esper power?

An adult was using the supernatural powers that only kids should be able to use. He was also ignoring the restriction of one power per person and freely switching between different types of power.

Or was that not what was happening?

Was he not even an Academy City esper? Then the restrictions against adults and multiple powers no longer mattered. But in that case, why was he dividing things up by chemical element to manipulate whatever classical element he wanted?

Minimum Collision Theory.

What was this thing he had given that mistaken label?

“Hydrogen♪ And helium♪”

Kamijou heard a singing voice. It belonged to the girl who should have been an outsider in this situation – the white nun. And was she simply repeating that science song she had heard someone singing in the city’s crowds?

Or…

“Au, Cu, Hg, Ag, Pb, Fe.”

Even those tiny elements could form bonds.

And in this case, those bonds were formed with the knowledge in all of that girl’s grimoires.

“Gold is the sun, copper is the planet Venus, mercury is the planet Mercury, and silver is the moon. No, this process isn’t manipulating metals. 6, 7, 8, 9, 3, 5. Are they being assigned to the 10 Sephirah to reach the 22 channels linking them and thus to control the tree?”

All thought vanished from Kamijou’s mind.

But it made sense.

That would explain the many oddities seen here. It explained how an adult like Neoka could use a supernatural power and why he had ignored Academy City’s hierarchy by overwhelming Misaka Mikoto.

But this should have been taboo.

The people in this city could not be using that kind of thing.

That had to have been part of the rules Kamijou had never actually seen for himself. But that agreement had been between Aleister Crowley and Lola Stuart, both of whom were gone now.

So could it be?

Could it be?

Could it be?

“''Are you using magic''!?”

===Part 13===

The situation could hardly be worse.

But Kamijou Touma had a reason to not back down here.

Before coming here, he had exchanged a few words with someone.

''“Um, will you hear what Misaka has to say?”

It was such a ridiculous idea.

Some clone girls had once appeared before him. When he had learned of the experiment meant to kill all 20,000 of them, he had been overcome with rage and risked his life to stop it. But even he had only caught the occasional glimpse of Academy City’s dark side, so he did not have a feel for what that world was actually like.

What did it meant to crush that and get rid of it altogether?

''“Can Misaka ask something of you?”

But that may not have been what really mattered.

A girl had been captured, knocked unconscious, and then bound tightly enough to leave bruises, but Last Order had made sure to say this before rubbing at her raw skin, trembling in fear, or sobbing.

So he did not need two options here.

The one was enough.

''“Will you fight to save him? asks Misaka as Misaka begs you!”

Kamijou did not know how this would save that boy.

Even if he did defeat this asshole on the Board of Directors, Accelerator would remain behind bars of his own free will. Maybe that was the right thing to do, but that would never be a happy life. Kamijou could not help but wonder if Accelerator would not have had to make that choice if just one person out there had seriously tried to stop him.

But.

Even so.

He did not know if that was really true, so he did not want to reject the other boy’s decision too quickly. This was the path someone had found for themselves, so he would feel wrong trampling it underfoot. Maybe Accelerator would have reconsidered if someone had stopped him, but some futures could fail to come about if he had stopped.

Kamijou could tell Accelerator knew this would not be an easy thing but was prepared to do it regardless.

Then there could be no exceptions.

Just as Kamijou and Index had their path to walk, Accelerator and Last Order had their path to walk.

It would not be easy, but there was no need to overthink it.

He only had to place the scales in front of him.

Would he work up his courage here and live the rest of his life with his head held high with pride, or would he choose safety here and live the rest of his life hunched over in shame?

Which would he prefer?

The answer was obvious.

''“So, uh, how should I put this? Yeah, I know what to do here.”

So the boy smiled and answered.

Because he had wanted to be someone who could smile at times like this.

''“We’ll head over to the villain’s place and beat the snot out of him, so you wait for the good news.”

[[Image:GT_Index_v01_276-277.jpg|thumb]]

He could not fail to make good on that promise.

Great political power and concrete military might could allow people to trample on all sorts of rules.

But true human strength was found elsewhere.

So Kamijou could do this.

The willpower of no more than a boy could keep that other human on the path they had chosen.

He knew what Academy City’s #1 and the new Board Chairman wanted.

It was time to protect Accelerator’s dream.

===Between the Lines 4===

Academy City’s Board of Directors had 12 members below the Board Chairman at the top.

They each had their own specialty field and were constantly trying to muscle in on each other’s territory. The complex and antagonistic structure they formed created an untold history of developing new weapons and new technologies that were used above and below the board. And the weapons mentioned here need not be simple blades or firearms. For those old men and women fighting for a larger slice of the pie in that adult world, justice and philanthropy were no more than disposable bullets.

“Good grief. Looks like one idiot has pushed up above the rest.”

A high school girl was whispering in the shadows.

She was not one of the Directors herself. She was the brain who worked below one of those old men.

“''A former rescue squad elite'', huh? I don’t know where he took such a wrong turn, but I bet he’s a lot more athletic than he looks.”

It had been lost in the confusion of Accelerator butting in as the new Board Chairman, but the old man she worked for had mentioned a “youth” trying to steal the initiative during former Board Chairman Aleister’s absence.

Had he made that bold move because he had a reason forcing him to do so?

Rescue work was taxing and it was even more difficult within Academy City. An unbelievable number of risks could be found in this densely-populated metropolis: chemicals, bacteria, electromagnetic waves, strange next-generation technology, and esper powers gone berserk.

Of course, none of that ever made it to the news. Academy City only stayed in business as long as it remained an ideal city where parents felt comfortable leaving their children. No one would sign on the dotted line if the contract blatantly stated that the city was under no liability if the children under their care ended up dead.

Someone had continually braved those hidden dangers.

So how had he wandered over to the world of money and politics, risen above so many other monsters, taken one of the 12 seats on the Board, and grown so fixated on the dark side where so many people sank into the depths of tragedy? As a fellow Director, Kaizumi had the same authority as that man, but even his computer was not enough to search out the answers to those questions.

“Now, then,” sighed the high school girl. “I need to write up a report on the pros and cons of intervening and of not intervening here. Although as usual, it looks like neither one is quite the right answer. Either option comes with pain, so it really comes down to choosing which on you like more.”

The new Board Chairman wished to eliminate the dark side.

When the rest of the Board heard that, they had only checked to see how it would benefit or hurt them personally. Of course, not a single one of those 12 VIPs had no involvement in the dark side. The old woman named Oyafune Monaka was the gentlest of the bunch and avoided underhanded dealings, but even she had stopped at simply turning a blind eye to the dark side as a whole. But since they all dealt with the dark side differently, the damage they would take from its elimination differed.

Those who would take little damage would welcome it, those who would take a lot of damage would oppose it.

They did not particularly care if the attempt to eliminate the dark side actually succeeded or not. They were only interested in attacking the other Directors when that great wave shook them.

In that sense, Neoka Norito had been the biggest target.

He had sided too much with the dark side in his pursuit of personal interest. If this attempt destroyed that economic foundation out from under him, he would have trouble spending the money needed to maintain his social standing. And once he was weakened, the rest of the Board would attack. They would bite into him, tear him apart, and devour him. There was no camaraderie between those 12 Directors.

“Those 12 forces are too busy attacking each other to stop the attempted elimination of the dark side.”

This was always going to be a hard fight for Neoka Norito’s side.

He must have thought this was his only option if he was to recover. Even if it was a baseless theory and he had not been dumb enough to think it would actually work.

“Then again, I never expected him to join forces with an organization outside the city. That qualifies as inviting in a foreign threat, so I wonder how he intends to end this.”

Neoka Norito was using a type of technology this girl and Kaizumi did not fully understand.

But it was not something he had exclusive ownership of.

Things had been in motion for a bit now.

(Interesting events have a way of falling on Christmas Eve, don’t they?)

A baked good and some strong coffee sat on the side table next to the leather sofa she was using.

“A custom donut decorated with a lucky color based on your birthday, blood type, and such, huh?”

Normally, that sort of occult nonsense would find no place for itself in this city.

But it had instead become a huge fad.

There was no obvious sign of companies pushing it, like there was with the idea of giving people chocolate on Valentine’s day, yet something had grown twisted here.

Academy City was generally atheistic and tried to resolve all things with scientific equations, but maybe it was not too surprising that something occult had found its way in on this day.

The donut itself was not a conspiracy.

If anything, it was more like a litmus test meant to measure people’s hearts.

If a silly product like this could spread so rapidly, then it was also possible for the people of this city to reach for something else they normally never would have.

People’s hearts could be swayed.

Like when they viewed a solemn religious painting or cathedral, or when they saw a giant meteor falling from the sky. Only believing your own eyes was second-rate as a defensive tactic. You might as well be telling people you would be easily taken in by the occult as long as it was shown to you in a visible form.

In other words…

“Gathering local troops via the internet? What a nasty age we live in.”

The girl hit a key on a special computer the size of a drawing board and thus too large to call a laptop. She displayed something on an LCD screen the size of an average TV.

“R&C Occultics. A new giant IT company that specializes in magic, huh?”

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