Editing Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun Chapter4

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3. Yugure Kanaria herself was stealing secret information.

And when faced with something like that, the correct course of action was to call Anti-Skill and get the adults’ help. There was no reason to rush in and act like this was a single player game. If Mikoto’s group got wiped out without letting anyone know, then no one would be able to rescue Yugure Kanaria from that underground space.

But it had sounded an awful lot like Yugure Kanaria had said something about a factory?

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“Now, that should be enough of a warmup.”

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Mikoto needed to settle things with Resanerié no matter what.

Unfortunately, that agitator was an empress who controlled the elites from all five School Garden schools. With that much security, sneaking in and catching her unawares would be nigh impossible.

At the same time, the Shokuhou Clique needed to attack Mikoto and send her to be executed in order to escape suspicion.

If that fight continued much longer, Mikoto felt like she would have exhausted herself before even reaching Resanerié.

But there was a loophole there.

None of it was a problem if she could constantly move through the School Garden while engaged in a serious battle with the Shokuhou Clique. That let Hokaze and the others preserve their position while the explosions and whatnot produced by their flashy attacks created a smokescreen for Mikoto to move ever closer to Resanerié.

Berserker Hokaze appeared to be assisting with that act. …Although it didn’t seem to be entirely an act with her.

Hokaze whispered so only Mikoto would hear while she threw punches and kicks at extreme close range. The explosions produced by the other clique members’ stray shots were much too loud for her lowered voice to travel far.

“(That sums up what the Queen told us regarding the problems facing Resanerié-sama’s independence and what she did on the roof after you left. Hopefully that will help you analyze her power!)”

“(Thanks, Hokaze-san.)”

“(Also, the assignment to search for you was apparently a loyalty test for anyone she suspected might consider siding with you. Most likely, um, Kongou-sama and the pair from the swim team have not lost their heads and are only pretending to search for you in order to protect you.)”

“(Eh? O-oh, no!! Kongou-san does get fired up easily, but she never crosses that line, does she? I ''thought'' she was acting weird! I need to apologize for ever suspecting her later on!!)”

“(Also, she said her Aero Hand has no cap on how many ejection points it can produce, so if she can move to the underside of the School Garden and place a thousand or ten thousand points there, you can electrically destroy the synchronized grid of coaxial rotors while she uses Aero Hand to slow the School Garden’s descent enough for a safe landing.)”

“(The daughter of Kongou Airlines used her expertise in all things aerial to come up with a better plan than anyone else!? I ''really'' need to apologize!!)”

It was becoming pretty obvious they were only making bright flashes of light and loud booms while moving as a group, so the elites who really did agree with Resanerié’s group were starting to notice and take action.

But once they got close, it wasn’t hard to deal with them.

Mikoto would zap them with a high-voltage current or Hokaze and the rest of the Shokuhou Clique would hit them with a “stray” fireball, ultrasonic wave, or whatever else. This was of course a major gamble for the Shokuhou Clique. If this ended quickly, everything would work out, but if not and they could no longer explain their actions, they would find themselves cornered.

But they had chosen to trust in Mikoto’s ability as an individual fighter.

Resanerié used a halberd and a megaphone.

If Mikoto could prevent her from using the weapon that gave her control over the group, the tides would turn.

“(Now, hurry!! I believe Resanerié-sama is using Tokiwadai as her base!!)”

“(Thanks, Hokaze-san. And the rest of you too. I’ll treat all of you but Shokuhou to something later!!)”

Mikoto entered the Tokiwadai campus with those parting words, but the ringlets girl looked displeased. She looked like someone had seriously suggested they order their katsu curry without the cutlet, the sauce, the vegetables, or the rice.

Mikoto heard a dull swishing sound from the center of the schoolyard expertly tended by the school gardener.

That was the sound of a halberd slicing through the air.

“So you came.”

“It turns out Canary-chan tracked down the truth. You really screwed up not killing her. The School Garden doesn’t have enough food to be self-sufficient, does it? I only heard a bit about it when I rescued her, but this little world of yours is about to learn all about the truth she discovered underground. Since we have ''a hacker even more skilled than me'' on our side.”

“So what?”

“?”

Resanerié didn’t even hesitate.

Mikoto frowned for a moment. This didn’t seem to be an act. Was she planning to establish a reign of terror to rule over the people by force if necessary?

“What choice did I have? Her Micro Dying can kill all the microbes living in symbiosis with us, so it is the deadliest single attack to use against us humans. You can’t even approach her safely without a full body hazmat suit on. She couldn’t actually reach the factory’s products from that section, so the cleverest plan should have been to weaken her from a distance and then shut the exit so she starved down there.”

“Thanks. If you had said you couldn’t bring yourself to kill her, I would have lost the will to go all out against you. Now I won’t have any qualms about ''finishing this''.”

“Keep in mind I am the tyrant who tried to slaughter all of the teachers to achieve my goals. Even the ones I have never met.”

Misaka Mikoto and Resanerié Sadis Dialine clashed without a second’s hesitation.

Tokiwadai Middle School’s schoolyard was not the only battlefield.

Nowhere was safe across the School Garden isolated at an altitude of 5000m.

For example, the main road lined with so many food trucks.

“Tch! Why are there so many of them?”

Shokuhou Misaki clicked her tongue while twirling a TV remote in her hand.

The dull metallic clangs came from the people surrounding the food truck she was hiding in.

An attorney.

A maid.

An accountant.

A chef.

Did they not bring a crowd because the Shokuhou Clique was keeping everyone else busy despite being outnumbered? Or had they not wanted to bring the ordinary students until the secret data had been thoroughly erased?

“Boy, do I hope Misaka-san reveal the plan early because she let that battle dimension she lives in get to her head. Like telling Resanerié that Kanaria-san has solid evidence or that we have a hacker.”

“Personally, I think the problem is how you led these dangerous people straight to us!!” protested Shirai.

There was no time to determine the truth of the matter.

Their top priority was to defend Uiharu Kazari during the countdown until the factory’s contradiction was publicly revealed.

They also wanted to prevent any harm coming to Yugure Kanari and Tsumebakei.

Shokuhou kissed the tip of her remote and winked at the twintails girl standing alongside her.

“Care to name our targets?”

“You will only complicate matters, so stay put until I am done!!”

Shirai Kuroko silently vanished.

Based on her movements, she seemed to have her sights on the maid or the chef.

Tokiwadai’s Queen sighed.

(Oh? She doesn’t even consider relying on the #5’s power here? Does that come from her pride as a Judgment member? She really is wasted on Misaka-san.)

That said, she didn’t want to sit idly by while that girl got beaten up for that.

She was through watching on as justice lovers came to harm.

“I-I-I-I can f-f-fight too!! I mean it!! Just, uh, hand me a bat and I’m unstoppable!”

“You can be the hacker’s last line of defense, so you’re staying here☆”

Shokuhou used Mental Out to silence the girl who nearly charged right at the enemy before anyone had even seen their powers. …Shokuhou would never again let an overzealous Level 0 come to harm on her watch.

“Now, then,” muttered Shokuhou Misaki as she turned back around.

She heard the scrape of a shoe sole against the pavement. It came from the attorney.

“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, #5.”

“Yeah, yeah. Cut the pre-battle formalities.”

Sensing a lengthy introduction coming, Shokuhou Misaki cut her off with an annoyed wave of her hand.

That girl shamelessly thought she could outdo Academy City’s #5 with words.

Only someone whose actions were unswayed by words and numbers could manage that.

“You were careless to face me directly.”

She removed the kissed remote from her lips.

And she aimed it.

“For better or for worse, you have a human mind.”

Aimed it dead ahead.

“And that’s all I need for checkmate☆”

She was #5 of Academy City’s seven Level 5s.

Do not underestimate Mental Out.

This time, Resanerié was not messing around.

Misaka Mikoto was nothing but trouble for her. Her top priority was Yugure Kanaria who knew the truth, so she wanted to deal with Mikoto as quickly as possible and hunt down Kanaria along with the outsider Uiharu.

Even if Resanerié’s side had control of the School Garden’s data network, Mikoto’s power could likely break through all the security and transmit the necessary data. If the fatal flaw in their independence was revealed, no one could predict which side the students of the five schools would take.

So she came in fast and hard.

It was like a silver gale.

The halberd technique was already enough to overwhelm Mikoto, but now its destructive power was boosted by her esper power to the point that she could easily dislocate her shoulder if she didn’t stretch in advance.

However.

“Now that I know how it works…”

“?”

“Your power doesn’t scare me!!!”

An explosion erupted directly below them.

Mikoto had magnetically pulled on a water pipe until it broke and the fountaining water formed a wall between them.

Resanerié’s power forcibly increased the speed of her weapon, so Mikoto only had to slow it back down to negate that boost. At normal speed, Mikoto could just barely dodge the halberd using her full-body microwave radar.

The axe split the air, but Mikoto had swung her head aside to dodge it while also taking a large jump back.

“You sounded awfully confident when you said the start of our first battle was only a warmup, but if that’s all it was, you wouldn’t have risked it when facing an enemy. You didn’t start using your power right away because you were nervous. You wanted to learn as many of my attacks and idiosyncrasies as you could so you knew when to activate your power to win with ease.”

“…”

“Your power is strong, but it has a time limit,” plainly stated Mikoto. “''Someone told me'' your precious halberd crumbled into rust after our battle on the roof. Your power is a telekinetic control of rust, isn’t it? Once you activate it, you can break all of your limits and fight with such speed you can dislocate your shoulder, but it also causes your weapon to rapidly rust and break apart. How long does it last? 5 minutes? 10? If you run into any surprises and the battle goes on long, your weapon crumbles before you’re done.”

“It’s called Crimson Manager.”

“From what I’ve seen, I doubt it’s only Level 3. If you can pull out rebar and steel beams with that same speed and force, then I bet you could break any bank vault or warship you wanted. That means you’re probably Level 4 like Kuroko. But,” added Misaka Mikoto. “You haven’t reached Level 5.”

A beam of light shined bright.

She had pulled an arcade coin from her pocket and tried to launch it, but the metal coin rusted away before she could accelerate it. The orange beam failed to form a stable line and fanned out toward Resanerié’s right side before vanishing.

Resanerié made her next attack just as the attempt failed.

Mikoto tried to respond with an iron sand sword, but…

(Tch. She can rust my coins and the iron sand!! I’m not sure what her effective range is!!)

But that didn’t matter.

The oxidation of rapid rusting produced heat. A hand warmer was a good example of that.

So Mikoto increased the friction even further to set the collection of iron sand on fire.

Then she sent the wall of flames directly toward Resanerié.

Several dull crashes followed.

Resanerié was launched backwards, where she rolled a few times along the ground while the shoulder of Mikoto’s uniform was torn away by the halberd’s hook. A few centimeters higher and it would have torn off her ear.

Resanerié still hadn’t let go of the halberd.

That insistence must have left her with a few shallow cuts from her own blade as she rolled. She slowly got back up with some red spilling from her cheek.

“I am empress of the Dialine Empire.”

“Why should I care?”

“You don’t know? Because, unlike the rest of you, I must eventually return to my home country. And what happens to the Academy City esper power developed inside my brain then?”

“…”

Did it all stem from this?

After spending years developing that power, Academy City would not want her to bring it back to her country. So once her schooling here was complete, the adults would insist on removing her power. Something would happen to preserve the secrets of esper development. So was she trying to eliminate the adult teachers and researchers who would attempt to steal her power from her?

Mikoto considered it, but she shook her head.

She wielded a halberd.

She wore riding breeches under her skirt.

She had been showing off hints at a deeper personal problem this entire time.

“You’re the captain of the equestrian combat club.”

“?”

“You learned to wield that giant halberd with one hand so you could fight while holding the reins and you still prefer to wear riding breeches below your uniform. But there is one thing you’re missing.”

Namely…

“''What happened to your horse?''”

“''Bistorio was forced to retire after breaking a leg during a training accident. And his genes weren’t considered valuable enough to let him live on as a stud.''”

She kept vanishing into thin air.

When repeatedly teleporting around, Shirai Kuroko could make use of most anything. For example, a leaf floating in the air or a slight bump on a building wall could make a reliable foothold for her.

Nevertheless, she was forced to fight a defensive battle.

Yes. Teleportation did not provide a direct defense. When worried about an enemy attack, she had to focus on hopping every which way to dodge that attack.

And in this case…

“Explosions!?”

“F-feel free to interpret it that way.”

A gloomy girl in a chef’s uniform accurately targeted her from a distance. She muttered quietly while throwing invisible shockwaves Shirai’s way. The instant after Shirai vanished, one tore into the very space she had vacated, leaving a crater in the building wall behind.

Invisible attacks were a pain to deal with.

If the first one hadn’t crushed a leaf in the wind on its way to her, it might have killed her.

There were plenty of wind espers like Kongou Mitsuko, but this one seemed different. She made some casual movements meant to hide how she was rubbing something in her hand.

That would produce friction, so her power likely started with heating something.

“So it is just explosions.”

“I-it is not!! There are plenty of other possibilities!”

She must have wanted to keep her power a secret, but attempting to camouflage after your opponent had already grown suspicious was a waste of time.

Shirai Kuroko didn’t quite understand since the identity of her power was plainly obvious whenever she used it, but there were people who preferred to keep the identity of their power a secret.

“Do you control flammable gasses or aerosols? No, any material produces some traces of flammable gas when burned, so do you amplify that? I’m guessing this is a highly convenient and dangerous explosion power that lets you trigger a large explosion from the burning of any object you want.”

“N-no, no, definitely not!!”

An explosion was technically an expansion of gas using the process of combustion. The substances commonly known as explosives simply accelerated that process so much that objects were pushed away quickly enough to cause damage.

Burning anything, even paper or wood, would produce some trace amounts of flammable gas.

What if someone could accelerate that speed 100 times, 1000 times, or even more?

“How are you so perceptive!? You aren’t cheating and looking me up in the Bank, are you!?”

“Oh, that’s a great idea. You aren’t even wearing a mask, so I can use my Judgment authority to look you up.”

“Oh, god!! No, no, noooooo!!!” she screamed, tearfully.

That move was apparently considered taboo in these supernatural battles of mutual deception. Shirai doubted any investigative agency or law enforcement organization would waste its time playing along with the criminals’ riddles, though.

But no matter how stupid this girl was, her power was very real.

“Gah!?”

“F-feeling faint?”

The attacks were invisible.

But that wasn’t what mattered.

An attack had definitely hit Shirai Kuroko.

“Using a pressure cooker affects the flavor of the food. A high enough pressure allows the seasonings to permeate the meat while ignoring the osmotic pressure. Heh…heh. If I use an explosive blast providing pressure of about 1000 atmospheres to launch a mist of ''vinegar'' in a fan shape, I can ignore your skin’s defenses and directly inject it into your bloodstream.”

“Vin-?”

“Vinegar. In other words CH₃COOH at a concentration of 3%. Oh, and your entire body is going to experience hellish pain in a few more seconds. But I was actually showing you some mercy by not using alcohol.”

She must have been confident Shirai could not move any more.

The chef swung her hand horizontally. The scenery grew distorted there. It was invisible, but she had likely concentrated a shockwave into a 2m kitchen knife.

She had the power to slice an elephant in two if she wanted.

“To be honest, I never cared about any of this good or evil nonsense. But the freedom to ignore all the rules did appeal to me. I never did manage to track down one legend spoken of in this city.”

“…?”

“I know shouldn’t be saying this. I know it’s wrong.”

The chef girl grinned while holding a giant knife formed by sharpening a shockwave created from an explosion’s flammable gas.

“''Just once, I wanted to try cooking up a human.''”

Attorney Tougyo Kea and #5 Shokuhou Misaki calmly confronted each other.

Neither of them moved.

A stillness surrounded them.

But that didn’t mean nothing was happening.

“Sense Striker,” whispered Tougyo Kea, smiling thinly. “This power is meant to give my empress a relaxing time with no trivialities to distract her, but it can also be used to attack.”

“…”

“I do not need bright lights or loud noises to take out people’s senses. Just like you can sense the pressure of a stranger standing directly behind you on the elevator late at night, people’s senses are surprisingly vague. At times, they can shove aside the commonly defined five senses to influence the mind. Like how a hand held in the snow for too long will feel warm or how the larger of two objects of the same weight will feel lighter. Anything like that will work. I can create the ''physical'' illusions that lead people to reject their ordinary senses of sight and hearing.”

Shokuhou Misaki did not respond.

She remained entirely motionless.

“Your power controls the mind.”

It was clear she was not responding.

“But you must indicate a target with a remote each time you use it. Your power is reliant on your ordinary five senses, so you aren’t a threat if I keep your body from moving.”

“…”

“And once your power is taken from you, you are well below average. I can kill you at my leisure.”

Just as she said that, a small flame appeared on the back of her hand.

“?”

She reflexively shook her hand to the side before it hit her.

What was that?

Could Shokuhou Misaki’s power light a physical flame?

When she took a look around, she realized her surroundings were engulfed in flames. The two of them were surrounded.

That was enough to clue her in.

In front of her, the girl who supposedly had her senses fooled was smiling thinly.

“It’s an illusion.”

She felt pain like being pricked by countless needles.

The burning sensation on her skin was so realistic.

“Whatever you might do to me, it’s no more than an illusion!! Your phantasms don’t scare me!!!”

''I am fine,'' Tougyo Kea told herself.

She only had to avoid shock brought on by fear.

Whatever harm she might come to in this illusion could not affect the physical world.

“True,” readily admitted her opponent. “This is simply an illusion☆ None of it is actually happening.”

Shokuhou Misaki’s bottom half turned into a snake.

No, it was covered by scales, but they were fish scales.

The attorney’s eyes widened as Shokuhou’s scaley legs split into 12 and flames wrapped around each one. The collision of fine soot sent thick jolts of electricity through the flames.

The beautiful monster grew to overwhelming size and looked down upon her.

She put her hands behind her head to show off her body, stuck out her tongue a little, and winked.

The attorney could only look up and sweat.

“But can you ever escape this imaginary labyrinth?”

Another of the four servants, the maid named Renka Ephilty, took aim at Shokuhou Misaki.

That was Academy City’s #5, so defeating her in a direct confrontation would be difficult.

But who said anything about fighting 1-on-1?

The maid didn’t know how much longer the attorney would last, but she had done enough by getting Mental Out to focus on her alone. After all, this was the #5. Her psychological power was most effective in group battles, so having that power used for a 1-on-1 battle was the perfect opportunity. Now all the maid had to do was blow a hole in the side of Shokuhou Misaki’s head while she stood there locked in an imaginary battle with the attorney.

Renka Ephilty could do that.

She crouched down and took another step.

That was enough to tear apart the air and launch the maid forward like an arrow. She glided less than a meter off the ground. The researchers had described her power as ground effect wings, but she imagined herself as a flying fish.

Her power was called Fly Racing.

That Level 3 power let her create giant wings by controlling hard plastics like the extensions in her hair and the wires keeping the shape of her maid uniform.

She knew a Level 3 was no match for a Level 5, but her lack of skill didn’t matter to her in the slightest.

It was that very lack that had taught her to be straightforward to a fault.

She never tried to accomplish three steps at once. She would complete one step at a time.

It was extremely inefficient and caused her lots of problems, but if she could pull it off faster than anyone else, then it was her greatest shortcut. Even if she made mistakes due to her lack of skill, they didn’t truly count as mistakes if she could make up for them before anyone else could take advantage of them.

(My max gliding speed is 1100km/h. My weight is 52kg, so if I sacrifice one of my arms, I can do more than blast a hole in the #5’s head; I can tear it clean off!!)

“My, my. It isn’t that you move in slow motion – you just live an awkward life, don’t you?”

“!?”

Out of nowhere, a voice whispered from the side.

In fact, a girl was keeping up with her. The Tokiwadai student with the face of a super slow motion curse was moving at the same speed as her!?

“My power is Micro Dying. My, my. All it can do is kill mold, germs, bacteria, and any other microbe at a touch.”

Renka didn’t see how that power would let her move at subsonic speed.

But it did.

“Did you know? Some molds, spores, and other microbes that dislike drying out and exposure to oxygen will create a slime to protect themselves. My, my. I only need to choose which microbes to leave alive and I can slide along the ground or the wall like I am skating. I just apply my power to the soles of my shoes or to the surface below me.”

“…”

Renka was soaked with sweat.

This girl’s power didn’t just slaughter all microbes. She could pick and choose which ones to kill.

If she wanted to, she could create a biological weapon or a vaccine against it.

She was unbeatable.

Battling that monster of a girl was the beginning of a devastating defeat.

But Shokuhou Misaki was right there. So even if Renka couldn’t win as an individual, she could still send herself slamming into that defenseless girl at top speed.

“Reach her.”

She could do this for her empress. She could still use her unskilled life to kill that genius leader.

That would be enough.

“I don’t care!! Because I still win. I just have to reach herrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!”

“No, I don’t think so.”

The other girl gently reached out.

It didn’t matter if the distance was a kilometer, a meter, a centimeter, or a millimeter.

If Renka didn’t reach Shokuhou, then her attempt was over.

“You set foot within my arm’s reach. My, my. And in that range, I control all living things protected by microbes.”

“…!!”

Didn’t you know?

Yugure Kanaria’s power had scary potential, she was afflicted with a super slow motion curse, she was a stickler for keeping promises, and she had approached the truth of this incident as part of the newspaper club.

But in addition to all of that, Misaka Mikoto of all people had said she had a ''strong'' sense of justice.

“And I will not let a life under my control be wasted.”

The maid spun out and crashed into the hedge shrubbery dividing the street from the sidewalk. But that wasn’t all. She was tangled up in something like a spiderweb. It was probably a harmless form of slime mold. Because without that, her speed would have shredded her flesh and shattered her bones.

Shokuhou Misaki remained unharmed.

But the accountant named Sanki Ai’s calculations said that was acceptable.

(Pretend you have been defeated. No, you don’t have to pretend. Actually being close to death works as well.)

She must not fear the possibility of loss.

Loss was not a problem if it led to even greater profit.

What mattered was whether the final account came out in the black or in the red.

(Plus Equipment.)

Sanki Ai’s power was a telekinesis that formed a fine fabric that fit so perfectly skintight it reached every pore. It was stronger than velcro. It attached the skin more easily and it took in more air than tying on a normal cloth, so it was far more effective at stopping bleeding than a bandage. She could also switch off her power at will, so removing it was no trouble.

It didn’t help with broken bones, but even if she didn’t, strictly speaking, heal them, she could still get someone fighting again as long as they had a way of forcing their body to move again.

That let her disguise how many on her side were still capable of fighting. That was her most effective strategy.

(The people the enemy thinks are already defeated are my greatest trump card. If I hide and secretly bring our side back into the fight, we can attack from the enemy’s blind spot just when they think they have won and let their guard down. That makes a counterattack perfectly possible!!)

Just then, she found something standing in her way. It was a small girl of only 12 glaring at the accountant. Maybe it was the extreme tension or excitement brought on by her anger, but her little nose was dripping blood even though no one had hit her.

She spoke in an oddly low voice for her small shape.

“Why does everyone keep doing this?”

She wiped up some of the red with her thumb.

A change came over it.

The world quickly filled with grotesqueries.

A single drop of blood was said to contain between five and ten thousand white blood cells. All of those now grew to a size of 2m.

And white blood cells were an extremely ferocious component of blood that consumed and eliminated any foreign bodies in the blood.

Macro Dying revealed its true power here.

“Stop being mean to my sisterrrrrrrrrr!!!”

The sea of white blood cells attacked Shirai Kuroko and the chef as well.

The chef still held the 2m knife created by concentrating the invisible shockwave formed from the flammable gas she amplified with Material Flare.

“What the-!?”

“Do you really have time for distractions?”

With that icy question, several metal darts stabbed into the chef’s body.

Red blood splattered from her.

True disbelief filled her eyes this time. Her expression said she was viewing something even more revolting than the giant white blood cells.

Shirai Kuroko had completed her calculations without delay.

But how?

Vinegar had been injected into her bloodstream. She should have been suffering from enough pain to kill her from shock unless she underwent dialysis!!

“My power is Teleportation,” murmured Shirai. “I can transport myself or anything I touch while ignoring the restrictions of three-dimensional space.”

“Gah…you mean you teleported the vinegar from your blood?” The chef immediately rejected the idea. “You couldn’t have. You aren’t powerful enough to be immune to all biological and chemical weapons!! If you could do that, not even nuclear fallout could kill you!!”

“Very true.”

Shirai Kuroko tapped the back of her head and sighed.

No, wait.

What was that?

Did she have ''a metal dart stabbed into the back of her own head?

“But by applying pressure to the outside of my skull and triggering an evenly distributed headache, I can cut off all other pain. Of course, if my aim was off by just a few millimeters, I would end up with total paralysis instead.”

Was she crazy?

A headache from external skull pressure was the absolute worst kind of headache, rivaling a subarachnoid hemorrhage. That was not a normal way of pushing yourself. How could she go that far to keep herself focused on this battle!?

But that was where it ended.

With a pleasant “thud!!”, the chef dropped straight to the ground.

A dart had stabbed into the center of her forehead, but it was not meant to destroy her brain. By stabbing the dart almost but not quite to her skull, the vibration had knocked her unconscious.

That was just how accurately Shirai Kuroko could control her Teleportation.

With the four assassins defeated, no one remained to stop them.

Uiharu poked her head out of the food truck with her PDA in both hands.

“Everything’s set. I can release the data whenever you’re ready!!”

It all came down to that.

That was their one and only win condition.

She lurched.

Resanerié Sadis Dialine had prided herself in being untouchable, but this was all it took.

That horse was no longer with her.

Her Bistorio.

That was the true motivation behind the fearsome empress’s self-destructive actions that had captured the entire School Garden.

“They removed the medical equipment, turned away the vet, and refused to even euthanize him, letting him die in pain.”

In Tokiwadai’s schoolyard, a certain girl’s smile was torn apart by emotion as she roared.

These were the feelings of someone who had their greatest treasure, whatever that might be, cruelly taken from them.

“When I saw that, I realized they didn’t treat humans any better. If the adults decide your treatment costs and genetic value aren’t worth it, the same could happen to any of us. Which is why having everyone declare independence is the only way to protect ourselves!!”

“…”

Misaka Mikoto did not nod or shake her head.

But she did think this girl was a fool.

The teachers had not protected the partner she cared about more than her own life. Providing medical treatment and rehabilitation was not worth the costs since he could no longer be used in matches, so the club supervisor and the other teachers had ended the horse’s life without Resanerié’s permission. Her hatred and sorrow had been too great for her to contain.

Had she decided that wasn’t a good enough reason to fight?

Had she given up on the idea of anyone helping her without actually asking anyone first and decided to blot out her righteous motivations with lies?

The debate representatives had convinced so many people to go along with the absurd idea of declaring independence and sending the School Garden into the sky, so if she had been honest about her reasons, Mikoto would have helped with her fight.

She would have gladly fought with all her might then.

“I…”

“What?”

“I think taking revenge on the teachers because you couldn’t accept that a single precious life was taken is a lot cooler and a lot more becoming of you than some nonsense about declaring independence and launching the School Garden into the sky.”

“!?”

Resanerié said nothing more.

Mikoto could actually hear her biting her lip.

The halberd tore through the air as it approached too fast to be seen. It flew in a fierce jab as straight as straight could be. Mikoto spun around, stripped off her blazer, and let the attack catch it.

In fact, she wrapped the garment around the halberd’s complex blade to give her a grip on it.

“What!?”

“The halberd’s complex design allows it to jab, cut, or catch as a spear, an axe, or a hook.”

Mikoto pulled hard on the wrapped cloth.

With them playing tug-of-war, Resanerié could not properly wield the halberd. And heavy weapons needed enough movement range for a large swing to gain sufficient force.

It did have a blade, but it wasn’t a famous katana capable of slicing through a piece of paper that fell upon its blade.

With several layers of the blazer wrapped and tangled around it, it couldn’t slice through the uniform fabric.

Once a blade couldn’t cut you, it was no longer a threat.

“But if I let it hit me, it can ''accidentally'' hit me with a part you didn’t intend for, can’t it? You’re the one that said the halberd is tricky to use. And the cloth stops you from using the spear, axe, or hook no matter which one it actually catches!!”

Mikoto flicked something up with her right thumb: an arcade coin.

She had dealt with the halberd, but Resanerié hadn’t lost Crimson Manager.

“That won’t work on me!!”

“I know. Which is why I really hope you use your full power on it.”

Mikoto showed no hesitation as a sign of respect. She stretched out her arm alongside the trapped halberd and took aim.

“If I launch a Railgun from point-blank range, you had better make the coin rust away to nothing because I don’t want you dying here so soon after I learn how cool you can be!!!”

An explosive boom and a shockwave shook the entire School Garden as it floated 5000m above the ground.

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