“Okay, everyone! I’ll be teaching you chemistry for today’s last class, and…Gyaaahhh?! A lawless battle between delinquents?! Is this what my peaceful class has transformed into?!”

“It was for the sake of peace.”

“What in the world happened? Fuki, you’re acting like you’re part of a peacekeeping brigade!!”

Komoe almost sounded like she was crying. From the floor, Kamijou let out a groan and said, “M-Ms. Komoe…Nobody did anything wrong, really…”

“Then why did this happen?!” Komoe cried.

Kamijou raised a shaky finger at somewhere a little below Seiri Fukiyose’s face. “…It’s just, Fukiyose’s got stuff that feels really good, and she won’t let us have even a little rub!!”

That was enough for Komoe to blush fiercely and fall over backward. Fukiyose didn’t check on her—instead she clenched her fist and slowly moved in to continue her assault.

3

Four girls stood in a hospital.

Their location was far from the routes connecting the entrance to the hospital rooms, so while it wasn’t intended to be off-limits, it was still usually empty. The hospital had designated this section a “clinical research area,” a pompous name considering all the warm sunlight streaming in from the windows.

They were in a hallway.

All four had brown, shoulder-length hair and clear, pale complexions. Their silhouettes were exactly alike and each bore the same eyes—in shape, color, pupils, and retinas. They all wore gray pleated skirts, white short-sleeved blouses, and sleeveless summer sweaters, the slightly out-of-season summer uniform of Tokiwadai Middle School.

They went by many names.

The Sisters.

Radio Noise.

Military mass-production model Level Fives.

These girls had shortened life spans thanks to genetic manipulation and drug-induced growth stimulation technology. They were here at the hospital now to solve that problem through many treatments. The second phase had begun just today. Until now, they’d been cloistered away in hospital beds, but their rehabilitation now involved small, frequent trips outside.

A doctor with a face like a frog, holding a small clipboard similar to the kind a waiter might carry, spoke to the Sisters. “So? Would you have rather worn Tokiwadai winter uniforms outside?”

“There is no problem, replies Misaka number 10032,” asserted one of the four. They were differentiated not by name, but by their serial numbers. The frog-faced doctor wasn’t the one who made that decision; all he knew was that it had been decided when they were manufactured.

“Are all four of you the same size?” he asked, jotting down an order request on his clipboard.

The four Sisters didn’t even exchange glances. They all made a face, like the answer was obvious.

“You needn’t measure us all individually, as we all match, answers Misaka number 10032.”

“All Misakas are mass-production models created from the same genes, adds Misaka number 13577.”

“This is how we were made, so you need not think about differences in size, concludes Misaka number 10039.”

“I…Well…,” the last one stammered.

“““…?”””

The three other Sisters turned to the fourth upon hearing her trouble.

Misaka number 19090 looked away and cringed a little. She seemed to be trying to cover her upper chest with her hands.

Number 10032—called Little Misaka by a certain young man—gave her the slightest strange look before appearing to have an epiphany.

She approached number 19090. Then she clenched her fists, stuck out her thumbs, turned her fists upside down, and plunged those two fingers straight between number 19090’s skirt and body.

“What?! She should be exactly as the specifications suggest, yet there are two full thumb widths of space here, reports Misaka number 10032 immediately!!”

“Every Misaka should be the same Misaka, cries Misaka number 13577 in shock!”

“If the waist is different, what about everything else? asks Misaka number 10039, proposing a detailed examination with a completely calm attitude.”

At the proposal, number 10032 removed her fingers from number 19090’s skirt and brought them upward. Number 19090 used both her hands to intercept them. It seemed like she had more colorful, vivid emotions than the others—her face was becoming a little red.

The frog-faced doctor shook his head. “Even monozygotic twins end up having different faces and bodies based on differences in what they eat or how much they exercise, all right? It’s not very strange that one in a group of clones would end up having a good figure.”

The doctor had been privately regretting a statement from earlier that he shouldn’t have made. Ever since he’d taught them that thinner women are considered better by men and thus more likely to be chosen by them, they’d been like this. That was all his personal, biased taste. Unfortunately, the Sisters had extremely few male acquaintances and considered him an archetypical male. They seemed to have concluded thusly: “If this man says so, then would that high school student think so as well? murmurs Misaka in deep thought.”

Also, they’d been acting under the impression—and he didn’t know where they’d learned this—that there existed in the world a special ring to put on one’s ring finger, and to acquire it, one needed to be “good” in all respects. He couldn’t decide whether they were right or wrong about that, but because of it, individuality had unexpectedly began blooming within the Sisters. (They didn’t seem to be very aware of it themselves.)

“Which means this one has been secretly on a diet and not telling us, says Misaka number 10032, pursuing the question.”

“Number 20001, Last Order, who unifies all Misakas—what was she doing? asks Misaka number 13577, suggesting the words duty and responsibility.”

“That tiny shrimp may not have understood the significance of her actions, speculates Misaka number 10039, not losing her composure.”

As each of them spoke to one another without regard for the frog-faced doctor, he put a word in. “I don’t think it’s anything to get that excited about, hmm? You’re all identical parts of a whole, so if you do the same thing as number 19090 there, you should see the same changes, too.”

“““…!!”””

Wpshh!! The three Sisters whipped around to face the remaining one.

Number 19090, who had acquired the “slim figure” skill a step ahead of the rest, backed away slowly. “Misaka will now flee the scene in accordance with her crisis control capabilities, says Misa…!!”

Before her shout ended, the other girls attacked.

4

Inside the same hospital where the Sisters were raging, there was a woman named Kikyou Yoshikawa.

She was a former member of the research group that had planned and implemented an “experiment” to try to create a new Level Six esper classification to top the existing rankings in Academy City that ranged from Level Zero up to Level Five.

She thought of her personality not as kind, but as soft—and during the experiment, she had created twenty thousand human clones in total and killed half of them throughout the trial. A certain Level Five student, the Level Six “Absolute” candidate, had done the actual deed, but of course, that was no excuse.

The experiment had been labeled fatally flawed and was not only frozen, but fully suspended.

That didn’t mean, though, that everything related to the experiment had vanished into thin air overnight. The girls who had been created only to be killed and the esper who had been ordered only to kill them…They may have come from special environments and had unique physical characteristics, but they were all still human children. The mental pressure on them defied imagination. Their individual problems were one thing, but a large rift sat between them, and their relationship was essentially catastrophic at best. Thinking normally, they couldn’t possibly form anything even resembling a bond.

And yet…

“Nooo! refuses Misaka refuses Misaka! I’m not getting off, I won’t! This duffel bag is now Misaka’s base! says Misaka says Misaka, sitting formally on her knees atop the bag you’re holding and arguing firmly!!”

“You…!! Can’t you see I’m trying to hold this thing, you brat?! Quit playing around on it!! You didn’t forget the fact that I’m still recovering, did you?”

But here we have two such people, and they’re as energetic as ever, thought Yoshikawa.

The “killer”—called Accelerator—held a modern crutch in his right hand like a tonfa and a duffel bag strap on his left shoulder as he tilted to and fro. His uniquely colorless, white hair and red eyes. Right now, he wore mostly gray clothing.

The “victim”—called Last Order—perched atop Accelerator’s duffel bag while sitting on the soles of her feet, each hand on one of its straps like she was on a swing, which she could do because she looked like she was about ten years old. Still, for someone on a crutch, it might have hurt. She had brown hair down to her shoulders, brown eyes, and wore a sky-blue camisole and a men’s button-down, which hung off her, the sleeves far too long for her arms.

Accelerator had been hospitalized after being shot in the forehead on August 31. A month later, they’d finally given him permission to leave the hospital. Not because his body had healed, strictly speaking, but because they’d done all the treatment he needed. He hadn’t escaped the aftereffects of his brain injury caused by the broken fragments of his skull, but he’d regained some function via a choker-like electrode he wore around his neck even now. Without it, he wouldn’t be able to speak. He wouldn’t even be able to stand upright by himself. Still, given how severe the injury had been, simply being able to return to his daily life was a miracle.

That was the current situation as they stood at the hospital entrance.

Yoshikawa had actually taken a grazing bullet to the heart herself, so she wasn’t in the best condition to look after children. She’d taken on the role anyway.

Not because she had to—because she wanted to.

“All right, all right. You’re going to bother people if you play in the entrance. Let’s leave that for after we get our things settled.”

“Misaka wasn’t playing! she argues with a serious face, pushing her center of gravity down some more!!”

“If this pulling sort of entertainment isn’t ‘playing,’ then what the hell is it?!” shouted Accelerator, about to be crushed by the duffel bag.

Without listening, Yoshikawa walked a short distance away from the entrance and gave the taxi driver she had waiting for them a casual wave. With slow, practiced motions, the passenger car approached.

Accelerator lifted the luggage with Last Order on it to the driver. “I’m throwing everything into the trunk, so open it. Now.”

“You’re treating Misaka like luggage?! says Misaka says Misaka, trembling and fleeing into the backseat!!”

Accelerator tossed the duffel bag into the backseat, which crushed Last Order with a yelp, then sat down in the empty space.

The backseat had room for more people, but Yoshikawa wasn’t about to let herself get wrapped up in their quarreling and took the passenger-side seat instead.

Just to be sure, she told the driver, “They were discharged recently, so they’re worked up right now.”

“Ah-ha-ha. Isn’t it better for children to be energetic?”

“Also, the smaller one isn’t used to cars, so she may throw up.”

“?!” The driver visibly twitched.

Must be new, noted Yoshikawa offhandedly. She heard rustling, which told her Accelerator had taken his bag and gotten away from Last Order. She’d actually lied but complaining about it would just make the ride smoother. Her underhanded trick didn’t seem to have major effects, though the taxi’s start was so smooth it was like the driver thought he was carrying unbroken eggs.

Yoshikawa told the driver their destination, then checked the digital clock above the meter. It was nearly noon.

Accelerator, who believed the bit about throwing up, caught Last Order’s face as she got closer to him and pushed her away. He cast a dubious look at the back of Yoshikawa’s head. “Where’re we going?”

“To a school where a friend of mine works. We’re meeting her there. You’ll have to quit your current school, right? You know what that means.”

Most students who lived in Academy City used dormitories. A few lived rent-free at bread shops and the like, but such cases were extremely rare.

In this city, leaving the school system (more accurately, the Ability Development agencies, some of which were schools) also meant losing residency at one’s dormitory. Accelerator, constantly targeted by Academy City delinquents who’d made a mess out of his dorm room, had no attachment to where he lived. It wasn’t worth anything now, either, since they hadn’t left a single piece of furniture unbroken. Still, having the roof over his head stolen from him was a pretty major occurrence.

Accelerator had chosen to quit his school despite all the risks, because “…I’ll pass on being part of any of this Level Six bullshit, thanks.”

True, the agencies directly involved in the experiment had gone under—but even if the research facilities that used the Sisters had gone away, the spell hadn’t been lifted. His school, like others, had a “special class,” though on a much smaller scale. He was the only student in the classroom, that animal cage where they practically cordoned him off like a lab rat.

If he was going to leave that bloody (in every sense of the word) world behind him, he needed to abandon everything he’d known until now. The laboratory, his school, his dormitory—everything.

This time he’d just have to choose a new place that didn’t want to do all that. Accelerator was an attractive research subject. He didn’t know if there were any researchers who wouldn’t bat an eye at him, but he had to try.

Accelerator and Last Order were far too extraordinary to find a place to be outside Academy City. And unless he participated in the Academy City school system, Accelerator would have to live like the armed back-alley Level Zero organization, Skill-Out. If the strongest Level Five in Academy City started down that road, only total destruction awaited.

He made a twisted grin. “So, you’ll be in charge of me now. That the General Board’s decision? Seems just right for you, in a research sorta way.”

Yoshikawa had once been on the experiment’s research team. She’d done maintenance on the clone production, including Last Order, and also took care of Accelerator’s needs.

Even with the Level Six–related research suspended, he was still the strongest Level Five esper in Academy City and an excellent specimen. If he had Yoshikawa study him and the findings were used in new Ability Development tech…Well, there was a lot of money in it.

It didn’t matter how far he went. He would always feel subject to someone else’s expectations, someone else’s influence.

Still, most of the people Accelerator had met in the past could be described as “off the rails.” Considering his newfound freedom from their curse, Accelerator giving Yoshikawa authority over his actions would probably make things easier for him. And of course, if he didn’t like how she did things, he could always crush her and look for someone else.

But…

“That’s not quite right,” said Kikyou Yoshikawa suddenly, without turning around.

“Eh?”

“I’m not your next supervisor. Calm down and think about it. Right now, I, Kikyou Yoshikawa, am no longer a researcher, and I’m on a razor’s edge when it comes to employment. Plus, I got involved in not one, but two incidents centering on you: the experiment and what happened August thirty-first. If the General Board thinks I should be your guardian now, I’d want them all fired.”

“…So what, exactly? You just wipin’ their asses for them now? Bet you’re handing us over to some researcher we don’t know.”

“So paranoid. Makes sense given your living environment, though. Let me point out two mistakes in your speculation. First, I plan to hand you over to someone you already know. Second, she’s no researcher.”

“…” Accelerator narrowed his eyes and mulled over what she’d said.

He couldn’t trust her. He would have felt better if this brat sitting next to him wasn’t here, but even with her weighing him down, he could crush any opponents who came at him. It also seemed quicker to meet with the person and deal “politely” with them rather than needing to stay vigilant for a long time expecting would-be assailants. Looks like this is gonna get real boring.

And then Last Order, in her perfect innocence, said without a care in the world, “I don’t think I know anyone who’s not a researcher except Yomikawa, suggests Misaka says Misaka, raising her hand.”

“That’s correct,” answered Yoshikawa happily.

Yomikawa was one of Kikyou Yoshikawa’s few friends in the above-the-table world, as it were. She worked as an Anti-Skill officer in Academy City. Ever since Yoshikawa had been hospitalized because of her bullet wound, the tracksuit-wearing woman had been dropping by every now and then to look after Accelerator and Last Order.

Accelerator swore to himself. He hadn’t considered the possibility until she said it.

Yoshikawa heard him and asked, “Goodness. You know the right answers for the test, and you’re still nervous?”

“…You know, I could just politely force the answers out of you right now.”

“Well, you’ll know if I’m lying when we get there. Your habit of being cautious when other people say nice things to you is one you want to keep, I think. Especially if you knew how much what you’re protecting is worth.”

He couldn’t stand Yoshikawa. Accelerator looked away from the passenger’s seat and cast a resentful glare out the car window. Only Last Order didn’t seem to have noticed their exchange, as she went on saying, “Huh? Is it not Yomikawa? asks Misaka asks Misaka, tugging on your shoulders.”

5

Afternoon happened, so school ended.

Kamijou didn’t have any particular club activities to do, so the only thing left for him was to return home to his dorm.

After going to the lockers and putting his shoes on, he plodded toward the exit of the school grounds, saying to himself, “I wonder what I did wrong.”

He was thinking, of course, about how the massage machine and Seiri Fukiyose’s head-butt were connected.

Hmm. Maybe “Let me have a rub, Fukiyose!!” was a bit too informal? But then I said, “Please let me get a rub, O great and powerful Fukiyose,” and she got angry. And then I started with, “Dear Fukiyose, I hope this letter finds you enjoying the deepening colors of autumn…,” and she came at me with a full-on head-butt. What’d I do to offend her?

The boy was basically used to misfortune befalling him. Even when things got physical, his body could take random attacks like that. He was proud of it, but that meant he really didn’t have any adhesive plaster for his wounds. A hungry girl bit him in the head on a daily basis, after all. His endurance was nothing to sneeze at.

Without realizing the fundamental problem, he went on thinking at length—things like Maybe I should have chosen a more nonchalant way of opening the letter, as he walked through Academy City’s neat and tidy streets.

The last of summer’s lingering heat was completely gone now that it was September 30. The gentle breeze turning the wind turbine propellers as well as the big-screen TV weather forecasts plastered to department store walls indicating no need for air conditioners anymore both morphed the citywide message of “Be careful of heat stroke” to “Seasons are changing, so watch your health.”

Meanwhile—

“Found it, the terrible piece of crap you are!”

The girl’s words rushed at him as if to clearly demonstrate a linguist critic’s opinion that spoken Japanese grew more disorderly by the day.

He turned to look just as a fair young lady (at least, she should have been) from a famed girls’ school called Tokiwadai Middle School finished quickly stomping up to him.

Mikoto Misaka.

She had brown, shoulder-length hair and was about seven centimeters shorter than him. Unlike her previous summer uniform, she now wore a beige blazer and a dark-blue checkered, pleated skirt. They’d just gotten their sparkly new winter uniforms, and her skirt was even shorter now. And befitting a “proper young lady,” not only did she carry her schoolbag, but also an instrument case, possibly holding a violin.

Kamijou made a sour face as soon as he saw her. “Huh? Well, this is…you know. What rotten luck!”

“You can’t say that to someone as soon as you see them!!” Mikoto yelled back.

Incidentally, Kamijou had already gotten a punch and a head-butt from Seiri Fukiyose this morning. But this bad luck’s impact was sure to be stronger. It was only natural—this so-called “Railgun” girl had been regularly shooting electric spears and things of that nature at him for a long while now.

Kamijou hefted his cheap schoolbag as though it weighed a ton. “Anyway, what do you want? And keep it short. And let’s walk at the same time. Actually, can I just go home now?”

“Your initial reaction was already irritating, but now you’re really piling it on…” Mikoto tilted her head a little bit as her lips began to twist into a mean smile. “Wait, do you think you’re in a position right now to completely mouth off to me like that?”

“Eh?”

Kamijou caught on to something evil from her level words. He tried to slowly back away from her.

Then, the ace of Tokiwadai, a proper young lady of good conduct (or else there’d be a problem), folded her arms and intoned three words:

“The punishment game. ”

Touma Kamijou’s eyebrow twitched.

The punishment game concerned a bet he and Mikoto had made during the Daihasei Festival. All of Academy City participated in this big athletic meet that had taken place the week of September 19. Simply put, whoever got the lower ranking had to do what the other said.

As Academy City was the city for supernatural Ability Development, the rules allowed students to use their powers during the festival. Tokiwadai Middle School had mowed down the other schools’ students wholesale with lances made of million-volt electrical currents, squalls rushing forward at eighty meters per second, and the like. Their tactics had been nothing short of natural disasters.

Kamijou was in high school and Mikoto in middle school, but the age difference didn’t matter whatsoever. On the third day of the festival, those disasters beat him to a pulp after a direct confrontation. On top of that, Kamijou, Tsuchimikado, Himegami, and Fukiyose had already been injured during some trouble on opening day. Everything ended up overlapping, and Kamijou suffered a conclusive defeat. His school’s overall ranking was horrible, too. Given the situation, there was nothing they could have done against Tokiwadai.

But a loss was a loss.

Mikoto Misaka’s punishment game was legitimate according to proper procedure.

“Wait, we were still on for that?”

“Don’t start trying to bury the hatchet on your own!! Anyway, I really am going to make you do whatever I say! Hah, you should be thankful I was kind enough to wait until now without adding interest!!” Mikoto stuck out her chest, needlessly proud of her victory.

The other students on the main road were starting to look at them, wondering what was going on.

Based on Mikoto’s exaggerated reaction, she had likely wanted to do this earlier, but then Kamijou wound up in the hospital and then jetted off to Italy and stuff, neglecting her. Now her resentment had culminated in a fine explosion. He was about to say, You wouldn’t call this interest? but decided to act like an adult and stay quiet.

“Well, whatever. I guess I’m fine with it. Don’t think there’s gonna be very much I can do for you, though.”

“Hmm. So that’s how you’re going to try to weasel out of this.”

“No, that’s not what I—”

“I get it. You’re just an average person, so there’s not much you can do, hmm? Oh, well, that’s perfectly fine. Unlike you, I, the wonderful Mikoto, made sure to take that into consideration. I won’t request anything an idiot can’t do. But even average people can put in the hard work while they’re complaining, right?”

“…”

Kamijou heard a strange crack come from his temple.

This wasn’t leading anywhere good. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a good enough student to be calm about it. “Fine,” he said offhandedly, eyes downcast.

For some reason, Mikoto breathed a sigh of relief.

However.

All of a sudden, his down-turned face shot up to fire a level stare at her. Rallying all the strength he could muster, he said:

“Very well, then!! You may ask whatever you like of your pet slave, Touma Kamijou!!”

The people around them all froze. They looked between Kamijou the speaker and Mikoto the listener, then started whispering among themselves. Within seconds, the throng pulled away from the two of them like a raging wave.

“Uh…? What—a slave…? Huh?! What the heck are you talking about?!”

He saw the blood drain from Mikoto’s face no less quickly, but his parents didn’t raise him to be soft enough to grant forgiveness just for that.

Kamijou fell to his knees in a respectful pose, took out a thin writing board from his raggedy schoolbag, and, his face serious, without even the slightest trace of joking, began fanning her with it. “We’ll start from the basics, my lady: making your environment comfortable. I, the humble Touma Kamijou, am ill-versed in such things, so this may take some effort on my part, but I humbly ask for your esteemed forgiveness in this regard.”

“You—idiot!! That turnaround was way too fast! And don’t fan me that hard from under my skirt!!”

Mikoto’s pale face quickly flushed red as she shouted, holding her already short skirt down. She was wearing short pants underneath anyway, but it seemed like it was more of an emotional problem.

Just then…

“Big Sisteeer!!”

As the crowd collectively cringed, a girl wearing a blazer and twin tails burst forth.

“What…What is this?!”

Normally, this newcomer probably would have glomped Mikoto or at least grabbed her hands, but today, for whatever reason, she reeled backward like she’d bounced off an invisible wall separating her from Mikoto. The scene must have been pretty shocking.

“K-Kuroko?”

Mikoto, who had made an older man grovel before her in public and fan her (or that’s what it looked like, anyway), moved only her head to face her underclassman, her expression drawn back into a wince.

Kuroko Shirai didn’t seem to hear her beloved “big sister” speak. Her tiny body began to tremble. She fixed her stare on Touma Kamijou, who had transformed into a lowly, loyal servant (or that’s what it looked like, anyway).

She spoke. “Wh-what a beautifully clean posture of subordination…But that role should belong to me and me alone!”

In Shirai’s eyes were envy, jealousy, and a tiny bit of reverence.

“Stop, you morons!! Don’t you both start bowing to me like that! Is this some kind of ritual?! I don’t remember becoming the founder of some weird religious cult!!”

Despite Mikoto Misaka’s yell, Touma Kamijou didn’t divert any of his attention away from his mindless fanning, while Kuroko Shirai, having reconfirmed the presence of a powerful rival, simply continued to tremble.

6

In the faculty room, Komoe Tsukuyomi heaved a worn-out sigh.

The display of exhaustion didn’t quite suit her 135-centimeter frame and her resemblance to a twelve-year-old, but there was no helping it. The violent incident among her students during the morning had been harrowing (yes, it might not have been too remarkable, considering the fact that Kamijou was involved, but in terms of a normal student’s life, this would have been considered a fairly big problem), but there was another factor.

And it was strewn all over her steel desktop.

Sheets of cheap paper with the words Future Plans Survey printed on them. Doing this survey with first-years meant their plans would be vague for the most part, though, so it was no different from a “What do you want to do when you grow up?” questionnaire. Teachers were still far from attacking the students with the regular questions—whether they would continue their education at a university after graduation or enter the workforce, what school they’d try to get into in the case of the former or what company they’d seek employment at in the case of the latter.

“Haaah…” She cradled her head in her hands.

Tsuchimikado had written, in extremely serious handwriting, that he wanted to go “to the land of maids, incite a coup, become their tactician, and raise one unfortunate maid into an empress.” Blue Hair had written the words “I want to be popular” so large that they went outside the box allotted for them. Touma Kamijou, for his part, “just wanted to be happy,” and he “didn’t care how,” an earnest, somewhat tear-jerking wish.

I’ve heard experts discussing how today’s youth lack passion for actual jobs, but I don’t think this is what they were talking about!

If they had simply wanted to avoid doing the assignment and let their mechanical pencils do all the writing, that would be one thing. But it was very plausible that they were totally serious. That’s why their answers were troubling on more than one level.

That was when a female teacher in a tracksuit walked in.

“Yo, Teach. Time for a change of pace—you want cigs or alcohol?”

“We’re not allowed to drink on the job, you know…”

Normally Komoe would have shouted that and launched into an explanation on something, but today she was pretty tired. She spoke flatly, too.

Yomikawa’s eyes darted across Komoe’s desk. “Cigs it is, then. ’Kay?”

Komoe took a cigarette out of the proffered box and put it in her mouth. “Huh? This feels sort of expensive.”

“Well, it’s something I got from that new cigarette bar that opened. High-quality cigs. They cost seventy yen a pop.”

Nowadays, with smoking areas expanding, smoking-specific establishments had begun cropping up and gaining ground. Bars featuring cigarettes from around the world instead of cocktails weren’t rare. Seventy yen for one wasn’t much considering some had three-thousand-yen cigars made in South America.

Most schools were designated entirely nonsmoking, but a surprising number in Academy City permitted cigarettes inside the building. The reasoning was that many schoolteachers were also researchers involved in various fields, and the Academy City General Board considered impairing their focus to be a detriment to the whole city. Therefore, if a teacher requested permission to smoke, the board supplied them with small, high-efficiency atmospheric scrubbers. Komoe opened the drawer of her steel desk, then took out four such devices, each with about two boxes of cigarettes stored inside. She positioned one at each of her desk’s four corners.

Each could only absorb air from one direction. With four operating at once, they would move in a circular pattern around her desk like a churning washing machine. The flow of air was so subtle it wouldn’t even move a flimsy sheet of paper, but it would catch all the cigarette smoke and absorb it, run it through a filter, and spit out clean air.

These were the latest models, utilizing the principles of aerodynamics in their design. What’s more, the developers had succeeded in driving the cost down to the point where the devices could be distributed for free. A practical consumer good in every sense of the term.

“There,” said Komoe, switching the air purifiers at the edges of her desk on.

The unbelievably big-breasted teacher in the green tracksuit, Aiho Yomikawa, placed a cigarette in her own mouth, then lit it with a small lighter from Komoe’s desk. “Apparently, they’re rare ones from Belgium…Yuck. This is a failure. I just can’t seem to understand the subtler flavors.”

“That’s because you don’t take the time to savor each one. You just smoke whole boxes at a time. It’s dulled your senses!”

“So says the White Smoker, Ms. Komoe, famous for smoking five times the amount I do in a single day.”

Both of them loudly puffed out smoke toward the desk’s surface.

The white haze that hit the tabletop scattered about but stopped at its four edges as though blocked by an invisible wall. Then the vapors began swirling around before those four corners eventually sucked them in.

The air purifiers only worked properly on desks like this. This wasn’t a problem for Komoe, since she was sitting in her chair, but Yomikawa had to lean forward to get her face closer to the desk. In that sense, there was still room for improvement.

“It looks like cigarette prices are going up. I’m so disappointed!”

“They’re still cheaper than pastries and comic books, though.”

Eighty percent of Academy City’s population was students. Even excluding college students, there were surprisingly few inhabitants allowed to smoke tobacco or imbibe alcoholic beverages. The reality was that taxing them wouldn’t do much to bolster the city’s finances. Instead, the city quietly acquiesced to levying taxes on things children enjoyed.

This city was essentially a place for studying, and the trend of the times was willingly taxing nonessential products and luxuries. But the average dormitory rent and meal expenses (though some meals were Academy City “trial products”) were incredibly low, so it all evened out in the end. Of course, some schools did profit off school buses, class materials, and the like.

“But most students get their living stipend from scholarships and subsidies supplied by Academy City, yeah? Still seems like a roundabout way of doing things, if you ask me.”

“If the authorities directly reduced scholarships, they’d be flooded with complaints. The money’s going to the same place, but the methods get different reactions. Kind of like whether they say they’re taxing cigarettes or lowering our salaries.”

“I guess so,” said Yomikawa, fishing a portable ashtray out of her tracksuit pocket and tapping the ashes from her cigarette into it.

And then she realized something.

The corners of Komoe’s lips were turning up and down with the cigarette in her mouth, making it wiggle. That was a new habit.

“Heh. Did you learn that from the smoking priest you told me about, Teach?”

Komoe’s shoulders gave a massive start. Flustered, she moved the cigarette back to the center of her lips. “N-no, I didn’t! You’re being absolutely ridiculous all of a sudden, Ms. Yomikawa! I would never pick up on his habits or anything! That’s just crazy!!”

“Well, all right, then,” said Yomikawa, giving up right then and there. Komoe had fully assumed a defensive position.

The small-statured teacher seemed to deflate at the anticlimactic development, but her expression revealed the truth. She grumbled, still wary.

Yomikawa took another pull from her cigarette. “Anyway, I should get going.”

“Oh, Ms. Yomikawa, are the children you talked about coming soon?”

“You got it. They come from some troubled backgrounds, but, well…I don’t mind if they’re a little stupid. My class is full of overachievers. It’s totally boring.”

“Oh, wait! My cigarette still has a while to go. Please, let me smoke it just a little bit longer!” cried Komoe, grabbing Yomikawa’s hand. Basically, everywhere but the faculty room was nonsmoking.

A few minutes later, Komoe, who had smoked the entire cigarette right in front of the filters, followed the tracksuit-clad teacher out of the room.

7

He heard an engine sound as the taxi behind him drove away.

He didn’t watch.

Next to him, Last Order was saying something, but he didn’t look at her, either.

His eyes were glued to the strange scene unfolding in front of him.

In a bit more detail, they were near the school gate of a certain high school. Even from far away, the reinforced concrete school building was utterly normal and average, with nothing about it standing out.

That wasn’t the problem.

Accelerator wasn’t looking at the school building.

In front of them were two women who claimed they taught at this school.

He knew one of them.

It was the woman in the green tracksuit, her long hair tied back. She was Aiho Yomikawa or something like that. She was also an Anti-Skill officer in the city. She claimed to have no interest in pointing weapons at children, so she always went up against Level Three espers and below with nothing but a shield. A lunatic gym teacher.

She wasn’t the problem.

Accelerator had his eyes fixed on the other person.

“Wh-what is it…?”

The woman introduced herself as Komoe Tsukuyomi…but she almost looked even smaller than Last Order, who was once again sitting formally on top of his duffel bag.

Accelerator thought for a moment, cast a glance at the extremely short woman, and said, “What’s this unidentified creature for? How did she sneak into the city?”

“I didn’t sneak in. I graduated from a university the normal way and came here.”

That only made him more confused. He narrowed his eyes. “Then this must mean the tech that halts cell aging is finished, eh? What a load of bullshit. Guess you’re one of those two-hundred-fifty-year-olds they were whispering about during the experiment. And here I thought I’d seen it all. How far has this city’s research gone, anyway…?!”

“U-um, no, that’s not…”

“Or maybe the technology isn’t finished yet, and she’s a biosample they captured to analyze, says Misaka says Misaka in an earnest tone of voice…That’s terrible. I bet she’s a part of so many experiments she never ever has any free time anymore, says Misaka says Misaka with a handkerchief in one hand and stuff.”

“Excuse me! All I did was introduce myself. Why are you being so severe about this?! Ms. Yomikawa, stop laughing! Please do something about them!!”

The woman in the tracksuit held her gut while she laughed at the fidgeting mini-teacher. Even Kikyou Yoshikawa, who had brought Accelerator and Last Order here, probably hadn’t expected Yomikawa to have a companion like this. She was smiling, too, but in a dangerous way, like a scientist who just found something new to research.

Yomikawa, still amused, looked at Accelerator. “Anyway, I’ll be looking after the two of you from now on, ’kay? I have an extra room anyway, so don’t hesitate to freeload.”

“…This is only temporary, got it?” Accelerator replied, not amused.

In response, Komoe asked, “D-did you clear up the misunderstanding?” as Yomikawa started cheerfully knocking her on the head.

“Are you even okay with this?” Accelerator inquired, his inflection unaccountably calm. “You know about all the shit going on with me. If you think the worst that’ll happen is grenades thrown at you in the middle of the night, you’re naïve. Protect me, and you make all the ugliest parts of the city your enemy.”

“That’s exactly why,” Yomikawa said, also speaking as though everything was routine. “Did you forget what I do for a living? As an Anti-Skill officer, it actually makes things easier for me, yeah? ’Sides, I don’t think anyone would be stupid enough to attack an Anti-Skill officer’s house. It’s the dark side of the city, which means we’re not supposed to see it. If they declare war like that, they know which one of us’ll be the last ones standing.”

“…” Accelerator paused as he thought about that.

Only Komoe seemed confused as she looked around saying, “Huh? When did the mood change so much?”

“Don’t come cryin’ to me if you die,” he said.

“Oh, it’ll be fine,” Yomikawa insisted.

“You might even get your name on their list.”

“My job’s to rehabilitate delinquent groups like that. I need to save them; can’t compromise with ’em if I’m scared.”

Accelerator sucked his teeth in annoyance.

First, Last Order, now her. When did idiots like them start wanting to be around him? He felt like he was totally out of place here, all by himself.

In spite of Accelerator’s sour face, Yomikawa grinned in an unladylike fashion. “Still, this is good. You’ll be easier to save than I heard.”

“You fuckin’ serious?”

Yomikawa was probably talking about whether she could rehabilitate him.

She had no way of knowing, but Accelerator was already directly involved in the deaths of over ten thousand people. Knowing that fact made it clear to him how little sense Yomikawa’s words made.

However—

Aiho Yomikawa, without realizing it, continued to speak to him. “I mean, come on. You say all that, but after you heard you’d be living with me, you went down a checklist, trying to make sure there were no blind spots. Trying to close up even the smallest holes so that we wouldn’t get attacked if worse came to worst. That means you’re all fired up to protect us, eh?”

“…” Accelerator frowned deeply. This is why I can’t handle people like these idiots, he thought to himself. They can’t get a grip on the situation.

8

For the time being, Kamijou split up with Mikoto Misaka.

The reasons were simple—he was hungry, he wanted to change out of his sweaty school uniform, and unless he cooked for himself, he wouldn’t be able to deal with the huge mountain of thin, wheat flour noodles he now had. He didn’t know if the dry soumen had an expiration date, but in a mental sort of way, he wanted to avoid having this year’s noodles carry over into the next one.

Mikoto had shouted, “Who cares about some stupid noodles?!” but when Kamijou, with excessive determination, shouted back, “Then how would you like to try having to eat soumen for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and coming up with crazy variations like salad-style, pasta-style, and udon-style soumen until the stinking sun goes down?! I’ll send you whole boxes of the damn things if you want!!” she had flinched and given him the okay.

He didn’t have much time until they met back up, so Kamijou’s quick steps were lifeless as he headed back to the dormitory.

“Damn it. I should have considered the possibility of a trap at the supermarket when all those noodles were supercheap. This must be why nobody was buying them even for that price…”

And with perfect timing, after he’d bought way too much, his parents who lived outside Academy City had sent him a metric ton of dried noodles, saying, “We won a raffle at the store. You like soumen, too, right, Touma?” This part had been, as always, due to his rotten luck.

In any event, after getting back to his dorm, he saw Maika Tsuchimikado on her way out. This was generally a male dorm, but looking at the maid apprentice who came by just to clean her stepbrother’s room and a certain hungry girl sprawled out in Kamijou’s room, it seemed that public morals were becoming corrupted.

This girl, Maika, usually sat formally in seiza-style, with her legs tucked under her, atop an oil-drum-shaped automatic cleaning robot, but today she was walking normally. Her bangs were drawn back by the frilly headband unique to maids so most of her forehead could be seen. The outfit she wore was crazy—a dark-blue, long-sleeved maid uniform—but it must have been her school’s designated uniform for the winter. She went to a home economics school.

Kamijou watched as she pattered up the passage. “Huh? What happened to your usual cleaning robot?”

“Heh-heh! I’m in such a good mood I can’t wait for something so slow.”

This girl’s expressions were as hard to read as Aisa Himegami’s, but happiness shined clear on her face like a lightbulb today. As Kamijou wondered what in the world could have happened, Maika put the back of her right hand to her cheek and laughed in a very unmaid-like, overbearing manner.

“Oh-ho-ho! It’s this, this! My cuffs turned out great.”

“Cuffs?”

“Yeah, you know, on my sleeves!” said Maika with a smile. “Maids aren’t usually supposed to stand out. We can’t have flashy hair or accessories or anything. So we show our individuality more surreptitiously in small things, like our cuffs and collars and stuff.”

“Oh.” He looked at her hands with renewed attention. Her sleeve fabric looked like it was folded back at her wrists. He couldn’t tell what was different from usual. Was it like a girl being happy about getting her uniform for the first time and rolling up the waistband to make the skirt shorter?

Her face ecstatic, she rubbed her sleeve against her soft-looking cheek and sighed. “The gauntlet this morning really turned out great! I’m in a really good mood right now, so I’ll listen to any worries you might have if you’d like.”

“You will? Okay, then how would I get rid of a mountain of soumen?”

“Boil them first, then cut them up into small pieces and use them as the filling for a spring roll. It’ll actually taste pretty much the same. It’s an easy way to eat more of them at once!”

After answering, she pattered off somewhere at a trot. He could practically see the rays of happiness emitting from Maika just by watching her head off.

Kamijou stared after her for a few moments. “…Well, yeah. If you throw it into something with so much flavor, you’re gonna lose the taste of whatever you threw in anyway.”

Despite his brief, mumbled review of Maika’s fairly offhanded reply, there was no point standing here, so he decided to enter his dorm.

After taking the rickety elevator to the seventh floor, he just had to go down the straight passage to arrive at his particular door in the line. Unlocking the door, he found the hungry girl, Index, inside, plopped down face-first in the middle of the floor. She was probably immobile from hunger again. Kamijou tossed his cheap bag to the side and said, “Noodles again today.”

“Nooo!!” cried the pure-white-habit-wearing, silver-haired girl as she immediately bounded to her feet. Her green eyes glittered with deep dissatisfaction. “Why have you only been eating Japanese noodles this whole time?! Is this a ritual?! A kind of body-regulating sorcery that utilizes food culture?!”

Despite Index’s whining and complaining, as soon as soumen actually made it to the table she’d have no hesitation scarfing it all down, so there was no big problem here. It was just beginning to get boring to eat all the time. Only temporarily, of course. She fundamentally loved the stuff, which is why she was stirred to such action. Kamijou nodded, then paused. “Love is tough.”

“Touma?”

Index gave him a suspicious stare, but Kamijou didn’t care.

There was a second freeloader in the room as well. The calico was basking in the sunlight by the door to the balcony. Until recently, he had always curled up in a place with a good draft, but now the seasons had changed. He had nothing to do with the soumen, so he could take it easy. Cat hair drifted about, too. Was his fur starting to adjust for winter? Kamijou was also pretty sure the cat was getting fatter, little by little.

As he reached for his street clothes so he could get changed in the bathroom, he said, “Anyway, Maika bestowed me with a secret technique earlier, and I’ll be trying it immediately. Spring roll–style soumen! Let’s go for it!”

“Maybe we should just have regular spring rolls?!” Index wailed, but before she could say any more, the intercom went off.

“Who could that be?”

Kamijou opened the door, and there stood Motoharu Tsuchimikado.

“Oh, you’re in, nya. Kammy, sorry to ask, but I need your help with somethin’, nya.”

That put Kamijou on his guard. “H-help with what? You don’t want me to go sink another world-class-sized magic fleet or anything, right?”

“Kammy…To think you can say things like that so smoothly now…Can I pity you?” After giving Kamijou a sympathetic look, Tsuchimikado continued, “No, not that. Maika made a little too much food, nya. She came here with a pot of something she said she slow cooked for ten hours, but I can’t eat the whole thing. It would be a waste to throw it away, so if you want, you can have—”

“I’ll eat it!!” shouted not Kamijou, but Index. She came rushing up behind him, ready to fling her landlord aside. There must have been a slight scent of food clinging to Tsuchimikado’s clothes, because even the calico, who had been lounging, came trotting up to him.

Kamijou wanted to complain, but seeing Index’s exceptional willingness to take up the offered meal, he decided to keep his mouth shut. The words wise choice came to mind.

Anyway, the party immediately moved next door, where Tsuchimikado lived.

The general layout of the room was exactly the same as Kamijou’s, of course. But seeing training equipment everywhere, like the kind that could be found in a gym, changed the space’s impression quite a bit. There were also two bookshelves leaning against the wall, packed with maid manga and things of that nature, a field for collectors. But Kamijou knew it was his duty as a friend to not mention that.

“Here it is,” said Tsuchimikado, pointing out the table. Maika must have literally just dropped it off; a heavy-looking, silver stockpot, the kind a chef might use, had been placed on the table as is. Of course, a normal high school student wouldn’t have a trivet they could use for something so giant, so the table was covered in old newspaper.

Tsuchimikado approached the pot and popped the lid open. Inside was an orange-colored stew.

“I think she used carrots for the base, but they completely broke up, nya. Then on top, she threw in ingredients like vegetables. It’s one crazy stew, if you ask me.”

“Aren’t carrots kinda sweet?” That’s what it seemed like, anyway, based on what he could smell. Maybe she hadn’t used sugar and relied on the sweetness of the vegetables for flavor.

Whatever the case, they began ladling out the contents into large, shallow bowls. The potatoes and pork had been cut large. Quite a few different vegetables had been used; it was replete with health-conscious ingredients and considered nutrition that would normally be hard for a person to obtain during regular meals. Onions had been used as well, so they couldn’t give any to the calico. Kamijou couldn’t bring himself to meet the cat’s eyes as it laid on the floor, seeming to say, Come on, I want some, I want some, I want some!!

Thus did lunchtime begin.

The meal was more extravagant than he’d expected, but he had to wonder about what he’d do with his soumen.

After thanking him for the food, Kamijou looked at Tsuchimikado, a spoon in one hand. “You’re pretty generous. I mean, she says she’s a maid in training, but isn’t Maika’s cooking level as good as some restaurants?”

“Nya~. That’s why I offered. I can’t just leave such valuable stuff uneaten, y’know? It’s a bit hard for one guy to eat so much, nya.”

“I see. I feel like you could have saved the stew, though.”

Tsuchimikado suddenly froze.

This man generally did things like going out to eat, letting his stepsister make food for him, and basically acting like a student who can’t cook for himself, which was unbecoming of someone living on his own. That’s probably why he hadn’t realized the possibility.

Touma Kamijou, one of those who could cook for himself, pushed on. “Also, if Maika made you this much food, doesn’t that mean she won’t be coming around for a while after this? Didn’t she cook all this food so you’d have something healthy to save for later so you don’t starve to death—?”

The calico was using its front legs to swat a boxlike thing around.

Looking at it, Kamijou could see the case was an airtight container for keeping food in. It was really big.

“…”

“…”

“…”

Kamijou, Index, and Tsuchimikado all looked around at one another.

They compared Maika Tsuchimikado’s immense kindness with Motoharu Tsuchimikado’s uselessness, then tried to imagine the sort of shadows that would be cast on the sunglasses-wearing boy’s future if his long-haul stew was stolen from him.

They spent a few seconds in silence.

The calico meowed.

That was the starting signal. Kamijou and Index, at about the same time, began devouring the stew—gobble, gobble, chomp, chomp, chomp, munch, munch, slurp, slurp, gobble!!

Tsuchimikado paled and began rambling. “What?! Kammy, stop, stop!! I messed up I can’t give any of this to you and hey listen to what I’m saying my sister’s cooking belongs to me!!”

“Aha! Sorry, but you can’t convince us by saying you’ll hold on to it for us!! Besides, if you’re gonna stop me, stop Index instead!! She’s almost ready for seconds!!”

“Nyaaa?!” screamed Tsuchimikado.

Unfortunately, Index could no longer be stopped. Her spoon moved so quickly it looked like she’d gobble down the entire stew, pot and all.

How to put this—? It was another peaceful day.