CHAPTER 10

Their Respective Battlefields

The_Way_of_Light_and_Darkness.

1

His time was limited to sixty seconds.

Killing Kihara was the only thing he could do. If he had even ten seconds left at the end of the battle, he wouldn’t have any problems. The battery consumption levels of ability usage mode and normal mode were wildly different. Even a few remaining seconds of battle mode would provide dozens of minutes of movement if he switched to normal mode.

In one corner of the abandoned office lay a modified, portable Testament.

With it, though it would be only the bare minimum, one could say the stage was set to heal Last Order’s brain.

If Kihara really had injected her with the virus here, he’d probably still have the original script. Writing a vaccine program shouldn’t be too hard.

Then kill him. Just kill him!! Kill him and it’s all over! Don’t think about other shit. You can’t return to the path of light anyway, so focus on dragging Kihara to hell with you!!

His mind focused on that single thought, Accelerator shot through the wide office space at Kihara like a bullet. He opened his right hand. His demonic hand, able to reflect vectors by merely touching the skin, could reverse the man’s blood flow and rupture his veins and organs as a result. Considering Last Order was on the same floor, he couldn’t do anything too flashy. But he could still easily kill a man.

He shoved it sharply from below, aiming for Kihara’s face.

Kihara swung his head over and easily dodged it. Accelerator couldn’t sense any fear or nervousness from him, who could sense death from a mere touch away. The man’s face actually seemed confident, like he’d never get hit in the first place anyway.

As Accelerator’s swing missed, Kihara came in with a cross counter.

A punch ten times more precise than a boxing jab, which he brought back immediately after swinging.

It slipped by Accelerator’s “reflection” and crashed mercilessly into his nose.

“Ah…!!”

There was a dull, grinding gshhh.

The strike was by no means a flashy, heavy hit like with a hammer. His vision swayed—he’d been hit in the nose, after all—but it wasn’t enough to knock him out.

However…

Just for a moment, the pain stopped Accelerator from moving, and a series of additional light attacks came at him. Face, chest, shoulder, abdomen, face again, face, face. When Accelerator swung his arm, Kihara moved back, and when Accelerator tried to follow, Kihara closed in and attacked.

“Gyah-ha-ha!! You shithead!” shouted Kihara. “How dare you stand up to me!”

Another dull impact rattled his head.

His “reflection” still wasn’t working. The power that should have blocked a direct blast from a nuclear weapon without singeing a single hair on his head. His impenetrable wall.

Accelerator tried to back off for the moment.

Kihara took a long step toward him and came in with another punch at his face.

“!!”

Accelerator’s “reflection” wasn’t like a thick bulletproof shield in front of his body. All it did was redirect the force coming toward him to the opposite direction. The reversal of energy approaching him was what protected him from all attacks.

Which meant…

If a force going backward hits my reflection, it’ll deflect forward!!

Accelerator wiped the blood from his punched, cut lips. He was sure of it.

Amata Kihara was reversing the punches he was throwing at Accelerator just before they hit—at the last possible moment before hitting his protective layer of “reflection.” By doing so, his punch, which was traveling back toward him, would go straight away from him.

In that case, altering the vector control applied to his body would work, but Kihara seemed to have predicted that, minutely adjusting the angle of his fist as needed. The brain directly responsible for developing the power of Accelerator wasn’t for nothing.

“What’s the matter, squirt?! I thought you came to save that brat!”

His timing was ruined, his rhythm deciphered, his initiative stolen. Kihara’s blows, each of them, though light, steadily racked up damage to Accelerator’s body like the effects of alcohol. Every time Accelerator’s movements slowed, Kihara switched to more bold actions, accentuating his “drunken” state.

“Guh…ahhh…!!”

More time passed by ruthlessly.

The strongest ability in Academy City used to its fullest was already this far behind. Without the protection of his electrode, even standing upright would be difficult. If that happened, he’d never have the chance to turn this around.

His impatience lost time, and that lost time made him more impatient.

…Piece of shit!! I don’t have time for the likes of Kihara to stop me! At this rate, I won’t have any time to use the Testament and fix the br—!!

“Lookin’ real relaxed there, you scrap murderer!! Already thinking about after you’ve won?!”

There was a loud thud!!

As Accelerator was thinking, his consciousness shook for sure this time.

Kihara’s swings were getting pretty big. He must have judged that the damaged Accelerator couldn’t deal with his speed anymore.

The interval between attacks lengthened, but each punch grew heavier.

“You think you’re totally cool or somethin’, kid?”

A shattering strike to the face made his legs totter. If he wasn’t careful, he’d trip and fall.

“Standing up to the evil organization all by yourself, running about tryin’ to save the poor captured brat…You think that’ll erase everything you’ve done?”

Even while he was noting that, Kihara’s fist came at him again. He tried to guard his vitals with his arms, but the punches landed every time, slipping through his defenses. His damage reached an extreme, and a chunk of blood burst from his closed lips.

“Gyah-ha-ha! Don’t fuck with me! You’ll be in the mud your whole life, kid! You can squirm and crawl all you want, but you’ll always be covered in it!! Just sink already! A slimy shit like you walking around will just get everything else dirty!!”

Ga-thud!! An even harder impact sent Accelerator crashing into the floor. He came down on his knees, falling forward and almost slamming his head on the dust- and hair-covered carpet.

…God…damn…piece of shit…

Nevertheless, Accelerator grabbed the steel desk to prevent himself from falling all the way. Kihara had bored out all the stamina inside him. Every part of his body cried out for rest as though he’d just finished a marathon.

…I know I’ll always be in the mud. You shitheads were the ones who reminded me of that. I don’t have any regrets about that. That isn’t what I’m after…

He clenched his teeth, desperately clamping down on the pain, and put energy into the hand on the desk he was using to hold himself up. Wobbling, he began to rise.

…Give me a break. Every single goddamn one of you is after that fucking brat. You and me, we’re the only ones who need to go to hell. Don’t get the brat involved there, you shithead…

However, his resolution ended in vain.

He heard a soft electronic beep.

A tiny, tiny final notice from the electrode choker around his neck.

A mechanical signal to tell him one minute, sixty seconds were up.

And its meaning: His battery was dead.

Ka-thud.

With all his strength gone, Accelerator collapsed to the dusty floor in front of Amata Kihara.

2

A thunderous crack!! boomed.

Sparks lit up in bridges between the “angel’s” feathers, seeming ready to overflow at any moment.

“Ha-ha!!”

Vento of the Front charged straight at Kamijou, her giant hammer in one hand. As she did, Kamijou dashed forward to smash it, with all the force he could muster into his right fist.

Shoo!! came the sound of cutting wind.

Vento swinging her hammer hadn’t created that sound.

The sound of Vento jumping three meters into the air.

Rather than ducking or dodging to either side, she’d gone up. Probably with a spell that used the air.

His fist missing, a counterattack in the form of a flying kick sailed mercilessly at his face. With a dull bam!! his body fell on the wet asphalt.

Gah, ah?! She…!!

He held his nose and quickly rose. Vento was barely an inch in front of him. She’d already brought her hammer up, and now she sent it crashing down at his body on the road.

Clink-clink-clink! went the scraping chains.

He looked to see her tongue chain, blood-soaked and dyed red, drawing a spiral lance toward Kamijou’s face. A wind club appeared along the path of its shape.

“Guaahhh!!”

With a shout, Kamijou stuck out his right hand. It repelled Vento’s attack, sending a storm of wind all around them. For just a few seconds, the wind completely diverted the path of the rain.

Neither of them watched.

“Ha!!” Vento inhaled then recklessly swung the hammer around again. Her tongue chain writhed like a living being. Kamijou gave up on blocking with his right hand and rolled backward to dodge. Relying on the Imagine Breaker wouldn’t compensate for his disadvantages forever. Instead, he used the momentum of his roll to continue backward, then fluidly stood up.

The missed air club smashed into the asphalt. Its fragments flew into the air.

Kamijou used both arms to protect his face from the storm of stone as Vento’s annoying voice came to him.

“Geh…Shit, my output really is down…”

She coughed a chunk of blood from her mouth and glared at the angel behind Kamijou.

Shaking her chain, which was dripping with blood, she raised her voice. “Ha-ha, you sure are being a pain!! Dangling that disgusting right arm of yours, protecting that vomit-worthy ‘angel’…How much do you want to make me laugh before you’re satisfied?!”

“Shut the hell up!! You think your viewpoint is the only one in the world?! Why don’t you even try to accept other people?!”

Vento plunged through the storm of stone and ran up to Kamijou again. Mysteriously, the asphalt didn’t hit her body. It was almost like the fragments themselves were dodging her. Kamijou guessed it was another air spell.

She swung the hammer around, shouting, red blood leaking from the gaps between her teeth.

“I hate science!! I detest science!!”

As Kamijou tried to use his right hand to smack down the hammer, it suddenly vanished into thin air. When Kamijou’s fist swung through empty space, another hammer appeared in Vento’s hands, perfectly timed.

There was a muffled thump as Vento drove the hammer’s tip into Kamijou’s defenseless abdomen—with her tongue chain coiling around the hammer’s grip.

“I hate science for making me like this!”

A moment later, a wind club stormed out of the hammer’s tip. Kamijou immediately twisted his body, but the blunt attack still scraped his side. That was all it took to send his body into a helicopter spin. And with no way to land safely, he crashed into a collapsed wall.

“I despise science for letting my brother die!!”

Heaping unintelligible, one-sided abuse on him, Vento swung her hammer horizontally. The chain, which had been tightly wrapped around it, had come off at some point. A wind club formed, then sailed at Kamijou. His body pressed against the wall, he burst out to the side to dodge it.

The building wall smashed apart like a plastic toy. The raw power left Kamijou in shock, but he abruptly froze.

On the other side of the crushed wall, there was an unconscious college-age man.

“Wai—!!”

Kamijou tried to stop her, but…

A thunderous slam!! overlapped Kamijou’s words. It was sparks from the “angel’s” feathers. The sound was no longer just a roar—now it was more like a shock wave.

“!!” The immense tremor made Kamijou cover his ears and wince. He looked away from Vento and turned around to see. The sparks arcing like bridges between Kazakiri’s feathers had finally surpassed critical levels and unleashed themselves.

Boom!! Something surged past, something beyond the realm of sound.

It traced a snakelike, organic line behind it as it instantly shot out of Academy City. Despite it going so far away that the horizon hid it behind itself, he could definitely see soil exploding upward in a wave.

The angel had probably launched another attack to kill an “enemy.”

Shit…His head was pounding. He knew that if he didn’t stop Vento soon, she’d end up involving passed-out bystanders, but he couldn’t move his body well.

Vento, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care about the pain. “This is all science is!! And you’re one of them! You mean to tell me you don’t think this is disgusting?!”

Vento, from whose mouth blood continued to flow, swung around her hammer as hard as her strength would allow. Her tongue piercing determined the aim as an especially large air club shattered the concrete—as though intentionally dragging the civilians there into the disaster.

3

He couldn’t tell front from back, left from right. He couldn’t even “calculate” which direction to apply force to in order to stand up. He could see his outstretched arm, but when he tried to look at each of his fingers to see how many he had, he lost count.

The electrode choker around Accelerator’s neck had died and lost its effect.

He couldn’t use his ability now. He couldn’t comprehend words now. He couldn’t even do simple calculations that would involve only his fingers and thumbs. Far from clenching his fist and letting Kihara have it—he couldn’t even manage his own body weight or center of gravity, so it would be hard just to get up properly.

The abandoned office floor was covered in dust, with the carpet’s tips mingling with bits of fluff. Accelerator’s cheek was pressed against it, and while he felt this situation was “unpleasant,” he thought, How…again…do I…get rid of this…unpleasant feeling?

He could passively receive information, but he couldn’t show an active reaction to it. The “calculations” in the middle were no longer available to him.

A voice came down to him from overhead.

“Little by little, coming after going to sleep, that’s good, is it really that far from so many bad problems?!”

He had no idea what was being spoken to him.

What had he even wanted to do in the first place? He could ask himself questions but not answer them. He was pretty sure Last Order was here. He thought he needed to bring her out of here. He knew that. He didn’t need to “calculate” that information, since it’d been input into his brain ahead of time, and Accelerator could still bring that information to the front of his mind.

But…

How exactly was he going to do that?

“……………………………………………………………………”

At that, Accelerator stopped moving.

Of course, arriving at that specific answer would have been impossible even if he still had his full ability to think. Even though he’d used the full power of Academy City’s strongest ability, Amata Kihara had predicted it, confused him, and limited his power—and then he came in with scathing counterattacks. Contrary to Kihara, who was nonchalantly beating down the power capable of destroying the world, Accelerator, without the support of his electrode choker, only had the physical ability to cling to his cane and push himself to his feet. Like this, it was too harsh to tell him to calculate the odds of winning. Even if one had used the Tree Diagram, the result would be a resounding 0 percent.

However.

“…?”

At that moment, Kihara, who’d been pummeling Accelerator with insults, went quiet, and a bit of confusion entered his scorn-filled expression. He couldn’t help it. Especially since he’d looked at the device on Accelerator’s neck and almost perfectly predicted its function and weakness.

Grrk.

As the desk creaked, Accelerator, clinging to it, rose again.

He certainly wasn’t in any condition to fight.

He couldn’t even support his own weight. He had placed both hands on the desk, but if he let go, he’d fall straight back to the floor. His eyes weren’t focused, either, and they shook around erratically. Only he knew what those black eyes of his were seeing.

Accelerator couldn’t stand up against a powerful enemy. He couldn’t even beat the earth’s gravity.

As he stared at the unsightly display, Kihara laughed like he was an idiot.

“In the same way, what have you given the artillery company by their retreating?!”

He pelted Accelerator with abuse that would never get across. He was saying something along the lines of “what do you think you’re doing now that your battery’s dead,” but Accelerator wouldn’t understand it. And even if he had, it never would have changed his actions.

Accelerator, right now, could do no calculations of any sort. He understood the situation was hopeless, and he couldn’t think of his chance of winning.

But…

On the other hand, Accelerator also couldn’t calculate any way he could lose.

So he never flinched—no matter how he was cornered, even knowing the next strike would kill him.

Until the very last moment…

…without any calculations, he would earnestly decide to continue the fight.

4

Kamijou’s eyes were wide open. His right hand, his Imagine Breaker, hadn’t made it.

In the steady downpour, the attack Vento unleashed shattered the concrete wall like a bomb. Everything, including the person passed out there, disappeared into a cloud of ashen dust.

It was an act as cruel as attacking a field hospital on the battlefield, going through all the gravely injured people awaiting treatment one by one, pressing a gun to each of their heads and squeezing the trigger.

There was clearly no way anyone caught in that would have survived. Once the gray dust cloud cleared, there would be only a smattering of human flesh torn asunder.

Meanwhile, a series of electrical discharge–like attacks continued firing from Kazakiri with bangs and booms, as if to crush Kamijou’s spirit even more.

“You…youuuuuuuu!!” The shout left Kamijou’s mouth quite a few moments later. The sight before him was so hideous his mind had trouble keeping up.

Swhoo!! came a storm-like howl, suddenly blowing away the dust.

However.

Behind it all was a civilian—unconscious but without a single scratch on him.

“What…?”

“Uh…?”

Kamijou and Vento looked at the college student on the ground.

The attack had definitely hit him.

What is this…? Damn. Killing a civilian before his eyes should have at least rattled his emotions a little bit, thought Vento.

But then—something was floating.

Pale lights like cotton balls were slowly descending from the night sky.

Kamijou and Vento turned to look at them.

All around the unharmed college student were these dimly glowing scalelike things floating around. They were evidence of a weak power of some kind, so weak they really had to focus to see them. But they were floating around the college student, covering him up, as if to prevent impact. They must have been responsible for protecting him from Vento’s attack.

Where are they coming from? wondered Kamijou, glancing around.

The glittering scales drifted lightly around, unaffected by the deluge.

Then, something completely different caught the attention of Kamijou and Vento, as much attention as the survivor had.

The light from the scales.

Touma Kamijou knew that glow.

He turned around to look behind him.

Hyouka Kazakiri was there, shedding countless scales from her wings.

“Ha-ha…”

He laughed. What else could he do now that he’d seen this?

The wreckage around them began to make noise. It started to break apart, and what appeared from it were many other civilians who had been buried alive like the college student. Men, women, children, adults—there were many.

The scales engulfed a hundred people—no, a thousand—simply protecting them.

None of them had a scratch on them.

Not a single one.

Ssshhh!! echoed the rain as the glowing scales illuminated the entire area.

Her feelings were wiping away the darkness!!

“Ha-ha-ha…”

He didn’t know who had made Kazakiri like that, but whoever it was, Kamijou was willing to bet they didn’t care about people surviving. The destructive blasts were one thing, but nobody behind the scenes had commanded her to create those glowing scales that saved the survivors.

And that meant she had done this of her own volition.

They’d altered her body and taken away her freedom, but she never stopped resisting. She had drawn a final line in the sand and given her all to defend it.

The pencil-sized rods attached to the angel halo above her head began to move rapidly with a click-clack-click-clack!! Lights guiding her path blinked in succession, probably commanding Kazakiri to stop her independent action.

Ghh-krr! A strange sound came from her right arm. Its outline began rapidly falling apart under an extreme binding force.

But the scales—they were still drifting around.

She would never stop protecting them.

With repeated thundering ga-bams, the discharge attacks from Kazakiri’s feathers continued, firing outside Academy City. However, countless scales floated in their paths to block them. The immense destructive force easily blew away the scales, but Kazakiri didn’t stop resisting. No matter how much pain it caused her.

Destruction and protection—two conflicting actions. The presence of both described Hyouka Kazakiri’s current state.

Even if she couldn’t break free of whoever’s control it was, even if she couldn’t stop the attacks against others, she wouldn’t let that make her give up.

She was resisting so much, her body was screeching…

…so that there were just a few less unfortunate people…

…as she rallied all her strength and bloody determination…

…to fight alongside him.

“You…you…hypocrite!!” shouted Vento, her face bright red. “What are you doing?!”

Kamijou didn’t hear her. “Ha-ha…”

Thank goodness, he thought.

Touma Kamijou standing up to protect Hyouka Kazakiri had been the right choice.

That was all it was, but now it was clear to him.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!! This is crazy! This is great!! I ramble on about my rotten luck every day, but this is really all you need to be happy!! Right?!”

“What, what are you…? What the hell are you talking about?!”

Kamijou’s unhinged laughing caused Vento, who had kept the initiative until now, to pull away. Her bloodstained tongue chain trailed her movement. He didn’t feel like answering her, though; he was already fully satisfied. He didn’t need any more answers for himself, so he wouldn’t respond to Vento’s words. Now that he had the answer, no matter what Vento said or did, his heart would never waver.

“Wait for me, Kazakiri.”

This time, with the conviction that his voice was reaching her, he spoke.

To the girl who was still resisting, who was launching both attacks to destroy and scales to protect.

“Index is doing what she can to save you now. We can leave all the tough stuff to her—no problem. And I mean, she’s your friend. She’ll answer your hopes.”

Kamijou clenched his right hand.

He clenched it far more tightly than before, creating a rock-hard fist.

“Don’t worry. I’ll hold this one back until she’s done.”

5

“You…fucking disabled bastard!!”

With a shout, Amata Kihara punched Accelerator for real this time, sending him flying from the office desk he was propping himself up against. Accelerator couldn’t use his ability anymore. He wouldn’t have a problem putting all his weight into his blows rather than the “fist pullback” method he’d been using.

The result was Accelerator’s body dancing through the air like stardust.

But just before that, he’d grabbed Kihara’s wrist. With a stronger grip than imagined and simple, instinctual movements on a dog or cat level of “catching something thrown at you,” Kihara’s body ended up stuck to Accelerator.

“Shit!”

Kihara tried to push Accelerator’s hand away, but he had trouble. Meanwhile, Accelerator made a loose fist with his other hand and drove it into Kihara’s face.

There was a dull plop but almost no pain.

That is, there wouldn’t have been if Accelerator hadn’t reached right above Kihara’s ear—then grabbed the hair on the side of his head and tore it as hard as he could.

“Gwaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh?!”

With a scream, blood sprayed.

Accelerator had pulled the hair out in a clump like weeds, and he tore the skin underneath along with it. Just like soil underneath grass, the “clump of hair” Accelerator held had a thin layer of skin and pink flesh attached to it.

No sympathy.

No mercy.

Right in front of Kihara, whose expression had broken, Accelerator’s lips opened into a grin.

He was attacking almost entirely on instinct, and his face displayed an incredibly primal exhilaration.

“You…little shit…!!”

Holding the side of his head, Kihara tried to back far away.

But Accelerator latched onto him like a zombie, pushing him down to the floor. Kihara shouted “bastard!!” but Accelerator had no ability to process language, so it was completely wasted.

Don’t underest—

Kihara tried to shout, but at that moment, Accelerator grabbed his ear and tried to rip it off.

“Ooorgh?!”

He quickly shook his head to get the fingers off, then punched Accelerator in the face and escaped backward. He moved in a roll along the floor. Don’t screw with me! I’ll kill you right now!!

Still on the floor, Kihara spotted a handgun lying there. The weapon belonged to one of the Hound Dogs who Accelerator had killed.

He decided to use that and turn Accelerator into a beehive.

“”

But then Accelerator grabbed his hand.

Kihara tried to edge his hand closer to the pistol, but Accelerator had already shoved his other hand into Kihara’s solar plexus. He did so a few more times, and Kihara gave up on the pistol for now, ramming a shoulder into Accelerator’s face and trying to put distance between them.

Accelerator’s actions were mostly instinctual, and yet he still fell between Kihara and the gun.

This little shit…The more ability to take action he loses, the crazier his movements get?!

Kihara glared at Accelerator as he squirmed across the floor and exhaled sharply. If Accelerator still had the faculty to think straight, maybe he would have realized something was wrong. About how strange it was for a monster who could easily deal with Academy City’s strongest Level Five to be acting this nervously.

Kihara had a trick.

When all was said and done, Amata Kihara had been overpowering Accelerator only because he’d personally developed him. Kihara had all his data, from his personality profile to his supernatural ability to his physical prowess—all he’d done was learn a fatal tactic that would be effective only against Accelerator.

Of course, to make this tactic work, he needed much more than a normal person: a superb martial arts sense and a level of genius able to develop the vast amount of research data into a cohesive tactic. But even if he pulled it off, it wasn’t enough to put down one of only seven Level Fives in the city in a fair fight.

If he really could kill a Level Five without any little tricks, Kihara wouldn’t bother having the Hound Dogs as subordinates. He’d have dealt with the piercing-covered woman in a flash, too. But in reality, if he needed to kill anyone other than Accelerator during this operation, he always left it to his henchmen and never came to the forefront.

But his true character had been unmasked…

…by Accelerator switching from a Level Five to a completely impotent Level Zero.

Now that he’d abandoned all his tactics thus far, Kihara’s “countermeasure” was meaningless.

Think you can fuck with me? I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you for sure. Shit! Why is this happening? I was supposed to have the upper hand at all times. I can’t think of a single damn reason to be crawling on the floor like this…

As Kihara muttered abuse under his breath, he suddenly noticed something strange outside the window.

The “angel” was acting odd.

He couldn’t figure out exactly what about it was wrong, but it still felt wrong. If expressed vaguely, the biting sense of ominousness was gone.

Something…wrong? thought Kihara, dumbfounded. No…no. Could there be a problem…that not even Aleister…? He wiped the sweat from his brow and tried to stand up, then saw Accelerator’s face.

His lips were moving as if to speak words. But the sounds didn’t reach Kihara’s ears. Even if they had, Accelerator wasn’t in a state where he could speak human words. It should have been impossible for Kihara to understand what he was saying.

And yet Kihara felt a blood vessel in his temple pulsate strangely. He could tell just by Accelerator’s expression and the air around him that he was making fun of him.

Don’t…get cocky…Kihara’s eyes immediately became bloodshot. Killing him isn’t enough. Even if I just stop his heart, he’ll have an easy death. Take more from him. Remove from him the very meaning of death. How do I do that?

His mind raced. What was Accelerator’s weakness? What were his vulnerabilities? What could Kihara do to cause him the most pain? Direction, writing, outcome—he took them all together and began constructing the worst possible scenario.

“Ah-ha!” He chuckled.

He swiftly reached into his lab coat, then took out a chip.

On it was the original script of the virus he’d injected into Last Order’s brain.

The data would also be absolutely required to repair her mind with Testament.

Without it, he would never save Last Order.

He took the chip…

…and, before Accelerator’s eyes, crushed it in the palm of his hand.

“Gya-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!”

A scornful laugh exploded, shaking the abandoned office.

The plastic fragments scattered and fell to the floor. Accelerator didn’t move. He couldn’t calculate anything and couldn’t figure out what the chip’s destruction meant. And yet Kihara was satisfied. It was unbelievably entertaining to destroy everything right in front of him like this.

“Take that! See what happens?! There’s never just one victory condition! Now you’ll regret it, you little shit!! I just destroyed everything you hold dear! You can’t get any of it back!! Ah-ha-ha- ah-ha-gya-ha-ha!!”

This was the world Accelerator and Kihara lived in.

There was no moderation, no mercy, no sympathy.

Good and evil alike died. The weakest were served up as food for the strong. When someone like Last Order strayed into that world, there was no chance they would survive. It was obvious, not even worth mentioning: a fundamental truth of the underworld. Now another had lost her life for being caught up in it.

That was all.

That was supposed to be all it was.

As Kihara cackled, he kicked Accelerator in the side. Stealing his hope wasn’t enough. Now he’d beat him to death. The joy of a plunderer was deeply engraved on his face.

“See? Next, it’ll be you. Might want to start thinking about dumb shit, like whether heaven exists!!”

There was no more hope.

But salvation, on the other hand, hadn’t forsaken Accelerator and Last Order just yet.

“There she is!! I found her!!”

Footsteps came into the abandoned office.

The girl’s voice felt very nostalgic, despite him having heard it only a few hours ago.

The beaten and crumpled Accelerator’s head turned toward the voice.

And there…

…was Index, her soaked white habit dragging behind her.

6

With the giant angel scattering thunderous, crackling, discharge-like sounds behind him, Touma Kamijou dove for Vento.

He sped like an arrow. His earlier movements seemed like a lie. No, it was probably the opposite. Now he knew the people buried were alive, and that Kazakiri’s mind was still there. She knew well that he wouldn’t easily direct “hostility” at others. And now Vento’s erratic attacks wouldn’t continue to affect innocents nearby. Liberated from all his worry and concern, Kamijou’s shackles were off, and he could fight at full strength.

He just needed to protect her.

He just needed to protect the friends important to him.

It was simple.

And because of that, Touma Kamijou was released from everything.

“Shit!!” swore Vento, swinging her hammer around. By that time, though, Kamijou had already gotten very close to her. Ba-bam!! He blew the air club away with one hit, then reached forward, forward with his right hand, wanting to grab the part of the hammer not wrapped in barbed wire.

“!!”

Right before he touched it, the hammer disappeared from Vento’s right hand. It instantly switched to her left, and Kamijou’s palm swiped through empty air.

Vento swung her hammer horizontally at him, aiming for his wide-open chest.

Kamijou ducked underneath. There was a loud vwoosh!! as it passed overhead before he came in at a sharp angle at Vento and rammed his elbow into her gut.

Wham!! exploded a dull sound.

“Geh?!”

Vento doubled over, and then the bottom of her foot slipped and she fell to the ground. Kamijou tried to stomp his heel into her like a nail, but before he could, she swung the hammer with all her might from her prone position.

An air club soared straight at Kamijou’s face.

“!!”

Kamijou beat a hasty retreat, and with another swoosh!! the wind attack carved through the air right by him. It tore through the downpour, leaving a particle-like trail behind.

They were back to square one, but his face had a smile on it.

He could do this.

Vento didn’t want me to grab her hammer with my right hand. He opened up his right hand’s fingers, then closed them again. That means it can be erased. And it doesn’t seem like she can get her broken hammer back to normal very quickly, either. If I break it once, I can prevent her from using it!

“I guess this doesn’t do me much good if you get up close…” With a swish, she spun the long hammer in her hand and put it on her shoulders.

The red blood dripping from her lips trickled down the slender chain and onto the cross on the end.

Kamijou reaffirmed his grip on his fist, then gave a savage smile. “Now that I don’t have to worry about what’s around me, I can really go at it.”

“Hah. It’s almost like that monster behind you is helping.”

“Not ‘like.’ She really is helping me!”

“Keep talking!!”

Vento swung her hammer down in one motion from her shoulders, and Kamijou dashed forward.

He repelled the air club flying at him with his right hand, and the second attack fell to his feet. The asphalt exploded underfoot, sending huge pieces sailing at him.

He ducked, reducing the number that hit as much as he could, and crossed his arms in front of his face to protect it. Then he started running forward again.

As he ran, he shouted, “You’ve hit your limit!! This is all you can do when you’re not using other people as a shield!!”

“Don’t…you…underestimate God’s Right Seaaaaat!!”

Vento screamed, then swung her hammer around again to create an air club.

He’d already seen through her attack. She used the hammer to create a “weapon,” then fired it along the path indicated by her tongue chain. That was her only pattern. Kamijou’s right hand could deal with that.

No, Vento had more than this to begin with.

She had a spell that crushed everyone who directed hostility at her. With that and these air-manipulating attacks, most people probably couldn’t stand up to her. And even if she can’t hit them, she can create “hostility” in the opponent just by aiming her weapon at them.

But Kamijou’s Imagine Breaker prevented Vento’s big play, the divine judgment spell, from affecting him. Right now, all she could do was use her “clubs” meant for feints. So I can win!! I’ll end this now!!

Kamijou clenched his right hand into a single balled-up fist and jumped at Vento.

Before his hand got to her, Vento swung her hammer sideways. An air club appeared. But before it fired off, she retracted her wrist, then swung her hammer again, this time in an upward path. With a booming noise, two air clubs appeared.

They didn’t come at Kamijou separately. Instead, they carved into each other, forming a single mass, then exploded into a fan shape like water from a showerhead. Hundreds of sharp drills of air shot at him at once.

He couldn’t block them all with his right hand.

“Ahhhhh!!”

As his foot reached forward for another step, he wrenched it away and rolled desperately to the side. With a dull sh-bam!! a dozen meters of asphalt behind him flipped up into the air. It ripped off the arm sleeve of his uniform and tore at his skin sharply.

Kamijou came out of his roll and immediately ducked, and then Vento swung the hammer up again. After a series of swings, both vertical and horizontal, she forced out three air clubs this time.

Kamijou tensed up. Not good! He hadn’t gotten all the way up yet and couldn’t make any nimble movements. If another one of those showers came at him, there was no assurance he could dodge this time.

“Shit, they’re gonna hit…!!”

Kamijou immediately brought up his right hand.

Cough!!

But suddenly, Vento doubled over, and chunks of blood burst from her mouth. The three clubs, with nothing controlling them, exploded on the spot. With a thundering boom, they blasted her straight back.

“Vento!!”

Out of reflex, Kamijou shouted after his enemy. He’d seen her coughing up blood before, too.

“…What…nonsense are you babbling?”

As she spat puddles of blood out of her mouth, Vento shakily readied her hammer again. The explosion had torn parts of her yellow clothing, and blood was starting to seep from the openings.

“You…and the science side—you’re the ones who put this together, aren’t you? With the appearance of that ‘angel,’ you’ve put pressure on everything magical on this entire ‘plane.’ In a word, you’ve created a mana circulatory failure. Aleister, you bastard. How repulsive your tricks are…”

Vento was speaking vaguely, and Kamijou didn’t really understand what she was saying. But it apparently meant Vento would cough up blood whenever she used sorcery right now. Maybe creating several air clubs was putting needless strain on her body.

But still…

…As she coughed up blood, she kept on swinging that hammer.

Kamijou paled. “You idiot!! What reason do you have to fight that hard?!”

“You’re the one trying to beat me to death, you heap of excrement! I see through your shameless words!!”

Her hammer danced, first vertically then to the side, creating three air clubs, then creating a whirling wind to fuse them all into a single sharp spike that flew at Kamijou.

With a booming roar, the spike sailed straight past his ear.

Not because Kamijou had dodged right away. He couldn’t react to it in time.

The reason it hadn’t hit was that Vento’s own aim was off.

Her stamina wouldn’t hold out much longer.

Creating multiple air masses, multiplying their vectors, launching winds with completely different directions and strength…

“That attack…It uses the principles of fluid mechanics?!”

“You irritating little prick. Don’t analyze someone’s spells with that knowing face of yours…! Just the very usage of scientific words makes my skin crawl!!” she shouted, but she hadn’t the stamina to back up her resolve.

The hammer, swung upward, pulled her arm down and fell to the ground with a smash. Her hands hung limp at her sides, but the glaring hostility in Vento’s eyes never went away.

“Oooahhh!!” She clenched her bloody teeth and swung her hammer up. Its trajectory was wobbly, enough so that Kamijou could almost feel the limit of her endurance. The attack missed him and struck the road right next to him.

Kamijou watched on. “Hah, you need someone to rescue you now?”

“Don’t…give me that…crap…”

“Sorry, but I’ve got my own shit to deal with. I’ll send you straight to the hospital!!”

“Silence!!” roared Vento. “I will not give my body to the likes of science ever again!!”

Kamijou frowned slightly at that. “Again?” he said in spite of himself.

An even deeper level of fury appeared on Vento’s face. She spat blood off to the side, wiped her lips with the back of her hands, and spoke. “…Science was responsible for killing my younger brother.”

“What?”

She gritted her bloodred teeth, swung her hammer up with all her might, and continued. “Thanks to a theme park attraction’s motor going haywire. Both my young brother and I ended up a total mess after that. They told us that scientifically, there wouldn’t be a problem! Dozens of safety features, brand-new lightweight strengthening materials, fully automatic speed control programs! They rambled on and on, feeding us all those reliable-sounding words!! But in the end, they were of no use at all!!”

“You…”

“I don’t believe science can save anyone. Your angel is no different. Protecting people? Hah! Meanwhile, it’s still doing its real job—destruction!!”

Kamijou had no words.

Vento stuck out her tongue at him. “Surprised? That one of the God’s Right Seat, which controls the world, would be fighting for a reason like this? I detest science so much that I’d even use God’s Right Seat to obtain my revenge!!”

Though she was infuriated, no attack came immediately. Vento could probably feel the limit of her stamina clearly. She edged around to the side, trying to time an attack to kill him for sure.

She stuck out her reddened tongue again and said, “Type B, Rh negative. The blood I’m spitting out now? The doctors said it’s incredibly rare. They couldn’t even find much of it in their transfusion stock. What do you think happened to my brother and me once we were in the hospital?”

“…”

“They couldn’t get enough to transfuse for both of us. They called everyone, but they could only get enough for one. We were waiting on the verge of death when the doctors told us the hopeless news—they could only save one of us. And only I lived! He told them to save his sister, so they just let him die!!”

Blood trickled from her teeth, but Vento still didn’t attack—as if implicitly declaring she would wait until she could kill him for sure.

“Science stole our path, and on top of that, the Bible, which I took to be a means of salvation, is being sullied by that thing! This is what science really is. It’s nothing but an obstacle!!”

She breathed deeply, her shoulders heaving, shaking the air sharply as if to multiply her own power level.

“That’s why I hate science, why I detest science! If science is that cold and heartless, then I’ll wreck all of it and fill the world with warmer rules. That’s my duty as someone who tore apart her brother’s future!!”

“”

So that’s how it is, thought Kamijou. After everything was said and done, Vento had always regretted letting her brother die and thought it was her own fault. Her greatest enemy wasn’t science—it was probably herself. It was Vento, who was still alive yet had let someone she personally protected die.

The divine judgment spell. A sorcery that defeated all who showed her hostility, no questions asked.

When he first heard about it, it sounded like a convenient power indeed. But if you looked at it the other way, unless you created an environment in which a lot of people continued to be hostile toward you, it was completely useless.

Vento had chosen to be hated by everyone in the world.

Without being on the receiving end of others’ hostility, she couldn’t create any value or results. To fight back, she had to plunge into the world’s darkness. The way she lived her life—it was like she’d given up any possibility of someone showing her goodwill.

She believed that was fitting for her. She ran about, destroying, for her dead brother alone.

Kamijou could never do what she’d done.

But he still said this:

“Don’t give me that crap.”

“What?” Vento frowned.

He continued. “Science killed your brother? Those doctors didn’t want to let him die from the start, you know. They obviously wanted to save both of you!! And the theme-park ride with the accident, too. They didn’t make that thing so they could hurt people. They wanted to put smiles on their faces!!”

“Silence…”

“When your brother told them to save you right before he died, how do you think he felt?! He knew exactly what situation he was in, and he still wished for you to be saved!! You think he’d want you to get revenge on science?! The person who wanted more than anyone else for you to be happy?!”

“I said, shut your goddamn trap!!”

In her blind fury, Vento recklessly whipped her hammer around. It had none of the calculation behind it that it used to. The wind attack came flying at him in a disorderly fashion, and Kamijou easily blocked it with his right hand.

“He wasn’t even ten years old! All he saw in his near-dead, hazy mind was a family member who had been hurt! Anyone in that situation would agree if you told them to make the choice!! It’s a little kid’s opinion. How is that valuable?! If they didn’t have enough blood, they should have given it to my brother! They might as well have just used my blood for it!!”

Kamijou’s expression didn’t budge. As the rain fell, he leveled his gaze at Vento and looked into her eyes. “I say it’s valuable,” he spat. “Even if it’s a little kid, you’re only here because of his decision! It was valuable!! And you should understand that best of all!!”

“This is absurd!! Are you trying to comfort me?! I’ve shattered people’s futures!!”

“Could you say that to someone in your exact situation?!”

“!!” Vento held her breath.

Kamijou continued, driving the point home. “I couldn’t do it. That’s why I’m arguing with you!! The way you live your life is wrong! I don’t know what your brother was like. But he did something I could never do. He did the greatest thing anyone could possibly do!! And you’re rubbing dirt in that?! If you died hating science your whole life, you’d be wasting his last words!!”

“——Don’t make me laugh,” said Vento of the Front, barely moving her lips. “You think I’ll change my ways just for that? I’m committed to this path. Someone who just heard the story now won’t be able to twist things around so easily!!”

She took only one step back, rallied what little strength remained within her, lifted her weighty hammer, and readied it. Blood slipped out of her mouth and trickled down her slender tongue chain, wetting the cross on the end.

In response, Kamijou clenched his right fist and faced Vento head-on.

Only five meters separated them.

Kamijou could get within punching range in two steps. With Vento in such a weakened state, one hit would be enough to knock her out.

But she would fire an attack of her own in the meantime. She’d use her killing move, where she combined several air clubs and used principles of fluid dynamics to change their shape and vector.

It was a straight-up duel, and they’d each have one attack.

With the sound of nearby wreckage breaking apart, hostilities began.

““!!””

Kamijou plunged forward.

Vento whipped around her hammer several times as she coughed up blood, creating seven wind clubs in one go. They all ate into one another, changed vectors, spun up into a whirlwind, and transformed into a single giant spike.

Kamijou couldn’t even react to three of the bundled clubs.

With more than twice as many, he couldn’t imagine how much force they had behind them.

But he didn’t flinch.

He didn’t take any evasive action. He put even more energy into his fist to meet it head-on. If his fist and the spike were even a few centimeters off, Kamijou’s head would explode for certain. He understood, yet his eyes never wavered.

The danger Academy City and Hyouka Kazakiri are facing…

Or maybe he could predict Vento’s attack by her eye movements and breathing. If he used the raindrops, he could also read where the wind attack was.

The hatred of science shackling Vento…

But Kamijou abandoned any such schemes.

This battle wouldn’t be decided by petty tricks like that.

As he watched Vento pour everything she had into one grand, final attack, he thought.

I’ll destroy all those stupid illusions at once!!

“Oooooaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

Kamijou and Vento shouted.

His fist and her spike flew at the same time.

With a thundering boom, the spike streaked through the space between them, breaking through raindrops, scattering them into particles. The rain exploded into a thin mist, and for a moment, it blocked their vision. It burst outward like steam.

Sounds ceased.

A moment later…

A primal ga-gah!! rang out as Kamijou’s fist caught the tip of the spike, destroying it all in one hit.

“…!!” Vento tried to swing her hammer, but she couldn’t muster the strength.

Kamijou stepped in deep.

“Compared to your brother, it might not be much…”

He clenched his fist as hard as he possibly could.

And he stared into Vento’s eyes.

“…but I can save you a little. Come back after you’ve started over, you gigantic moron!!”

Wham!! Kamijou’s fist plunged into the bridge of Vento’s nose.

She flew several meters back, then fell to the rain-soaked asphalt.

7

Index spotted the beat-up and collapsed Accelerator and a man in a white robe kicking him. By curious coincidence, it was the same scenario she’d first spotted them in, near the underground mall entrance.

He’s from that time!! Are these people related to what’s going on?!

Unfortunately, she didn’t have the time to go to them.

The most important thing for her was the key to suppressing the big angel.

However…

?! Index’s eyes went wide. The man in white walked in front of Accelerator and slammed his foot hard into his head. Accelerator rolled away helplessly. She began to run over there out of reflex.

“Ooohhhhaah!!”

But after producing a sound from his throat that wasn’t quite a shout or a cry, Accelerator slapped a hand onto the office desk and got up. Right between the man and Index, like a shield.

For a moment, she vacillated, but she had too much to do. After grabbing a disconnected phone from off the desk, she threw it at the man in white. Seeing Accelerator charge at the same time, she turned her gaze to the ten-year-old girl sleeping on the desk.

Index had seen her once, in a cell phone picture. This was the one Accelerator had been searching for.

She was the key to everything.

I can’t do it here. I need to get her somewhere safer to do any “work”…! Index picked up the limp girl. But as she was about to leave the abandoned office, she saw that Last Order had grown very weak and decided any careless movement would be dangerous. Instead, Index lowered her from the desk to a spot in the shadows so she wouldn’t be caught in the fighting.

“You little shit!! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” shouted the man in white before Accelerator grappled onto him.

Index inspected the girl again, from head to toe—from a magical viewpoint.

Yes, she’s the core of it all. The fundamentals are angel fabrication. It pours formless Telesma into a pocket in the shape of a human, then starts building the silhouette like a balloon doll. And this spell was used by the golden sorcerer’s society, which Crowley was a part of.

Whoosh!! The information in her 103,000 grimoires elucidated the sorcery in the blink of an eye.

Unfortunately…I can’t see any more than that. Index bit down on her teeth. I understand the general composition, but I can’t figure out what sort of things it’s made of!!

As an analogy, this was like telling a craftsman who carved violins out of wood to make an electric guitar out of electric parts. While both were musical instruments, they were so far apart that all the craftsman could do would be to hash out a very rough idea.

And a “rough idea” wasn’t going to be enough for delicate work. On her own, Index had hit a wall.

Therefore, she didn’t hesitate to ask for help.

“Short-hair, questions!!” shouted Index into the cell phone in her hand. There was a certain girl on the other end.

“That’s Miss Mikoto to you!! Anyway, what did you—zzzzttt! Kkkrrrkk—want to ask?!”

Bam-bam-boom! came frequent explosions from the other end. None of them touched Mikoto—as though saying she didn’t need to shoulder them.

Index decided to take her up on her friendliness. “What is a ‘brain-wave-utilizing electronic network’?!”

Mikoto began to answer her questions using the full scope of the knowledge she’d gained at Tokiwadai Middle School.

After hearing the answer, Index threw another question at her. “What does ‘involuntary diffusion fields proliferating Academy City’ mean?!”

The two girls each lacked knowledge: one ignorant of science, the other of magic. Neither of them could completely understand the answer they were both trying to arrive at.

“What is ‘safety device for the electronic network using brain waves as a base’?!”

Yet the two girls pressed on—to solve the problem. They didn’t need to understand the methodology as long as they got the right answer. In a way, they threw away their pride and accepted it was beyond their respective fields, hoping only to recover the situation little by little.

So basically, the city is filled with a special power, and that girl is all that bundled up. All they did was make an “angel” by restricting her mind and bending the special power to their will!! In that case…!!

“We have to untie the ‘knot’ in her head!!” Someone from the science side might have called it a “virus.” But how can I put this idea into practice?

Index couldn’t use sorcery. And sorcery couldn’t be used to save Last Order. To untie the “knot,” she decided to use “words.” That may have sounded quite particular when it came to tinkering with a person’s mind, but reading and studying a book were the same things. From the start, humans had their “windows” for that open.

She would choose words attuned to that “knot,” and by saying them, she would “untie” it.

In concrete terms, that meant…

“…A song.” That’s what Index thought. “It’s easier to get across than normal words. People can sit through hour-long lectures and not cry, but one-minute songs can do the trick. You can use rhythm and pitch to exchange emotions on multiple levels, so…”

But when Mikoto heard that, she argued, flustered. “Wait, wait. Are you sane?! The fundamental way to overwrite things in someone’s brain is through repetitive learning. Plus, their memories and brain compatibility might not even be that good in the first place!! Besides, if you want to get into an electronic network, you need to input digital values into a specific device, like a Testament. Are you telling me you could make that happen with primitive, analog methods like voice and song?!”

Index didn’t know the meaning of the scientific terms Mikoto mentioned, and she didn’t have any proof her own method would work. She knew several ways to attack people through their minds, like Sheol Fear and Spell Interception, but this would be the first time she tried this.

“I can do it…,” she answered, despite everything. “Prayer will reach. It will save people. I’m a nun, and that’s how I’ve spread the teachings!” She looked only ahead. “We’ll save them with our prayers—this girl, Hyouka, and Academy City!!”

8

Punched, beaten, and crushed by Kihara, Accelerator’s body slid across the floor.

He wasn’t in any condition to fight right now. And because of his brain injury, he couldn’t stand on his own two feet to begin with. The way he’d fought until now—half falling into Kihara to prevent him from moving—would be rendered useless if Kihara took caution and kept his distance.

“Ah-ha-ha-gya-ha-ha-ah-ha-ha-ha!!”

Kihara’s laughing continued, seeming to burst out of his throat. He certainly wasn’t wearing the face of someone who’d just had skin torn off his head.

Kihara grabbed Accelerator’s collar, dragged him up from the floor, smashed his back into the office desk, and then threw a punch to boot. Accelerator heard bad groans from his skull, and his face drew back in a pained grimace. The strength left his fingers thanks to the brain-rattling attack.

But if there was one thing he still had, it was consciousness.

That, and that alone, would never waver.

“”

He began to hear a girl’s smooth melody.

With his speech functions gone, Accelerator could hear only her voice. He didn’t know what she was saying. But there was emotion in her singing. It made him feel, beyond the barrier of language, her compassion toward Last Order.

What meaning lay in her voice was anyone’s guess. Maybe she was just holding Last Order’s hand, trying to ease her pain.

But that was a grand salvation in and of itself.

Last Order never had anyone do that for her.

“Ooooooooaaaaaahhhh!!”

With a scream, Kihara lashed out with a much heavier punch. Accelerator slid over the desk, scattering everything on it, and dropped to the filthy floor. Intense pain struck him in several places, almost too much to want to stand again.

But Accelerator smirked.

The nun’s velvety song continued.

Her song was like standing in warm light. Her voice could have been produced only by a person who was from the same world Last Order belonged in. Accelerator simply listened, his mind bereft of calculation, to that voice he could never create on his own.

Last Order wasn’t meant to be passed back and forth among shitheads like Amata Kihara or Accelerator. The proper thing for a resident of the world of light was to be saved by the warmth of those from that same world.

But…

What did that matter?

Why did Accelerator have to feel inferior about that? Why did he have to decide that darkness like him should never touch such a dazzling radiance?

Could only just people perform just acts? Could only good people do good things? Yes, he saw, that was correct. It only made sense.

However…

Why did that “sense” have to be that way in the first place?

Accelerator wanted to save Last Order. From the clutches of unreasonable violence and abuse, he wanted to save her.

What was wrong with thinking like that?

Light, darkness—did it matter where you stood? He didn’t want to protect her because she was part of the world of light. No matter what world she was in, he would feel moved to protect her with his own hands.

The distinction between worlds—it didn’t mean anything.

Was there a problem with a bad person reaching out to a good person?

Would anyone complain about someone dark protecting the world of light?

After all this time, Academy City’s strongest villain had always acted with ego and arrogance…

Why should he have to stay faithful to his past behavior at this point?

“…”

Bang! Accelerator, from his sitting position, reached out for the office desk.

There was a grinding sound as he slowly stood up.

He’d reached his conclusion.

Have pride, even if evil. Rescue the light, even while treading the path of darkness. Feel no shame because your road is different from others. Become so dark you could be proud.

Abandon all former rules.

Reset your ideas of what is and isn’t possible.

Make a list of the conditions in front of you and demolish those walls.

“Ki…hara…”

From his mouth, without any ability to speak, dribbled words.

His feet creaked and groaned as he slowly used them to support himself.

“Kiiihaaaaaaraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!”

At that moment, Accelerator used his feet that by all rights couldn’t move and began to run.

Straight for his mortal enemy, Amata Kihara.

Even if he had to fight against all the truth in the world, be hurt, and lose everything.

He would protect this one illusion.

9

Amata Kihara’s smile began to savagely sink into his face on an even deeper level.

Accelerator was on his feet.

Despite all the pain, despite the beating he’d received, he still shouted Kihara’s name and ran forward. As though trying to defend the space behind him.

Like he was trying to save the two girls hidden behind the office desk.

“…Cool,” said Kihara, commenting on his enemy who wouldn’t fall. His face was filled with a savage glee. “I know, I know!! You’d never go down that fuckin’ easy! Glad you’ve got my interests in mind here, Accelerator! You’ve been doing nothing but driving me up the fuckin’ wall lately. I won’t use a gun. I’ll beat you to a pulp, then kill youuuuuuuuu!!”

Kihara’s mind raced. He howled like a beast, but that didn’t stop the strange girl’s song, much less Accelerator. She was intensely focused and couldn’t see anything around her—she was probably in a state of meditation. Everything around him was shining full of enemies. It was the greatest stage.

A few corpses would make it perfect—but why the fuck are you still alive?!

Kihara met Accelerator’s charge head-on. He clenched both fists and cracked his joints. Once his fist was hard as steel, he launched it into Accelerator’s face without mercy.

There was a thunderous wham!!

The minute creaks and groans of physical stress traveled through Kihara’s arm.

And yet…

Accelerator didn’t even slow down.

“Ooooooooooohhhhhhhhhh-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!”

Ignoring his caved-in face, his counterpunch hit Kihara squarely in the face. Kihara’s nose broke and he felt an explosion of pain. It went without saying, Accelerator had put everything into his assault.

…Gh…gr!! With a groan, Kihara brought his head back up to return the favor. He tightened his fingers even more. “Ooargh, that didn’t do shit, little bastaaaard!!”

His fist slammed into Accelerator’s slender face, sending him reeling to the floor. He managed to writhe around there, but Kihara came down with his foot—and the full weight of his body.

It was like being hammered by a huge nail. A booming whack resounded. Kihara continued his indecipherable screams, stomping down on Accelerator in one spot after the other. He heard something break, and red fluids scattered.

“Great, now I’m feeling it! My engine’s all warmed up! What about you?! You’re really something! Maybe you could actually, really save that little brat!”

His amused words didn’t affect Accelerator at all. Despite being crumpled on the floor, he knew the glint in his eyes, if nothing else, never waned.

To rescue her. To save the girl from death.

His spirit would not break.

“Haaah!! Haaah!!”

It was such tenacity that Kihara was the one getting out of breath.

“Ha-ha-ha!” He laughed, looking around. Sprawled out on the floor nearby were the bodies of the incompetent Hound Dogs Accelerator had taken down. The guns and other weapons they’d had were on the floor, too. Now that things were getting annoying, he went over to them and stooped down.

“…I’m gonna make things more interesting. Come on, show me some more, will ya?”

He plucked a weapon from the floor and smiled thinly. His face looked like a runner finished with a marathon. Amata Kihara took the item in his hands, then looked at Accelerator, who was still collapsed, and tossed it at him.

It was an antipersonnel grenade with the pin removed.

With his brain function partially gone, the broken and beaten Accelerator didn’t have the energy to dodge or bat it away.

With a soft clunk, the grenade hit Accelerator’s forehead.

The small object didn’t even have time to float through the air.

Ka-bam!! The grenade blew. A shock wave and a good amount of shrapnel exploded in all directions, whipping up a gray cloud of smoke. The close range meant one of the shards hit Kihara in the cheek. It dug into his skin sharply like a carving knife. But he was grinning. All he felt was exhilaration.

Silence fell.

Only the meditative sister’s long verses echoed through the room.

“Hya…”

He’d won.

“Gya-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!”

Kihara roared with laughter from deep within.

Accelerator was dead. That killed him. After all, it exploded not two centimeters from his head. No unarmed person could ever withstand that. A smoky dust cloud was covering him right now, but when it cleared, he would see a mangled body destroyed so badly he wouldn’t even be able to tell what had gone where.

The gray cloud the grenade created spread out, thinning as it did. Like a great wave, it flowed past Kihara, blocking the view. When the dust cleared, Accelerator’s corpse would appear. The unsightly end would mark the last of Amata Kihara’s fight.

Aleister told me not to kill the mass-produced brat, but that means I can do anything else. Guess I’ll kill that nun singing the weird song, give the girl both corpses, and break her spirit, thought Kihara with a laugh—

—when there was a crash!!

Someone’s hand grabbed his face.

“…!!”

They stood in front of him.

He couldn’t see who because of all the smoke.

Gah…ah…?!

Thinking normally, it was most probable to be Accelerator. But that didn’t make sense to Kihara. Without usage of his ability, he was weaker than most high school kids. Without any tricks up his sleeve, he could never endure a grenade blast at close range.

He didn’t think something had brought his “reflection” back, either. Ash clung to the arm grabbing him. If his reflection was working, it would have repelled even the tiniest flecks of dirt.

“Why…?”

But still, there in front of him was Accelerator.

White hair, red eyes, sculpted face, firm skin, slender lines, neck choker, gray clothes, bony limbs, glaring black shoes…

He ignored all those things and screamed:

“What the fuck are those black wings coming out of your back?!”

They looked more like engines than wings.

Blacker than ink, they sucked in even light, those mysterious spurting feathers.

Kihara had seen what an “angel” was. He knew he had been a part in the creation of one. Despite that, unfolding before his eyes was something he couldn’t properly identify.

Y-you little…

Accelerator’s power was to place all vectors under his control, regardless of type. His ability to talk, his ability to walk, and this “new power”—it all had to be using something in this space for power.

From a scientific standpoint, Accelerator couldn’t do any calculations based on natural laws, so he couldn’t be controlling that power.

But what about other laws?

In the first place, was his preexisting ability to calculate necessary or even related to grasping unscientific theories?

The occult.

Only scientists of Kihara’s caliber would have been aware. After thousands, tens of thousands of scientific experiments, they peeked out a tiny bit every now and again—irregular laws or something resembling them.

He gained a new clearance, expanding his zone of control? What the hell kind of values did he enter into his personal reality…? Who the hell did he establish communications with?!

If he had one idea…

If there was one representative of the power filling Academy City…

Involuntary diffusion fields…Wait. No…That angel or whatever…The power source, it’s…?!

Unfortunately, he wasn’t thinking about it at all.

With a crack, Accelerator tightened up his arm, which pressed down on Kihara’s skull.

“”

And he laughed. Quietly.

“Hah, ha-ha…!” Amata Kihara laughed back despite himself, his arms and legs hanging.

Then he asked it.

“B-behind you…You see that, monster?”

“Ihbfkillwq.”

Boom!! The black wings erupted.

An inexplicable, invisible power burst from his palm toward Kihara.

His body left Accelerator’s hand, shot through the abandoned office like a bullet, flew out the broken window, and carved a line through the night sky at many times the speed of sound. The extreme speed caused an orange glow of plasma to trail behind him.

Nobody would need to check to see if he was alive.

10

In the middle of the downpour, Kamijou sat on the road. He was already soaking wet, so the rainwater-covered street didn’t concern him. Eventually, he felt he’d rested enough, and he exhaled.

The angel’s feathers had been silent. The enormous sparks they’d been firing all over were now totally quiet.

…What about Index?

Things must have gone well for her, too. Kazakiri’s wings and angel halo hadn’t disappeared completely yet, but their shapes were steadily beginning to flicker. If it were really bad, they wouldn’t be doing that. Last Order…I hope that guy on the phone saved her.

That reminded him.

He took Last Order’s cell phone out of his pocket. Despite the current state of Academy City, he should probably call for an ambulance. Using someone else’s phone made him feel weird, but now wasn’t the time for awkwardness.

As expected, the person who answered told him they might not be able to provide their usual care. That was still far better than doing nothing.

He returned the phone to his pocket and looked around. Kazakiri’s appearance had ushered in destruction as far as the eye could see…but thanks to her power, she just barely managed to save the residents in those buildings. Glowing scales were still visible, drifting in the dark.

Maybe I should rescue some of them. On the other hand, his Imagine Breaker could cancel the scales’ effect. For now, he couldn’t do much but leave them alone.

“Still, though…”

Kamijou looked over at where Vento was lying, very clearly unconscious.

He wanted to ask for a way to wake up the people in Academy City she’d knocked out with her divine judgment spell, but after several slaps to the cheek, she showed no signs of waking.

What would happen to her now? She’d ground the city’s functions almost completely to a halt; the city wouldn’t let her run loose. And there was all that stuff about the power balance between science and magic. The magic side was the one who broke that, after all.

Maybe they’d crossed the line.

Academy City would try to wipe such dangerous capabilities from the world, even if it meant killing her. On the other hand, God’s Right Seat and the Roman Orthodox Church wouldn’t let go of such a high-powered spell so easily. Science and magic had held discussions in the past, but it didn’t look like that would work this time. It was dangerous, and it might even be the trigger for universal destruction.

Shit…

It was important to look at what Vento had done in the past; he wasn’t denying that. But as someone who knew about what had happened to her, he didn’t agree with simply executing her or making her into a tool of war. It would be the worst kind of repentance.

Making both science and magic her enemy means she can’t run away forever on this cramped planet. But I have to do something. I have to get her to hide, even if it’s temporary, at least until the dust settles. Maybe I should ask Tsuchimikado. Whether it’ll work, on the other hand…

He couldn’t simply hand her over to the English Puritan Church. Vento was far too involved in everything for that. Besides, a mere high school kid couldn’t solve a global-scale problem. But he still felt like he had to do something. If he abandoned Vento here, it would leave a bad aftertaste in his mouth.

“For now, guess I’ll wait for her to wake up. I punched her pretty hard…”

As for Kazakiri…he looked away from Vento, but Kazakiri didn’t react to him. She hadn’t changed. Her eyes were kind of empty, and there were still lots of giant wings coming out of her back. As time passed, the wings began to blur, little by little. In fact, the shorter ones were on the verge of losing their form altogether. Index had probably done something to intervene.

But it looked like it would take a while longer for her wings to go away completely.

Kamijou looked at his right hand. If he used it, he could get rid of dozens of those wings just by touching them…maybe. But if Kazakiri herself was affected by it at the same time, it would be in vain. He felt a little bitter about his power not helping in times like these.

Still…

Vento had directed her hate at Kazakiri, which meant Academy City must have caused this. The upper echelons, probably—but what were they after? It didn’t seem like they’d created her just to defend and intercept against the randomly appearing Vento. They had a different goal.

Problem after problem, Kamijou said to himself.

Then…

Crash!!

Suddenly, the mountain of concrete in front of him exploded, casting a veil of gray dust over his vision.

“?!”

Kamijou put a hand to his face and took a step back.

These weren’t some random pieces of rubble losing their balance and crumbling. The entire pile of wreckage had exploded like somebody threw a bomb at it.

The deluge pushed away the dust in the air.

There, stuck in the ground where the blast had come from, was a wind turbine propeller. It was like someone casually threw it there. About half its pillar portion was buried in the middle of the crater that had blown away the debris. A pillar as big as a telephone pole.

What kind of ridiculous strength would you need to do that?

!! …Where’s Vento?! He quickly scanned his surroundings.

Vento, who had just been unconscious right next to him, was nowhere in sight.

Instead, Kamijou spotted something else—a single man, standing a short distance away.

“Who are you?!” Kamijou shouted aggressively, for the man was holding the limp Vento in one hand.

He wore a short-sleeve white shirt over a long-sleeve blue shirt. On his legs were breathable, thin slacks. It was a sporty look, but it lacked energy. It reminded him of the clothes middle-aged male golfers liked. With his chic black umbrella, he gave off a presence quieter and more unyielding than a high school student like Kamijou could muster.

But in the face of all this disaster, his distinct lack of tension was scary instead. His pale skin and brown hair—everything looked like a sharp blade.

“Excuse me,” said the man in fluent Japanese. “I need something from this girl. I blinded you to avoid violence. Have I offended you?”

“I asked who you are!”

“Acqua of the Back. Like Vento, I’m with God’s Right Seat.”

The man didn’t hesitate to name himself, and the one he gave put Kamijou even more on his guard.

He didn’t know the hierarchy in God’s Right Seat, but simply assuming he possessed equal strength to Vento meant this was really bad. Academy City was completely exhausted. If a second wave came, it wouldn’t recover.

As Kamijou stood there, tense and trembling, Acqua smiled slightly. It was a very strange expression for a man who looked so stalwart.

“You needn’t worry. Pointless troop losses are undesirable. I will retreat for today—it would clearly be reckless to fight that ‘fallen angel’ at your back. At least, not until we’re ready.”

On the other hand, once he was ready, he could fight it. That brought another level of harshness to Kamijou’s stare, but it didn’t cause the man to react.

“It seems to have already lost the sorcery-destroying effect that caused Vento this pain, but we have our own business to take care of.” The man exhaled, casting a glance at Hyouka Kazakiri, standing still a distance away.

He knew one thing about angels: Even Kaori Kanzaki could only so much as equal it. It seemed like it was a gamble even for this God’s Right Seat group.

Whatever the case, Kamijou wouldn’t care one bit if Acqua shut up and went home.

But…

“Let Vento go.”

Kamijou flung those words at Acqua.

“…You plan on getting from her a way to save the wounded in Academy City?”

“That too,” Kamijou answered—meaning that wasn’t all. “Her hostility toward science is just a misunderstanding. Deep down, she knows that, too. But she can’t ever get away from those feelings because she’s with your shitty God’s Right Seat or whatever!”

“Vento’s darkness is not that easily dispelled,” answered Acqua, discontent. “God’s Right Seat does not offer aid to simply misfortunate girls out of pity. We exist to affect the world. Vento has decided to stay true to her own way of life, even to the point of using such power. And do you know how much she’s paid for it? Can you imagine how vast that power is?”

Now that he said something, the reasons Vento acted didn’t involve bringing any results to her organization. Which meant in order to remain in that organization, she’d have needed to constantly prove her worth.

Kamijou thought for just a moment. Thinking, though, was too simple to let him understand her feelings.

“…Why does that matter?”

“What?”

“Just because you can’t get someone to listen, you’re not supposed to say anything?”

Kamijou looked Acqua straight in the eyes.

Of course, unlike Kamijou, Acqua seemed quite relaxed. He snorted. “If I were to release Vento, were the science side to capture her, she would certainly face execution.”

“!!” Those words made Kamijou freeze.

Acqua smiled more deeply at him—the way an adult might look at someone after reading someone’s wish tag for Tanabata, the July festival where people wrote their hopes on slips of paper decoration.

“This is for you.”

With a flick of the wrist, something flew toward Kamijou. He took it. It was the chain and the cross accessory that had been attached to Vento’s tongue.

“In any case, she doesn’t need it—your right hand destroyed it. It’s a piece of junk. Now that it’s broken, Vento cannot use her ‘divine judgment’ anymore. Those affected should recover soon. Rest easy in the knowledge that you have protected Academy City.”

“Wait!! You think that’ll convince me?!”

Kamijou clenched his fist, but Acqua wasn’t going to take him up on it.

“Allow me to tell you one thing.”

Boldly, the man turned his back, then said this:

“I am a saint. Challenge me blindly, and you will pay with your life.”

With a tremendous bang, the man kicked off the ground.

Kamijou blinked, and Acqua and Vento were both gone. He couldn’t even tell what direction he’d run. Or maybe he flew up. All he knew was that this guy’s speed was on a whole different level.

The battle was over, but the problems weren’t solved.

In fact, he felt like they were inviting an even bigger battle.

…I’ll stop them.

The Roman Orthodox Church.

Academy City.

Damn it. I’ll stop where this is going, I swear…

Amid the torrential rainfall, Kamijou gazed at the night sky and made the oath to himself.

The dark clouds showed no signs of clearing.