CHAPTER 2

Those Gradually Beginning to Act
Altair_II.

1

Inside an RV that one of their drivers had brought around for them sat Accelerator, Motoharu Tsuchimikado, and Awaki Musujime.

It was noon.

­Fast-­food meals lined a small table bolted to the floor.

Each was eating the food they’d ­bought—­Accelerator his spicy fried chicken and Tsuchimikado his giant hamburger. They weren’t kindred spirits even in what they ate for lunch.

Meanwhile, Awaki Musujime, eating a fancy salad from a direct-­delivery brand in the Mediterranean, watched them. “…That stuff will shave years off your life.”

“Eating meowthing but green and yellow veggies seems too healthy to meow. You need both meat and vegetables to maintain a healthy body, y’know. You’ve gotta have a balance.”

“Hah. Wouldn’t you be happier eating meat and dying? You’d be able to die after doing what you wanted to do until the end,” said Accelerator to Musujime, licking grease off his thumb. “Anyway, find out anything about those School guys?”

“I accessed the data banks, but aside from the name, no. It looks like they’re as secret as we are. It just says Group and School in there.

“But,” she added with a pause, “When I looked around, I found a few more organization names like that.”

“There weren’t only two?” Tsuchimikado bit into his hamburger and hastily tried to keep the meat from coming out the other side.

“Group, School, Item, Member, Block…,” she answered, counting on her fingers. “Five, just from what I can tell. Details are unknown, but they’re probably like ­us—­unofficial teams made up of a small number of people. School were the ones plotting to snipe Monaka Oyafune. Would that make them the ones who blew up Management’s mansion and attacked his escort car? Maybe Mitsuki Unabara infiltrated them, too.”

“Who knows? But if he’s doing spy work in School, I wish he’d at least give us a sign. We might think he’s a baddie and accidentally kill him,” said Tsuchimikado, listening to Musujime as Accelerator put a coffee can to his lips.

…But why would School be trying to assassinate Monaka Oyafune?

2

They’re doing whatever they want, thought Shiage Hamazura.

Right now, he was in a family restaurant in School District 7. But the woman named Shizuri Mugino, who had installed herself at one of their table’s seats, was blatantly eating a convenience store meal she’d bought elsewhere. That poor, poor little waitress waiting at the edge of the table…

“Huh? This salmon bento tastes different from yesterday’s salmon bento. Hmm?”

The woman, by the window and wearing a ­short-­sleeved coat in bright fall colors even though she was inside, re-crossed her ­stocking-­covered legs and tilted her head in confusion as she mumbled.

It’s the same as always, thought Hamazura.

Weirdos, every single person at the table.

“It just means canned mackerel is in vogue right now. Curry is the ­best—­curry!” said a blond, ­green-­eyed high school girl named Frenda sitting beside Mugino as she wrestled with the can. Maybe she was bad at using can openers, because she wrapped some kind of plastic tape around it, then attached a fuse to the tape and blew the thing open. Hamazura was pretty sure you were supposed to use that for breaking open doors.

Meanwhile, sitting across from Frenda was a ­mature-­looking girl of about twelve named Saiai Kinuhata, who wore a fluffy knit dress. She wasn’t paying the least bit of attention to what the weirdos were doing (not that she had common sense or tolerance but because she was that kind of weirdo). Instead, she was browsing through a movie pamphlet. “An ­ultra-­problematic C-movie presented by the Hong Kong Red Dragon film company…Looks like a real palm sweater in a few different ways, but that’s what makes it interesting. Yes, worth a check. Takitsubo, what do you think?”

She was asking an ­all-­around lethargic girl named Rikou Takitsubo, sitting next to her. She hadn’t touched her food; she was just sprawled out on the booth seat, eyes wandering here and there, never focusing. “…Signal coming from ­south-­southwest…,” she muttered.

…These girls were a team called Item.

They were an unofficial Academy City organization whose main business was to hold the city’s upper echelons, including the General Board, in check. This small group of four had real influence in this city, and by extension, the science faction as a whole. They were treated with the same level of secrecy as Group and School.

Shiage Hamazura wasn’t an official member of Item. He belonged to their ancillary organization, doing odd jobs and being their driver.

Before, he’d been the temporary leader of ­Skill-­Out, an armed organization comprising ­back-­alley Level Zeroes. But after their plans fell through and they sustained catastrophic damage, his life of standing above others had come to an end. Now he was doing grunt work in Academy City’s underworld.

…Still, though, thought Hamazura. Ever since they’d assigned him here, something had been constantly worrying him.

Being the only man in a group of women is really uncomfortable.

This booth seated six, and Hamazura was closest to the aisle. They’d assigned him the job of refilling their drinks.

“So!” said Shizuri Mugino after finishing most of her salmon bento. “About that incident where one of the General Board members, Monaka Oyafune, was almost killed this morning. With that, I think we should start moving, too.”

“Actually, I never got any information about that,” said Frenda simply.

Mugino paused with a grunt. Then the ­short-­sleeved-­coat-­wearing woman glanced at Hamazura. “Hamazura, would you forward this incident’s details to everyone’s phones?”

“Yeah, yeah,” answered Hamazura. He wouldn’t complain when they gave him orders. This was his job now. He took out his own cell phone, then sent them the saved data.

“Hmm…”

Everyone looked at the information on their phones.

And what came up was an adult video downloaded from the Internet.

A moment later, all four members of Item slapped their cell phones closed. With stares of contempt, they shut the doors to their minds, then barred those mental doors shut, then took their mental underground elevators down to evacuate to their mental nuclear shelters.

“I, wait!! Do-over! There must be some mistake!!”

The delinquent leader who once led over one hundred people in ­Skill-­Out bellowed a plea.

As for the four members of Item…

“Hamazura…”

“Man, you really are a creep.”

“Bunny girls are a big hit for you, Hamazura?”

“It’s okay, Hamazura. I still support you even though you’re like that.”

Hamazura, trembling at the warm words, this time sent the correct information about the attempted sniping of Monaka Oyafune.

Kinuhata sighed. “Right, the one School totally planned. I thought we’d, like, totally dealt with their assassin sniper three days ago.”

“They must’ve hired a new one,” said Hamazura. “It just means they ignored our warning.”

“Man, didn’t we argue about why they were after Monaka Oyafune then, too?” said Frenda, stabbing the contents of her can of mackerel with a fork. “Oyafune is on the General Board, but man, she’s useless. She has almost no influence. She’s not even worth killing. But they still wanted her…”

“School still hired a new sniper after the one they lost, then still tried to assassinate Oyafune even despite our warning,” said Takitsubo lazily, continuing for Frenda.

Mugino nodded shortly. “There is no value in killing Monaka Oyafune. Despite the risk of getting found out, they decided to force their plans and shoot her. Why is that? …Hamazura!”

Hamazura’s shoulders jerked in surprise. What?! Why does it seem like she’s trying to get me to say something funny now?! D-don’t look at me at times like this!!

“U-um, well!! Wait a sec, it’s coming up my throat now, I’ll know in a moment!!”

In the end, he had enthusiasm, but couldn’t actually say anything.

“Uhh, Hamazura…”

“Man, the way you get flustered is creepy.”

“There’s totally different kinds of creepy, but Hamazura is the worst kind.”

“It’s okay, Hamazura. I still support you even though everyone keeps calling you creepy.”

The girls gave disappointed sighs. The ­Level-­Zero Hamazura hunkered down on the floor and stopped moving.

Mugino ignored him. “Well, like I said, there’s no value in assassinating Monaka Oyafune. She’s too straightforward. But School still chose her for their target. So, like, maybe they chose her because she doesn’t have any value.”

“Because she doesn’t? I totally don’t get it.”

“I mean, like, maybe School just needed someone. They only wanted to cause a big fuss, so they chose a VIP whose death wouldn’t affect much…In other words, they went after the VIP with the least security.” Mugino sounded amused. “As for other VIPs…Well, even in just the General Board, nobody else would have been giving a speech outdoors in the past couple days. That Shiokishi guy wears his powered suit around the clock, right? There’s no way they can snipe someone like that, so I think they chose whoever would be easiest. And honestly, Monaka Oyafune didn’t have much in the way of protection.”

“…Man, poor Oyafune.”

“Assuming that’s correct, what was School after? I propose this: a system of guaranteed VIP security.” Mugino stuck out her chest ­proudly—­a chest visible even outside her ­short-­sleeved coat. “Academy City designates several people and organizations as VIPs, starting with the twelve General Board members. Their protection comes from a different security group. If anyone ends up in a ­life-­threatening situation, they’d call in people from all over. They’d do things like close off roads for ambulances to pass through and get all the biggest names in medicine to do surgery.

“What I’m saying is this,” concluded Mugino after a pause. “What do you think would happen if a VIP was almost assassinated?”

“They’d call in other people to defend the medical facility, then get all those special scientists and machines and stuff together,” replied Kinuhata. “Heh, you’re saying School would use the chaos to do something else? How boring.”

It would certainly create an opening, but the method wasn’t very decisive. It wouldn’t affect District 23’s strict security or the Windowless Building much at all. At most, it would raise the possibility of attacks on facilities that were already targets to begin with.

“It could be insurance,” said Mugino. “If School got serious, they could break into most facilities by force. However,” she added, “they were so intent on obtaining insurance that they hastily replaced the sniper we took care of and plotted to assassinate Monaka Oyafune. It seems like they’re pretty ­high-­strung about it.”

“Man, that means Oyafune was just a means of insurance, and School plans on attacking somewhere or someone else now.”

“Yep,” said Mugino, nodding.

Hamazura broke in anxiously. “…Wait, doesn’t that mean they wanted to fail?”

“I don’t think it matters, really. Even if she did die, they’d devote a lot of people to her for heart and lung resuscitation and crime scene inspection and autopsy and stuff. She might not be all that, but she’s still one of only twelve members of the General ­Board—­one of the highest VIPs in the city. They would mobilize all sorts of unknown technology for it.”

“Urk,” said Hamazura, scrunching up his face.

Mugino continued anyway, not so much as batting an eye. “I’ll check the facilities with less security because of the attempted assassination of Monaka Oyafune…Actually, maybe that’s not enough. I’ll check the points that would have changed if it had worked out, too. School must have controlled the situation so they could get to their goal whether or not their sniper succeeded. There must be a facility with less security that matches both conditions. That’s probably where School will show up next.”

Shizuri Mugino vigorously rose from her seat.

Without sparing a glance at Hamazura, she told him, “Hamazura, go look for a car, please. We’ll probably be leaving right away.”

Her snobbish tone pricked at Hamazura’s nerves, but he couldn’t argue with her. He was just a grunt right now. “Damn. I’ll have you know, I’m the leader of over a hundred people in ­Skill-­Out…,” he muttered anyway, despite himself.

“Yes, and?”

…Damn it, he cursed to himself before leaving the family restaurant ahead of them to find a car.

3

Mitsuki Unabara was in a ­mixed-­residence building in School District 10.

The building was missing a lot of tenants, and now he found himself in another vacant apartment. The sole juvenile reformatory in Academy City being right out the window might have had something to do with it.

There were a dozen or so armed men in the small ­room—­and about four people who clearly looked like ­bosses—­all standing around. On a business desk left haphazardly in the room were the firearms and laptop they’d brought there, as well as a tossing of smaller tools for disguise and hand cream and such.

…My, my. This is a quandary.

Right now, he was not Mitsuki Unabara.

He’d taken out one of the attackers, and now he was “borrowing” the man’s face.

Who would have thought someone so weak was central to this organization…

His plan was to disguise himself as one of the grunts at random, wait for an opportunity to go out on an errand or something, sneak away from the group, and flee…But apparently, Unabara had taken out one of the group’s bosses.

It would be hard to sneak away from them like this. It wasn’t like they were watching his every action, but whenever he moved, the ring of people seemed to move with him and around him.

He lost his chance and ended up coming to District 10 from District 7…

“What is it, Yamate?”

Suddenly, a voice spoke to him from the side.

A tall woman was standing there. Though she was slender, her whole body was covered in hard muscle. She looked ­built—­almost like a statue, actually. He could tell at a glance she did ­behind-­the-­scenes jobs, but according to what he heard, she was also an ­Anti-­Skill officer on the surface and had infiltrated their headquarters.

As he thought about all that, he recalled what the muscular woman had said.

Yamate. That seemed to be his name.

“It’s nothin’,” he said.

“Keep it together. Your strength, is vital, to our plan’s success.”

She spoke politely, stating each word clearly. It sounded like she was being kind while also looking down on him.

“School’s started to move,” said a ­bearlike man. “We’re the ones who sent them Management’s information, but…Damn. If only they’d taken action a little later.”

“In the end, attacking the mansion and destroying the information was all pointless,” said the muscular woman standing next to Unabara. “Thanks to School’s actions, the security level, of the entire Academy City, should have gone up. I just hope, it doesn’t impact, what we need to do.”

“Looks like this won’t be easy. We can’t get out of Academy City now, either. Though, it’s not like we can stop now anyway.”

“…” As Unabara listened to the woman’s voice, he pieced together the information in his head.

…This organization was apparently called Block.

…Block was presumably afforded equal secrecy and authority as Group.

…Block seemed to be planning something, but because another organization called School took action on the same day, they were apparently caught up in it.

…In order to correct that impact as much as possible, Block had set off an explosion to clean up after School’s mess. That was why Unabara had gotten caught up in this, too.

…Block had apparently given up on doing anything about the negative effects from School’s mess and decided to go through with their plans anyway.

School and Block. This is starting to get complicated…

Then the brawny woman spoke to the bearlike man. “What about him? Is he all right?”

“…Oh, our telephone man. No problem there. After all, the powered suits he uses to do his bidding are all occupied in the Avignon cleanup. There isn’t much the telephone man can do now. He’s got it rough, too, eh? Normally he just tosses down orders from above, but if we ever went out of ­control—­well, we’re his responsibility, so he’d be executed for it, wouldn’t he? And the Hound Dogs were all wiped out, including their leader, Amata Kihara, after the 09/30 incident. They won’t get in the way, either.”

It seems like the same person is giving this organization its orders as Group, thought Unabara. But was this “telephone man” the same person, or was there more than one? Was more than one person giving orders to one organization, or was there one per team? Maybe he pretended there were several, but he was using a voice changer. That was an unknown factor.

Well, whether it’s one or a bunch, they’re probably not a very big team. And despite their size, they seem strangely flexible.

The “telephone voice” could come later. Right now, Unabara focused on Block’s conversation, converting his thoughts into those of their group’s composition and such.

At the very least, it doesn’t look like they’re acting out the intent of some higher Academy City power. The powered suits aren’t around right now, so what are they trying to do?

Unabara glanced to the side. The men from Block’s ancillary were there. They were clearly assisting in this rebellious act, but…

No, how many people realize that?

Even if someone in a position of power handed them a command, saying “It’s an emergency. Meet up at location A,” things like that were commonly lies in the underworld. Nobody took orders at face value with how convoluted everyone’s ulterior motives always got. When push came to shove, at the very end, all anyone could do was base their actions on what they’d personally seen.

Their intel could be a lie. Block would immediately shoot him if he turned his back right now. If he was to believe one of them, it had to be the latter. That was how he would live through this.

That’s divine punishment for you, I suppose. Every day they deceive those beneath them. Now their information is less trustworthy because of it.

“All right,” said the big, ­bearlike man, appearing to have made up his mind. “No more delays. We’re getting started, too. Who cares about Block? I don’t plan on living my whole life under their thumb.”

So he said, but he didn’t move right away, instead looking around the room.

Unabara asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, just wanted to do the usual safety check before that.”

The bearlike man clapped his large hands twice. At his signal, a ­gloomy-­looking girl moved slowly in front of them.

“Tetsumou…We’re borrowing your Skill, Polygraph. Make sure we don’t have any traitors, just in case.”

“All right. My only value is in reading people’s minds, after all.”

…?! Mitsuki Unabara almost thought the surprise would show on his face.

He glanced around the room, then pretended to casually take a bottle of hand cream from the business desk. The four members of Block (including him) and the dozen or so in the ancillary ­group—­if he was found out here, he’d be in trouble.

“Oh, one more thing. Anyone who refuses being read will be labeled a traitor on the spot. I like transparency, after all.”

After the big man finished talking, the girl he called Tetsumou shook hands with each of her associates in turn. Only a mechanical, inorganic voice came from her lips.

“Tatsuhiko Saku. Age ­twenty-­eight, Block’s leader. Main job is to monitor coordination with outside agencies cooperating with Academy City.”

The brawny woman spoke after the big, bearlike man.

“Megumi Teshio. Age ­twenty-­five. Official member of Block. ­Anti-­Skill roles ­include— …?!”

Tetsumou’s face twisted in surprise. For a moment, bloodlust filled the air, but Teshio spoke calmly. “…You don’t need, to be so enthusiastic, to read me. The reason she has no parents, and the cause of her inability to speak, do not make her past, very fun to see.”

Tetsumou shook her head lightly, then looked toward Unabara next.

That was when Unabara let the bottle of hand cream slip out of his hand. “…Oh, sorry.”

The bottle rolled to one of the men in the ancillary. As he reached out for it, the young man came up and handed it to him.

“Thanks. After you,” prompted Unabara. The young man had just stepped in front of Tetsumou, basically interrupting the order, so Tetsumou held out her hand to him instead. She seemed to want to get this check over with promptly.

They shook hands, and then it happened.

“……Gaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?!”

All of a sudden, a red flame erupted on the man’s and Tetsumou’s hands. With an explosive boom, blood sprayed. Several fingers flew. Tetsumou held her right hand, but she couldn’t endure the pain and blood loss. She fell to the floor and stopped moving.

The young man, in a haste, reached for a ­first-­aid kit, but the bearlike man blocked him. “What did you just do?”

“I don’t know. How should I know?!”

“I asked you what you did!!”

“I’m a victim here, too!!”

Saku said nothing more. He pulled his handgun from his holster, pressed the muzzle against the young man’s forehead, and pulled the trigger.

“Wait, I didn’­t—?!”

The young man from their ancillary was arrested with surprise…but the gun discharged.

With a thunderous series of bangs, the man, now covered in blood, fell to the floor.

The ­bearlike Saku threw a glare down at the crimson corpse. “…Well, it’s a good thing we found that before we started. Wonder what on earth he did.”

“Now what? Do we continue?” asked Unabara.

Saku shook his head. Tetsumou was hurt, and it didn’t look like she was getting back up. “No time to replace her. I’ll get a new checker later.”

Seemingly uninterested in Tetsumou, he instructed those in their ancillary group to dispose of the body.

“…” Unabara glanced at the young man unmoving on the floor.

Just before he’d shaken hands with Tetsumou, he’d handed the bottle of hand cream to Unabara. At the time, there was cream from Unabara’s palm stuck to his hand. And mixed into that cream was a trace amount of liquid explosive.

Unabara continued to blend the hand cream in his palm. This time, he mixed in a chemical to remove the explosive. They may be enemies, but…No, there’s no time to think about it, he thought, without letting it show on his face.

Saku, collecting himself, said, “Now, then…Let’s get started for real this time.”

He sat down in front of a laptop.

4

Beep!! went the electronic warning in the RV.

The Group members had finished their lunches and had been discussing what to investigate next, but their conversation was immediately cut off.

The hurried voice of the driver, also their operator, came over the onboard speakers. “E-emergency! I’ll send you the data now!!”

Accelerator and the others looked toward the speakers. A screen was set upon the wall to separate the driver’s seat from the rear living space, and a map of Academy City came up on it.

“The Virus Storage Center in District 5?”

“They analyze Academy ­City–­made computer viruses and develop ­anti-­virus software there…Looks like they’re being hacked,” said Tsuchimikado, his eyes following the scrolling lines of characters.

Despite finding out about a crime, the thought of notifying ­Anti-­Skill or asking them for help never crossed their minds. Group never got jobs normal people could do themselves. If normal people could solve everything, Group wouldn’t exist.

Accelerator, in an annoyed tone, said, “Do we really have to go out there? You said there’s a bunch of others like Group, right? Just leave it to them.”

“They probably have different jobs. We don’t have a guarantee they’ll do anything, and besides, it’s pretty likely one of them is betraying Academy City. We have to be the ones to go.”

Tsuchimikado continued, “About that Virus Storage Center…Aside from unanalyzed viruses, they have a multitude of experimental ones they made for research agencies in the city. If they end up outside…well, we’d have a panic on our hands.”

“How far ‘outside’ are we talking, here?” asked Musujime, a meaningful smile on her lips.

The scientific technology of inside and outside Academy City differed by two or three decades, and that went for the viruses as well. Even if a virus was an old version for city machines, it could be a completely unknown threat for outside machines. And if a ­brand-­new type of virus that Academy City didn’t even have a fix for were to leak outside…

“Let’s see if I’m remembering this right. Academy City’s security prefers guarding things going out over things coming in, right? There should be some place to do that.”

“…The external connection terminals.”

Academy City was cut off from the normal ­Internet—­it had formed its own interior network. Every external line hooked up to the Internet had to go through one of the facilities called “external connection terminals” before connecting.

“There’re four, right? One at each compass direction,” said Musujime.

Then they heard static start to come over the in-vehicle speaker. The ­hard-­pressed voice of their driver and operator came over it:

“Beginning emergency quarantine of the external connection terminals. District 3 northern terminal, quarantined. District 12 east­ern terminal, quarantined. District 2, southern terminal, quarantined…?! No response from District 13, western terminal! Cannot confirm quarantine!!”

“Ha-ha!” burst out Accelerator at the report. “Predictable once again!!”

Tsuchimikado grinned tenaciously as well. “Odds are ten to one they’re luring us there. I don’t know who they are, but they must really want us to turn ’em into scrap.”

The RV started off toward the district in question, District 13.

Their driver’s uneasy voice continued over the speaker. “Wh-what shall we do about the attempted assassination of Monaka Oyafune?”

“Put it on the back burner.”

“Actually, School might be doing that, too,” pointed out Musujime.

“Also…What about Mr. Unabara?”

“Never cared about that guy anyway.”

5

In a back alley, Shiage Hamazura flinched away from the electronic beeping.

The source of the noise was the portable device in Shizuri Mugino’s pocket.

“Hey, are we just ignoring that?”

“I’m telling you, it’s fine. Someone else will deal with it, so we don’t have to.”

Nevertheless, the device continued beeping incessantly. Mugino shivered at its awful persistence, then finally snatched the thing and shouted into it.

“Quit your noise, you little shit!! Can’t you tell I’m not gonna answer you?!”

“You little…! We’re not calling you up because we wanted to!!”

She wasn’t on speakerphone, but it was loud enough for it to ring clearly in the nearby Hamazura’s ears. The voice belonged to a ­lady—­the mystery woman always giving instructions to Item.

“There’s an emergency at the Virus Storage Center in District 5. I want you all to move out and fix the problem!”

“Aw, why?”

“Don’t ‘Aw, why’ me, you little…! Seriously, those powered suits sure are busy cleaning up after Avignon and looking for some Terra of the Left guy’s corpse. You should be working, too!”

“We’re busy. Can we do this later?”

Mugino sounded incredibly fed up, but the person on the phone again cried out, “You little…!” Then, “Just so you know, it’s Item’s job to get rid of troublemakers in Academy City. Do your damn jobs!”

“You say that, but…”

“And you! You said you’d killed School’s official sniper already! You said they wouldn’t be sniping Monaka Oyafune! You little…! Then why the hell did things come to this?! I thought it was all over, so I reported that the danger had subsided…I’m the one seriously pissed off here, so shape up!!”

The voice sounded like someone telling off a waitress who got her order wrong.

“You’ve sure done it now, damn it…,” the voice continued. “I’ll ask another post to deal with the Virus Storage Center. In the meantime, I want a report on the attempted sniping. Double time that, at least!”

“Sorry. Can’t do that.”

“What the hell? What do you mean?!”

“Because we’re about to slaughter all the shitheads in School right now.”

The yapping female voice stopped abruptly for a moment. “Um, could I put in a request? Could you put, like, ten bullets in at least one of them?”

“…Um, on an unrelated note, this is when our ­supervisor—­i.e., ­you—­is supposed to be stopping us.”

“Don’t give me your sass, you peon. I’ve hated those School bastards for a long time. And anything that I have to worry about should just get wiped off the face of the planet!!”

With a giant, ­warlord-­like Gah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, the call ended.

Mugino put her portable terminal back in her pocket and made a face that questioned whether someone like that was really the right person to lead an organization. She glanced around. “By the way, Hamazura, can we really get an assistant?”

“Everything just goes right through you…Anyway, I’ll manage on that end,” he replied. “More importantly…”

Hamazura walked up to a passenger car parked on the road. He attached a fiberscope device to his cell phone’s lower port, ran the light cable, more slender than a soumen noodle, into the keyhole, then began looking for where the pin was. Using the data about the keyhole’s interior that was coming up on his cell phone screen in conjunction with several wires, he unlocked the door easily.

After climbing into the driver’s seat, he studied the engine keyhole under the steering wheel.

“Huh. What a handy skill,” said Mugino with genuine admiration as she got into the passenger seat.

Kinuhata, Frenda, and Takitsubo piled themselves into the rear seat. The car was a family ­four-­door, like most taxis, but with five people inside, it felt cramped.

“Where to?”

“Kirigaoka Girls’ Academy, in District 18. The Particle Physics Institute is nearby. It was the only place during the Oyafune commotion to be thrown into chaos, with the people there getting called up for emergency security and to transport equipment. Because of that, their guard is pretty much down. A perfectly simple criminal scheme.”

“Only that one place? Seems really easy.”

“Excuse me, I forgot to say. There was only one place beneficial to them out of several.”

“Ah,” replied Hamazura effortlessly. “The Particle Physics Institute? Even if that was School’s real target, what are they after?”

“Who knows? It would have to be something more important than Monaka Oyafune’s life, right? Anyway, time for our little ­whoop-­ass tour.”

“Right,” mumbled Hamazura as he easily started the engine.

Takitsubo spoke up from the back seat. “Hamazura, I didn’t know you had a license.”

“The card isn’t what you need. It’s the skill,” answered Hamazura casually, smoothly driving off in the automatic car.

6

The RV Accelerator and the others were riding in charged into District 7.

Attentive to the clock, Tsuchimikado said, “…About ten minutes until we get to District 13.”

The deal was that they couldn’t quarantine the western terminal, but if they went to the site and directly disconnected the ­large-­capacity cable, they could prevent access for now. The important people, stubborn about their budgets, didn’t like this kind of solution, but the situation called for drastic measures.

But then, yet another alarm beep rang.

Tsuchimikado responded harshly, “What now?!”

“Hacking confirmed in District 23 as well! The Aerospace Engineering Institute’s satellite control center is under electronic attack!!”

“Satellite?” repeated Accelerator, frowning. The ones Academy City had launched were spy satellites pretending to be weather satellites. If you used them, you could have a complete view of all the city and its surrounding areas. “Hey, things are getting interesting after all. The one satellite, Altair ­II—­that thing had a ­large-­bore ­ground-­attack laser on board, didn’t it?”

“This is bad,” said Musujime. “The Virus Storage Center is still being hacked, too, right?”

“The countermeasure team is probably running around like a chicken with its head cut off,” mused Tsuchimikado. “Means this is a decoy so they can’t bring their full force to bear, but that doesn’t mean we can leave the Virus Storage Center alone, either. Even if it is a decoy, it doesn’t change how much damage it could do.”

“Do you think this is School, too?”

“No idea. It could be different group.”

“Wh-what will we do? Which one should we head for?!”

“Ha-ha. That’s a stupid question,” grunted Accelerator, kicking the RV’s side door with the bottom of his foot. He had already turned on his electrode, and the bundle of force, its vector altered, sent the metal door flying and bouncing wildly off the road.

Tsuchimikado, in spite of himself, shouted, “Accelerator!!”

“Dealing with those shitheads’ decoy wouldn’t be my thing. I’m going to District 23. If I wreck the big ground antenna they use to communicate with the satellites, the hacking will stop, too. Meanwhile, you two can do the grunt work.”

After saying his piece, Accelerator jumped out of the RV without hesitation.

Flying in an unnatural trajectory, he passed over the median and came to a thud in the passenger seat of a convertible in the opposite lane. A normal person would have been crushed by the relative speed, but with all the vectors on his side, he had no problem.

In fact, the one who flinched was the convertible’s driver.

“Whoa, what?! Wh-what?”

“I’ll pay for gas and labor.”

He heard a small clicking sound.

The driver felt something press against his cheek, but he didn’t move his neck. However, in the ­rearview mirror, he saw the dark shine of what looked like a small gun.

“District 23. No detours.”

7

I’m bored, thought Shiage Hamazura idly in the driver’s seat of the parked car he’d stolen.

They were near Kirigaoka Girls’ Academy in School District 18. The squarish building of the Particle Physics Institute was about a hundred meters ahead, inside which two organizations would be in the midst of a fierce ­battle—­School, assaulting the institute, and Item, intercepting them.

As he gazed that way, Hamazura was muttering to himself. “Wow, crazy…They wrecked half the building. And was that a beam cannon I saw flying out? That was Shizuri Mugino, right? Full steam ahead as usual, that Level Five.”

The reinforced concrete building was leaning over, sending columns of gray dust billowing out. ­Earthquake-­like tremors reached all the way to Hamazura’s stolen car.

A Level Five, eh…?

Had Ritoku Komaba, former leader of the armed Level Zero organization ­Skill-­Out, really believed he could fight against that and win?

And did ­Skill-­Out, now without that leader, still think they could fight?

“…Shit,” cursed Hamazura, smacking the steering wheel in annoyance. Either way, now that he had fled ­Skill-­Out and surrendered at the espers’ gates, he didn’t have the right to talk about it.

Frustrated, he opened the driver’s side door and stepped out.

Considering how he had to prepare for Item so they could leave at any time, and how they’d started cracking down on no-parking zones, getting out of the car wasn’t a very good plan. But Hamazura wanted a mood change at any cost.

Today was a holiday, so not many people were near Kirigaoka Girls’ Academy. And there were three sports cars parallel parked on the road.

Hamazura’s eyes lit up. Whoa?! They’re ’89 Boosters!! They call it the emperor of ­four-­doors!! W-wait, trying to steal such a remarkable car would just add to the risks…Aw, screw it, we’re going home in a Booster today!!

Imagining the low exhaust of the famous car, one that would make a celebrity’s spirit waver, with strangely excited breaths coming from his nose, Hamazura took out his ­lock-­opening tool. The sports cars were that much better than the ­rest—­mature, ­high-­grade vehicles, and he was just going up to one when…

“Hamazura!!”

“Y-yes?!”

Suddenly, a woman’s shout came from right behind him, prompting him to hastily pocket the tool and turn around.

It was a female teacher wearing a green tracksuit.

Hamazura could tell how pretty she was despite the tracksuit…Actually, she was so beautiful he wanted to shout, Why a tracksuit, it makes no sense, let’s have sex! but that wasn’t the important thing.

She was an ­Anti-­Skill ­officer—­a fated enemy of ­Skill-­Out.

Her name was Aiho Yomikawa, he recalled.

“Huh? What’s the matter? I heard you were in custody after the Dangai University database center incident. Wasn’t you after all, hmm? Well, that’s good.”

She was speaking casually for some reason, but not because they were friends. Her kindness was ­one-­sided—­besides, he’d never have a positive response for the woman who’d caught him fourteen times in the city at night and thrown him into a police cell.

“What the hell are you doing here, you stupid hag?”

“Well, can’t you see by looking?” said Yomikawa, pointing with her thumb at the Particle Physics Institute in question.

Hamazura’s hand went to his forehead. Item’s ancillary organization was probably suppressing all sorts of things, but even they couldn’t perfectly hide an institute currently ­half-­destroyed.

Yomikawa put her hands on her hips and smiled at him. “You know, all I ever want is for you to be rehabilitated.”

“What? What the hell are you talking ­ab—”

“Bent over, staring at a car’s ­keyhole—­for what? I know you don’t want to make me put you in cuffs out here in the open.”

Hamazura’s shoulders jolted. He couldn’t afford to get locked up here, so he shook his head back and forth. “Y-you’ve got it all wrong! A baby!! They left a baby in the car!!”

“What?!” Yomikawa hurriedly approached, then stuck her hands to the car’s window and tried to look in.

The security system kicked in a moment later. The shrill wailing of the alarm flustered the woman. Meanwhile, Hamazura whistled, feigning ignorance, as a station wagon barreled toward him from the Particle Physics Institute that was about to be destroyed.

The station wagon passed by, and then Shizuri Mugino came running from the institute, this time in pursuit. In one hand, she had another Item member, the airhead Rikou Takitsubo, by the neck.

They dove into the original ­four-­door’s rear seat, Mugino saying, “Hamazura!! You suck at hitting on women, so come on! Hurry and follow that station wagon!!”

“I wasn’t hitting on her, you little twerp!!” Hamazura shouted back, returning to the car. He wished he could have had the ’89 Booster, but he obviously couldn’t steal it right in front of Yomikawa.

After he got into the driver’s seat and the engine roared to life, Yomikawa finally shouted at him. “Hold on, Hamazura!! What’s with that car?!”

“Can’t you tell?! I got my license!!” he cried, the biggest lie of all, before flooring it so they could get away from the woman as quickly as possible. The engine and tires squealed at the sudden departure, and the family car began to roar down the street, leaving the ­tracksuit-­clad teacher in the dust.

After leaving, Hamazura noticed something. “H-hey, what happened to Kinuhata and Frenda?!”

“It’ll take more than that to kill them. That station wagon comes first!!” answered Mugino in irritation.

Hamazura saw through the rearview mirror that the hem of her ­short-­sleeved coat was burned, and her cheek was swollen as though someone had punched her. He tried to imagine what had happened in the institute. “How’d that happen? Thought you were number four.”

“They had a Level Five, too. Teitoku Kakine, that ­number-­two pile of shit,” she answered, petulant. “But we had something to say about that. We took out one of School’s members. Didn’t look like he was very strong inside the building.”

As a war trophy, she shook a ­sturdy-­looking mechanical piece of headgear at him. It went all around one’s head like the rings of Saturn, with what looked like lots of plugs. Cords hung from them, but they’d been severed like mowed grass. He didn’t know what the thing was used for, but he was horrifed at the blood stuck to it.

“Anyway, what are we chasing that station wagon for?”

“We’ve gotta crush the guy in it and grab their cargo.”

“Cargo?”

“The Tweezers. ­Super-­precise ­granule-­sized object interference absorption manipulators.”

“…You don’t even want to explain, do you?”

“Anyway, it’s what School was after!! You can chase that station wagon without knowing!! And can this car even catch up to it?!”

“It’s all right.” This wasn’t Hamazura, but Takitsubo. She was sprawled out lazily in the back seat. “My Ability Stalker will perfectly track any involuntary diffusion fields I record. I can always search and find them, even if they escape outside the solar system.”

“Exactly,” muttered Hamazura. “They’re not getting away as long as we have such a good navigation system. More importantly, what are we doing after we ­stop—”

He broke off. A huge truck had suddenly broken onto the road from the side.

“?!”

He didn’t even have time to swing the wheel.

The gargantuan crane truck slammed headlong into the side of their ­four-­door. The deafening crash rattled his brain. The sensors reacted, causing the steering wheel airbag to deploy, but given that it was a side impact, that didn’t seem to matter.

Hamazura’s car, which had been traveling straight, skidded to the side, pushed by the truck. It continued, breaking through the guardrail, running onto the sidewalk, and impacting the side of a building.

Caught between the yellow crane truck and the concrete wall, their car was completely unable to move.

They hadn’t considered the show it would make or the collateral damage.

They wanted to kill them, plain and simple, no matter what it took.

“…Ow…”

“Damn…that was School!” snapped Mugino. “They must really want that station wagon to get away. They’re stalling for time!!”

The crane truck backed up about ten meters. A girl who looked about fourteen was in the driver’s seat behind the protective glass. Despite her petite, slender figure, she wore a short, ­open-­backed dress like a barmaid.

Is she gonna ram us again? thought Hamazura, still reeling from the pain, but that didn’t happen:

The girl pulled a lever, and the crane arm extended. Attached to its end wasn’t a metal hook designed for lifting up objects.

It was a giant wrecking ball, meters across, for destroying buildings.

“Damn it!!” shouted Mugino, trying to open the rear door. It wouldn’t open, though, because the chassis was twisted.

Hamazura used his own lever to put the passenger seat down. “Out through the windshield!! Hurry!!”

He broke open the slightly fractured front windshield and jumped out onto the hood. Mugino and Takitsubo scrabbled over the passenger seat to get to the front.

And then the iron ball started to swing like a pendulum.

With a low, loud rumble, the giant thing headed straight for them. After Mugino climbed onto the hood, Hamazura panicked while grabbing Takitsubo’s hand to pull her out. But then the iron ball smashed into the car’s side.

A tremendous crash rocked the air.

The impact blew the three off the hood and onto the ground. As Hamazura tried to raise his head, Mugino grabbed the back of it. The next moment, he went fully prone on the ground when the passenger car exploded, shooting flames everywhere. It was a near miracle they were all still alive.

The crane truck’s engine gave an eerie rumble.

It was a reaction that paid no attention to the onlookers who had started to gather after hearing the explosion.

Shizuri Mugino tsked in frustration. “We’re splitting into three.”

“You’re not gonna fight, Level Five?!”

“My goal is that station wagon and the Tweezers it’s carrying. I’m not about to let some grunt buy any more ­time—­and the girl inside has a really annoying power.”

No sooner had she finished than she’d crossed the road and gone into a narrow alley.

Takitsubo, left behind, ran off in another direction.

Hamazura followed suit, thrusting himself into an alley between buildings and running for his life. But behind him, he heard wet footsteps.

Ah, shit, they caught up!!

His throat dried as he ran. The crane truck’s operator was a girl with a small frame, but she was also a member of School, who had fought Item on even terms. He had no clue what kind of savage ability she had. Even Mugino, a Level Five, called it “annoying.”

He continued to flee, running up a metal emergency staircase on the side of a building and going into a building on a random floor.

It looked like a student dorm.

He ran down the straight hallway, then heard the click of a door opening behind him.

They’ve got me…?! thought Hamazura, reflexively looking back.

It was indeed the small girl in the gaudy dress who had come out of the door. She held a handgun with an awfully small ­grip—­it was made for women.

I’m dead!! Hamazura slammed his palm into a wall.

There was a button under it, and a steel shutter to protect against berserk espers dropped down like a guillotine. The girl’s eyes widened a little before she swiftly brought her gun up and fired at Hamazura.

Bang, bang!! Two ­high-­pitched shots.

Hamazura instinctively shut his eyes, but when he opened them again, there was no hole in the steel shutter. He looked at the monitor next to the button on the wall and saw the girl click her tongue in annoyance. She checked her gun.

It looked like she didn’t have enough firepower to get past this shutter.

…Which means no matter what she tries to do, that woman can’t get past this wall.

Relief washed over him.

Then he made the world’s greatest look of sheer amusement at someone else’s stupidity, raised his hands, shook his butt, and shouted, “­Eee-­hee-­hee-­hee-­hee-­hee-­hee!!”

“…”

The girl in the dress, also looking at the monitor on the other side, put her gun away in a thigh holster and then reached behind her.

Her hand came away from her hip with a handgun whose barrel was as thick as a coffee can.

Actually, it was a small .40 grenade launcher.

“Oh. Oh shit…Now I’m gonna die for sure!”

Panicked, Hamazura tried to run farther down the hall, but the girl mercilessly pulled the grenade’s trigger.

The shutter exploded and burst toward him, the fragments sending Hamazura five meters through the air.

“G-gahhh?!”

He somehow got himself up off the floor. Wobbling, holding the wall with one hand, he ran farther down.

Beyond that was a ­terrace—­a dead end.

It didn’t look like the hallway had stairs or an elevator on this end.

Past the railing was a drop about three stories high.

But the unknown girl from School was behind him.

He didn’t need to think twice about his choice.

The ­three-­story dive, absolutely!! Using my guts and willpower to jump is a hundred times better than standing up to someone obviously so strong! The ­small-­fry have their own ways of surviving in this world!!

“Ha-ha!! I’m fine being a loooooooooooseeeeeeeeeeeer!!” He laughed as he ran, before jumping up onto the railing and leaping off the third story.

He hadn’t looked down before he jumped.

Considering who was chasing him, he hadn’t had time to check. And besides, if he had, he knew he’d be too scared to go through with it.

But three stories was no small height.

Damn, anything down there to cushion my fall?!

He looked down for the first time, in midair, to see a young mother happily pushing a stroller.

As Shiage Hamazura fell through the blue sky, his brain shouted No! with all its might.

“Gwooooooooooooooohhhhhhh?!”

He started flapping his arms and legs, trying to airwalk himself out of the way. Fortunately, the move planted his large body five inches from the stroller.

­Keee-­raaack!! A sharp pain shot through his heels and ankles.

The young mother gracefully put a hand to her mouth in surprise. The baby in the stroller had forgotten to ­cry—­he just stared, eyes wide.

“U-um…Who might you be?”

“The type of hero who falls out of the sky. It’s ­dangerous—­please get out of here, miss!” said Hamazura casually with a cool smile, bursting into another alley nearby.

8

“Tsk!!”

The ­fourteen-­year-­old in the gaudy dress put away her grenade launcher and handgun, placed her hands on the terrace railing, and glanced down at the road from the third story.

Her target with the stupid expression, the one she’d been chasing, was nowhere to be found.

Only a mother pushing a pram.

The girl took out her cell phone and called one of her allies at School.

“I lost sight of the target. The only thing here is a woman with a stroller…Do you think the target could have disguised himself as a young wife or a stroller?”

“Piss off, idiot” came the answer, so the girl ended the call and returned the phone to her pocket.

I let my guard down because I thought he was a nobody. I should have used my ability to begin with…

After one last hateful glance at the road, she gave up and turned around to look for the dorm’s elevator.

9

Accelerator and the convertible headed for District 23.

Watching the panicky young man in the driver’s seat next to him out of the corner of his eye, he took his phone out of his pocket.

After thinking for a moment, he punched in the ­three-­digit number for reporting crimes to ­Anti-­Skill.

When he held the phone up to his ear, though, he didn’t get the operator at ­Anti-­Skill’s call center. Somebody else, the “telephone man” giving orders to Group, broke in.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Just figured you’d have to intercept if I called ’em. If you don’t like other people manipulating you, maybe change your own actions,” he said with a shrug. “Anyway, shit’s hitting the fan now. School, or whatever they ­are—­they’ve been busy, too, eh? Looks like you can’t completely control people just by talking to them on the phone, after all. If you couldn’t find the time to butt into our business until now, you must be in a lot of trouble.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Trying to smooth over your mistakes? Pathetic.”

For a brief moment, both Accelerator and the man on the phone were silent.

Eventually, Accelerator got to the point: “The satellites being ­hijacked—­I want their data. Especially Altair II. How powerful is the military laser on that thing?”

“Oh, was that all you wanted? I would think you’d want to ask more pressing questions.”

“I don’t trust you enough to put my life in your hands.”

“A scathing critique,” answered the composed male voice. “Strictly speaking, the ‘laser’ on board the Altair II is an optical bombing weapon using white light waves. And it’s not currently at a military stage, but an experimental one. It uses ­four-­thousand-­degree heat to burn a target, but the white light waves are strong enough to destroy cell nuclei just like ultraviolet rays. It causes a rapid onset of cancer.”

A fool’s weapon, thought Accelerator, but he didn’t say it. “…Irradiation scope?”

“It has a ­five-­meter radius at minimum, and three kilometers at maximum. Its ­rapid-­fire capabilities don’t amount to ­much—­you could maybe be able to fire it once per hour,” explained the man airily. “Also, since the atmosphere refracts the white light in a random fashion, there is something of a variation regarding precision as well. It’s still in the experimental phase, after all.”

Accelerator said no more and hung up.

He stared at the phone and used the gun in his other hand to prod the driver again, thinking in the convertible’s passenger seat, It can burn a radius of three kilometers? What the hell are they gonna use that for…?

Then his phone’s ringtone went off.

He thought it was the telephone man again, but it wasn’t.

“Accelerator…that’s you, right? It’s Unabara.”

He was keeping his voice ­down—­actually, it was like he had his hand over the microphone, making it hard to hear.

“I’m in disguise, so just talking in this voice is dangerous. I’d like to keep it short.”

“What, slipping out of School’s sight to whisper some secrets? Sorry, but I ain’t helping you. I have to go stop the satellites from getting hacked. If you’re gonna stop ’em, though, I’ll gladly hear you out.”

“It’s not School.”

“Eh?”

“Right now, I’m with Block, not School. They’re the ones hacking the satellites.”

“…”

According to Unabara, another organization besides School, one called Block, was using this day to plot criminal activity. “What a pain. What the hell happened to School trying to snipe Monaka Oyafune, then?”

“Please don’t ask me…Wait, sniping?” repeated Unabara dubiously before getting the conversation back on track. “They attacked the Virus Storage Center and the external connection terminals beforehand, so Academy City’s network teams are in total confusion. At this rate…they’ll finish the hacking in twenty minutes or so, and Altair II will fall into Block’s hands.”

“Pieces of shit,” spat Accelerator. “…Why doesn’t District 23 shut down satellite control temporarily?”

“They probably have a few reasons. I would imagine they need at least an hour to freeze control if they went by the normal manual process.”

The money that went into ­space-­related business was on a completely different level. He understood they’d incur heavy damages if they cut off their link to their satellites, even temporarily. But they should’ve cut the lines as soon as they saw the hacking attempt, he thought with irritation.

“What the hell is Block trying to do with Altair II?”

“You’ve probably imagined, but…They want the optical weapon on board.”

“A deal?”

“No, it’s likely to be a direct attack.”

Accelerator swore. “What’s their target?”

“…District 13.”

“District 13?” Accelerator frowned. Tsuchimikado and Musujime were headed to the external connection terminal there now. Could they be trying to take out Group…?

He thought about it for a moment, but decided that wasn’t it. They went through all the trouble of hijacking a ­satellite—­it was too big, and too unsure to do the job. Group wouldn’t necessarily have jumped in to solve an incident if it happened.

“They’re aiming there? The only important place there is the terminal. It’s just a clump of kindergartens and elementary schools, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but that is their target.” Unabara sounded angry in his explanation, and his voice was low and bitter. “District 13 has the most kindergartens and elementary schools in the city. Attacking it will let them massacre most of the city’s youngest residents. What happens then? …Frankly, if I were a parent, I wouldn’t want my kids to go there.”

“…”

“Academy City is a city of students. No matter how many people live here, they’ll all graduate one day. If they don’t have any new students coming in, the population will decrease, and in the end, the city will cease to function.”

“…So they want to slowly kill this city over decades?”

In reality, due to all the scientific technology Academy City commanded, from a financial point of view, it wouldn’t go down that easily. An Academy City without any children, however, would still be equivalent to taking away its reason for existence.

Accelerator thought for a moment. “Can you stop it from there?”

“If I could, I wouldn’t be asking you.”

“Can we get everyone in District 13 to evacuate?”

“If we caused a panic, the kids could start falling all over one another throughout the district. And, lest you forget, today is a holiday. The teachers might be able to round up their own kids in the dormitories, but probably not all the ones outside playing.”

“Useless. Looks like I’m just gonna have to wreck the ground antenna they use to talk to the satellite.”

“I’ll leave it in your hands. Meanwhile, I’ll continue gathering information and get as much of it to you as I can,” said Unabara, hanging up.

Accelerator put the cell back in his pocket and looked ahead at where the convertible was going. Twenty more minutes, and they’ll hijack Altair II.

The car would get to District 23 in about ten minutes.

It didn’t look like he had any time to relax.

“Hurry up. We’ve got a tight schedule,” he said, poking the man with his gun again so he’d understand. The convertible faithfully sped up.

10

Kazari Uiharu and Last Order were on a District 7 station platform. This was apparently Last Order’s first time on a train and she wanted to run all over, so Uiharu was holding her hand.

Seriously…Why did this happen to me?

At first, she’d given her the change from the taxi and handed her over to ­Anti-­Skill, but somehow, with some sort of power, Last Order had broken out of the police station before Uiharu knew it and was prowling around the crowds of the city again. Uiharu figured she’d get the same result no matter how many times she left the girl with ­Anti-­Skill, which was why she was helping her look for “the lost child” now.

I wonder what Last Order’s ability is.

She’d only asked one question, and that resulted in finding out she had a nickname Uiharu couldn’t begin to guess the origin of. Ability names came in two flavors: the simple ones that the school gave you, like telekinesis or electromastery, and the ones the students gave themselves, like Railgun. She probably decided her own ability name, too, thought Uiharu offhandedly.

“‘Why won’t the train come?’ asks Misaka asks Misaka, tilting her head in confusion.”

“It looks like a freight train is coming through. By the way, where do you think the lost child is right now?”

“‘Hmm, well, I feel like he’s coming this way,’ answers Misaka answers Misaka, making little frowny lines on her forehead.”

It seemed as though Last Order was using some kind of ability to search for the missing person, but it didn’t appear very precise.

“‘I hope we can find him like this,’ says Misaka says Misaka, down in the dumps.”

“It’ll be okay.”

“‘Thank you for the ­super-­lazy encouragement,’ says Misaka says Misaka, thanking her anyway.”

“So that your silly hair strand perks back up again, I have a present for you.”

“‘What?! You can detach your head flowers at will?!’ says Misaka says Misaka, obviously shocked and stuff!!”

“Here you are. In the language of flowers, the hibiscus means just give it a try.”

“‘And now you’re boldly mistaking floral language,’ says Misaka says Misaka, disturbed!!”

Last Order was going on and on, so Uiharu just smiled and nodded.

But then she heard the vrooooom of an engine. The young woman looked, but she couldn’t tell what it was. The roar of exhaust told her it was probably a speeding sports car.

“I wonder where they could be going. Hopefully ­Anti-­Skill pulls them over,” she said with a sigh. Meanwhile, Last Order was frowning about something, groaning in thought.

11

Shiage Hamazura burst out of an alley and onto a large road.

Heaving, he stopped and looked around.

Boys enjoying their holiday were giving him dubious stares, but for now, he didn’t see any attackers. He wiped the sweat on his brow, then went to a nearby vending machine and bought a cold can of oolong tea. Once he drank some, he finally let himself feel relief.

I-I’m alive. For now anyway…I wonder if the higher-up Item girls are okay? Gah. Damn it. I just want to run away from everything and go on vacation.

But then, in an act of coldhearted cruelty, his cell phone rang. He looked at the screen, then moaned.

It was Item’s very own Shizuri Mugino.

“Yo,” she said. “Since you picked up, I guess you’re alive for the moment…Hopefully this isn’t a mistake, and you aren’t handcuffed with the phone pressed to your ear right now.”

“Yeah, I’m alive…I drew the winning number, so I’m sure you’re safe.”

“Thanks for that. It made things easy for me. Anyway, sorry, but could you come back right away? We have a lackey kind of job for you.”

“A job?” said Hamazura, making a sour face.

Mugino ­continued—­without skipping a beat:

“Got a dead person. I wanted you to deal with it.”

12

The convertible with Accelerator in it parked near the District 23 terminal station.

He flung several paper bills at the young, dazed driver and exited the vehicle.

This was District 23’s only station.

Many lines connected here, but its freight platform was at the very end. Despite this being a terminus, the lines went farther and farther down. They connected to a switchyard for servicing trains, and if one was carrying a lot of shipping containers, it could unload them there as well.

Accelerator, ever more conscious of his cane impediment, moved along the outside of the station building looking for the ground antenna. He was walking through a container depository, whose entrance was restricted to anyone not related to it.

A little under ten minutes. The schedule of a ­big-­time artist.

He turned his attention to the electrode on his neck.

The satellite antenna is a few clicks from here, but I won’t be able to take a regular train there.

His battery had about thirty minutes left in it. Though he would have liked to keep consumption to a minimum, he was going to have to use it now. Looking for a car at this point would be a ­hassle—­it seemed faster to use his ­vector-­transforming ability.

Accelerator’s hand went for the switch on his neck.

“Oh my. We can’t have this, now, can we?”

Suddenly, he heard a ­soft-­spoken male voice behind him.

He didn’t think anyone had been nearby.

“!!” Accelerator whipped out the gun tucked into his belt and turned around, but nobody was there.

His body wavered slightly on his ­modern-­design cane.

He tried to use the tip of the gun in his left hand to push the electrode switch at his neck.

“I see that’s your weakness.”

But they grabbed his hand from behind.

“You may have an awfully strong ability, but you can’t turn it on unless you flip the switch.”

Before Accelerator could shake the hand off, wham!!—­a heavy impact shot through the side of his head. It didn’t feel like a punch from a fist. It was duller, like a metal pipe or a hammer.

He felt goopy liquid dripping down the side of his face.

“Arg! You…You’re with Block?!”

“No, no. Not ­Block—­I’m with Member.”

The voice from behind him:

Member.

One of the five organizations, same as Group and School.

Shit, one thing after another…!!

“Although our interests don’t align with theirs, I will be stopping you from destroying the satellite’s ground antenna now.”

As his head swam, Accelerator looked behind him, but once again there was nobody there.

But he didn’t hesitate.

Still looking in that direction, he swung out his leg behind him and stomped down on his attacker’s foot. The impact freed up his left hand, and without turning around, he pointed his gun behind him and fired three shots in sequence.

“…?! Damn!!”

After getting the sensation that he’d hit, Accelerator swiftly flipped his neck electrode’s switch from normal to ability usage mode.

Then he whirled around.

But once again, nobody was there.

After a quick glance at his surroundings, he saw someone standing behind a startled railroad employee who had heard the gunshots and come over.

The man had light wounds, grazes to his side and thigh, both bleeding. His down jacket was torn, and the down inside was stained red. He looked like he was in high school, and he was pressing a big saw against the railroad worker’s neck.

Accelerator snorted. “A teleport esper who can only go behind other people? That’s a shitty power. Bet it’s not even Level Four. Even though, if you can teleport your own body weight, you’re normally that high.”

The man growled.

“What a loser. You can’t calculate ­eleven-­dimensional values by yourself. You need to base it on other people’s locations, or else it won’t even activate. That power’s too good for you.”

“…This coming from the one relying on an electrode. In any case, this discussion is over. The professor wants me to do this, so I will stop you here.”

“With a hostage? That’s a shitty shield. Besides, I’m not after you anyway. I’m after the antenna.”

“You wouldn’t abandon a hostage,” snorted his attacker, who Accelerator decided to call Kill Point. “If you would, you wouldn’t be here trying to stop Altair II in the first place. If I use another person’s life, you’ll stop, won’t you? And, well, if this isn’t enough, I can make a much bigger sea of blood for you.”

He pressed the saw against the young worker’s neck, causing him to cry out.

“…You lack aesthetic,” said Accelerator, slowly raising his gun. “You have none of the values of a villain.”

“If you want to shoot me, you may want to stop. I do believe your gun has quite a margin for ­left-­right error.”

Now that you mention it, this thing does feel different. When Accelerator had shot at Kill Point when he was right behind him, the youth’s hand had probably messed up the aiming mechanism. He could readjust it if he wanted, but the tense situation didn’t give him any time for casual maintenance.

With Accelerator’s skills, he could easily hit the target even if the sight was somewhat off.

But things changed if he was using a hostage as a shield.

You could act on intuition for some problems, but certainly not for others.

“I see. You’re ­right—­this situation sucks.”

“What will you do, then?”

“This,” he said, pointing the handgun at his own temple.

Before Kill Point had time to think, Accelerator, without hesitation, pulled the trigger.

Bang!!

“Guh…ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?!”

Kill Point keeled over backward.

There was a ­dark-­red hole in his shoulder. He managed to dig down and endure it, but he still fell to the ground.

Accelerator had changed the vector of the bullet he’d shot at his head and directed it at Kill Point.

He waggled the gun in front of him, signaling for the railroad worker to move. The worker complied, rolling aside in a fluster, and then Accelerator pointed the gun forward again.

“Yeah, looks like the gun’s aim is off.”

His finger rested on the trigger.

“I can fix it by using my body to control its vector. My power is way more precise than this gun’s stupid sight.”

“Urgh…” Kill Point, face still pointed at Accelerator, used his eyes to observe his surroundings.

Accelerator saw that and sneered. “Go right ahead. I don’t care who you warp behind. I’ll still shoot you. Wherever you run, my next move will destroy you. So run, you pig. Hope you’re impressed enough to be terrified now.”

“…!” Kill Point’s throat dried.

Accelerator ignored his expression. “Now let me teach you something about aesthetics.”

He smiled, then quietly said:

“This is what a ­first-­rate villain looks like, shithead.”

Bang bang!! came the gunshots.

Kill Point resisted somewhat, but soon, he was no longer able to move.

13

Shiage Hamazura was in a big, open space.

The job waiting for him after shaking off his School pursuer was a suspicious one involving incineration.

Nobody was using this place at the moment. The building had been abandoned. For some reason, a giant, thick metal device was placed in the middle of its incomplete floor. About as large as a shipping container, it was an electric furnace used to dispose of experimental animals. Using immense heat, almost 3,500 degrees Celsius, it sterilized and burned their corpses and all sorts of microbes at once.

“…Wonder how it’s powered. Seems too large for a wall plug,” muttered Hamazura, looking at the big, out-of-place device.

His job was simple.

Open the oversized, steel, ­safe-­like lid by its handle, toss the black sleeping bag inside, close the lid, and turn on the furnace. It had been tuned up beforehand, so all he had to do was press the conspicuously red ignition button.

He was better off not thinking about what was inside the bag. Item’s Shizuri Mugino had warned him as ­much—­not that Hamazura wanted to.

Item, ­School—­as a lackey, Hamazura didn’t think too much about what these ­top-­secret teams were after. He was only here because he wouldn’t survive in this city otherwise.

“…”

But every time he felt the black sleeping bag’s oddly vivid weight, every time the spongy sensation came through the thick synthetic fabric and into his palms, he imagined the face of someone he’d never seen before. He forced himself to shrug it off, threw the bag into the furnace, secured the thick metal lid, and locked it.

Now he just had to push the red button.

The electrically created 3,­500-­degree heat would incinerate the body in minutes, even destroying DNA information, changing a person into nothing but ashes.

Hamazura considered, for a moment, the person in that sleeping bag, but still put his thumb on the button.

The passing thought gave him fear, and the tip of his thumb ­trembled—­before his thumb pressed the button anyway.

Vrrrgg. The “disposal” began with a low rumble.

Hamazura gazed at it for a short while in silence, but he eventually took one step back, then another, then sat down on the dusty floor.

“…”

Who could have been in that sleeping bag?

It could have been a lackey Level Zero like Hamazura, and it could have been a much stronger esper. It wasn’t necessarily a child, but he couldn’t say for certain it was an adult. Was it an enemy? Mugino might even kill an ally if they blundered. He didn’t know the story behind them, and they could have even been entirely unrelated, simply swept up in the chaos.

All of it burned to nothing.

Inside that thick metal machine, the person changed into something else entirely.

The ashes, no longer legally a “person,” would disappear off somewhere. It might end up thrown into some ­garbage-­disposing automation, blended into a mush, and shipped out as fertilizer. Even if someone found the ashes in the garbage, they wouldn’t treat it as a person. The flesh had lost its DNA information, so it couldn’t be used as physical proof.

“Hamazura.”

Even when someone addressed him from behind, Shiage Hamazura couldn’t move.

The electric furnace gave a few shrill beeps, letters coming up on its monitor to indicate the incineration was complete.

“Hamazura, what’s wrong?”

It was probably Rikou Takitsubo, from Item, talking to him.

Her other name was Ability Stalker.

Unlike Hamazura, she was a very powerful Level Four esper. That power was what had led him astray, but he still envied it more than anything else.

“…What does human life mean?” said Hamazura, letting the energy drain from his body while simply staring at the furnace.

It wasn’t like this was his first time seeing a corpse, and yet he felt considerable pressure in his heart.

“Damn it. When did Level Zero lives get this cheap…?”

He heard a voice say his name.

He stood, ignoring it, then opened the furnace lid and collected the ashes within.

Shiage Hamazura’s job wasn’t over yet.

14

Mitsuki Unabara was in a ­multi-­tenant building in District 10.

The place operated as one of Block’s hideouts.

Right now, there were three official Block members present, along with a dozen or so combat personnel belonging to their ancillary organization. Of course, Mitsuki Unabara had secretly switched places with one of their official members.

“…Not much longer now,” said Tatsuhiko Saku, his big, bearlike body shifting.

A laptop was in front of him. It looked compact, but a cord came out of it and connected to what looked like an overstuffed sandwich. Apparently, it was almost fifteen ­store-­bought CPUs stacked on top of one another, with liquid cooling tubes running through the gaps between them.

The brawny woman, Teshio, her eyes on the screen, spoke to Saku. “Has it worked?”

“Mostly, yeah. Thanks to the dummy we used on the Virus Storage Center, District 23 thinned out, too.” Saku spoke without looking at his companion. “Now we can say ­good-­bye to this shitpile of a world with Aleister’s stink permeating every last corner. This is our first step in that direction.”

He wasn’t giving a speech; not many people were particularly listening. He was practically talking to himself.

Even so, Unabara could feel strength in his words.

“But this is just the first step. There’s a long way to go before reaching our goal, but still, it’s the first step.”

“…” Unabara casually glanced over at the clock on the wall. It would only be a few more minutes before the satellite was hijacked.

He’d gotten no message from Accelerator. He didn’t know if he’d managed to destroy the ground antenna. Unabara turned his attention to his inside pocket, thinking on the Spear of Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli within.

…I could just destroy that computer, but if I do, it would be at the cost of my life.

His palms began to clam up with perspiration.

He didn’t have much time to make a decision.

But then, Megumi Teshio said, “It would appear, there has been some action, in District 23. A number of on-site ­Anti-­Skill officers, have gone down. But as far as I can tell, from intercepting communications, there is no danger to their lives, the likes of which, would cause rescue teams any confusion.”

Everyone there looked at the woman.

“We can understand, by connecting the points, at which the ­Anti-­Skill officers went down, that they’re lined up, straight from the terminal station, to the ground antenna. Such incredible speed. It certainly doesn’t seem, like he walked.”

“Who, and from where?” asked Saku.

“Nobody honest, I’m sure. Is it one of Aleister’s dogs, part of Member?”

“No,” said Teshio simply. “Group, most likely. I remember, that ­white-­haired kid. If I recall correctly, he’s the Level Five esper, who came here recently.”

…She remembers seeing him? wondered Unabara, but the question was soon answered.

Teshio had a small business instrument in her hand, a device with somewhat more functionality than a cell phone. And on its screen was a rough video, probably taken by a telescope.

According to the number in the corner, it was magnified four thousand times. One of Block’s subordinates was probably outside District 23 recording it right now.

On the monitor, it showed Accelerator heading for the ground antenna.

With his ability, destroying the ­twenty-­five-­meter-­across parabola would be as easy as swatting a fly.

And he didn’t think Block was about to wait quietly for it to happen.

Not ­good—­or wait, maybe it’s fine…? Even if he was captured, they couldn’t accurately snipe him from that range.

“What now?” asked Megumi Teshio curtly, awaiting instructions.

Everyone’s gaze turned to Saku’s ­bear-­like frame.

“That much is obvious,” came the reply, not particularly hurried, sending tension through Unabara.

They had a plan to deal with him.

Could there be a wireless bomb or something set up near the ground antenna? he thought, before the bear of a man gave a different answer.

“We just have to pray that he succeeds.”

For a moment, Mitsuki Unabara couldn’t understand it.

But soon his thoughts recovered.

No…That was their aim?!

“Breaking through District 23 would have been too difficult for our abilities. Still, we can’t get anywhere while that ground antenna is still up. We needed a more capable idiot to help us.”

“Actually, we might have been, thinking too much. The Level Five is, already at the antenna.”

“Someone watching from ‘above’ probably cleared the way for him. The district is loaded with air ­force-­related weapons. Normally, unmanned weapons, namely HsAFH-11 attack helicopters, would have gone to intercept him. ’Course, that Level Five could probably wipe them out, too.”

We were so preoccupied with the optical weapon on board that we forgot Altair II’s main ­usage—­to monitor Academy City and the surrounding areas…Taking away that ground antenna doesn’t only disable its ability to ­attack—­it paralyzes all its surveillance functions, too!!

Unabara’s thoughts went to the cell phone in his pocket, but no matter how he looked at it, he couldn’t get away to contact anyone.

Teshio’s eyes went to Saku. “They’re actually useful, right? The ones standing by, outside the wall, of District 11?”

“This is one project those kinds of guys are the right choice for. What? You’re not worried about getting unrelated people wrapped up in this, are you?”

The big man stopped the hacking program on his laptop, which they no longer needed, then turned the machine off and tossed it to one of the underlings.

“Let’s go. Five thousand mercenaries are waiting on the other side of that wall.”

October 9, 1:29 PM.

With the destruction of the ground antenna that communicated with the satellites, they all lost function.

Academy City, without its surveillance system in the skies, had lost a significant chunk of its defenses.

INTERLUDE TWO

School’s Level Five esper, Teitoku Kakine, was in District 4.

The district was home to many eateries, even in Academy City, with a host of other facilities related to food as well. He had hidden their station wagon in one of them, a meat freezer warehouse.

“No sign of Item. I guess they got away for now.”

Kakine opened the station wagon’s rear door and checked inside.

There was no frozen meat. Instead, there was a giant metal box the size of a small closet.

“…So these are the Tweezers…,” groaned the driver, one of School’s subordinates.

A grin came to Kakine’s face. “Superfine object interference absorption manipulators. In short, mechanical fingers that can grab tiny particles smaller than atoms. That’s why they’re called Tweezers.”

All matter in the world was composed of several elementary particles combined with one another. The Particle Physics Institute had apparently been running experiments where they purposely removed elementary particles from objects to create unstable matter.

Normal robotic arms had a hard time grabbing anything smaller than atoms. But with the Tweezers, they created a way to “suck them out” using magnet force, light waves, and electricity.

“But one wrong step and they could have caused an atomic collapse.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” said Kakine. “Getting a new sniper to replace the one Item killed, shooting ­Oyafune—­a lot of work went into this, but it seems like we got a lot out of it. That’s a relief.”

The driver stared at the big device for a few moments. “But what on earth are you going to do now that you’ve stolen it?”

“What do you mean, what? Exactly what it’s meant for. I want to grab something really small. It’ll give me a way to break through to Aleister.”

“???” The driver looked confused, but Kakine didn’t bother to explain more. He opened a toolbox in the station wagon’s trunk, took out a screwdriver, and started loosening the Tweezers’ screws.

“A-are you going to break it?”

“I’m making it better,” said Kakine, annoyed. “You want to know why this thing’s so big? It’s to prevent theft. If you just had the bare minimum parts, you could make it smaller.”

The clacking sounds continued for a while.

Soon, the Tweezers were remade, changed into its original, optimized form.

Kakine now held what looked like a metal glove. Long, ­glass-­like nails came out of the index finger and middle finger, and inside the nails were even smaller parts that appeared to be metal stakes. There was a small monitor the size of a cell phone screen on the back of the hand.

From what it looked like, it extracted elementary particles from the glass nails, then performed measurements with the metal stakes.

“Y-you can make it that small?”

“Well, it’s ­brand-­spanking-­new Academy City tech. If they go too far, that’s their problem, eh?” answered Kakine, putting the glove on his right hand and checking it. “Great, feels good…Contact the others. We’re moving to the next phase.”

“Right away,” nodded the driver, and that was when it happened:

Ba-geen!! A sharp, metallic sound rang out through the warehouse.

Kakine and the driver looked over to see a square hole cut into the thick warehouse wall like a door. Bright midday sunlight shone in through it, as the dismembered section of wall fell inward.

Nobody was outside.

But the attacker was definitely aiming for them.

“Gyah…Gwahhhhhhhhhhh?!” the driver screamed suddenly.

Kakine looked over just as the skin on the driver’s face disappeared. Then his fat and muscle disappeared, too, in that order, and in the end even his brain vanished as well, leaving only clothing and bones to fall to the ground.

The clattering sound was light, like plastic.

Kakine frowned slightly.

“Teitoku Kakine? It would be a waste to lose a Level Five right now.”

A voice from an unclear direction came to Kakine’s ears.

Staying alert in all directions, he activated the Tweezers he’d just finished rebuilding. Didn’t think I’d have to use it so soon. “…Group, is it? Or maybe Item?”

“Unfortunately, I’m with Member. By the way, young man, have you ever smoked a cigarette before?” The ­middle-­aged male voice, source unknown, was calm. “You know how when you take one out of the box, you tap the box with your finger? When I was a child, I didn’t understand the point. Still, it made a fine show. That’s why I started tapping on my boxes of cookies.”

“Yeah?”

“That’s exactly what you’re doing right now.”

“Talking down to me? Looks like you really want me to make your corpse a good one.”

A mechanical blip came from the Tweezers equipped to his right hand.

He looked at the monitor, and among the air particles it had gathered were, it seemed, little droplets of machines. Something clearly artificial had mixed into the ­electron-­microscopic world.

“Nanodevices? You plucked out every single cell he had.”

“No, mine aren’t that excessive. They don’t have circuits, or power. They’re simple granules of reflective alloy; they only show a specific reaction in response to specific frequencies. I call them the Bowing Images, though.”

The ­middle-­aged male voice, which he still couldn’t locate, continued, tone vaguely annoyed. “But if you use several frequencies, you can control it, kind of like using a television remote to control a ­radio-­controlled car. Normally, I attach them to bacteria in the air, and let the bacteria disperse naturally.”

Whooshing noises surrounded Teitoku Kakine.

His eyes darted all around, but before he could find an escape route, the Bowing Images attacked.

Member’s “Professor,” having taken the mechanical beast along with him, stood relaxed outside the freezer warehouse. In his hand, on a small device, it showed the operation status of the program controlling the Bowing Images.

Right then, he was in a bazaar built along the sidewalk. In that area, you could only park your car on the road if it was for business use; food trucks, such as crepe stands, lined the street.

The mechanical beast next to him spoke. “Our superiors’ information was right. He was in the District 4 freezer warehouse.”

“That goes to show how strong they are. Academy City is their territory. It’s spilling over with strange technology. There’s nowhere to run, no matter how much we struggle.”

He took a bite into a tropical fruit, red enough to seem poisonous, and continued quietly, “It was my twelfth winter when I lost all hope in the arts.”

The mechanical beast listened quietly to the professor’s words.

“I admired European architecture. I was in love with the scale, of using so much time and manpower to construct a work of art, to complete just one piece of beauty. But at the same time, I found it hard to understand. It’s easy to gaze at the outside of a building and say how beautiful it is. But when you try to understand the design in-depth, down to its fundamental layers, you need a ton of time because of the building’s scale. Quite frankly, it’s ­tiring—­there are too many points of interest.”

“Is that why you discovered a connection with mathematics?”

“Indeed,” the professor said, nodding. “Ah, numerical formulae. They have no excess, they’re like machines, they hold a rainbow of aesthetic in the smallest space possible. The very formulae have an artistic beauty, but also the poetic beauty of a haiku. And all these aesthetics can be enjoyed just by unraveling a single line, leaving nothing left over…I want to find the beauty hidden in the world’s crevices, to take that wonderful beauty and cherish and adore it. I would throw myself at the feet of my worst enemies to do ­so—­even if it meant others calling me Aleister’s dog.”

The professor looked at his wristwatch.

His Bowing Images would be almost finished eliminating the hostile.

Aleister probably wouldn’t look kindly upon him bringing down the ­second-­place Level Five, but if he made a new Level Five in his place, it would solve the problem.

“Let’s get going. We need to retrieve the Tweezers and crush the other official members from the rebellious School, and then our job is done.”

“What about our own Saraku going down near the District 23 terminal station?”

“If I recall, Accelerator was calling him Kill Point. Well, if he’s not dead, we can leave him be. If you have time, you should retrieve him,” said the professor.

But the mechanical beast didn’t answer.

Because, with an explosive boom…

…the freezer warehouse burst apart from within, into tiny pieces.

The extreme force shattered all the windows in the surrounding buildings. People screamed, ran around in a frenzy trying to escape, causing minor chaos among the food trucks at the bazaar.

The dust billowed up.

Teitoku Kakine pierced through the cloud, slowly walking over to them.

There wasn’t a scratch on his body.

Not one.

“Yo. You said you lost hope when you were twelve, right?”

The professor frantically gave orders to his Bowing Images, but he got no response. The explosion had cleared away the particles in the air, and his nearby airborne Images had been blown far away.

Kakine looked at the professor’s desperate expression and chuckled.

As he chuckled, he said this:

“Time to lose hope again, asshole.”