CHAPTER 5

One to Overcome the Strongest Black Wings
Dark_Matter.

1

With Block’s eradication, the incidents had ended for the moment.

Tsuchimikado was cleaning up the mess it caused, Musujime was tending to her wounds, and who knew where Unabara was or what he was doing, though he was probably fine. Accelerator, without anything in particular to do (nor the motivation to do it), took the train back to District 7, went into the first convenience store he saw, and got a can of coffee.

Then his phone rang.

On the screen was Tsuchimikado’s number, registered as “Contact 3,” but when he picked up, someone else was on the other end.

“Excellent work, Accelerator. Block’s attempt on the General Board chairperson’s life has terminated. This is all thanks to you and Group.”

“You again?” answered Accelerator, clearly annoyed.

“I’m happy to have such capable subordinates.”

“…It sounds a lot like you want me to kill you.”

“No, not at all. I really am grateful this time. So in addition to the stipulated payment for your normal business operations, as personal thanks, I have a useful piece of information for you.”

“Useful info?”

“Yes. Information regarding a fatal threat to Serial Number 20001—­Last Order.”

2

Kazari Uiharu and Last Order were at an ­open-­air café.

Last Order was really worked up about searching for this lost child, but since they’d been walking so long, her feet hurt, and now she was slumped over the table. Uiharu, for her part, was taking on the shop’s specialty: a huge, sweetly flavored parfait.

“So what happened to the child? Did your silly hair stop reacting to him?”

“‘…Misaka doesn’t have silly hair,’ answers Misaka answers Misaka, wilting.”

Despite what she said, that one piece of hair on the top of the ten-or-so-­year-­old girl’s head was drifting left and right in the autumn wind. The oddly ­sticking-­out piece of hair was certainly very ­silly—­you probably couldn’t find a sillier one if you searched the whole world, thought Uiharu.

Misaka groaned. “‘I definitely sensed him wandering around here before, but it looks like he went somewhere in the meantime,’ says Misaka says Misaka, fed up with all the fruitless walking.”

Abruptly, the flabby Last Order’s face shot up.

Did she find him? thought Uiharu, but it looked like she was wrong:

Last Order was staring at a group of girls walking by, each with a key holder that came with meal sets at a different café chain.

“‘M-Misaka wants that, too,’ says Misaka says Misaka even though she doesn’t have a wallet so she starts making her eyes sparkle at the nice lady Uiharu!!”

“Oh, come on. Weren’t you looking for someone who got lost?”

“Mgh! Misaka senses that he’s in that café over ­there—!!”

“You mustn’t be so quick to tell lies like that. Besides, I’ve only just gotten past the ­fresh-­cream-­zone prologue of this big parfait, so I couldn’t possibly leave now.”

“‘How can you be so relaxed?!’ says Misaka says Misaka, banging on the table, throwing a tantrum!!”

“Come to think of it, didn’t you get a lot of change from the taxi?”

“‘Ah!! Now that you mention it,’ says Misaka says Misaka, reaching into her pocket and grabbing a bunch of coins and dashing out of the café!!”

Before she even finished talking, she had run off. Uiharu waved a handkerchief after her, figuring she’d give her a cursory warning, saying “Be sure to come back here!”

With that, Uiharu set to work, diving into her large, sweet parfait’s ice cream zone…

“Excuse me, miss.”

…when suddenly, a voice addressed her from the side.

She put her awfully small spoon down and looked over to see a somewhat ­ill-­bred-­looking boy standing there. He had suspicious nails made of machines on his right hand.

He smiled gently, which didn’t suit his appearance.

“Yes…? Who might you be?”

“Teitoku Kakine. I’m looking for someone,” he said, handing her a photograph. “Would you happen to know where this girl went? She’s called Last Order.”

“…” For a few seconds, Uiharu stared intently at the girl in the picture.

She looked back and forth between it and Kakine several times before shaking her head. “No. I’m sorry, but I haven’t seen her.”

“Oh.”

“If you really can’t find her, you should probably put in a report at an ­Anti-­Skill office.”

“Okay. I’ll try looking for her a little bit longer before that. Thanks,” said Kakine with a smile, walking away.

Uiharu stuck her slender spoon into her parfait and was about to dive back in.

“Oh, right, miss? I forgot something I wanted to say.”

“?” Before Uiharu could look up, the next words came.

“I know you were with Last Order, you fucking imbecile.”

Wham!! An impact shot through her temple.

Before she realized she’d been punched, she’d already fallen out of her chair. Her legs swung out wildly, knocking over the chair and her table. Her parfait, almost entirely uneaten, splattered all over the road like a crushed fruit.

Several nearby pedestrians screamed.

Still unable to figure out what had happened, Kakine stomped on her with his sole, holding her to the ground. “That’s why I asked that question. Not Have you seen this girl? but Do you know where she went?”

He leaned into his foot.

With a dull crack, the intense pain of bones scraping together tore through her. Her joint had popped out. It hurt so much that she wanted to writhe around, but Kakine’s iron foot wouldn’t move.

She let out not so much a cry as a scream, but Kakine’s face didn’t change in the slightest. “I’m certain you didn’t let her escape because you knew I was coming. I may be a wicked asshole, but I try my best not to get normal people wrapped up in my business. Just work with me, here, and I won’t have to resort to violence.”

The ­open-­air café was next to a major road, and it was a holiday afternoon. There was a lot of pedestrian traffic nearby, but they’d all distanced themselves from the ­scene—­not a one ran to Uiharu.

Which made sense.

She had a Judgment band on her arm. Judgment was really for dealing with disputes in school, and even had its fair share of elites and dropouts. But any normal student who didn’t know much of its inner workings would simply think “anyone with an armband is part of a peacekeeping organization.” They were like the police or the ­self-­defense force. Seeing the consummate ease with which one had been overpowered made it unthinkable for anyone to jump to her aid.

With Uiharu left high and dry, Kakine’s sole dug farther into her dislocated shoulder. “…But I don’t have mercy on my enemies. It’s one thing if you were with her by coincidence and don’t know anything, but if you’re voluntarily protecting her, that’s different. Please, miss. Don’t make me kill you.”

­Crick-­crack-­creak!! Another wave of vicious pain hit her as her dislocated bone was manipulated even more.

By the time she decided she’d endure it, there were already tears falling from her eyes. She felt unfairness at not knowing why this was happening, fear at the overwhelming violence rendering her helpless, and frustration at her inability to break free. All the negative emotions mixed and muddled together, turning into a great pressure beginning to blossom within her very personality.

And now, purposely presented to her: a single escape route.

“Where is Last Order?”

As her consciousness flashed in pain, only Teitoku Kakine’s voice came to it.

“That’s all you need to tell me, and I’ll let you go.”

She looked back and forth, but there was no sign of an exit from this ­labyrinth—­just a goal set up at a single point. Thrown into the darkness of violence as she was, she couldn’t help but consider giving up. Her pride as a member of Judgment and her personality as Kazari Uiharu both began to waste away under the temptation to be released from pain.

Her lips slowly moved.

As her tears fell in big drops, her mouth moved.

She couldn’t just remain silent.

Mortified at her own ungainliness, she said her last words.

“…What…?”

Teitoku Kakine’s eyebrows knotted, as though he didn’t understand.

Kazari Uiharu worked her trembling lips again.

“Did you…not hear me…?” she said with all the power she could muster. “I said she’s in a place you’ll never, ever find her. I don’t remember…telling you any lies,” she said, even sticking her tongue out at him, trying to make as much of a fool of him as she could.

Teitoku Kakine was silent for a moment.

“…All right, fine,” he said, taking his foot off Uiharu’s shoulder.

But he didn’t set it back on the ­ground—­instead, he moved it above Uiharu’s head and stopped. “I don’t lay a hand on civilians, but like I said, I don’t have any mercy on my enemies. You knew that, and you still decided to refuse to help me. You leave me no choice.”

Teitoku Kakine’s raised foot tensed.

Then it moved, with the same casual fluidity as someone stomping on an empty can.

“This is where we say ­good-­bye.”

A burst of wind hit her, and Uiharu shut her teary eyes. That was about the only thing she could do.

But his foot didn’t crush her head.

A new roar thundered through the city streets.

Grrushh!!

A gale kicked up. A massive ­one—­practically a shock wave. When Uiharu opened her eyes, she saw an ATM machine shatter to pieces, its walls and glass exploding, its fragments forming a whirlwind and zipping at Teitoku Kakine, colliding with him. The attack threw him ­off-­balance. His foot, which he’d planned to crush her head with, had stopped on the ground mere centimeters away.

Paper bills fluttered out of the utterly demolished ATM like feathers.

And then she heard it.

“…Shit, man. Don’t get so worked up over a dumb game.”

The ­white-­hot, clouded, insane, demonic voice of Academy City’s strongest Level Five.

“Let’s do something a little more fun. I’ll give you a nice lesson in how villains are supposed to act.”

3

“That hurt.”

Teitoku Kakine shifted his gaze from Uiharu to Accelerator and spoke quietly.

“And it made me mad. I figured the number one would be crazy good at making me mad. Looks like I’ll just have to kill you first after all.”

“Hah. You’re intimidating me, you chicken? You’re the one who was too scared to fight me and went looking for a handicap. The moment you decided to go after that brat, we all knew the difference between us.”

“What are you, stupid? She was insurance. Who’d ever challenge you to a ­fifty-­fifty fight, asshole? You’re such a pain. You think you’re worth that much?”

Academy City’s number one and number two.

Accelerator and Teitoku Kakine didn’t bother to keep everything secret.

Cleanup was a job for someone else, not them.

“You swine. Your prep work done now, or what?”

“I gotta say, Underline is something. You showed up way earlier than I thought.”

“Eh?”

“Don’t make me laugh, you lapdog. You think fighting for the weak like this is gonna make you a good person?”

“Hah. You don’t get it, do you?” said Accelerator quietly, tossing his cane to the side. “This is great. I’ll show you how villains come in many colors.”

Bwoom!! An explosion rang out.

Accelerator and Teitoku Kakine clashed head-on. The aftermath shock wave blazed through their surroundings equally, mowing people down, shattering glass to smithereens. In every direction, clamors broke ­out—­but neither paid attention.

Their clash had shown clear results.

Accelerator’s attack had sent Teitoku Kakine flying back. He shot into a café on the road, and a series of cracking and breaking noises followed as he tore through furniture. Accelerator’s expression, however, was nothing if not displeased. The feeling of his punch having purposely gone awry remained in his palm.

“You control the vectors here and now,” said the voice from inside the shop, which looked like it had been bombed by terrorists. “I thought I could manage by using so much mass you didn’t have enough vectors to move it, but I guess that won’t work. I can’t do anything if you’re controlling my own vectors, too.”

Unharmed.

When Kakine came out of the store, he was wrapped in a white cocoon. No, not a ­cocoon—­they were wings, spread on their own. Six angelic wings flapped slowly behind him.

Accelerator frowned a bit. “Those look terrible on you. What are you, from a fucking fairy tale?”

“Don’t worry, I know.”

With those words, they moved again.

Accelerator charged straight at him while manipulating the vector of his legs’ power, while Kakine made a leap to the side, wings batting the air. He shot dozens of meters over and landed on the road’s central divider; meanwhile, Accelerator swung his arm, cutting through the air and literally grabbing hold of the air flow’s vector.

Roar!! A blast of wind burst forth from behind him. The air hit 120 meters per second, turning into a cannonball to knock Kakine off the divider.

“!!” Deftly moving his wings, Kakine avoided it.

And then he heard a clack. When he looked, he saw that Accelerator had just put a foot on the side of the road next to the divider Kakine was standing on. How had he gotten so ­close—­when had he done that? Before he got answers, Accelerator charged into range and thrust out his right hand.

Kakine said, “Fun fact. Everything in the universe is made up of elementary particles.”

As he spoke, he protected himself with a wing. When Accelerator’s hand pierced it, he changed his own wing into countless feathers, preventing the impact from reaching his body.

“I’m talking about particles even smaller than molecules and atoms. Gauge particles, leptons, quarks…Even hadrons, made from antiparticles and quarks combined, but, ­eh—­you can group them into a few things. Anyway, these are the particles that make up this world.

“However,” he said in a low voice:

“My Dark Matter doesn’t play by those rules.”

With a loud roar of wind, six new wings grew out of Teitoku Kakine’s back.

“The Dark Matter I create is something that doesn’t exist anywhere in the universe. Not because we haven’t found it, or because theoretically it should exist, or anything dumb like that. It doesn’t actually exist.”

A new type of matter created by a Level Five that didn’t fit into any academic categories.

His white wings ignored the laws of physics, as though he’d dragged them straight out of an alternate universe. But Accelerator wasn’t shaken at all.

Whatever they were made of, he would crush all of it with his vector control ability.

“ ’Kay. I’ll bury you with the rest of the trash.”

Accelerator stepped in closer, trying to grasp at Teitoku Kakine’s heart.

But…

“You don’t get it, do you?”

As soon as Kakine said that, his white wings suddenly let out an intense, bright light.

“?!”

Accelerator felt a pain like he was being slowly roasted, and reflexively got away from Kakine. Then he realized the strangeness of what had just happened.

Accelerator, who reflected every vector, had just been affected by an outside force.

“That was diffraction. When light waves and electrons pass through a slit, the waves scatter in different directions. It’s in high school textbooks. If you make more than one slit, you can make the waves interfere with one another.”

Basically, his white wings had tiny gaps too small to see, and those gaps changed the nature of the sunlight coming through them and attacked him…or so Accelerator figured. His wings hadn’t made ­light—­they’d altered the light passing through them.

“Yeah, like everything, it all depends on how you use it. How’s it feel to die from a sunburn?”

But…

“…Looks like you flunked physics, moron. Use diffraction all you ­want—­you can’t change sunlight into a death beam.”

“Maybe not, if I was obeying this universe’s physics.”

Kakine began to boost his wings with power as though drawing back a bowstring.

“But my Dark Matter is a new kind of matter that doesn’t exist in this universe. Our existing laws of physics don’t apply to it. Any sunlight that touches the Dark Matter and reflects off it starts working on independent laws. It’s called a foreign substance for a reason. A tiny bit of it and the world changes completely.”

Zhaa!! The six wings flapped. They stirred up a gale, and as Accelerator buffeted it with his reflection, he realized what Kakine was after. He looked right at him to see him smiling thinly.

“…I’m done ­reverse-­engineering it.”

“!!”

Accelerator tried to get out of the way, but Kakine had already unleashed his six wings: as simple blunt killing instruments.

Crack, thud, crush!! Dull sounds ripped through Accelerator’s innards.

His body, reflecting every vector, was blown away. He crashed into a tree over ten meters away, breaking its thick trunk in one go.

“Guh, pah…?!”

The sunlight, the gale…their meaning…!!

“Accelerator, you say you reflect everything, but that’s not quite accurate.”

Kakine’s wings silently extended.

They looked like giant swords now, over twenty meters long. Accelerator jumped over a building top, but the wings, positioned vertically, struck him like a crumbling tower.

“If you reflect sound, you can’t hear anything. If you reflect matter, you can’t hold anything. You unconsciously filter out the harmful from the beneficial, and you only reflect what you don’t need.”

As Accelerator coughed up blood, he jumped to the side, breaking through the remains of a water storage tank.

The white wings swung down, ripping through the building from its roof to midway through, spreading dust everywhere.

“My Dark Matter affected that sunlight and wind just now. I injected them with ­twenty-­five thousand vectors each. After that, your reflection used its ­good-­bad ­filter—­I just had to attack from the direction of a vector you’re unconsciously letting through.”

Even if Accelerator changed his reflection’s composition, Kakine would redo his search in an instant. It would trap him in a vicious cycle. He’d just accumulate damage while switching between attack and defense.

“This is Dark Matter,” grinned Teitoku Kakine, holding his six wings at the ready. “A space filled with a foreign substance. A space you don’t know shit about.”

Meanwhile, Accelerator manipulated the air to cause four tornadoes around him.

And then he charged.

His tornadoes wrenched Kakine’s white wings away, and Kakine’s white wings, along with their gales, erased Accelerator’s tornadoes. By the time the reinforced concrete structure began to creak and sway unreliably from the aftermath, the two were no longer there. They were moving parallel to each other, crashing their abilities together, sometimes jumping onto wind turbine propellers and sometimes leaping off traffic lights, dashing at an intense speed through the city streets.

“I invented a bunch of ­schemes—­stealing the Tweezers, taking a look into the ­Underline—­but none worked,” shouted Kakine as he swung his ­dozen-­meter-­long wings around. “Looks like killing your ­number-­one ass is the fastest route after all!!”

“What’s that, small fry? Didn’t know you still had such a complex about being number two!!”

“It’s not about that. I just wanted direct bargaining rights with Aleister!!”

Accelerator ignored him and purposely crashed down onto the asphalt below. The impact caused pebbles to pop into the air; he flung out a hard, ­two-­stage kick at them.

A tremendous roaring noise split the air.

The pebbles, their vectors altered, flew out faster than a Railgun shot, but disintegrated just four or five centimeters later. But the shock wave remained; the speed had already broken the sound barrier. However, Kakine, putting all his strength into his white wings, used them to disperse it. Their respective waves clashed between them, and the resulting surge of air ripped signboards and traffic lights from their fixtures.

“That shithead Aleister has a bunch of plans going at once. Seems like they’re his highest priority. But even if you stop his crazy plans, he’ll switch to some alternative scheme, then go back to the original plan. Terrible guy. It’s like a game of ­Amidakuji—­he goes to a different line for a bit, but he ends up right back on the track where he started.”

Accelerator and Teitoku Kakine, who’d been running parallel, now made sharp turns, running at each other to clash at ­point-­blank range. They were at a giant scrambled intersection, with four lanes on each side. Their clash completely cut off the flow of traffic, but nobody was complaining. Nobody could complain. Everyone instinctively knew that secrecy wasn’t the issue ­here—­if they said something, they’d die.

The two bodies crossed.

Air exploded, and after a few seconds, a zbaaahhh rattled through it.

“Which makes things simple. Just smash all his backup plans, and he won’t be able to compromise by going to a different line. And if I set myself up as the real core of it, rather than just a spare plan, Aleister can’t ignore me. It’s not like I want to destroy Academy City. I can use it. That’s why I’ll worm my way into the middle and get it all in the palm of my hand!!”

Blood flew from both Accelerator and Teitoku Kakine.

“Right. If you kill the current ‘core’ now, you’ll take over his plans.”

They stopped, then slowly turned around to face each other.

Teitoku Kakine was probably confident, beyond his big talk, that he could get accurate information on just how many plans Aleister had running at the same time.

And Teitoku Kakine had a reason, something making him go that far. Accelerator didn’t think too much about that point. Wander into Academy City’s underbelly and you’d realize tragedies were as numerous as hills and stars. Teitoku Kakine had probably experienced one and broken. Just like how Accelerator had killed over ten thousand people for the experiment. And how he had thrown away his life for the sake of one person.

“Worthless,” he said, having predicted that. “Maybe you’re trying to give me sound arguments like you’re some perfect person, but it’s still all shit coming out of a filthy mouth.”

“Hah. You don’t have the right to tell me off when you don’t even know how valuable your own position is. You’re the closest to having direct bargaining rights with Aleister.”

“That’s all you had to say to prove what a cheap villain you are,” said Accelerator in disappointment from the wrecked intersection. “You can use a tragedy a bunch of ways. You can carry it with you, you can tell others about it, and you can use it to decide what direction to take your life in. But just because it happens doesn’t make it right for you to go after totally unrelated little brats, got it? The moment you start to think your grand cause makes it okay for you to kill civilians, you’ve cheapened yourself as a villain.”

“Right, sure. That means a lot, coming from you,” replied Teitoku Kakine, sounding uninterested. He went on, “I’m not going after civilians because I like it or something. If I’m in a good mood, I’ll even let lower villains go free. But not if it’s a threat to my life. How many random onlookers and pedestrians have you crushed in this battle so far? You just sent pieces of asphalt flying faster than the speed of sound. The shock wave leveled everything. It was our battle.”

“…”

“That’s why I went after Last ­Order—­and that brat who looked like her guardian. Don’t lecture me from on high, murderer. You’ve got no right to tell me shit when you’ve let those onlookers die just to kill me. You think you’re an exception or something?”

“Hah. Let onlookers die just to kill you, eh?” But Accelerator, denounced, laughed. “You really are ­third-­rate. You don’t have the aesthetic, and that’s why you can only spout bullshit like that.”

“Eh?”

“Do you even know why I’m number one and you’re number two?”

Laughing, Accelerator slowly spread his hands.

“It’s because there’s a wall between us you can never get past.”

Teitoku Kakine felt his head nearly explode with anger, but then he noticed something.

What it was like around them.

True, Accelerator and Dark Matter’s clash had messed up the city streets. ­High-­rise building windows had been shattered, broken traffic lights were strewn about the roads, and roadside trees had been whipped around so hard they were now stuck in concrete walls.

But something was missing.

The tragedy.

Despite the glass fragments pouring down like rain, nobody was injured. The raging winds had diverted their course and the signboards had shielded people late to escape, miraculously protecting the crowds. The rest was the same. Not a single person hurt. He couldn’t check every single one, but he knew if he went back along the course of their battle, there would be many who had been defended by invisible hands.

Are…are you…Kakine’s throat dried up.

“Are you telling me you protected them…?”

He thought back to the first shots. Accelerator had fired a gale at Teitoku Kakine, but he could have done a more powerful surprise attack as well. But if he had, the aftermath would have blown away Last Order’s acquaintance, but…

In short, that was his way of life.

Even embroiled in a Level Five death match, number one in the city vs. number two, even though the slightest diversion of his attention would have created a fatal opening, Accelerator had continued to protect innocent people.

“You’ve…gotta be shitting me. How much can you fucking control?”

Accelerator looked bored. He just grinned scornfully, as if this much was only ­natural—­why couldn’t Teitoku Kakine do it?

“You angry now, ­small-­timer?” said Accelerator, as though this were all absurd, to Teitoku Kakine, awash with shock. “This is a true villain.”

Even after all that, he was still a villain. How amazing did good people have to be in his mind?

“!! Don’t get full of yourself, Acceleratooooorrrrrrr!!”

With a shout, Teitoku Kakine’s six wings immediately swelled with power. He changed their length, then their ­properties—­until the white wings spread out as lethal weapons. They were tense as a fully drawn bowstring, and their sights were set perfectly on six of Accelerator’s vital points.

Accelerator just laughed. “Come on.”

“Don’t get complacent. I’ve already analyzed your reflection’s filter. That fraud of a defensive power won’t work on these.”

“Yeah, maybe this Dark Matter you control doesn’t exist in this universe,” said Accelerator, beckoning with his index finger. “Textbook laws don’t apply, and light waves and EM waves that touch those elementary particles go off in vectors they’re not supposed to. So yeah, I guess trying to use this universe’s vector calculations for it ends up putting holes in my armor.”

The bloodlust between them expanded.

The center of the busy intersection was covered up with death.

“I’ll just have to redo my calculations to include it. I’ll redefine the universe so that it’s constructed of particles including your Dark Matter, and then, once I officially unveil your ‘new world’ to the public, it’ll be checkmate.”

“You think…you can use your vector control on my Dark Matter…?”

“You think I can’t?”

“Hah. You think you’ve got me all figured out, do you?”

“Wouldn’t be much of an issue.”

“…!!”

“And sorry, but I don’t need to know everything about you anyway.”

There was an explosive ga-bam!!

They crossed for an instant.

And thus, the match between number one and number two was settled.

4

Accelerator looked toward the ground. His crutch was there. It was probably one of the things that came flying from the direction of the onlookers as a side effect of the battle. He picked it up and returned his choker electrode’s switch to normal mode. A moment later, it sounded like the noise from around the busy intersection had gotten closer. About a hundred, a hundred fifty witnesses. But he wasn’t about to try to hide any of this. That was for the underlings to do. It was too trivial for him to worry about.

“…” He turned around.

Teitoku Kakine was lying on his face in the middle of the intricate ­intersection—­the vectors of the white wings he’d created had been predicted, their control wrested from him, and then his body skewered. Red blood spread out in the middle of the intersection like some strange magic circle.

But Dark Matter still wasn’t dead.

And Accelerator wasn’t a good ­guy—­he was a villain.

That detestable “good guy” probably wouldn’t finish him off right now. He’d just pick up and leave. He might even meddle in the villain’s affairs and leave him away to get back on his feet. But Accelerator instead pulled the gun from his belt. The option of letting Teitoku Kakine go, when he’d chosen to use Last Order and civilians as his weakness to defeat Accelerator, didn’t cross his mind. Guess that’s the difference between a good guy and a villain, he thought distractedly.

“See you, ­third-­rate,” he muttered to the unconscious Kakine, flicking up the hammer on his gun with his thumb. “Less pathetic than a good guy taking you down anyway.”

He rested his index finger on the trigger. This was the end. He wouldn’t rely on man’s goodwill or God’s ­miracles—­his was the path of evil, a future created simply as a result of his actions. Intending to live his own way, he lined up the barrel with his enemy’s head and began to put one last bit of energy into his right hand.

About to accomplish everything, with a peace built upon death just moments away…

“Wait up, there, Accelerator!!”

A loud, out-of-sight voice interrupted him. He looked over as a familiar face jumped out from the wall of curious onlookers. One wearing an unbelievably unstylish green jersey and no makeup. She was both a school teacher and a member of the peacekeeping organization ­Anti-­Skill.

Aiho Yomikawa.

She ran straight over to him.

“I don’t know where you’ve been this whole time. I couldn’t tell you what any of this means. But I can say one ­thing—­give me that gun. You don’t need something like that!!”

Yomikawa wasn’t carrying one. She wasn’t even carrying the bare minimum for ­self-­defense, like those distinct batons or stun guns. The onlookers nearby must have thought she was an idiot. That it was an act of suicide to go up to an out-of-control esper, one who had just committed so much havoc unarmed.

Yomikawa probably understood the dangers just fine.

In fact, as a ­front-­line ­Anti-­Skill officer, she knew it a lot better than those onlookers.

“I’m a villain.”

“Then I’ll stop you.”

“Are you serious?”

“Stopping you is the only choice I know.”

She said stop, not defeat or kill. That was how she did things. Just as Accelerator had chosen the life of a villain, Aiho Yomikawa would never agree to point a weapon at a child she should be protecting. Accelerator stared right into her eyes. The strength of her will was in them. From his point of view, the compass she used to decide her actions was nonsensical. She’d probably found enough value in this to be worth giving up her life for.

“Accelerator, it doesn’t matter if you’re a good guy or a bad guy. It doesn’t matter what kind of world you’re immersed in, either. What matters is me bringing you back, ’kay? However dark your world, however deep it runs, I will never give up on you. I promise you that I will pull you out of there.”

At that moment, the two were on a level playing field. He was Academy City’s strongest Level Five, and she was an adult with no power ­whatsoever—­but all that belonged in a different dimension now as Aiho Yomikawa stood in his way.

“That’s why I’ll stand in your way. I do it for the children I need to protect, and for this peace we love. In that, I see you and Last Order there, and everyone living happily. You won’t need that gun in that future.”

“…” Accelerator, for a little while, stayed silent and listened to her words.

And then he came to a conclusion.

He turned his gun, aimed at Kakine, and pointed it at Yomikawa.

That’s why…

Aiho Yomikawa was an enemy. Even if she was a “good guy,” even if the reason for her actions was so Accelerator could be happy, she was obstructing the path of evil he needed to dominate. So he would get rid of her. Not kill her. He was good enough with a gun to go easy on her.

…right here…

Accelerator had people he needed to protect. Last Order, the Sisters, Kikyou Yoshikawa, and Aiho Yomikawa. That was why he would stick to his cruel nature. Even if the whole world, even if the people he needed to protect turned into enemies, he was determined to save those people from the darkness.

…I’ll shoot her!!

“You can’t.”

The next thing he knew, Aiho Yomikawa was close to him, gently holding Accelerator’s ­gun-­wielding hand in hers.

“I know you’re a better villain than that.”

The match was decided. Yomikawa began to take each of Accelerator’s fingers off the gun. She took the magazine out from under the grip, pulled the slide, and removed the bullets already loaded, too. Accelerator watched in a daze as she finished the job.

And then…

Crash!!

Teitoku Kakine’s Dark Matter attacked, putting an end to Accelerator’s train of thought.

He hadn’t been the target.

Aiho Yomikawa’s eyes opened wide with shock. Then she slowly looked down at herself. The tip of one of those unknown white wings was sticking through her gut like a sword. Her green jersey was stained red with blood. Already red, and it didn’t take much time for it to start spreading terribly fast.

Yomikawa tried to say something. But her body wavered, and she fell to the asphalt without resistance. Accelerator watched. Beyond where Aiho Yomikawa fell was a single figure. It was Teitoku Ka­kine, who should have been unconscious.

On his back were six wings.

What had happened didn’t bear any explanation.

Slllp. The sharp feather thrust through the woman quickly removed itself.

“…However dark your world, however deep it runs, I promise you that I’ll pull you out of there, eh…”

Teitoku Kakine, face covered in blood, was saying something.

He hadn’t gone after Yomikawa because she was in the way; Kakine had only ever been watching Accelerator. It was that slight moment of hesitation when, before Yomikawa, he’d been about to stop the evil. The act that would have withdrawn his very reason for killing Teitoku Kakine. That was what was in the way.

Now he barely knew why he’d even lost.

And that was why Teitoku Kakine flew into a rage.

“You could never do that. It would never be that easy! This is our world. This is where the darkness and the despair lead!! You were condescending to me before, and at the very end, you still cling to it…Is this the fucking aesthetic you were talking about?!”

Incoherent words. His anger and malice came first, and what resulted were words that had lost logic and consistency. They were just shock waves slamming into Accelerator’s body.

“In the end, you’re the same as I am. You can’t protect anyone. And a lot more people will die after this, too. Killed by people like me. Isn’t that right, Accelerator?! You only got this far after making a lot of fucking people die!!”

Teitoku Kakine unsteadily dragged his ­blood-­covered body to its feet.

Not to bare his fangs at Accelerator. Accelerator could ­tell—­he knew malice personally. Kakine’s was directed somewhere else.

Namely, to Aiho Yomikawa, crumpled on the ground.

“St…op.”

“I can’t hear you!”

He identified a grinding noise. He didn’t know what had happened. Kakine hadn’t touched Yomikawa, but something invisible trampled over her. Her body twitched. The dark red on her, under pressure, started to expand a lot more quickly.

“Stop!!”

“I said I can’t fucking hear you!!”

Kakine’s roar drowned out Accelerator’s words.

“Don’t let that bitch decide things, idiot! Why the fuck are you trying to resolve things through talking, villain?! That’s not what we are. That’s not how we do things and you know it!!”

Kakine’s ability further increased in pressure.

Now, not only her side but her mouth began to drip with viscous red fluid.

“If you want someone to stop moving, just kill them. If you don’t like something, just break it. That’s what it means to be evil! Don’t start wanting to be saved!! Don’t start trying to laugh it off like an idiot!! There’s no way a dumbass like you would ever be given that!! Come on, show me. Show me that evil you were lecturing me about before like some kind of fucking god!!”

­Idiot, he spat.

He said he wouldn’t get civilians and pedestrians involved in the battle, and look what had happened. He’d abandoned the path of light, he’d decided to rule from the pinnacle of darkness, and he almost took the hand extended to him, fooled by warm words. He almost looked away from the dark world he was in, just for a moment, and almost touched the world of light. As a result, he lost sight of his top ­priority—­removing the threat of Teitoku Kakine as soon as he ­could—­and it gave way to a tragedy he could have prevented.

Therefore…

This time, Accelerator would become altogether evil.

He swore then and there to rend Teitoku Kakine to pieces, no matter what he lost.

He felt like his right and left brain had split. And he definitely felt like something sharp, something with an edge, had come up out of it and stabbed the inside of his skull. It wedged itself into his brain, that something, and immediately swallowed up Accelerator. He heard a squish, like a fruit being crushed. Something like tears flowed from his eyes. But they weren’t tears. This fluid was darker, redder, dirtier, more uncomfortable, and smelled like iron. Anything spilling from his lachrymal glands was now only hatred.

And with it brought…

a loss of control.

“Oo…”

He heard a pillar supporting his identity break. A thick, syrupy emotion washed over everything, from his center to his extremities. He clenched his teeth, his eyes turned red, and Accelerator let loose a howl that could be heard to the ends of the earth.

“Ooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

His back burst open. From it burst murky black wings. Black wings like jet sprays. The anger had removed his very consciousness, crushed his very sense of self, and the pair of wings had exploded out of it. In moments, they stretched dozens of meters, parted the asphalt, and scraped against building walls.

“Ha…”

When Teitoku Kakine saw that, he knew.

His Dark Matter, his elementary particles that supposedly didn’t exist in this universe. What on earth was it? Where was he pulling it out of? What did it mean?

“Crazy…That’s some crazy evil. See, you can do it after all, villain. I see why Dark Matter’s just a spare plan now. But that doesn’t necessarily mean victory is assured!!”

As though answering his cry, Teitoku Kakine’s six wings exploded out. They reached dozens of meters in length, filled with both a mystical light and an inorganic, machinelike quality. Just like a giant weapon that God or angels would use.

Bawoo!! cried the air touched by the six wings.

What Accelerator and Dark Matter possessed, respectively, were organicity and inorganicity. And those terms applied to a different world than this one. One wielded a part of a power equal to God, and one wielded part of the heavenly plane in which God lived. With these conditions, the match was even. And Teitoku Kakine, unlike Accelerator, hadn’t lost himself.

Power the likes of which he’d never felt before raged within him.

And he felt like he had perfect control over every last bit of it.

Kakine thought to himself that their number one and number two positions had just reversed. It wasn’t an empty act of courage, nor was it him being a sore loser. It had none of the dramatization the emotion did. It was a simple impression. Right now, even against all the armies in the world, even against all the espers in Academy City at once, he could beat them without a scratch. Those were his honest thoughts.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!”

Laughing and laughing some more, Kakine took his six truly awakened wings and slammed them into Accelerator.

He didn’t even care about Accelerator anymore. He just wanted to test this on something nearby. That was all Kakine was thinking.

But then, a crack.

A moment later, his body, hit with a massive force, was buried in the asphalt.

“Guh…?!”

He didn’t know what had happened.

Accelerator’s black wings hadn’t moved. He’d simply looked his way and waved a hand. With just that, Kakine, who thought he was in an absolutely dominant position, lost, crushed deep down into the ground.

He heard cricking and cracking.

It was his right hand, with the Tweezers equipped, being instantly cut off at the elbow.

Gah…ah…!! Wh-what the…hell…?!

Accelerator had picked up some kind of vector, changed its direction, concentrated it at one point, and attacked him with it. He knew that, but even with all the world’s vectors, he couldn’t have caused something like this. Right now, Teitoku Kakine was sure he couldn’t lose in this world.

It didn’t make sense.

He couldn’t comprehend it.

The supremely overwhelming Accelerator simply walked toward him, slowly, one step at a time, toward where he was smashed. Kakine realized that every footfall was his life ticking away. When the distance came to zero, his life would end. And Accelerator had already taken the final step.

“Ha-ha…”

“…yjrpevilqw”

“Damn it…So that’s it!! That’s what you were for?!”

No ­response—­just a lethal fist coming down on him.

The overwhelming butchery had begun.

5

Only the sounds of pounding meat echoed through Academy City. With each hit, the asphalt cracked, the earth rumbled like an aftershock, and the buildings shook ominously. None of the onlookers could say a word. Even looking away took courage. Most people did nothing but gaze at the overpowering scene.

“Ugh…”

Amidst all that, Aiho Yomikawa woke up.

In the haze in her mind, she heard a roar. A roar more fearsome than a beast’s and more horrible than a demon’s. But to Yomikawa, it sounded like a child crying.

I have to stop him, she thought in spite of herself.

“Yomikawa!!”

But before the collapsed Yomikawa could move, someone grabbed her arm. They picked her up, got under her shoulder, and swiftly moved away from the site of the incident. The deftness belonged to another ­Anti-­Skill officer. But unlike Yomikawa’s jersey, this one was fully armed with a gun and body armor.

“…Urgh…Saigou? Let me go…I still have to…!!”

“You can’t, Yomikawa!!”

She tried to fling him away, but she didn’t have her normal strength. Meanwhile, she heard a series of bangs and booms, the air being struck. She looked up and saw a black combat helicopter soaring through the blue sky. It was one of the ­brand-­new Hexawings.

“The satellites just came online again temporarily, and they detected an abnormality. A distortion the law of relativity can’t explain has expanded over one hundred meters around us. The analysis team says it’s probably bizarre interference from involuntary diffusion fields.”

“And you’re attacking the source, even though it might kill you? Give me a break!!”

She coughed up blood when she shouted, but this time, she wrested herself free from Saigou’s arm. She took another look around. Many other ­fully ­armed officers were here, and they even had units of powered suits and armored cars. It was like a scene out of a nightmare. For Yomikawa, who had investigated Accelerator’s earlier years to some degree, it gave her a sense of déjà vu. He’d been surrounded like this once when he was younger, and he’d surrendered, having lost any hope at ­life—­and then they threw him into a dark research facility.

She couldn’t let that happen again.

Not paying any mind to the wound in her side, the ­blood-­soaked Yomikawa stood in the officers’ way.

“Lower your guns!! We don’t need them to persuade Accelerator!!”

“But Yomikawa!!”

“Don’t you know who that is? That’s a child we’re supposed to protect! I won’t accept it. I’ll never allow anyone to point a weapon at him!!”

That was when Accelerator looked up to the skies.

His black wings began spurting out with even more force.

“Oooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

Ba-boom!! An impact shot through everyone present.

It wasn’t a physical one; it was a simple threat to their lives. Their animalistic instincts had gripped and squeezed their hearts. The pressure she felt was so strong it felt like she’d crumple to the ground if she relaxed. Accelerator’s anger wasn’t directed at the onlookers or the officers; they were below his attention. Nevertheless, with just the scrap of that emotion, he dominated the world, forced it to yield to him, and nearly destroyed it.

Accelerator was supposed to be after Teitoku Kakine.

But who would believe, looking at him now, that he’d stop there? Once his target was gone, and his anger had nowhere left to go, would he point it somewhere else? Nobody there let that ­possibility—­no, that ­danger—­go unconsidered. Yomikawa knew Accelerator well—­and she knew his actions were too hard to predict.

Damn. Can’t I…do anything…?

When Yomikawa tried to get closer to him, she coughed up blood. Saigou frantically pinioned her, stopping her from moving. Even restrained, however, she watched Accelerator through blurred eyes, thinking, Isn’t there some way to stop him? Is…is this stupid nonsense really going to end his future?!

He let out another roar, painting over the world with black. The black wings on his back granted despair beyond the realm of man. She saw some ­Anti-­Skill officers get their guns ready out of reflex, without being ordered. But if they pulled the trigger, it would all be over. The act would be tantamount to rejection from society, and it would break him again. And she wasn’t sure anyone would be able to bring him back a second time.

Faced with such overwhelming power, everyone had lost hope.

All they could do was cringe out of the way of that power’s rampage and tremble.

And then, before their eyes…

…their last hope came down to them.

It looked like a ­ten-­year-­old girl. ­Shoulder-­length brown hair and energetic features. Clothed in a ­sky-­blue camisole with a baggy men’s ­button-­down over it, their “hope” pushed ­terror-­stricken onlookers out of the way as best she could and came to the busy intersection.

She said she was looking for someone lost.

Now that she’d found him, she didn’t hesitate. Even with the overpowering scene spread out before her, she went straight up to Accelerator. Everyone who saw her thought it was ­over—­but none could reach out to stop her, either. She’d already gotten too close to the destruction’s center point.

“‘I found you,’ says Misaka says Misaka, relaxed.”

She approached Accelerator’s back as he continued to howl.

Accelerator slowly turned around.

Vwooh!! A burst of roaring wind.

Academy City’s strongest Level Five had just done something very simple: His jetlike black wings had sliced through the air. His ­backward-­facing wings were packed with incredible power, and he’d inadvertantly let loose a massive yet casual attack.

Everyone there visualized the tragedy.

They imagined her young body torn apart, crushed, and scattered across the road.

But…

With a tremendous gkkkeeee, the black wings stopped right in front of Last Order.

An invisible wall had blocked Accelerator’s attack. It was just a few centimeters from her face, and though his wings trembled and shook, they didn’t get any closer. The girl shouldn’t have had any abilities that could ward off his black wings. Even if someone searched the whole world, they might not find anyone like that.

If she couldn’t do it, and if nobody in the world could do it, then who had stopped them, and how?

As Yomikawa stared in stupefaction, she eventually came to an answer.

“Accelerator…”

Academy City’s strongest Level Five. The ­One-­Way Road. If anyone could stop this overwhelming power that nobody could reach, it would have to be the man creating that power himself. At the very end of the end of the critical moment, Accelerator had stopped his wings.

The black wings trembled, squealing and cracking.

They trembled like the sobbing of a beast.

And then the bang of gunpowder rang out.

Yomikawa, startled, looked over to see that one of the ­Anti-­Skill officers had just discharged his gun.

Shit, she thought.

He’d fired at Accelerator with Last Order nearby. His black wings had torn apart and transformed into several sharp feathers. They were aimed at the ­Anti-­Skill officers nearby. He had taken it as an attack against the girl.

Accelerator unleashed a booming attack right away, with himself at the center, but…

“‘Stop,’ advises Misaka advises Misaka.”

One word from Last Order.

As soon as it came out, the feather tips at the ­Anti-­Skill officers’ throats stopped dead in their tracks.

“‘It’ll be all right,’ says Misaka says Misaka, extending her hand.”

It wasn’t that the little girl didn’t understand the situation. She knew how dangerous Accelerator was, but she still reached out to him with a delicate hand.

“‘You don’t have to do this anymore,’ says Misaka says Misaka, telling you what the right thing is.”

As if to swat away her words, Accelerator crashed his black wings into her again.

But once again, they stopped centimeters before her face. A sharp ggkkkeeee was the only sound that came out. It was Accelerator’s internal conflict. His heart was telling him to get rid of her. If it meant feeling like this, if it meant tragedies repeating, he should abandon everything. But he just couldn’t do it. He could kill her at the twitch of a finger. It would be so easy to send that tiny body flying. But no matter what he did, he couldn’t let go of that hope.

“Aaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!! Gaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

He burst into a roar.

For a few moments, the only sound was the angry flapping of his black wings.

But the overwhelming sense of pressure they’d been exerting was gone. Now he seemed like a young child throwing a tantrum. The girl watched. When those next attacks came, she didn’t even shut her eyes. She trusted ­him—­so she wasn’t surprised.

He swung his wings much wider, then brought them down at her in one final, determined attack.

When they stopped dead in front of her face, Accelerator stopped as well.

His head was ­down—­nobody could see his face.

Without a sound, the pair of wings on his back melted into the air and vanished. At the same time, all the strength left his body. She spread her arms to accept him. He wavered, then slowly fell toward her.

Accelerator’s weight seemed like it would crush her, but she held onto him anyway.

She brought her mouth to his ear and whispered into it.

“‘That’s good,’ says Misaka says Misaka.”