CHAPTER 1

I Believe in Your Kindness, at Least
Dark_Hero.

1

October 17, 6 PM.

Accelerator was by a window, sitting on the floor of the hotel room he was using as a hideout. His reason for sitting against the wall was simple—the devices he’d constructed and arranged on a spread-out newspaper. He couldn’t do this sort of work on the bed.

As he continued his task, he kept his cell phone nestled between his neck and shoulder. A small girl’s voice came through it. “Anyway, I think we’re having meat stew tonight, says Misaka says Misaka, reporting the results of her reconnaissance and stuff.”

“You don’t say. When did Yomikawa get good enough with rice cookers to pull off a crazy stunt like that?”

The device on the newspaper was a crutch.

It resembled a tonfa, but with a modern design, which he equipped by fitting it around his right forearm. He called it “a device” because it now featured several new improvements, such as a few small motors and a weight sensor.

At the moment, the crutch was standing up on four legs like a microphone stand. Accelerator poked at it.

… I think I’ve managed to put it back together now, but I wonder if the weight sensor can handle detecting my center of mass by itself. Maybe I should’ve jammed in an angle-adjusting gyro or something.

This precise analysis continued in his mind as he responded on his cell phone. The person on the other end was Last Order, a girl who appeared to be around ten.

“If you want, I can try negotiating to have her make some for you, too, says Misaka says Misaka, glancing toward the kitchen.”

“Yeah, sure. As long as it tastes just as good after freezing it, packing it, and shipping it through the mail.”

When he put his right arm through the crutch and grasped the handle, the four stands flitted like insect legs. Still sitting, he jabbed the crutch into the floor. Despite being nearly parallel to the ground, the mechanical legs began to accurately grab hold of the surface and support him.

Just barely scrapes by with a passing grade.

“You said you could come visit this weekend, says Misaka says Misaka, making sure.”

“…As long as my plans don’t change.”

When he manipulated the grip again, there was a clatter as the crutch suddenly retracted. It was made like an extendable police baton.

Wearing giant bracelet-like pieces that wrapped around his arm from the elbow down, Accelerator moved his right wrist to see how the setup moved as a whole.

Guess that passes, too. Can’t walk without a crutch, but it gets in the way when I’m using my ability.

As he muttered his impressions of the device, Accelerator moved the grip again to extend the crutch.

Jshhh!! The four-legged pole extended energetically, sending several tools that he’d left on the newspaper flying.

… Could maybe use it as a weapon if I amped up the power…No point, though. Don’t need any when I’m using my ability, and if I had to lift the crutch in an emergency, I’d fall over.

“Misaka is so excited for Saturday that she can’t wait— Ohh!! Yomikawa brought in the meat stew!! says Misaka says Misaka, making a report of the highest priority!!”

“Yeah? Your life is just full of detours, isn’t it?”

And then it happened.

The telephone rang—not his cell, but the one installed on the hotel bedside table. Accelerator looked over to it. Before he could pick up the receiver, the ringing stopped. It had rung exactly three times, as though it was preplanned.

That was the signal.

An RV or some other similar vehicle had probably pulled up onto the shoulder near the hotel.

“What’s wrong?! asks Misaka asks Misaka, bending her head at the telephone sound.”

“…It’s nothing. Just room service,” he lied, placing his weight onto his homemade crutch and slowly standing up. He became conscious of the sensation of a small handgun tucked into his pants on the back of his waist again.

Then, from the other end of the call, Last Order abruptly said, “Are you okay?”

She didn’t know about Accelerator’s job. And she didn’t need to know the details to worry about him.

“Don’t do anything dangerous, asks Misaka asks Misaka.”

“Do you even know who you’re whispering to?” he replied to the voice on the cell phone, as though thrusting it away. “No need for consideration like that when you’re talking with a guy who wouldn’t die even if a nuke hit him.”

Accelerator hung up, then stowed his cell phone in his pants pocket.

Without turning around, he headed for the guest room’s exit.

Newspapers and tools were strewn about the room, but minions from some organization or another would surely be along to tidy up anyway.

Motoharu Tsuchimikado was walking through the District 7 shopping arcade, a large avenue along the way from his school to his dorm. Tsuchimikado had blond hair, sunglasses, and a Hawaiian shirt over his school uniform, making him a fairly conspicuous person—but at the moment, there were some people present with even more visual impact than him.

Specifically, part-time maids, handing out fliers for restaurants.

As he walked through the shopping district, he watched the working girls, and his eyes relaxed slightly behind his sunglasses.

“…The times really have taken a turn for the better, nya…”

Not a moment after he’d muttered it, a powerful straight punch pushed into Tsuchimikado’s tall back. His little sister, Maika Tsuchimikado, was responsible. After eliciting a violent wha-bam!! noise you wouldn’t expect from her delicate little fist, she was currently, for some reason, sitting politely with her legs folded underneath her atop an oil drum–shaped cleaning robot.

The girl, however, hadn’t physically contorted her stepbrother’s spine out of jealousy.

“…You can’t call those professional maids. How dare they mix up maids, waitresses, and hostesses. How is this for the better, eh? That one even has Gothic fashion mixed in somehow. Do you think kneesocks make everything okay?”

Maika growled her questions, blue veins popping on her exposed forehead, since her bob’s bangs were combed back. Her own clothing consisted of a long-skirted maid uniform, mainly in dark blue. Unlike the ladies handing out fliers, it had a plain but highly practical design.

“M-Maika? That jagged black aura around you is making me feel like there’s a boulder in the pit of my stomach…”

“What I mean is: It’s all well and good the term maid has spread throughout the world, but it’s a problem if it spreads in the wrong way. Now people look at us lewdly just for wearing these clothes.”

“L-lewdly?!”

His stepsister’s remark got a huge reaction out of him.

This reaction was not, however, because he couldn’t forgive the unspecified large number of bastards who would apparently look at his little sister so rudely.

“But…But is that so wrong…? Maids are healthy in the first place, aren’t they? Unerotic maids—what reason could they possibly have for existing?!”

“…It looks like I’ll need to show my shitty brother what professional maids are made of.”

“No, stop, gwoohhh; my stepsister is using her body to show off pro-maid techniques to me?!” called Tsuchimikado, his words a string of lewdness, as a tiny fist beat him to a pulp.

Just then, a camper passing right by him gave a short honk of its horn. It looked like it had been trying to hurry a passenger car taking its time in front of it, but that wasn’t it.

It was the signal.

The camper had probably put on its blinker and gone down a side road—and it would park there for a time to wait for Tsuchimikado.

Without waiting to see where it went, he immediately started walking toward the nearby convenience store.

“Nya. I gotta go grab some refills for my mechanical pencils.”

“Hmm? I’ll come, too.”

“Wait, you’re gonna help me?! I actually have a ton of homework today, nya. I’m not even sure both of us together could finish it, but you’re really smart, so you could probably do the work of one and a half people. A brother-sister team-up operation should manage to finish by tomorrow morning.”

“…I don’t think I’m going to your room tonight…You’re already up a creek without a paddle if you’re asking your middle school sister for help on high school homework. But at least there’s still leftovers. You shouldn’t die of starvation. And with that, adieu!”

Still sitting politely atop the cleaning robot, Maika banged on its side with her small palm. Its sensors seemed to pick up from the gesture, since the robot swerved in the other direction, as though being controlled by a steering wheel.

“Heartless brute!!” shouted Tsuchimikado in front of the convenience store, his spirit shattered. After hanging his head, he went into the store, properly bought what he said he would, and then went down a side road away from the shopping district.

He opened the door of the camper that he found parked there. Inside was an earlier visitor, a white-haired Level Five, lying on a simple bed as though sulking.

Looking at that Level Five, Tsuchimikado said:

“…So what’s today’s homework?”

Awaki Musujime was in District 10. The place had a host of research facilities related to nuclear power and microbiology, as well as an incineration plant for laboratory animals, but even within this district stood a particularly infamous building.

The juvenile reformatory.

It wasn’t the sort of place a girl wearing the uniform of Kirigaoka Girls’ Academy, an elite Ability Development school, would normally be seen, but she couldn’t be picky—her comrades were interned there.

They were comrades in the sense that they had tried to complete a grand project together.

One that some might call a criminal act.

Thanks to a Level Four–Level Five duo from a school for young ladies as influential as Kirigaoka—no, possibly even more so—they’d already aborted the project itself.

Many of her comrades had been defeated through overwhelming power, then confined within this juvenile reformatory. And Musujime alone was free—only she, the project’s mastermind, the one who should have been the first to be caged.

An implicit rule had been handed down to her.

She would use her incredible ability, Move Point, to fight against even deeper darkness in Academy City. If she acquiesced, they would both physically and socially guarantee her comrades’ safety—and if she didn’t, that guarantee went away.

One day, she’d outwit this city.

She’d win this game that was supposed to be perfectly unbeatable so she could grant her comrades freedom once again.

That alone was Awaki Musujime’s goal—and there was nothing else to it. Rather, there was nothing left. Even her attachment to their rogue-like “grand project” had already vanished. There was no longer a proactive reason that kept her moving anymore. Right now, it was the endless negativity and the crushing circumstances that forced Musujime ever forward.

It doesn’t matter to me, she thought. I’ll do whatever this city wants, to a point.

But she would no longer stop, even if the result waiting for them was the utter collapse of Academy City’s leadership. If that came to pass, they could blame themselves for pushing her that far.

Musujime walked down the street, lost in thought in the dim moments just before sundown.

And then it happened.

Her cell phone ringtone went off in her skirt pocket. It was a different chime from a few days ago—she didn’t care about this sort of thing, so when her roommate had recommended this ringtone and then changed it for her, Musujime left it as it was, making it her default ringtone.

She gave a soft sigh, then took her cell phone out of her pocket.

After pressing the Accept button and placing it next to her ear, words from her roommate, which she’d grown accustomed to hearing, flew at her.

“Musuuu!! Where are you wandering around?!”

The voice was sugary sweet, like it belonged to a girl who hadn’t reached puberty yet.

Her roommate’s name was Komoe Tsukuyomi.

And in spite of her voice, surprisingly enough, she was a high school teacher.

“Today is the day that you’ll try your very best until you can make vegetable stir-fry, so Teacher has been waiting with an empty stomach juuust for you. Please come back right now and take ooon the challenge. You have to acquire at least one specialty at sooome point, Musu.”

At first, it might have seemed like her roommate was just trying to hand off the housework, but Musujime had been made aware in a short time that this sugar-voiced teacher had no such goals.

It was clear when the teacher continued:

“It isn’t like girls need to do housework or anything, but life is long, so it’s worth learning new skills to broaden your horizons. It’s not only cooking. Your teacher never heard what sort of life you want in the future, but it’s best to experience all kinds of things so you’ll be ready when you finally do decide what path you want to take. But you should only seek out experiences on the absolute condition that you don’t waste your own time or hinder the path you really want to take.”

Musujime suddenly stopped walking. Here in the twilight of District 10, she realized that, at some point, the dark pressure weighing gently down on the pit of her stomach had gone away.

Something in her was surprised—not on the surface, but something deeper inside.

Surprised that there was still someone who would speak to her like this.

“…”

Musujime wondered how to answer the teacher’s repeated “vegetable stir-fry, vegetable stir-fry,” but then a camper drove by right near her. The vehicle stopped next to a juice vending machine, and a man got out of the driver’s seat, heading to it.

Their eyes never met even once, but she knew the intent.

It was the signal to start work.

She’ll be mad at me—no, mad for me, she thought, before speaking again into her cell phone.

“…This is going to sound blunt, but something suddenly came up, so it doesn’t look like I’ll be making any vegetable stir-fry.”

“What?! Again?! Then what now? Your teacher was waiting for that stir-fry! To be honest, I figured you’d mess up a lot, so I bought so many vegetables that the refrigerator is insanely packed!”

“That’s good, isn’t it? Vegetarians live longer, you know,” said Musujime offhandedly and then hung up.

After looking at her phone for a few moments, she put it back in her skirt pocket and started toward the camper. When she opened the door, there was a white-haired Level Five napping on a plain bed and a blond man in sunglasses sitting at the table playing a portable game where miniskirted maids equipped with gigantic laser cannons went on rampages.

Giving the passengers a nasty look, Musujime spoke.

“…Since this is a camper, there must be a kitchen, right?”

Mitsuki Unabara was in a District 7 hospital. It was past six PM, but visiting hours seemed to run relatively late, perhaps part of the hospital’s policy. At the moment, it was right before closing.

The hospital room he was in was an individual one, but he wasn’t the patient. He’d come to visit a girl who had been hospitalized here.

“…You still seem to like that face, Etzali.”

The brown-skinned girl, sitting up in bed, spoke to him with a voice that sounded deliberately low. Her wavy, shoulder-length hair was black, but somehow it seemed different compared to the hair Japanese people had. The girl—Xóchitl—hailed from Central America.

“And you still seem like you’re in a bad mood. Do your synthetic-fiber pajamas not suit your skin?”

As Unabara spoke, he placed a large wrapped object he’d brought with him on the side table.

“This is Aztecan native clothing. I struggled to procure it…But, well, you’d probably stand out if you wandered through the hospital in this. You can secretly change after lights-out and sleep in them.”

“Are you looking for gratitude?”

“What in the world has been getting on your nerves?”

“I guess you won’t understand unless I spell it out for you.” Xóchitl’s head swiveled, and she glared into Unabara’s eyes again. “What’s been getting on my nerves? You grinning like nothing even happened.”

“?”

“The original copy…You picked it up, didn’t you?”

Xóchitl’s gaze lowered to stare at her hands.

Slowly opening and closing her five fingers, she said, “Originally, my body—save for one-third of it—was supposed to be a complete dummy…And what happened? You tore every bit of it off before I even realized it. I’m still coming to grips with the difference in our skill and capacities as sorcerers.”

Before, a certain sorcerer’s society had ground away two-thirds of her physical body and made it into raw materials in order to weaponize and wield a powerful original grimoire. And Unabara was the one who had privately saved her.

Xóchitl moved her gaze from her palms to Unabara.

“…You’re holding on to the original copy, aren’t you?”

“It’s here.”

Unabara used a hand to open the collar of the suit he was wearing.

There was something like a holster there, like for holding a gun, but a rolled-up book written on animal skin was stuck inside. Before Xóchitl could examine it more closely, Unabara returned his suit to normal.

“Even after turning my flesh to dust, I couldn’t control it—and you can command it without doing anything?”

“Well, no…Frankly speaking, it feels like it’s taking everything just to keep it suppressed.”

Unabara’s voice was relaxed, but he understood a fraction, at least, of exactly how fearsome this original copy was.

And of how irregular Xóchitl’s situation had been—she’d been made into a mere specimen in order to use something like this as a piece on a game board.

“What happened?” asked Unabara.

It was the question he’d held onto ever since they’d reunited. He’d spoken it now because he decided Xóchitl’s body and mind had stabilized enough to do so.

Xóchitl fell silent for a moment, turning her face away from Unabara. With her brown-skinned cheek facing him, she muttered:

“You know of our fight against the American research institution, right? Against Scholarship City.”

“Yeah, and the particulars, too. I heard an official announcement say it had been destroyed by terrorists who had purchased an older, low-cost fighter jet.”

“The truth, of course, was that we launched a magical attack on it.”

That was all she said before going quiet again, but just for a few moments.

An open, straightforward battle between Central America’s largest sorcerer’s society and a nation that was, on the surface, the global police force. She would have contributed to that war from the back lines.

“I screwed up,” she said, as though delivering a boring report. “At the last possible moment right at the end, I violated orders a tiny bit. The price I paid was letting them mess with my body quite a bit. Considering our society’s codes, they were in the right.”

That couldn’t be true. Unabara had been a part of that society for a long time, but he’d never heard of any instances where they’d crush someone’s body to fuse it with an original grimoire, no matter how grave their crimes.

“There was nobody to stop them? Tochtli? She was your war buddy, right?”

Unabara knew it was over and done, but he couldn’t help saying the name of another girl—Xóchitl’s colleague.

But Xóchitl shook her head.

“I haven’t seen her since before they carried out my sentence. I was just a weapon until you extracted the grimoire. Maybe Tecpatl would know—he was in command of the operation—but I haven’t seen that creep since then, either.”

Xóchitl leveled her gaze again at Unabara’s suit…where the original copy was stored away.

“In the end, it wasn’t a matter of the magician’s natural gifts. It seems like the idea of trying to use a grimoire’s original as a convenient tool was too much to ask, given the limits of the human body. Even after all that, I was at the mercy of the grimoire’s every whim.”

“…I think I agree with you on that. Original grimoires aren’t something you can simply use as a trump card. Even if you use teamwork to bring out a power you don’t understand, it would still only invite destruction…Actually, with Group and me…Joking aside, if I caused them any trouble, they’d probably put me through the ringer.”

For some reason, Xóchitl was quiet for a moment.

“…Teamwork, huh?”

“?”

“Never mind. When you talk about your friends now, I’m sure the first people you think of are people I don’t know.”

“Xóchitl—”

“Don’t try to tell me I’m wrong.”

The brown-skinned girl blocked Unabara from speaking, as though creating a thick wall between them.

“Whatever your reasons were, the fact is that you defected to Academy City, and now you’re doing secret work as one of their pawns. You knew that would constitute a betrayal of the ones you once called friends. I mean, look at me— You took me down. That was some great teamwork, eh?”

Xóchitl spoke quietly, admitting that she’d lost while rubbing salt in the wound anyway. When she saw Unabara’s expression tighten slightly, she finally made a satisfied—but slightly gloomy—face.

“Isn’t that right?”

After saying that, Xóchitl averted her face slightly from Unabara.

She pursed her small lips, and in a voice low enough that she didn’t know whether he could hear her, said:

“…Etzali, my brother.”

For an instant, time stopped.

And before Mitsuki Unabara could make any reaction, the hospital room door flew open with a bang!!

A blond young man with sunglasses, Motoharu Tsuchimikado, burst into the room.

“Unabara, you bastard!! How the hell are you gonna explain what she just said, nya?!”

“Etzali, stand back!! They must be new hunters from the organization!! Damn, did they decide they needed to get rid of me along with you?!”

Before Unabara could advise her that, no, this visitor was a complete weirdo but not an enemy, Tsuchimikado stomped closer to him, veins popping out of his temples.

“Unabara…!! Does this mean that you had a little sister back in your homeland all along? Then what are you doing falling head over heels for a middle school girl in Academy City attending Tokiwadai?!”

“Wait, I…What are you talking about?!” Unabara’s shoulders gave a major jolt.

Xóchitl, who had previously been cautious of Tsuchimikado, stopped moving immediately after hearing him talk, then turned to stare at Mitsuki Unabara again.

“…A middle school girl? You don’t mean you betrayed the organization for a reason like that, do you?”

Unable to deny this, Unabara started sweating bullets. He avoided looking her in the eye. After all, it wasn’t as though he was infatuated with that girl just because she was in middle school. It wouldn’t have made a difference if she’d been in high school or college instead—he wasn’t some huge lolicon who had risked his life because of his inclinations.

“Wait, she called me her brother just now, but our relationship in the magic society was more like teacher and student—that’s all!!”

“In other words, a stepsister!! That’s actually even better, nya!!”

Amid Unabara’s and Tsuchimikado’s cries, Awaki Musujime peered into the room from outside.

We came here to gather everyone together for a job, but if it was going to be like this, wouldn’t solving this on my own have been a better idea?! she considered, relatively seriously.

She spoke to Accelerator, who was leaning on the wall nearby, without looking at him.

“Brother, sister—what are they even talking about? I swear, we’re about to head for a battlefield with bullets flying everywhere, so I wish they’d act a little more appropriately.”

But there was no reaction from Accelerator.

Dubiously, she looked over to him and realized his lips were moving slightly.

She focused on listening to his whispers.

“(…It’s every person’s fate to be pushed around by a younger brat at some point.

It looks like things in there are getting ridiculous, but I don’t have the right to get in their way like an idiot.)”

“Oh, how awful. Am I the only non-lolicon in Group?”

Then, Accelerator, Motoharu Tsuchimikado, and Mitsuki Unabara all turned around and focused on the one who’d made the remark, Awaki Musujime.

In their natural voices, without any particular prior planning, they said:

“Great, the girl who is obviously a shotacon is calling us perverts.” “Yeah, nya.” “Indeed.”

“Pfft?! Cough-cough!! Wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-wh-what grounds do you have to prove that I’m a shota—mfgh—shotacon…?!”

The upperclassman-type, huge-chested high school girl Awaki Musujime began to panic, but the other three, perhaps too tired to explain everything to her, merely shook their heads. The meaning was loud and clear: Did she really think she’d been successfully hiding it this whole time?

…Xóchitl didn’t appreciate how their reactions had all been in unison, but Unabara didn’t notice that subtlety. After saying good-bye to the copper-skinned girl, he left the hospital room.

As they walked down the hallway, he asked:

“This job must be important if they called Group together. What is it?”

“Oh, just resolving an incident, same as always,” answered Tsuchimikado, so casually that it seemed he might break out into a whistle at any moment.

“Some terrorists have holed up with some hostages—and we’ve been ordered to kill them all.”

2

Meanwhile, two people, a boy and a girl, arrived at the store in the same hospital building. Basically, it was a shop mainly offering light snacks such as juice and sugary treats, but it also featured a lineup of novels for passing the time as well as water guns, though where someone would use one of those in the hospital was unclear.

The girl’s head moved quickly, checking all the products, while the boy watched her idly from behind.

The boy’s name was Shiage Hamazura. He had brown hair, and his outfit consisted of a beat-up tracksuit and jeans. He had the features of a dumb street thug, but that’s exactly what he was, so he couldn’t help it. A street thug who had taken out Academy City’s fourth-ranked Level Five, Shizuri Mugino.

The girl’s name was Saiai Kinuhata.

She was about twelve years old, also brunette, though her hair was far less frizzled and dry. She wore it in a bob cut that just barely reached her shoulders. Her outfit was a short wool dress that looked like a sweater, which exposed a dangerous amount of her white-skinned thighs. The sort of girl you’d feel constantly uncomfortable sitting across from during a train ride.

As Kinuhata looked at the several kinds of flowers placed directly on the store’s floor, she said, “We came all this way to visit her, so, like, how could you forget flowers, Hamazura? Do you actually enjoy us always thinking you’re a total Hamazura, Hamazura?”

“Hey, stop bending over to look at them. Your ass is basically putting on one hell of a show back here, you know.”

“But you can’t quite see them clearly in this pose— Totally amazing, right? It’s a completely different league compared to your run-of-the-mill sluts.”

Damn, cursed Hamazura to himself. It was planned all along!!

After thinking hard for a few moments, Kinuhata picked out flowers he couldn’t name and called the store clerk over. Once she got them all bundled into a bouquet, it fell, of course, to Hamazura to carry them.

As they walked to the elevator leading to the general hospital building, Kinuhata said, “All right, that does it for the flowers. Did you, like, remember to bring any other gifts for the visit?”

“A couple. But Takitsubo’s getting discharged soon, so it’s not like I went all out trying to get my hands on crazy time-killing toys.”

“I would super-appreciate it if you’d stop with the bunny suits.”

“What kind of person do you think I am anyway?”

“An absolute pervert who’s totally into bunny girls.”

As they squabbled, Hamazura and Kinuhata got into the elevator and took it to their destination floor. After walking down the hallway and knocking on the door, a familiar voice came back at them.

When they opened the door, they saw their friend, a comrade who had survived a fierce battle alongside them in the past.

Rikou Takitsubo.

Hamazura remembered her as a girl who always seemed sleepy. Her black hair was cut evenly at her shoulders. Normally, she wore a pink-colored tracksuit, which could apparently serve as hangout clothes as well as pajamas. Sitting up in bed, she was, again, in her usual tracksuit.

“Hey, girl, how you feeling?!” asked Kinuhata with ease, already knowing things were getting better for her, as she swiftly dismantled the bouquet and put the flowers in a vase.

In fact, Takitsubo herself didn’t think deeply on it, either, saying, “They say that I should be fine now. They’re already trying to make sure I can leave tonight.”

“Uh—hey!! Why didn’t you tell us that earlier?!”

“We bought you presents, too. I guess we shouldn’t have bothered, huh?”

Kinuhata’s unnecessary remark forced Takitsubo to reply with “I’m sorry—I’ll still bring them home with me” and bow in apology. Hamazura pressed down on the crown of Kinuhata’s head like a contestant in one of those trivia game shows where you press the button as fast as you can.

“No, that’s not it. I just meant now we won’t have time to set up a welcome-home party.”

“…Hamazura, that aside, you’re, like, def getting punched for this later.”

And so, my position stays exactly the same!! Hamazura screamed to himself.

Kinuhata, who of course didn’t notice this, said, “They were talking about how you used the Crystals too much and just totally collapsed, so I was pretty worried. I mean, if it were some regular old-cold, then at least I would know what to expect. But with a condition like this, even if someone explains it, I still couldn’t even imagine what had happened. Anyway, I’m super-glad you can go home now.”

Hamazura agreed. “Yeah. I know you can’t ever use your ability again, since it needs Crystals, but I’m relieved nothing else bad came out of this…Oh, right. You might not need this since you’re getting discharged, but a little something to pass the time. A jigsaw puzzle.”

“It totally wasn’t a bunny suit, then…”

“I seriously want to make you cry for acting so surprised, are you okay with that, I’ll assume you are!”

“With your weak technique, you’d need more than a lifetime to do that. Oh, right. I, like, got you this thing. Ta-daa!” Kinuhata beamed as she took something out of her package (that she was making Hamazura carry). “It’s, like, a stuffed rabbit!!”

It was indeed a stuffed animal about fifty centimeters in length. On the whole, it was fluffy and fanciful, but for some reason, there was something that resembled human hair sticking out from its mouth, which really made one think Did … it just eat something?

People didn’t choose surreal mascots—surreal mascots chose them. Hamazura was worried, but then Takitsubo said, “It’s cute.”

“Whaaat?! I thought for sure you’d make a comment about it being impractical!! Is this the result of the former Item members having such a tight bond despite their personalities always clashing?!”

“I want to make you cry like always for acting so surprised and totally trembling like that, are you okay with that, I assume you are, well here come the tears.”

“He-he-he, with your frail body it would take more than a lifetime—dghaghaghaghaghaghagha?! Stop, you idiot, quit doing acupressure with my foot—gwahhh it hurts I’m gonna die okay okay I’m crying I’m really crying!!”

Hamazura slapped the floor like a pro wrestler giving up to a strange technique, pinned as he was.

Finished with her assault for now, Kinuhata wiped the sweat from her brow and said, “Actually, the real crime is how the totally perverted bunny girl maniac Hamazura apparently managed to forget even for a moment the respect and fear he should be showing us. So, like, do you get it now?”

“…If you were a sheltered, arrogant rich girl, that might have made me squirm a bit, but it’s no joke coming from someone who’s maxed out her physical attack power while working her shady job. Besides, it’s not like bunny girls are the only thing I’m into.”

“Really, now?” asked Kinuhata, grabbing the stuffed rabbit Takitsubo had been holding. Then she went around behind the other girl and positioned the stuffed rabbit so that her head eclipsed it.

When she did, the stuffed animal’s ears alone looked like they were jutting out from the impassive patient’s head…And then Kinuhata, who had created the situation, delivered her finishing lines:

“Ta-daa! Our best little wabbit. Li’l Rikou is the type who will die of loneliness. Is this the bunny girl you asked for?”

A moment later.

Something inadvertently dripped out of Shiage Hamazura’s nose.

He swiped a hand up to his face unconsciously and was shocked to find that it wasn’t snot. But now wasn’t the time for that. When he looked, he saw Saiai Kinuhata, the one he was pretty sure had planned this all along, and Rikou Takitsubo, the one who’d been forcibly involved in the scheme, both drawing away.

“…Hamazura…You…You, for real, like bunnies that much…?”

“N-no!! It doesn’t make any sense for me to get a nosebleed right now!! This is something else, something… It must be because your damn foot massage went terribly wrong!! It has to be!! Bunnies, I don’t, not like…!!”

As Hamazura desperately denied it, the impassive comforting presence, Rikou Takitsubo, softly put a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s okay. Hamazura, this is a hospital. It’s fine if you get a nosebleed. A doctor will make you better right away.”

“Oh, ohhh…!! You’re the only one who would worry about me at a time like this!!”

Hamazura was about ready to collapse from this small act of kindness.

“It’s okay, Hamazura,” she continued. “I’m pretty sure this hospital cares for mental sicknesses, too. Even if you get a nosebleed from a bunny, there’s nothing at all to worry about.”

And now he was about to collapse for a different reason.

3

Four people were in the camper: Accelerator, Motoharu Tsuchimikado, Awaki Musujime, and Mitsuki Unabara.

“The terrorists causing the incident are apparently a group called Spark Signal. It looks like one of the organizations operating behind the scenes in Academy City like we do has gone out of control,” said Tsuchimikado, as if it was all worthless to him.

Unabara frowned. “What’s Spark Signal supposed to mean?”

“The walls surrounding Academy City constantly emit highly directional electromagnetic interference at an extreme upward angle to prevent information from being sent and received through EM waves,” he explained. “Cell phones work all right even a meter away from the wall, but it basically cuts off all communications that would normally go past it. Our radars and stuff are based outside the wall, and normal communications have to be routed through the external connection terminals. There are security robots patrolling the top of the wall, though, and apparently they communicate with them via data cables that hang off them and connect with floor rails.

“But there are exceptions. The higher-ups seem to have a secret way of sending messages. Plenty of people do all kinds of things to try to leak Academy City intel to the outside world, after all. Our terrorists are evidently experts at stopping that.”

Musujime’s expression showed slight displeasure. She’d made contact with someone on the outside during the incident surrounding the holdout. Maybe she’d fought against Spark Signal in the past.

“Apparently, they’re on the same level of secrecy as Hound Dog,” continued Tsuchimikado, causing Accelerator’s eyebrow to twitch. Tsuchimikado ignored him and continued. “And now the team formerly known as Spark Signal has created a hostage crisis. They’re holed up in the largest particle accelerator in the world, here in Academy City. It’s nicknamed the Hula Hoop.”

As Tsuchimikado went on, he pressed a button on a device that seemed to be a TV remote.

A map of Academy City came up on the large screen inside the vehicle. There was one section that had a different color. But it wasn’t one of the school districts. It was the ringed wall wrapped around Academy City’s border.

“The city built a giant circular accelerator two hundred meters underground that goes along the outside wall. The former Spark Signal terrorists hijacked the control facility, also underground, removed the accelerator’s limiters, then booted it up. I hear they’re accelerating protons at thirty percent the speed of light right now…Naturally, if something happens that they’re not okay with, they’ll kick the output up past critical levels. That will apparently cause the circular accelerator tunnel to rupture, then blast the rest of it, plus one-third of Academy City, with radiation.

“Though exactly where around the ring it’ll explode would be up to fate,” he added.

In summary, everyone except for those in the most central areas of Academy City was in serious danger.

While he listened, Unabara tilted his head. “The particle accelerator must use a lot of electricity, right? Couldn’t they just cut it off from the power plant?”

“It takes a considerable amount of power to bring it to an emergency stop,” answered Tsuchimikado. “Because of that, the facility is equipped with an independent power plant. The former members of Spark Signal are, naturally, using it to keep the accelerator up and running.”

“…So even though they have control of the building, they haven’t made it go haywire immediately,” Musujime murmured. “Which means they must have demands, right?”

Tsuchimikado shook his head. “I’m sure the leaders in the Academy City General Board know what they are, but they didn’t let us in on that much intel. They’d probably tell us not to think about anything above our paygrade and that we should simply slaughter everyone opposing them.”

“If there’s no time limit for resolving this,” Accelerator cut in, “the situation must not be that urgent.”

As Tsuchimikado listened, he pressed another button on the remote. Separate from the large circle running around the outside of Academy City, two more rings appeared, each of them smaller. They were concentric rings, but tilted, so that they all met at one point on the perimeter.

“Can’t say that for sure. The Hula Hoop accelerates particles through the first, second, and third rings, depending on what phase it’s in. It goes from smallest to largest. As far as we can confirm, the terrorists have already moved to the biggest one, the third circle—the accelerator running around the city’s edge.”

“What does that mean?” Unabara demanded.

Tsuchimikado grinned. “Judging by the facility’s specs, the third circle doesn’t get used for low speeds like thirty percent the speed of light. It’s used for experiments that need at least seventy percent… It seems like we’re not being given all the information here. They could just be showing off, or it could be to hide information to keep a seriously crazy panic from breaking out.”

“Meaning the situation might be even worse, but they didn’t bother to inform us,” spat Accelerator, sounding fed up indeed. “This ain’t doin’ it for me. Maybe it is serious, but it’s not like they came crying and begging without caring what it looked like. Just leave ’em alone. Until the leaders actually do that, we can just sit back and relax.”

“There is one piece of intel that will convince you.”

Tsuchimikado pressed a button on the remote, causing a new window to appear on the screen. It showed a school bus. One of its front tires had gone flat, and the door had been destroyed by something.

“Before those former Spark Signal asses attacked the Hula Hoop, they captured about thirty elementary school kids who were going to go stargazing as an extracurricular activity, plus their teacher and the bus driver, taking them all hostage. Very convenient negotiation tool for them. The kind they can kill one by one as time passes and their demands continue to be refused.”

“…”

“They could have used the Hula Hoop employees as hostages, too, but they need them—they have to force them to actually use the accelerator. If they spent those resources as time went on, they wouldn’t be able to drag out this standoff. Instead, to avoid that, they increased their supply of hostages by searching elsewhere. The leaders probably have their collective panties in a bunch over the Hula Hoop facility’s time limit, but I wonder how they feel about this other limit…Do you think they care much about the lives of children?”

“Bullshit,” interrupted Accelerator. “I don’t see why I have to go along with this.”

There wasn’t a trace of sympathy in his voice.

He was, after all, a villain. The strongest Level Five, whose heart was fundamentally black as tar.

“…What an eyesore,” he grumbled in a tone that suggested other people, and life itself, meant nothing to him. “Always better to get the bullshit out of the way quickly.”

4

Shiage Hamazura and Saiai Kinuhata were in the nighttime shopping district.

…Not that there were any particularly amorous developments waiting for them—it was simply to prepare for Rikou Takitsubo’s welcome-home party. Still, it had been an incredibly sudden thing.

“Wait, a welcome-home party? What exactly are we going to do?”

“I reserved a private salon in District 3, so we’re going to, like, get a whole bunch of party goods together, then go back to the hospital and totally grab Takitsubo. After that, we’ll head straight there.”

“A private salon, huh…,” muttered Hamazura offhandedly.

The service Kinuhata had booked was basically like renting a glorified high-end karaoke booth. Since it meant anyone could easily buy a secret hideout this way, private salons were particularly popular with upper-class children…Some might wonder what value a service like this had, but with the majority of student residences being confined to dormitories in Academy City, places completely shielded from surveillance were prized.

However, a single misstep brought the danger of these sorts of facilities turning into a hotbed for sex crimes, so its existence wasn’t purely a good thing, giving teachers and guardians more than enough reason to be pretty tense…

As he was contemplating this, Kinuhata, walking next to him, volunteered, “Hamazura, what are you gonna do after this?”

“Eh? Well, I think we can order good food and stuff on the private room’s intercom, and maybe we could check out some silly party favors that lots of people can—”

“Not that,” Kinuhata interrupted. “Item, the organization we belonged to, is basically done for. Which means you totally don’t have to work for us anymore. That’s why I’m asking…Like, what are you going to do after this?”

“Sorry for answering your question with one, but what about you?”

“Well, I’ll probably keep trucking along as usual. Item’s, like, super-gone now, but when we were active, they pushed a lot of Stargate-related assassinations on us. We’re actually trying to put a new team together…If the higher-ups—the phone people—have anything to say about it, we’re probably in for more super-bloody jobs. But there’s totally zero merit to bringing Takitsubo in again, now that she’s out of commission, so you don’t need to worry about that.”

Kinuhata’s answer came smoothly. She didn’t seem to have many objections to her situation.

“…Huh.”

“So, Hamazura, what are you going to do?”

He glanced up into the air. He could see numerous stars in the night sky, even in the city, now that the sun had fully gone below the horizon.

“I feel bad for Hanzou, but I don’t feel like going back to Skill-Out at the moment. I don’t know what I can do right now, but I have to do something to put Takitsubo back in the normal world. She can’t use the Crystals anymore, and I kind of get the feeling our world isn’t going to let her hold out in that state forever. Which means I’ve gotta think of what to do next.”

It wasn’t a very sensible answer—it was exactly the kind some stupid thug would give. But in this case, it was clear his thoughts weren’t just something he was carelessly making up.

Shiage Hamazura had once defeated a woman who was a Level Five esper.

But the battle had been far from simple. Driven to the brink of death, forced to the very, very end of his rope, he’d willed himself to move his trembling legs and stand up to her. And this was what had kept him going. There was no reason his answer didn’t carry any weight.

He may have been a dumb street thug in every other sense of the word, but in this aspect alone, he was different…

For a few moments, Kinuhata watched Hamazura as he gazed up at the night sky.

“…In other words, you’re going to pour all your passion into forcing your hobbies onto Takitsubo, ripping off that overly practical tracksuit of hers, and making her wear a bunny suit.”

“Hey, is that the character I am now? Set in stone? Since we have the chance, let me clear the air. I admit I like bunny girls, but you’ve got the wrong idea. The most important thing—like with swimsuits, it’s the beauty of unbalance, of being seen in a place you shouldn’t be wearing a swimsuit, so if it was some kind of motor show companion, I would be totally fine with—”

“Ugh, would you please, like, stop it, Hamazura? I totally get it. You want the world to form a pact that will force every girl on earth to wear a bunny suit. I wish you’d just, like, stop looking at me like some kind of pervert when you think stuff like that.”

“Come on,” said Hamazura, shaking his head. “I’ve got good eyes for this stuff, so let me be totally honest with you. A bunny suit would never work on you.”

“…Well let me be totally honest with you, too. Takitsubo may be in high school, but I, a middle schooler, am totally sexier than her.”

“No, you’re dead wrong!! You just can’t tell it because she always wears that tracksuit—but I know if she takes it off, it would be incredible!! And I know that if you stripped, we wouldn’t discover anything that’s the least bit surprising!!”

“I totally want to murder you right now; I assume you’re okay with that. It’s okay, right? All right, time for murder.”

Roar!! Something like wind began to gather in Kinuhata’s hands.

Her ability was Nitrogen Armor. She was a Level Four who could freely control the nitrogen in the air. Its effective area was extremely narrow and, at most, could reach out a few centimeters from her palms…But its power was immense. She could block sniper rifle bullets barehanded or flip ten-pound tables with a single hand.

Hamazura wanted nothing more than to avoid letting her use something so terrifying to hit him, but…

“Hrm?!”

…before he could take any sort of action, Kinuhata was herself surprised. The moment she’d gathered enough nitrogen in her palms, the pseudo-winds flipped her dress skirt all the way up.

An instant before he could see what was underneath—in other words, her panties—Kinuhata slammed one hand down on her skirt front.

“That was a super-close one…Almost gave Hamazura something to fap to tonight.”

“…You just said one of the top-five worst things I’ve ever heard anyone say in my life. Anyway, to be honest, I’ve got no interest in a little brat’s tasteless underwear, so don’t worry. When I imagine sexy, I think older ladies—you know, the type who would look good in bunny suits, and…”

“…”

Then, Saiai Kinuhata, a girl who hated to lose at anything, grabbed the front of her miniskirt with both hands and, without any warning, motioned them upward.

“Hamazura, Hamazura. Look, watch, totally flashing ya!”

“Uwooohhhhhhhaaaaaa?! I can…I…I can, can…I can’t see anything!! What was that, a feint? You let go of your skirt an instant too early, and your arms were the only thing that lifted up; don’t scare me like that—”

After making such a straightforward reaction, he noticed Kinuhata was smirking at him.

“Oh, really? Still wanna say you’ve got no interest…hmm?”

“You tested me…!! But that reaction was merely shock from the surprise attack; I w-wasn’t hoping for anything weird—”

“Flashing ya again!”

“Fnnghhhhhhhhh!! D-damn! I know it’s just a spiteful fake-out, but damn it!! Why the hell am I—?”

“What’s this? I’ve got you in the palm of my hand. Once a Hamazura, always a Hamazura. Get it? It’s ten thousand years too soon for some less-than-primitive sex-obsessed animal to debate whether the great Kinuhata is sexy or not, for real. To be honest with you, you’re way full of yourself. Try evolving into a regular animal first.”

“…No.”

Hamazura, beaten and sinking into the darkness, then lifted his face up once again.

In his eyes was the intent to fight.

“I’ve changed!! I’m no longer an ordinary man fated to die in despair!! I will rise again!! Come at me, Kinuhata! This time, this time for sure I’ll overcome the temptation of your thighs!!”

“Hee-hee. You’ve, like, never had any role to play other than Generic Villager A. And you think you can stand up to me? You say some super-funny things, Hamazura. It’s time for you to, like, suffer for your sexual instincts!!”

Here we go, flashy, flashy!! came the evil demon lord Kinuhata’s ultimate attack.

With a shout of “Ohhh, Takitsubo! Give me strength!!” the hero Hamazura awaited the support of the brave heart that lay deep within him.

But then Kinuhata’s little finger must have caught on her miniskirt.

Because on the third try, this time, her dress skirt actually did shoot upward.

Her woolen, sweater-like skirt flapped up, revealing the small white cloth inside that should have been tightly guarded. Her way of standing, with her two thighs pressed together, was surprisingly girlish, and her underwear, which rested on the top of her thighs, squeezed slightly inward. And he could see it all perfectly.

And thus, the hero Hamazura was defeated.

As red liquid spouted from his nose for the second time that day, the hero uttered his final words.

“Cowaaaaaaaaaard!! What was that supposed to be? Duck, duck, goose?! A triple play?! I was fully ready for an attack from the front, but you brought me down from a different angle. Your strategy’s like the elaborate twist of a genius short story or the textbook on how to design a haunted house!!”

Of course, this wasn’t actually a strategy. It had been a complete and total accident. Kinuhata, whose arms were high in the air even after gravity returned her skirt to normal, trembled for a moment in silence.

“Hamazura, you’re totally dead!!”

“You’ve broken my spirit, and now you’ve come to finish off the flesh?! Can the demon lord have no mercy?!”

Hamazura ran, and Kinuhata chased.

Soon after, the delightful sounds of destruction rang out through Academy City’s shopping district.

5

The camper that Accelerator, Motoharu Tsuchimikado, Awaki Musujime, and Mitsuki Unabara were riding was headed for District 23.

The world’s largest particle accelerator, the Hula Hoop, was constructed over two hundred meters underground, forming a ring along the outer wall surrounding Academy City’s border. Similarly, its control center was in one of the school districts bordering the wall—at the farthest end of District 23. It was, of course, more than two hundred meters belowground as well. The terrorists had captured the facility, and now they were using human shields while making their demands through the internet.

“Come to think of it, what happened to that voice on the phone that always calls?” noted Accelerator. “Don’t they always drop everything to ring us up whenever shit like this happens?”

“Hell if I know,” said Tsuchimikado. “If they don’t want to make contact, there’s nothing we can do to raise them. They’re probably on another job—or vacation.”

“Aw,” piped in Musujime. “Does it worry you that we can’t contact them?”

“I will smash your teeth, jaw, and tongue in.”

Accelerator and Awaki Musujime glared at each other, but Group wasn’t the type of unit that cared.

As Unabara sharpened his obsidian knife to a sharp edge, he asked Tsuchimikado, “What is Anti-Skill doing?”

“They were planning to insert a counterterror team, but it looks like they’ve been forbidden from actually mobilizing,” answered Tsuchimikado, who was disassembling the bigger parts of his gun and doing a simple operation check. “To be fair, though, normal Anti-Skill officers acting in this situation could very likely just make things worse. The Hula Hoop is over two hundred meters underground, and it’s got defenses like a nuclear attack shelter so that the gamma rays don’t flood out if a rupture occurs. The walls go without saying, but you can’t even punch through the doors with regular cutters or explosives.”

“Could we not just use an elevator shaft or something of the sort?” asked Unabara.

“There’s a ton of partitioning walls for them, too. They’re like automatic doors—they have little cutout pieces, so they can precisely close up while avoiding the elevator wires. The ducts are basically the same.”

“If we dawdle, it’ll clue them in,” thought Musujime aloud, efficiently positioning the corkscrews that she used as weapons in her pockets. “Try to damage the doors or walls without thinking, and the former Spark Signal terrorists are liable to react by blowing a hostage’s head off.”

Unabara wiped off the dirt stuck to his knife’s blade, asking, “What’s it like on the inside?”

“Didn’t you hear me? The walls are thick enough to stop gamma radiation. Regular EM waves won’t get through, either. We also can’t drill a hole to slide in a snake camera. We’ve got the layout of the building, but we don’t know how many people are positioned where.”

“…What about those nanodevices?” asked Musujime.

An unpleasant air settled over the camper.

Nanodevices called the Underline were scattered throughout the whole city, keeping a ceaselessly watchful eye on everything. Naturally, the Hula Hoop should have been under surveillance as well, but…

“We should assume that when the emergency doors are completely shut, they block the electron beams used in the network system…Not that I’d be surprised if there was an even more secret trick they’re using to get around this issue.”

After finishing that line of thought, Tsuchimikado paused, then continued. “Also, we don’t officially know about those nanodevices existing. Even if the higher-ups had information, it wouldn’t make it around to us.”

“…It’s difficult not knowing how many we need to kill to make this operation a success. We very well may be shot in the back after thinking we’re in the clear.”

“Then we should have someone who doesn’t mind getting shot make the assault.” Tsuchimikado waved his handgun, dismantled and now put back together, gesturing toward the simple bed.

Accelerator was sitting on it. He could reflect any and all attacks.

“I’m not about to let this beach-bro jagoff order me around, but doing this alone might be easier than letting you people watch my back,” noted Accelerator, eyeballs flitting around to return the glare. “But how do I get in there? You want me to bust through two hundred meters of bedrock and those defensive walls?”

…When he put it that way, it really made the proposal seem impossible, but of all the people who could potentially make it happen, Accelerator was candidate number one.

However, Tsuchimikado shook his head. “Better not. Spark Signal is one thing, but it’ll be a pain if you mess up and harm the hostages or the operating accelerator. Let’s play it by the book. We’ll have Musujime use her power to ignore three-dimensional limitations.”

Musujime’s Move Point ability was classified as a relative of teleportation. It could bring a target object or person to a location of the user’s choosing, while ignoring obstacles such as walls and ceilings.

But then Musujime frowned. “You want me to accurately warp something as heavy as a person to a spot I can’t see, in a building I’ve only ever seen a rough layout of, over two hundred meters underground? I think the chances of him ending up buried in a wall or the ground are about fifty percent. But if you’re still game, I won’t stop you.”

“I’m not asking you to do something as difficult as that.” Tsuchimikado grinned. “District 23 is chock-full of aviation and space-related facilities, so most of the ground is covered by flat runways. But that would be a waste of real estate. They wouldn’t have any space to set up the actual airplane development facilities and whatnot.”

“What are you getting at?” asked Musujime.

“…What I mean is: Basements and underground facilities run pretty deep here. Nothing’s directly linked to the Hula Hoop, but we can close the distance between us and the other side of those walls and the dirt in the ground. You use your Move Point from that location and launch our strategic weapon right into their midst.”

The camper had entered District 23 while they were discussing this.

Normally, entry of civilian vehicles was prohibited without a specific pass or belonging to certain businesses, but their RV rolled on through like it was natural.

District 23, with its many scattered runways, had comparatively few tall buildings. The camper stopped next to a building that was only as tall as a school gymnasium, but its sides stretched out quite a bit.

The four got out.

When Accelerator placed his crutch’s four leg pieces onto the ground, Musujime’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Did you build a brand-new crutch? What a good worker ant.”

“Shut up and get walking,” he grumbled half-heartedly. “What are you, some annoying hag who assumes people are having an affair just because they changed clothes?”

Accelerator entered the low building. It was a proving ground for air force–related weapons, but naturally, the four had come here for what lay underground.

Using a pass that he had gotten from who knows where, Tsuchimikado disengaged the lock on the employee elevator. The lift carried them straight down about 150 meters.

It was there that Accelerator felt a tingling sensation around his temples.

… Am I getting a bad signal now because we went so far underground…?

Unconsciously, he put a hand to his choker, but there was nothing he could do about it.

Outside the reopened elevator doors was a large floor shined to a sparkle, like a department store or office building. There were no windows, but there was so much illumination it felt like it was possible to forget this was underground. Quite a few people would believe it if someone had told him this was the twelfth floor of a famous department store.

Accelerator and the others weren’t headed for any specific room, but for the wall at the opposite end of the floor.

After checking the map displayed on his cell phone screen, Tsuchimikado rapped on the wall with the back of his hand as though knocking on the door to the president’s room.

“Here we are. Diagonally down, at thirty degrees eastward and about eighty meters away, there should be a Hula Hoop control facility hallway. It doesn’t look like there’s any closer place than this. It should be a wide-open space down there, too.”

“Eight meters…,” repeated Musujime.

“On paper, it seems like even a certain middle school student in Judgment could manage this.”

“…Don’t even go there. I just need to do it, right?” Musujime glared at Tsuchimikado, who had purposely made her recall a certain twin-tailed teleport esper. She headed for the wall then turned back to Accelerator and said, “Going in right away, then?”

“Hold up,” said not Accelerator but Tsuchimikado. He slid a finger across his own neck. “Something’s going on with your electrode choker, right?”

“…”

“Wait fifteen minutes. I’ll try using the vertically hanging wires in the elevator shaft as a makeshift antenna so that EM waves will reach into the facility.”

“I can help you with that,” said Unabara, adding that he didn’t have anything else to do anyway.

Tsuchimikado shook his head. “You’re standing in for our man on the phone. If you make an emergency call, it should temporarily connect you with the General Board. Get in touch with them, and just to be safe, warn them not to send in agents from any other units. I don’t want a separate crew to start doing things without us realizing and winding up caught in the aftermath when they get themselves killed.”

“Why me?” asked Unabara, confused.

Tsuchimikado grinned. “Because your face will probably be most popular with the old guys.”

“Need I remind you it’s only a rental.”

The boy, not originally even an Asian much less a Japanese person, used an index finger to scratch the cheek on his gentle face that Japanese people would probably find appealing.

Tsuchimikado turned around, back to Accelerator.

“Listen up—the operation starts in fifteen minutes. I think you’ll be fine, but just to be sure, check on your electrode choker again and make sure there’s no other malfunctions that could potentially happen. We can deal with you dying, but not if it means those hostage kids get killed.”

6

The Hula Hoop: the world’s largest particle accelerator.

Constructed two hundred meters underground, the facility could accelerate photons to a maximum of 99.22 percent the speed of light and maintain that state for three hundred seconds.

Still, even this large-scale facility had its limits.

Forcing it to operate at speeds or times higher than it was designed for meant the Hula Hoop would eventually collapse, exposing one-third of Academy City to massive gamma radiation emissions.

The boy hadn’t known that until this very moment.

Well. He’d also never had a masked man hold a gun to his head, nor had his hands ever been tied behind his back. From the same school bus were almost thirty of his classmates, their chaperone teacher, and the bus driver, all trembling together. This very span of time itself was one big clump of reality he’d never experienced before.

“Hold it at fifty percent light speed. The Hula Hoop is a distraction. They won’t negotiate if we use it. That’s why we kidnapped these kids.”

“But if we go too far, won’t city leadership try to bomb us along with the entire underground facility? There aren’t any civilian buildings directly above us, just runways. If they wanted to, they could blow us to hell.”

“That’s what the Hula Hoop is for. If we show them we could potentially cause it to explode at any moment, it’ll prevent the General Board from doing anything drastic.”

“I’ll check the escape routes. Once negotiations are complete, with the accelerator running at about seventy percent, we’ll cause an explosion in its wall, intentionally hitting the control facility with a small-scale blast. Then we’ll go to Special Evacuation Area B and put on the heavy anti-radiation-powered suits to endure the emissions, and while they’re fussing over setting up radiation countermeasures, we’ll cross the wreckage and escape outside.”

Only sinister, eerie words flew back and forth over the boy’s head.

He couldn’t imagine a situation where he would be released safely.

Whether this took a turn for the better or for the worse, none would be saved.

That was all he could could think about.

“Looks like it’s time.”

Ignoring the boy’s terrible quaking, a man who acted like their leader, also in a mask, glanced at his wristwatch.

“Well, I didn’t think the leadership would react without us using anyone…Is the camera ready? The real negotiations start now. Prepare yourselves.”

His words were rife with euphemisms, but the masked people around him, who seemed to be subordinates, responded swiftly. The camera itself wasn’t anything special; they were apparently going to use one built into a cell phone. But it was attached to a weird machine via a cable, maybe so nobody could trace the transmission.

“Video and sound are both ready to go.”

“Hotline to the General Board secured. We’re patching through an Anti-Skill office. We can go live on your signal.”

“Great. Let’s get started.”

Before he even finished speaking, the leader grabbed the boy’s hair in one hand. The boy screamed, more out of surprise than from pain, but the man didn’t care. He dragged the boy away, then tossed him in front of the lens.

The boy wanted to object, but his words caught in his throat before he could.

That was because the leader was ready with a gun that anyone could tell was real.

“One last act of mercy. Blindfold him.”

The young child struggled, but it was no use. His hands were tied behind his back, and even if they hadn’t been, one little kid couldn’t have put up any meaningful resistance. Before he knew it, a piece of cloth was wrapped around his head, covering his eyes.

“Get him on his knees. Start the broadcast.”

In the darkness, someone grabbed his arm and forced him up. And then someone walked up to stand behind him. A cold, hard sensation pressed up against the back of his head.

He heard a small, motor-like noise as the high-efficiency cell phone camera’s autofocus kicked in.

The man standing right behind him began to speak, as though reading from a speech.

“We hoped for a peaceful resolution. Again and again, we offered solutions that would cause the least amount of bloodshed. But it seems our efforts have worked against us. We seem to have given you the impression that we don’t have the nerve to take real action. If that is the case, then allow me to apologize.”

A chill.

The boy could feel the soft hair on his back stand up.

“In order to instill within you the ability to make sane decisions, we’d like to show you how serious we are. However, know that this was never a choice that needed to be made—and this was never blood that had to be spilled. I hope this stings your conscience and makes you regret your foolish judgment.”

The boy heard a click from the gun pressed to the back of his head.

He wasn’t old enough to know that it was the sound of a thumb cocking the hammer, but he understood that it was a definitive cue.

“If you do not reach a swift decision, we promise that even more innocent blood will be spilled. We won’t hold back. We believe we’ve assembled everything necessary to change your minds. Therefore, we are considering using them all if need be. Still, we hope it won’t come to that.”

He wanted to run away.

He wanted to scream something.

But he knew if he did that, things would immediately take a turn for the worse.

“Now, we’ll make use of the first.”

And if he stayed quiet, he’d just be killed.

He knew that, but if he resisted, he’d only be killed even sooner.

He couldn’t make a move.

He knew that if he didn’t move, he’d be killed—but he couldn’t even lift a single finger of the hands tied behind his back.

“The negotiations start now.”

He was frustrated.

Realizing this emotion, which lay deeper down than his fear, the boy finally opened his trembling mouth.

“…This…”

It wasn’t to plead for his life.

“…This plan will never work…”

It was the opposite.

“It doesn’t matter how fancy your tricks are. It doesn’t matter how scary your weapons are. Your evil deeds will never be allowed to happen.”

A counterattack, at the end of the line—he wanted to do at least this much.

“I have faith. The world is a lot kinder than villains like you think it is!! You might have used a crazy plan to cover it up, but I know that a hero will catch you!! And save everyone. Someone out there, in this big world, who will save us!!”

“I see.”

The leader, standing behind the boy, addressed him for the first time.

What he said was quite simple.

“Even if there was, it looks like they weren’t in time for you.”

The child heard a soft grinding noise.

The sound came from inside the gun, resounding directly in his skull from the muzzle pressed to his head. Because the man slowly pulled back on the trigger, a small spring was contracting.

The blindfolded boy shut his eyes anyway.

Nevertheless, until the end, he whispered to himself.

(“…I believe.”)

Da-bamm!! came the sound of a gunshot.

It rattled the boy’s skull, scattering the scent of iron into the area.

At that very moment—

A gunshot, no more and no less, had rang out in the control facility of the Hula Hoop, the world’s largest particle accelerator. Dark-red liquid splattered on the floor, and a metallic smell filled the air, mixing with a faint, drifting stench particular to lit gunpowder. An empty bullet casing fell to the ground, and a shrill clang followed.

A gun had definitely gone off.

A bullet had been fired—no ifs, ands, or buts—mercilessly, piercing flesh and bone.

Thump came a dull noise. It was the sound of the boy’s small body falling to the hard floor. His children’s brand clothing was awfully stained in red now. It was fresh blood and nothing else.

However.

That blood didn’t belong to the boy.

It was flowing from the leader’s arm, which had been holding the gun up behind him.

A third party had shot the masked man from a blind spot to the side.

“Wha…?”

For a few moments, the leader, dazed, looked at his arm—the gun blown out of his hand, and his arm bent at an unnatural forty-five-degree angle. The pain seemed to hit him shortly after.

But he never screamed.

As soon as the man’s gaze shifted somewhere outside the cell phone camera’s range, more gunshots followed. Ga-bam-bam-bam!! Bullets penetrated the man’s entire body, sending him careening to the side.

Several panicked voices from the other masked people overlapped.

But then someone outside the video frame fired off even more bullets. The man filming with the cell phone was shot, and he fell to the floor along with the phone he’d been holding. From the Academy City leaders’ points of view, who were probably watching through that camera, only the ceiling would be visible now, and then just gray noise. The lens had cracked.

Now with no video, the blindfolded boy’s words came through alone, in a quiet, quavering tone:

“A he…hero…?”

“A villain.”

And then, on the heels of this:

A reply came, sinister, as if to blacken out the place.

“A villainous piece of shit.”

There was a crunch.

It was the sound of the villain’s sole coming down on the cell phone the terrorists been using to film, utterly crushing it.

And with that noise, the number-one enemy in Academy City began his battle.

7

Level Five espers were still only human.

Number one or not, it didn’t change the fact that he was a primate like the rest of them.

Whatever special powers he had, he would die if he couldn’t breathe air; he would starve if he didn’t eat food. He had a normal lifespan, too. If you stabbed his internal organs, it should kill him no problem.

Any human who shared these weaknesses could be killed.

No matter how monstrous, if they could still be classified as a human, it was doable.

Spark Signal was originally a special unit with the goal of aggressively eliminating any who threatened to leak Academy City secrets. They had fought many powerful espers during their term of service. That was why Spark Signal could appropriately respond to espers who had strange, unfathomable powers. They could calmly size up the enemy and formulate a means of defeating them.

This was what the masked former members of Spark Signal thought.

They honestly believed it was possible.

However.

Was Academy City’s number one really human?

Roar!! A whirling blast wind tore through the air.

The bullets caught in it seemed to scatter every which way, but then every single shot hit one of the former Spark Signal terrorists.

Of course, they hadn’t executed this grand design only to wind up being shot like this. Sensing a serious threat to their lives, they mobilized all the prowess and knowledge they’d cultivated in order to stand up to the white-haired Level Five with all their might, hoping to find a way to escape.

One tried to hide behind an obstacle and fire a rifle.

Another tried to take a hostage and convince him to stop.

Yet another tried to use explosives to take out a pillar, aiming to crush him under so many pounds of debris.

But all of it was pointless.

Not ineffective—it simply had no meaning.

The bullets didn’t work.

As soon as the rounds made contact with the monster’s skin, they bounced straight back and punched right through the shooter.

The hostage didn’t work.

Right as the terrorist reached out to grab a child to use as a shield, his arm snapped in an unnatural direction.

The explosives didn’t work.

Before he could hit the detonator, his fingers were crushed, along with the transmitter they held, and then blown away.

No …

That isn’t all, thought one of the masked former Spark Signal members.

The man, cold sweat thick on his face invisible to the outside, realized the true terror welling up within him was due to something else.

No.

Academy City’s number-one Level Five, Accelerator, wasn’t arrogant.

He didn’t boast needlessly about his overwhelming power. When he saw the terrorists dropping like flies, he didn’t slip up. If he had slipped up, they might have still had a chance, but Accelerator wouldn’t allow even that slim possibility.

Sometimes using his ability and sometimes relying on his gun, he brandished the least amount of power necessary along the shortest route to obtain the greatest results. This was no longer a “man vs. man” battle, nor a match of “man vs. monster.” There was no emotion involved in this violence.

As an analogy:

He was a heat-seeking missile precisely tracking a desperately fleeing jet from behind.

The argument wasn’t over who would win. It was whether or not the attack reached its targets. And if it did, death undoubtedly awaited. The calamity Accelerator was causing had already reached such a level.

How much work do you think we put into this plan …?

Using his ability, the Level Five somehow moved in a low arc through the air to attack the former Spark Signal man’s teammates. He watched, dumbfounded, trying to make sense of the chaos in his mind.

Spark Signal’s abilities are on full display, plus we had several contingency plans prepared in addition to the main one … And yet, and yet … He’s crushing us like a pile of dead leaves … ?!

And then it happened.

After another one of his teammates went down, their consciousness draining along with their freshly spilled blood, the monster’s head swiveled to look at him.

What are we supposed to do … ?

The former Spark Signal terrorist locked gazes with those red eyes.

They’re almost like a laser sight, he thought.

What are we supposed to—?!

There was no winning or losing.

He’d been locked onto—and the attack was incoming.

The time required had been just three hundred seconds.

Then, silence and peace visited the world’s largest particle accelerator, the Hula Hoop, once more.

8

Now the boy knew.

He couldn’t see what was going on through the blindfold. But the electricity in the air had gone away. The very world of despair those terrorists had created was gone.

He heard a gasp from nearby.

It was probably one of his classmates or one of the adults with them.

He couldn’t sense any relief in their sighs. Maybe the way the situation was resolved had been too violent.

The boy frantically worked his bound hands. Just when he thought he was about to tear his skin on the rope, the loop suddenly fell off one of his hands. He moved his trembling arm and took the blindfold off his face.

The first light he’d seen in some time stunned him at first.

The boy put a hand up to block the fluorescent white light, squinted, and then took a look around. He had to be somewhere around here. Thinking that, the boy’s head stopped in a certain direction.

Along the wall.

Terrorists, beaten and battered but still barely breathing, lay there. And facing those terrorists was a person with white hair and a crutch. He was facing away from the boy. It wasn’t visible what sort of expression this person was making.

…That was the feeling the boy got.

But maybe that wasn’t the reality.

After all, a moment later, the white-haired person had disappeared into thin air. Without any announcement, as though two frames of film had been cut together wrong, the white-haired person was no longer anywhere to be found.

The boy stared at the empty space he’d occupied for some time.

A villainous piece of shit.

He thought about who that person could be. The boy had been hoping for a hero, but all he had instead was that unflinching answer.

9

“Nice job out there. Looks like you have a pretty heroic streak, huh?”

When Awaki Musujime spoke to him, Accelerator very nearly pulled the trigger on her.

He’d disappeared so suddenly, of course, because he’d retreated using her Move Point. Now that he’d eliminated Spark Signal, the only things to be done were for the Hula Hoop employees to unlock the doors and elevators and quickly release the children onto the surface. There was no more need for a villain.

Accelerator took a look around.

They were in the basement of the air force building they’d originally arrived at before his assault. On the spacious floor, polished to a shine like a high-class department store, stood not only Musujime, but also Tsuchimikado and Unabara.

“One thing is bugging me,” said Accelerator. “It’s about what those shithead terrorists were demanding from the higher-ups.”

Tsuchimikado’s eyebrow arched with a twitch. “…I decided to look into it while you were storming the castle, but their guard is even tighter than I expected. All we know is that it must be something the higher-ups really aren’t happy about—”

“I don’t want to hear about your incompetence. Shut up and listen to me, you half-wit,” spat Accelerator, getting back on topic. “While I was turning those assholes down there into meatballs, I heard a few of their screechings. I think they were crying because they wouldn’t be able to achieve their goal at this rate.”

“…Are you saying they leaked what their demands were as well?” prompted Unabara.

Accelerator was silent for a moment.

Eventually, he answered, “…Dragon.”

The simple six-letter word filled the air with tension.

Even in the hidden nanodevice network Underline, that information was so secret only its name existed. Even Accelerator and the others, who lived in the heart of darkness, didn’t know what it was—but perhaps the act of searching for it would be the link they needed to oppose the leadership of the all-powerful Academy City. The term had enough weight and meaning behind it to warrant such speculation.

Accelerator, Motoharu Tsuchimikado, Awaki Musujime, Mitsuki Unabara.

They’d formed a temporary allied front, each searching for what Dragon was, each for their own reasons.

However—

Apparently, they weren’t the only ones chasing the Dragon.

Then, as if offering proof, Accelerator said:

“‘Disclose information on Dragon at once.’…Apparently, that was the only thing those shithead terrorists were demanding. Meaning the higher-ups managed to trick us into destroying a clue without knowing it.”

INTERLUDE ONE

Academy City, District 1.

This district, lined with nothing but facilities presiding over judicature and administration, had none of the vitality of the other normal districts. Residential areas were absent as a matter of course, but restaurants were also few and far between. In exchange for condensing the mechanisms required to maintain a smoothly running megacity into one area, this district held only the bare minimum needed to function as a human settlement.

It was a sprawling, highly mechanical landscape, and yet, mixed within that zone was one extremely peculiar building:

The General Board office building.

Considering how it occupied an entire skyscraper, it went beyond “office building.” Combined with the fact that its upkeep costs were 100 percent paid for by taxes, the term palace might have been more appropriate. In any case, it was an extremely extravagant building, and it had been prepared for but one of the twelve leaders of Academy City.

That man’s name was Thomas Platinaburg.

Thomas—the building’s owner—was currently standing in a vast, gorgeous room within his tower that resembled the audience chambers that could be found often in RPG castles. The space, used for meetings with visitors, took up one whole floor.

His surroundings were currently absent of subordinates, however. Given his position, it wouldn’t be strange if Thomas brought countless bodyguards with him, but he purposely distanced others from this expansive room. And right now, this official General Board member was, in fact, meeting with a guest.

A guest he’d called personally from outside the city.

A guest who was a sniper for hire.

She was a tall woman. Fair-skinned, with long blond hair. Her beauty could have easily earned her a spot to shine under stage lights, rather than stand on muddy battlefields. But at her feet, as she sat on the sofa, was a bag large enough to fit an entire person, most likely containing her “tool of the trade.”

She was relatively famous in the industry—though Thomas didn’t know whether being famous was an honor for their particular line of work.

“How is Mr. Sunazara doing, Miss Stephanie Gorgeouspalace?”

Thomas named two people.

Stephanie was the sniper’s name. And Sunazara was the name of the man that sniper had looked up to as a master.

The woman nodded straightforwardly in response. “Things are going well. He hasn’t woken up yet, though. Still, it’s all possible because of the Academy City life support equipment you lent us, and so you have my thanks. Without it, he would have been gone by now.”

“No, no. It pains me quite a lot as well. It seems we had a minor disagreement and some other minor issues, but your friend was still harmed by one of Academy City’s people.”

Once before, five secret organizations—Group, Item, Block, Member, and School—had fought, and several had fallen apart. Chimitsu Sunazara had been hired by one of them and subsequently lost to someone from a different organization. The bomb he fell prey to had blasted an entire building apart, leaving him heavily wounded and comatose.

When Thomas Platinaburg had heard about the news, he had secretly retrieved Chimitsu Sunazara and sent him and a life support–equipped bed out of the city to Stephanie.

Not out of pure kindness, of course. It was to indebt her to him, to bring him business that would be to his benefit.

“If you don’t mind me asking, who would you like me to target?”

“Oh, yes. I will prepare the documents separately, but…You may know his name already. Academy City’s number one—the Level Five known as Accelerator.”

This request wasn’t made as a representative of Academy City. On the contrary, it was an extremely personal ambition.

On September 30, Accelerator, who had engaged an Amata Kihara–led Hound Dog force in battle, raided Thomas Platinaburg’s personal residence while searching for information and even fired a shotgun at Thomas himself.

And this here was his act of retaliation, pure and simple.

Of course, it was retaliation in two ways—both simple revenge on an emotional front and a clever way of disciplining his subordinates who couldn’t keep things under control.

“Can you do it?”

“If you tell me to.”

Her answer was what he’d expected. He’d had the “consideration” to distance his subordinates from the actual talks, and above all, Thomas had prepared a trump card.

“When firing on the target, there is no need to worry about collateral damage. No matter who you involve in the process, we will cover it up…Yes, and if you wish to fill Saiai Kinuhata and the other former members of Item with lead the way they did to Mr. Sunazara, that’s be fine by me.”

“Well, well. This on top of everything you’ve already done for Mr. Sunazara. Yes, Academy City’s technology is truly a wonderful thing. I have never seen healing devices quite like that.”

“Ha-ha. There’s more than just good technology in this city, but I’m proud when it finds peaceful uses.”

“Yes, quite…It is incredible that you managed to place a small transmitter inside Mr. Sunazara’s wounded body. It seems slightly different from a basic nanodevice, however. Still, one cannot quite find something so miniaturized inside a body anywhere else.”

A moment later.

A chill permeated the room’s air, all the way to its corners.

Except…it wasn’t the air. Not on close inspection.

It was just Thomas Platinaburg himself, perceiving the world around him again, this time through the filter of terror.

“Please, wait.”

Thomas held out a hand to stop her.

“I’m sure you’re well aware of how vital the technology that went into that life support machine is. It may be downgraded to an extent for use on the outside, but it still has incredible value as Academy City tech. We wanted to deliver Chimitsu Sunazara to you as swiftly and safely as possible. However, we cannot have our life support technology leaking to external actors. That was why we put that in him. Without it, we wouldn’t have been able to get Mr. Sunazara, sleeping in his bed, to you this quickly.”

“I see.”

At this time, Thomas Platinaburg failed to notice something. No one could reasonably blame him, but it was a fatal oversight.

After all…

Stephanie Gorgeouspalace never normally spoke so politely.

And the other fact…

…was that purposely changing her tone like this meant she was suppressing her emotions to an extreme degree.

“Well then, aside from the grain-sized transmitter, he’s been fitted with devices that give off shocks, so you could stop his four major organs at any time with one signal…Is that also part of the basic safety precautions?”

A shock of another kind shot through Thomas’s body.

An unpleasant sweat dripped down his skin, all over his body.

But it was already too late.

The next thing he knew, Stephanie, who had been sitting on the couch, quickly blurred and appeared directly in front of him. She reached out with her right hand, and with the feather pen she’d gripped in it, stabbed it straight into Thomas’s gut.

Thomas didn’t feel the pain of his flesh tearing.

There was no time for that.

“I fear I must return the favor.”

When Stephanie pulled the feather pen out, there was a small transceiver in her hand. What had she buried in the wound? And the transceiver’s frequency—what was it supposed to send a signal to? When Thomas came up with a guess, he felt the fear of death so clearly it paralyzed his most basic sensation of pain.

“Your poor tricks were a mistake. If you had been up-front about returning Mr. Sunazara and making this request of me, I would have been glad to be your pawn.”

“…Wa…Wait…”

Thomas Platinaburg, face trembling, glared at the assassin…and more specifically, at her thumb on the transceiver. Abandoning the polite speech he’d been using for show, he made his final attempt at negotiation in a ragged voice.

“…If you…cause a mess here…it could get in the way of your revenge…If you would be up-front…about letting me help you…you could easily…avenge Sunazara…”

“Oh, yes, I forgot to mention one thing,” answered Stephanie immediately, without seeming to have particularly given it much thought.

Almost like she was cutting the conversation itself off.

“My revenge is against all of Academy City.”

An instant later, she pressed the transceiver button.

The transmitter buried in Thomas’s wound responded quickly, executing a special electric shock. It swiftly stopped four of his organs, which put an end to him as well.

His final moments were one long scream.

Without so much as a glance to the fallen corpse, Stephanie pocketed the transceiver, her expression annoyed at the triviality.

She began to hear the pattering of footsteps nearby.

Thomas’s black-suited bodyguards had probably heard his screams and were finally coming. Judging from the number of people she noticed on her way to this reception room, she estimated there would be around two hundred of them.

But Stephanie’s expression was utterly unconcerned. Humming to herself, she unhitched the fasteners of the giant bag at her feet, then withdrew her “tool of the trade.”

It was no sniper rifle.

Her weapon of choice was a light automatic shotgun.

She could carry it around, with effort, but it was a special firearm, based on the high rate of fire of a machine gun and normally used while mounted on a tripod, except its ammunition was purely shotgun rounds. A custom gun, designed just for Stephanie, with enough destructive power that firing at point-blank range would transform an armored car into a crunched-up aluminum can.

The reason Stephanie, who nominally worked as a sniper, had brought a direct weapon like that was very simple.

“Mr. Sunazara took potshots from afar.”

At last, mixing in a somehow nostalgic tone, Stephanie Gorgeouspalace finally returned to her usual voice as she spoke to herself.

“But isn’t it simpler to get up close and start firing like crazy?”

Bam!!

The massive doors crashed inward.

At the same time, a calamitous storm thundered out from her shotgun.

Her revenge had begun.