CHAPTER 3

Destruction Opens Yet Another Path
Battle_to_Die.

1

Accelerator and the others had returned to the camper.

The air was heavy.

There was normally no festive, jovial mood when the four were together, but this was far worse. The camper interior was tense beyond the breaking point. The stress could have killed small animals.

“…And so, everything goes the way Shiokishi wanted it,” spat Accelerator. “Anyone who tries to learn about Dragon gets erased wholesale. I bet those guys we took captive in the Hula Hoop aren’t alive anymore, either.”

“Sugitani, you said his name was?” said Tsuchimikado suddenly, leaning against the wall. “Back when Shiokishi made that video call to us, he said the name of a couple of subordinates—I think they were Sugitani and Minobe.”

“Still,” said Musujime tiredly, her fingertip playing with her hair. “I wonder what Dragon is, in the end.”

If it was a question they could answer so simply, nobody here would be suffering, but she couldn’t help asking it.

Unabara glanced at Tsuchimikado for just a moment. Tsuchimikado, a sorcerer like him, gave no reaction, so Unabara decided to put in his own two cents. “Unlike all of you on the science side, I happen to be on the magic side. If you want my opinion, the term dragon has religious connotations to it. For example…Angels.”

Accelerator’s shoulders twitched when he heard the word.

All because of one night:

September 30.

That night, Accelerator and Hound Dog’s Amata Kihara had fought to the death over a girl named Last Order. And there, he had witnessed something he might call an angel. A mad dance of glowing wings, each over ten meters long. There were still parts about the incident that day he didn’t fully understand, but he’d done some of his own research and figured out a few things:

The wings’ appearance was connected to Amata Kihara and Last Order.

And the name of the virus Kihara used that day was ANGEL.

He lived in Academy City, so he couldn’t just discard it as something magical, something occult.

It could be that Unabara’s viewpoint was completely misguided, and that Dragon really was something entirely different…but if there was a possibility that angel and Dragon were connected, Accelerator wouldn’t be able to stay uninvolved. It would link Last Order to Dragon, Academy City’s best-kept secret.

… What aren’t we seeing?

From the start, Last Order and the other Sisters had supposedly been created as materials for the Accelerator experiment. They should be useless now that the experiment was over. And yet, they were very deeply related to the city’s depths.

At this point, he had to start wondering whether his initial assumptions were wrong.

In other words, whether there had been something else to the Level Six shift experiment.

If all these results had been in accordance with someone’s plans, they could have conceived the experiment as something designed to fail from the outset.

… What have that brat and I gotten wrapped up in?

Accelerator didn’t personally care what happened to the former Spark Signal members who had occupied the private salon. But the fact that they could have gotten clues about Dragon in that situation only to have them snatched away made him feel worse, powerless.

“For now,” continued Unabara, “the string of incidents starting with the Hula Hoop has ended, so…that would mean we all go home now.”

“What about Dragon?” asked Accelerator pointedly. “We gonna go hide under our beds without finding anything?”

“…What, then you’d rather raid Shiokishi’s hideout?!” spat back Tsuchimikado, amazed. “Considering he wears a powered suit around the clock, he’s serious about protecting himself. His home base is probably as strong as a reinforced fallout shelter. We’re not going to get in so easily—after all, he would have designed it assuming people like us were the ones coming for him.”

Without a word, Accelerator turned his glare on Musujime. She had a means of transportation that ignored three-dimensional limitations: Move Point.

Musujime, however, shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t think how we do it is the issue.”

“What does that mean?”

“Only that we can’t peacefully invade a fortress of that scale. We’re up against one of Academy City’s twelve leading figures. To put it bluntly, we’d need the resolve to become terrorists on the level of those at the Hula Hoop.”

“…If we could ally with someone equally prominent—in other words, one of the General Board’s official members—we might get in smoothly from using politics or have the fortress itself be opened,” added Unabara. “Though that’s predicated on the assumption that there’s someone like that we can ally with, of course.”

Accelerator, Motoharu Tsuchimikado, Awaki Musujime, and Mitsuki Unabara each had people they needed to protect. Considering that, unraveling the Dragon mystery through terroristic brute force wasn’t a very good plan.

Academy City’s number one thought for a moment or two about a certain young woman, casually looking over to the camper window as he did so—and then, suddenly announced, “Doesn’t look like we have much time to prepare.”

“?”

Not understanding, but deciding to observe what Accelerator was staring at for now, the rest directed their gazes out the same small window.

A moment later.

Ga-boom!!

The payload of a portable antitank missile launcher collided with the camper, the explosion transforming it into scrap iron.

Naturally, it would take more than that to kill the likes of them.

The camper had several entrances and exits. Tsuchimikado and Unabara each jumped out separate doors, Musujime used Move Point to escape, and Accelerator used his ability to bust through the wall himself and flee in the direction opposite where the missile came in.

The four, however, didn’t group back up and confront their new enemy—or anything of that sort.

They each fled, scattered, following different routes. That was how Group did things.

… Must be Shiokishi. We learned too much about Dragon during these incidents, and now we’re targets, too, predicted Accelerator calmly, diving into a narrow alley for the moment. Which means it’s likely he put together an assault team in full knowledge of my “weakness.” Instead of trying to kill me in the shortest possible time, they make it a battle of attrition to drain my electrode battery. They know I’d break them like toys if they just rushed in.

For a moment, he wondered about the camper’s driver, but he didn’t spare him many thoughts. He hadn’t heard any screams right after the blast hit. The driver was probably an accomplice; it was likely they fled before the attack.

… But that doesn’t mean I have to stick to running away like they want me to. It’s actually a plus that I know who the enemy is now. Better than not knowing who I’m fighting anyway. If I find their group first, then exploit the right blind spots to wipe them out, I won’t have any issues.

And to use a tactic like that, he’d have to shake them off for now. He took a left, then another left into an alley, trying to get a look at the enemy lines from behind.

Greee.

All of a sudden, Accelerator’s electrode shut off.

… ?!

Accelerator, who had been adjusting his leg force using his vector ability, promptly lost control and fell to the road. It wasn’t purely a physical problem. A thin sensation akin to a numbness racked his brain, right up to the deepest parts of his mental faculties.

As though he were drunk or sleep addled, his thoughts became incoherent and lost their continuous flow.

He understood his current state of being on the ground but couldn’t connect that to any thought processes that could tell him what to do next.

What had attacked Accelerator as he squirmed along like a caterpillar was a very simple phenomenon.

Someone had controlled his electrode switch remotely.

And if it had affected him despite being deep inside an urban canyon, they were probably spreading the remote-control waves over a wide area. Accelerator’s ability borrowed power from an electromagnetic network composed of almost ten thousand military-grade clones, and if he was cut off from that, he wouldn’t be able to use his ability at all.

Normally, Accelerator would have been able to consider all this in an instant—and even think of a countermeasure.

But in the current situation, he’d been robbed of the very ability to think.

“…”

Gritting his teeth, the fallen Accelerator looked at his right hand.

It held a homemade crutch he’d added features to for times like these.

It had all kinds of motors and sensors built in, but it hadn’t retained any function to suitably carry Accelerator when his ability was removed. Right now, he faced the very real problem of not being able to get up.

In the meantime, he heard several sets of footsteps getting closer.

He could feel a sense of crisis at something, but he couldn’t concretely relate that to what he should do in response.

“…”

Footsteps approached from the other direction, too, where the alley let out. He was boxed in now, but Accelerator couldn’t even calmly analyze the sense of danger.

Someone grabbed his arm. Then they threw him into the passenger’s seat of a sports car parked near the alley’s mouth.

There was nothing he could do. The car zoomed off, driving through the nighttime streets at a high speed.

As the distance from Shiokishi’s pursuit unit increased, the remote-control waves lost effectiveness, which gave Accelerator his faculties back. Number One returned his electrode switch to normal, glared at his crutch, and then looked at the driver.

“…You?”

He remembered the face.

It was the high school–age boy who’d gotten wrapped up in the explosion in District 3. He was supposed to be with the wounded pregnant woman and heading for a hospital in District 7…

“Why are you suddenly so surprised?” asked the high school kid, dropping the sports car to a legal speed. “Anyway, I guess your body really does move when it has to. Thanks to that, I didn’t have to let the person I owe my life to—no, someone who protected something even more important—die.”

The high schooler smiled from his eyes.

Accelerator, however, pulled his gun from his pants belt and smoothly leveled it at him.

“…You learn quite a bit, even in a bullshit world like this,” he spat. “Rescues in the nick of time don’t happen very often, for example. Especially if one of the General Board members, Shiokishi, set up this raid. I’d never coincidentally run into a familiar face.”

“…”

“You’re the same as me, aren’t you? Someone who lives in the world of evil. Who put you up to this? Did Shiokishi think up a two-layered trap?!”

The high schooler, gun trained on him, looked not at Accelerator but straight ahead.

“You are right…,” he said, the words coming out like molasses. “I’ve got the same scent as you. Totally different grade, though. My job is to be a lackey and support the big shots like you. Grunt characters bought at a discount and expended wholesale. But,” he added, “no matter how foul I may be, that doesn’t change the fact that you saved someone more important than my own life. And I’m not rotten enough to let a guy like that die without helping.”

“…”

“This isn’t just some cheap I-owe-you-one situation. Totally different level. It’s a debt, and I’m repaying this debt. If you don’t like it, you can feel free to shoot me right now.”

For a short while, Accelerator stared at the side of the high schooler’s face.

He never looked his way.

He was probably convinced he wouldn’t get shot.

Accelerator tsked, then moved his gun’s aim away from him. “Keep going.”

“How far?” asked the young man with a smirk.

Without thinking about it too much, Accelerator answered, “I’ve gotta kill that Shiokishi bastard.”

Shiokishi of the General Board had bared his fangs at Accelerator and the others to make sure certain information on Dragon wouldn’t get out. Once he knew his first wave hadn’t been able to finish them off, he would probably go after the most effective vulnerability.

In other words, he’d take Last Order hostage.

Accelerator presumed he hadn’t yet played that card. If he’d had a hostage from the start, he’d have threatened them before attacking and tried to contain them.

Accelerator had to settle things now, before Shiokishi could move on to plan B.

To defend or to attack?

He had the option of quickly grabbing Last Order and going to ground…but he didn’t think that was a good idea. It wouldn’t be enough. What he wanted to protect wasn’t her alone, but the very world she loved. It was too difficult even for Accelerator to keep fighting while protecting everyone around Last Order at the same time, like Aiho Yomikawa and Kikyou Yoshikawa.

Then what should he do?

After thinking for a moment, a wicked grin came over Accelerator’s face.

What he would do was simple.

Victory favors the bold.

Kill before being killed.

A duel of speed, of which could wipe out the enemy camp faster.

… Well, obviously, thought Academy City’s number one deep down, letting out a low, unintentional laugh. I’m already covered in blood—this suits me far better!!

2

A dull, throbbing pain ran through Saiai Kinuhata’s head.

Stephanie’s automatic shotgun had delivered massive damage despite Kinuhata’s Nitrogen Armor. Without her shielding, Kinuhata was an incredibly frail (according to her) girl. If the shotgun shells kept pelting her, one would eventually be fatal.

… Ow. Taking more than seven hits when I’m super-close, like closer than five meters, would be really bad…!!

Kinuhata did some broad analysis from the damage she’d sustained as she burst onto a slope leading out from the District 3 underground. The subterranean mall was apparently closed off because some terrorists had been running amok, but…

“Nya-ha-ha!”

Behind her, Stephanie laughed, wielding her hunk of steel over a meter long in both hands. The large firearm was extremely strange to see against the scenery of a Japanese city.

“Your escape route is quite straightforward considering you’re running from bullets, isn’t it?”

“?!”

Another volley of shots followed without hesitation.

Bshaaaaa!! A long sound from many short ones overlapping.

Stephanie would have been aiming down at Kinuhata on the slope from aboveground. In other words, the ground, that thick wall of asphalt and concrete, should have gotten in the way.

Nevertheless, a rain of bullets stormed toward Kinuhata.

It was like an avalanche. The scattershot was powerful enough to turn an armored car into a sponge within three seconds, and it took her a few seconds to realize it was even tearing away chunks of the artificial ground. And during all that, a ton of pellets struck her body.

She slammed into the floor once, then bounded back up like a basketball. As she did, she desperately balled herself up to roll over the floor and avoid the concentrated attack. Because the concrete that made up the underground mall’s ceiling (and therefore, the aboveground surface) was destroyed, parked passenger vehicles and such also rolled down in the avalanche.

“!!”

Kinuhata didn’t pause to think.

She grabbed a car falling at her with one hand. Her petite palm touched the door area and made an awful cracking noise. Countless wrinkles shot through the metal frame, as though she’d clutched a cushion.

She’d acquired a hulk weighing about five hundred kilograms, but it wasn’t so she could use it as a defensive shield.

It was a weapon to throw at her opponent and crush her.

That was right when Stephanie Gorgeouspalace stepped on the landslide of concrete wreckage to approach the underground mall.

Her footing was unstable, creating a situation where she wouldn’t be able to immediately jump left or right to avoid it.

And Kinuhata planned on using all her strength to kill her.

… Comin’ at ya!!

She twisted her upper body once, fueling it, and swung around the passenger vehicle. Now she just had to let go, and an attack like a giant, building-destroying wrecking ball would fly straight at Stephanie.

She didn’t know if the woman was a soldier from outside or a mercenary, but she wouldn’t be able to stand up to an Academy City–made Level Four.

That was what she thought anyway.

Ga-krrsh!!

Stephanie’s shotgun struck the vehicle right in the fuel tank.

It was a literal instant before Kinuhata let go.

Wha—?

The car’s rear half transformed into a crushed empty can. Then, all that fluid stored in the tank ignited like a bomb.

Sound vanished.

Her vision was wiped out by a single flash of light.

Struck by the blast wind, Kinuhata’s body hurtled to the side. Intense light and heat rushed into the underground mall, which had little illumination save for its fluorescent lighting, and black smoke crawled along the ceiling.

Her counterattack had been stopped by yet another.

But what surprised Kinuhata wasn’t only Stephanie’s quick wits.

It was the foundation underpinning them.

She’s … used to this? This outsider is super-knowledgeable about how to fight espers like me … ?

Logically, that was impossible. Even within Academy City, where supernatural powers were just a part of life, not many would be able to lead the Level Four Kinuhata around this easily. And there couldn’t have been a whole lot of individuals who could match her technology and tactics from the outside world.

“Wait…”

After realizing that, she unsteadily looked up.

Stephanie, shotgun in hand, was descending the rubble and entering the underground mall.

“Wait, are you…?”

“Oh, you finally figured it out? Before becoming a mercenary, I was an average person who lived in a peaceful country…It was the guilt. I knew there were people suffering out of fear of bullets and artillery and land mines, yet, I could fully enjoy a relaxed peace. That was why I decided to save the people embroiled in warfare.”

As the blonde pointed her hot barrel at her, she smiled and said, “Yes, I was originally from Academy City. I used Anti-Skill’s arresting techniques for killing. That was why Mr. Sunazara, a sniper, looked at you so oddly, wasn’t it?”

So that was why.

Why Stephanie Gorgeouspalace knew exactly how to kill espers.

“If I remember right, you can use the nitrogen in the air to block my attacks, right?”

Slip.

She pointed her light submachine gun in a completely different direction.

“I’ll start by messing that up. Fortunately, there seem to be many delicious restaurants in this underground mall…How many propane gas tanks would you say there are?”

She pulled the trigger.

3

Accelerator proceeded down the midnight streets in the sports car, chauffeured by the high school student. After getting in touch with Tsuchimikado via cell phone, he learned the other members were currently fleeing using their own routes, like he thought. And then:

“Great. I think you’re the first one to get out of the pursuit unit’s encirclement. I want you to go to District 21 now. There’s an observatory in the mountains.”

“Eh? What, does Shiokishi have a shelter in the mountains, too?”

“No. He’s an official General Board member. If we want to take him down, we’ll need to be prepared politically … Meaning we’ll need someone with the General Board’s level of authority. The twelve board members are a wily bunch. The one at that observatory is probably the only one we can hope for any cooperation from,” explained Tsuchimikado, adding under his breath, “Tsugutoshi Kaizumi is a good person, but the brains of his operation is Seria Kumokawa, a female high school student, who is too much of a genius for him to handle.”

“Well, who the hell’s this person who could help us out?”

“Monaka Oyafune,” answered Tsuchimikado immediately. “She’s having an astronomical observation event as charity with the kids who were kidnapped in the Hula Hoop incident … She’s the best person out of the General Board. I don’t like to do things this way, but she owes us. This might be the only chance we ever have to negotiate with her.”

With that, the sports car Accelerator sat in headed for District 21.

This school district was the only mountainous one in Academy City. Nevertheless, its altitude was extremely low, and even the highest peak only reached about two hundred meters. The district was famous for its reservoir as well as its animal and plant research, but many also knew it as a center for astronomy.

Small parabolic antennae, each about one meter across, possibly a type of radio telescope, lined the slope at constant intervals. The mountain roads Accelerator and the student’s car drove up were intentionally free of most artificial light. Skid marks were visible in several places on hilly, curved parts of the road. Maybe they held illegal street races here on weekends.

The observatory was near the center of the mountains.

It was on a large concrete land, the only flat place here, as though rebelling against the mountains’ slopes. The sports car entered the parking lot. When it did, Accelerator spotted a small bus. There was nobody inside; the kids must have been having fun, safe at the event they’d planned to have from the start.

“You can drop me off here,” said Accelerator, opening the passenger door and pushing the tip of his crutch onto the asphalt.

The high schooler serving as his driver frantically interrupted him. “H-hey, wait a minute! What about my debt to you? Even a grunt like me can tell you got involved in something crazy. I can’t just call it quits after giving you a quick lift.”

“I didn’t do anything amazing. If you do any more than this, I’ll be the one who owes you,” said Accelerator, getting out of the car and standing up on his crutch. “…And if you go any deeper, you could end up a target, too. I don’t care what happens to random lackeys, but if someone uses that pregnant lady I saved as a hostage, it’d leave a bad taste in my mouth.”

“You’re…”

“I’ll contact you if I really need help. Stay hidden until then. It’s important to keep the useful pieces stowed away. That’s how we survive. Let me use you like that.”

“All right. Hey, let’s trade cell numbers. If things get bad, make sure to give me a call.”

They both used their cell phones’ infrared communication function to exchange phone numbers.

After that was completed, the high school student finally drove off in the sports car and left the observatory, albeit reluctantly.

Anyway … thought Accelerator with a short sigh.

The number he’d given him was obviously a dummy he’d set up in advance, and he’d rejected the incoming number as well. Now their connection to each other had disappeared completely. It was Accelerator’s way of tying up loose ends.

He looked toward the large observatory building from the parking lot.

In there was one of the General Board members: Monaka Oyafune. The VIP that would be the key to defeating another board member, Shiokishi.

If she was the best person on the board, then she was probably Accelerator’s polar opposite.

He’d never actually talked to her before, but Oyafune owed Accelerator for two things. The first was, as Tsuchimikado mentioned, the fact that they’d saved those kids at the Hula Hoop. The second was when they’d stopped a sniping attempt on Oyafune during the clash between Group, School, Item, Member, and Block.

Tsuchimikado had a forked tongue, so he probably wanted him to use those points skillfully to get her cooperation—and as was clear from Accelerator’s words and actions, no job was more unsuited to him.

… This is going to be a pain in the ass.

He scratched his head, then walked with his crutch toward the observatory. Whatever the case was, he’d have to see her face-to-face and start talking before anything would happen, but…

“Please go home.”

That was quick, thought Accelerator.

Incidentally, the one who had insulted him as soon as he’d opened his mouth in the parking lot a short distance from the observatory had not been Monaka Oyafune, but a short man who appeared to be her secretary. Accelerator didn’t know how many secretaries the lady had or how many she’d gone through, but the man who stood before him appeared highly strung, glaring at Academy City’s number one and blocking his path to Oyafune.

“And yes, even Mrs. Oyafune was very skilled in her time. She excelled in negotiation and bargaining rather than using force, but she was so feared by foreign diplomats they called her tactics peaceful acts of invasion.”

The secretary’s fists, which had never punched another person before, trembled as he spoke.

“But she’s done with that now. She doesn’t live a life of going back and forth between light and dark anymore. Don’t you understand that? You’ve looked at the peaceful world from the darkness all this time. Don’t you know how difficult and important it is to cast that away? Or are you so addled with your world that you don’t even understand that?”

Accelerator tsked in irritation, but it wasn’t particularly toward what the secretary had to say.

… “Most likely to cooperate,” my ass. This just turned into the biggest pain of them all. How dare he use me like some dime-a-dozen minion. Next time I see him, I’m gonna need to put five bullets in him before I’m satisfied…

He felt something seething in his stomach, but he didn’t show it. Instead, he said, “Sorry to bother you.”

“…You’re…giving up?”

“Hey, you’re the one who told me to. What, would you rather stand your ground and make this a bloodbath?”

“Even if I had to, it wouldn’t change what I need to do.”

The secretary’s face paled, as though he’d only just now considered the possibility. But he still wouldn’t yield the way.

Accelerator questioned, “Can I ask you one thing? What the hell happened to her?”

“…Her daughter,” answered the man after a pause. “When the General Board was deciding on provisions related to the restrictions of weapon export to the outside, Mrs. Oyafune, who was anti-munitions, used her own bargaining tactics to gain advantages with it. She truly hated warfare. But then, an envelope arrived at her office. In it were an unused magnum and a picture of her daughter…Nothing came of it in the end, but I suspect Shiokishi, a supporter of the munitions business.”

“…” Accelerator’s eyebrow very slightly, but very certainly, moved.

As though he’d acknowledged Academy City’s number one as a person now that he’d said he’d leave, the short secretary averted his eyes as he continued. “Mrs. Oyafune withdrew from the front lines after that. She’d live in a sphere that doesn’t contact this city’s darkness, but it also blocks what happens in the darkness without them knowing, in such a way that they won’t go after her…That’s how she wants to live now, foolish though it may sound. It’s a very delicate balance—a golden ratio created by Monaka Oyafune, skilled negotiator…If you and yours intervene, that balance collapses. Her daughter and others close to her would end up being targeted again.”

“That so?” muttered Accelerator under his breath.

Just as he was about to turn his back on the secretary, Monaka Oyafune had finally noticed their little squabble. The old woman came running out to where he was. The secretary’s expression changed, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“Excuse me, but…Who might this be?” asked Oyafune, mystified, looking at Accelerator.

Accelerator had once saved her life in secret from a sniper’s attempt to kill her, but because it had been secret, Oyafune probably didn’t know who he was.

“…Never mind.” He wasn’t about to boast about it, either. Tsuchimikado had told him to use it to his advantage, but that thick-skinned, shameless bastard could go to hell for all he cared. “Just asking directions.”

Finished speaking, Accelerator started to turn his back to Oyafune and her secretary.

But this time, the secretary began to question him.

“…And what about you? You must have at least known things wouldn’t have gone the way you wanted them to. But you came anyway. Here’s my final question: What happened?”

“Why would you need to know?” spat Accelerator in response. “You turned me down, and now you only want to know what’s going on? It would just add to your burden. You’re better off not knowing what sort of trouble is going on between that bastard Shiokishi and me.”

“…” The secretary’s expression shifted.

Details aside, he’d probably gotten a good idea of what was happening. For whatever reason, he knew that Accelerator needed to fight one of the General Board members, and to do that, he needed Oyafune’s assistance as another board member. Nine times out of ten he wouldn’t be able to beat Shiokishi without her help, and even if he had managed, he’d still be treated as a criminal.

Out of reflex, the secretary looked away from Accelerator. “…Sorry.”

“It’s my problem. Nothing you need to get involved with,” Accelerator replied, sounding tired of the nonsense. “I should have just done this myself to begin with. It might cause some problems, but it wouldn’t have gotten you tangled up in it.”

Once the fight with Shiokishi ended, Accelerator would probably be branded a terrorist.

After losing all support, he’d be unable to live life the way he had been. He wouldn’t be able to see Last Order very easily anymore, either. And if their interests clashed, he could also end up fighting Motoharu Tsuchimikado, Mitsuki Unabara, and Awaki Musujime.

But—

So what?

Hadn’t he made this decision for himself? That he’d keep fighting to protect Last Order, even if he had to make an enemy out of Last Order herself? This didn’t change anything. His course was set—he didn’t have to drag Oyafune into it.

“Sorry for bothering you. Forget what you heard here. I’ll settle the score with that shithead myself.”

Without waiting for an answer, Accelerator turned his back completely this time.

But then—

“What are you doing?!”

Suddenly, he heard a new voice.

It belonged to a boy who couldn’t have been older than ten. It was one of the grade school kids who had been part of the astronomical observation charity event. And it was the hostage boy Accelerator had saved at the Hula Hoop in the nick of time.

“You’re the hero from earlier, right?” the kid tried again. “What are you doing here?”

“…Nothing.”

“I heard you talking before.”

Accelerator and the secretary looked at the boy anew. He’d come closer in the meantime. With no hesitation—right up to Academy City’s number-one monster. Without an ounce of caution, probably because he’d saved his life.

“I didn’t know what you were talking about, but you’re going to fight again, right? To save people in a situation like I was in?”

The boy looked straight up into Accelerator’s eyes as he spoke.

“Then I’m coming, too.”

… Are you kidding me? wondered Accelerator, unconsciously wanting to face-palm. “Get lost, stupid brat. Who’s going to fight with whom, here?”

“Well, those people said they’d abandon us!!”

The abrupt comment surprised Monaka Oyafune most of all. The secretary frowned slightly, as if he had an idea.

“I know you wouldn’t fight for something stupid. And I know you’re going somewhere really dangerous! So I’m going, too. I won’t let you be alone. If there are people in trouble like I was, then I want to fight, too!!”

He had no idea what was happening, but he spoke sincerely.

Considering the child’s practical usefulness in combat, it was an all-too-unrealistic request. Despite that, Accelerator didn’t ignore him and leave. Even though he was looking directly down at the boy, he responded to his honest words with an honest reply of his own.

“…I don’t need your help.”

“But—”

“I was alone at the Hula Hoop, idiot. Did it look like I was ever in any danger from those terrorist insects?”

“I don’t know. I was blindfolded.”

“Right. Then I’ll just tell you—I was in no danger then, and I’ll be in none now.”

That wasn’t true.

Accelerator knew the truth; he reigned over the world of darkness, after all—but Monaka Oyafune and her stocky secretary knew it, too.

Accelerator was strong. But in order to wield his power to its fullest in the darkness, he needed the support of several departments and agencies, not the least of which was the General Board. Losing all that, making them into his enemies, turning all of Academy City’s military against him—that bespoke incredible danger.

This wasn’t his problem alone anymore.

It involved everyone he needed to protect.

They could freely control his electrode and block his abilities whenever they chose. Crawling through the mud and rain during the battle like he did with Amata Kihara of the Hound Dogs would be unavoidable.

But…

“I’m the strongest Level Five in the city. Some random brat doesn’t have the right to worry about me.”

Accelerator didn’t mention any of the hardships that awaited him.

The boy didn’t need to know.

What he said was simple. It was so that he wouldn’t drag the boy into the darkness, so that this child wouldn’t be exposed even to a fragment of the risks that would soon befall Accelerator.

“Listen up. Even if you see someone suffering, grabbing a weapon without thinking and killing the thugs makes you as much of a villain as them. Someone who can murder people just because it makes sense to them, without thinking about other people’s feelings or giving them a chance to become better—you can’t call that a good person. You don’t need to turn into that. That’s my territory. Something I need to do alone.”

That was courageous, and only those who knew the details would have understood that.

Monaka Oyafune and her secretary both only understood a small piece of it.

“I can fight just fine on my own. There’s no room for someone like you.”

“…I still want to,” said the boy abruptly, resisting the gentle words that tore him down. “I still want to fight, too.”

Then the boy looked up at Academy City’s strongest Level Five and shouted at the top of his lungs:

“I don’t want to give Academy City to cowards like them!!”

Other people finally seemed to notice the commotion.

Several men in black, maybe other secretaries or the facility’s security, came up to them, and one placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. The gesture itself was gentle, but it was clearly for the purpose of getting him away from Oyafune. Even as the man restrained him, the boy didn’t turn away from Accelerator’s gaze. Even when their teacher came out a few moments later, he looked into his eyes until the end.

Accelerator watched the boy for a while as they brought him back to his classmates at the astronomical observation event. And he wasn’t the only one.

Monaka Oyafune, official member of the Academy City General Board, was watching the boy go as well.

“…You mentioned Shiokishi before, didn’t you?”

“Mrs. Oyafune!!” the secretary said frantically, trying to stop her.

But Oyafune was looking directly at Accelerator. She knew, thanks to the incident with her daughter, how politically fearsome Shiokishi could be.

She also knew the dangers of this battleground that Accelerator was about to enter.

In contrast, Accelerator spoke his next words as though spitting them out. “Nothing you need to worry about.”

“By that, I take it…you intend to fight him, like that boy said.”

Oyafune gave a short sigh, considering the boy’s final words.

I don’t want to give Academy City to cowards like that!

The boy didn’t have a particular enemy in mind. In his mind, the “cowards” were just a vague image about the darkness that lurked in the city.

But perhaps that was why Monaka Oyafune thought the way she did. As someone who knew about the city’s darkness but decided to stop fighting—didn’t that make her one of those cowards?

She was merely one old woman who tried to argue things out with the world, without shedding blood or relying on military force, using only her powers of negotiation. Was she not someone who could proudly object to hearing the word coward applied to her?

“…I wonder what I should do,” she murmured suddenly.

“Hell if I know,” answered Accelerator, clicking his tongue, peeved. “It’s your life. You decide.”

The words cut to her core, and despite herself, she smiled.

Accelerator could deliver that line so assuredly because that was how he lived his own life. Even now, he was protecting something.

Monaka Oyafune placed her hand on something nearby.

It was a black, bulletproof car.

She placed her right hand on the expensive vehicle’s roof first, and then placed her left hand on it in the same way. Then, she turned to face the car fully.

Bang!!

She drove her fist as hard as she could into the car.

“Mrs. Oyafune!!” cried the secretary.

But she ignored him. For the first time in a very long time, she’d felt the pain of damaging something in her fist. She turned to face Accelerator again, her expression looking like she’d expelled all the negative emotions she had held deep down.

“…My eyes are finally open.”

“Give me a break. I just decided I’d do this alone like a minute ago, you know,” said Accelerator, almost like asking for confirmation.

“It’s my life. I get to decide,” she answered immediately. “When I received that photograph of my daughter along with a magnum, I decided that breaking my own fangs would be the most appropriate way to protect what’s important to me.”

“…”

“But I wonder why I didn’t think like this: ‘They’ve severely underestimated me by going after my daughter.’ Why didn’t I realize that if I don’t root out the evil, nothing important to me will ever escape them?”

Monaka Oyafune moved to stand directly in front of Academy City’s strongest Level Five.

They stood on equal terms now, not because of any trivial violent power they possessed at their fingertips, but because of something in a different dimension, something that came from a pillar deeper inside the human heart.

Accelerator knew others with eyes like that.

Aiho Yomikawa from Anti-Skill and Kikyou Yoshikawa, formerly a scientist.

“Let’s pay Shiokishi a visit. That would be the best plan. His base of operations is impenetrable, whether by raw power or political sway, but if I add my own authority as another board member to the fight, I can remove the latter obstacle, at least.”

Accelerator tsked in irritation.

But the secretary wouldn’t let it go with just that. “But, Mrs. Oyafune, that method would be—”

“I’ve made up my mind. Even if this person was to leave, I would fight Shiokishi alone. In which case, working together would be ideal, wouldn’t it?”

The secretary, sensing her strength of will, then gave a sharp glare at Accelerator. He’d just said he wouldn’t get Oyafune involved in this so—

“This young man told me to decide. He didn’t force me to do anything. And I decide how I live my life. You’ve no right to blame him. He afforded me the utmost consideration.”

“Damn it…!!”

After cursing, something he would normally never, ever do, the secretary opened the black bulletproof car’s door and groped around the dashboard. He came out with a gun.

But it wasn’t to point it at Accelerator or Monaka Oyafune.

It was the opposite.

“Someone as amazing as you doesn’t deserve to die over something this worthless, Mrs. Oyafune. This person has the capacity to bring happiness to many people on a much larger scale than this.”

With practiced movements, he checked how many bullets remained in the magazine and then glared at Accelerator. “You! Now that you have her cooperation, I expect a modicum of responsibility!! Protect her with everything you have! If you let Mrs. Oyafune be killed, I will turn you into Swiss cheese!!”

“That was good. You know, you might be cut out to be a villain.”

“Would you not say awful things and make them sound like compliments?” he muttered as the three climbed into the black sedan.

Their destination, at last, was the home base of Shiokishi, the General Board’s string puller.

With history’s strongest villain in tow, the General Board’s negotiator Monaka Oyafune rose up once again.

4

Something must have happened to Saiai Kinuhata.

Hamazura and Takitsubo finally guessed as much after sneaking out of the private salon building. The terrorists were no longer in control of it, and Anti-Skill officers were still performing a site verification.

“…I got a message from Kinuhata on my cell phone.”

On the screen of her cutely designed phone was a message saying she was going to lead Takitsubo out of there and to wait for her for a little while. Time had passed since then, but Kinuhata hadn’t shown herself at all. Eventually, the two of them escaped the private salon building on their own.

“Hey, did you get in touch with her? I hope we didn’t pass each other by.”

“I’ve been calling her, but I can’t get through.”

Takitsubo’s vacant eyes stared at her cell phone. Hamazura couldn’t tell whether she was like that all the time, or if she hadn’t completely shaken off the ill effects from the Crystals. She’d already been using them when she and Hamazura first met.

“Hamazura, what should we do?”

“Well, Kinuhata is a lot more durable than us,” said Hamazura. “I mean, she’s a Level Four. And she did send a text. Maybe we shouldn’t make any careless moves and wait for her to get in touch. It would take something pretty crazy to kill her—”

Boom!!

All of a sudden, a huge explosion went off in another part of District 3.

It didn’t blow up a building; it had gone off underground. No sooner did the distant ground start to crack than crimson flames began to erupt from underneath.

Because there was more than one explosion.

Bam-ka-bam-ka-boom!! Several roiling balls of fire flared up at once. The asphalt split, swallowing passenger vehicles parked on the road into its ant-lion pit. Few people were nearby, probably because of the terrorist incident at the salon building, so thankfully it didn’t seem as though any bystanders had fallen into it.

Somehow, the explosions seemed to be getting closer, little by little.

As Hamazura watched, he eventually said with trembling lips, “You’ve gotta be kidding me. This is ludicrous, isn’t it?!”

There was no guarantee Kinuhata was directly involved with those explosions, but flashy bombings like this usually had something to do with people on the “dark” side like Hamazura and Takitsubo. The possibility was higher than zero.

“What’s even exploding anyway?”

“Hamazura, it might be the underground mall.”

When he looked where Takitsubo was pointing, hordes of customers were just starting to pour out of a department store entrance. The smoke had probably come up from underground, and now they were frantically evacuating.

Hamazura looked around and found an entrance to the underground mall that was also connected to a subway ticket gate. After descending the staircase, essentially a smokestack now, an orange-colored light was there to greet them.

It was a hellscape.

There were no flames near where he stood yet, per se. However, the massive, burning orange inferno farther in was flinging tiles from the floor and ceiling and glass panes all over the place, becoming almost like a thick wall made of light. The air itself was strangely warm. It made him feel like he was inside a giant oven.

Something was definitely happening, but there was still no proof Kinuhata was in there.

Hamazura wavered.

This firestorm was far too dangerous to enter to search for someone he wasn’t sure was there. But it wouldn’t solve anything if the flames got to him while he was trying to make up his mind.

… Keep going or turn back…?

“Hamazura, look!!” shouted Takitsubo, pointing at something.

Something was flickering beyond the orange flames. No, it was a silhouette. A small one, standing still, obscured by the wall of fire.

When Hamazura spotted it, he unintentionally cried out, “Kinuhata!!”

The young woman, surprised, turned to look. She wasn’t relieved at seeing the face of someone she knew—in fact, she shouted back, her expression seeming even more tense after noticing them.

“Get down, dumbass!! Hiding behind things won’t work!!”

As soon as he heard those words, he saw it.

Another figure, this one fairly tall, standing behind the flames.

It was holding something long and slender—something that looked like a machine gun.

“!!”

Hamazura pounced on Takitsubo, and they both fell to the floor. The heated tile felt like it was scalding him, but this wasn’t the time to worry.

Ba-bam!!

A volley of bullets flew at them from beyond the flames.

A line of them flew horizontally at about waist height. And the bullets didn’t seem like regular rifle rounds. Not only did they damage the glass-block walls, they tore big chunks out of even the concrete pillars near the stairwell.

“Nya-ha-ha!”

The firing stopped for just a few seconds.

The bullets had ripped through like a tempest, but the shooter probably hadn’t intended to kill Hamazura and Takitsubo. The tall person’s target was probably Kinuhata. They brought the huge gun up again and pointed it in Kinuhata’s direction, and then the tall…probably woman said:

“You’re using nitrogen to make walls, so I figured I could stop you by messing with the air. But it sure is hard to get all the nitrogen out when it makes up seventy percent of the air, isn’t it?”

… Is she the one who did all this…? Hamazura, pressed to the floor of the fire scene, struggled to make heads or tails of the situation. Was she using the propane gas in restaurants or something to turn the mall into a sea of flames?

The way she held her gun…It seemed to vaguely resemble the bearing of the delinquent-wrangling Anti-Skill officers.

But someone who fought to protect children wouldn’t be willing to set an underground mall on fire just to fight an esper.

Someone in the darker parts of Academy City like us … ? That huge gun is clearly different from the terrorists’. Theirs weren’t meant to be hidden … 

The enemy knew how Kinuhata’s ability worked and was trying to take advantage of her weakness.

After considering that, Hamazura took out his handgun.

It was good for carrying around, but with a short barrel, its accuracy at long distances was pretty poor. If he wanted to make sure he hit, he’d have to get within at least thirty meters.

… That machine gun is obviously better than my piece. If she realizes I’m trying to shoot her, she won’t think twice before mowing me down. What do I do? How do I get in close without getting noticed…?

He racked his brain over the question, but his opponent didn’t wait for him. The tall female figure continued, “But if I get the specific conditions right, explosions can create something like a vacuum for a moment, can’t they? Like cutting winds, a strictly localized event…The hole would only be a few dozen centimeters across, but still.”

“?! Hamazura, get out of here right—!!”

“If I shoot a bullet from that hole, you won’t be able to use your precious shield, will you?!”

Ba-boom!!

Several explosions went off at the same time.

They almost appeared to be surrounding Kinuhata’s small frame. Overwhelming flashes of light blinded them, and a shock wave rolled toward Hamazura and Takitsubo as if through a tube.

Hamazura immediately covered Takitsubo’s mouth and nose with his hands and shut his eyes tight. If they inhaled this sirocco, it would sear their throats and organs.

Once the scorching gale had passed, Hamazura finally opened his eyes. Beyond the flames, the tall figure was pointing her gun at Kinuhata.

This was what the enemy had meant.

If she created a localized vacuum, Saiai Kinuhata wouldn’t be able to cover that part with her shield. Then, if her adversary fired a bullet through that hole, the shot would hammer into her defenseless body.

“Kinuhata!!”

There was no response.

Only the awful, continuous rattling from the tall woman’s smoking gun.

5

Accelerator’s group reassembled.

Location: District 2. The area boasted many R & D facilities in fields that created a lot of noise pollution, like automobiles and explosives. Large soundproof walls encircled the district; the place even had noise-canceling equipment installed that worked by emitting sound waves of opposite phase.

“Given the neighborhood, it’s not very populous…Lot of munitions-related facilities, too,” explained Tsuchimikado, somewhat appalled. “Considering the fact that Shiokishi is an armaments fanatic, it’s basically his home turf.”

They were on a street built alongside a large bypass, in an area populated by gas stations and fast-food joints. It might be easier to think of it as a highway rest stop.

Musujime, leaning against the black sedan, asked, “So do we know where this Shiokishi person’s hideout is?”

“According to Oyafune, it’s one of the testing shelters in the district,” Accelerator spat. “They use explosives here, don’t they? They set up model shelters and do endurance tests by hitting them with explosions from different angles. Shiokishi’s private fortress is way tougher, and it blends right into the scenery.”

“And as for Oyafune…?” Tsuchimikado craned his neck, bringing the old woman into his view. A smile crossed his lips. She had changed into a suit.

When she met his gaze, she bowed slightly and said, “Yes, I’m quite prepared.”

“You were having your secretary wait ‘somewhere safe,’ right?” asked Tsuchimikado with a shrug.

Accelerator looked at Oyafune. “Surprised your secretary let you do this.”

“Well, can’t allow any dangerous acts, after all,” she replied vaguely.

Tsuchimikado clapped his hands together. “We have everything we need, so let’s finish this quickly. We’re not exactly going for a polite visit and a pleasant tea party.”

Meanwhile, Shiokishi, one of only twelve official General Board members in Academy City, frowned.

This dome-shaped building, shielded with special armor, was quite spacious but had little in the way of furnishings. The general impression it gave off was that of a battleship. Only a few lavish chairs and wardrobes dotted the area, just enough to highlight their captain’s tastes.

For Shiokishi, peace and security were the greatest luxury and the result of having expended a maximum amount of work and capital. In reality, this heap of military secrets had enough money spent on it to purchase an entire European castle, complete with furniture.

And now—that peace and security, the highest and richest form of pleasure, was beginning to shake under his feet.

“An enforcement of the equal-authority inspection system by an official member of the General Board…?”

Yes, the twelve had an agreement like that, didn’t they?

The General Board’s main members needed to have equal power at all times. They couldn’t allow one to amass significantly more influence and cause the balance to collapse. During their assemblies, all twelve members’ opinions were treated equally. The objective, he figured, was that they needed to lead Academy City in an extremely democratic way.

It was, of course, all a farce.

Each of the twelve amassed power in their own fields that set them above the others and tried to control the city in any way that could possibly benefit them, all purposely at the expense of the others who nominally had “equal authority.”

Normally, there was no possible way any of them would come waving the flag of such an ornamental system.

… Can I reject it? Shiokishi wondered immediately.

Usually, he’d be allowed to.

But it wouldn’t work this time.

After checking his avenues of metaphorical escape on the General Board’s network again, he saw the twelve members each had their own trivial little pacts. No one pact had very much effectiveness, but strangely, they were put together so that they would interfere with the equal-authority inspection system. If he tried to use one method to block it, that would violate a different pact, and if he tried to dissolve that pact, that in turn would trigger yet another one. It felt incredibly tenacious to him, like a spiderweb strung over many years only to finally corner its target at a dead end.

“That fox…! She kept on forming asinine peace treaties even if it meant cutting off her own authority or support divisions—but it was all for this?!”

It was terrifying that, despite its tenacity, her plan had never revealed even a hint of itself until the trap was sprung. He thought he’d been keeping tabs on Monaka Oyafune’s movements this entire time.

“What shall we do, sir?” asked his hand-reared assassin Sugitani as the man stood beside him. “This shelter has equipment to physically and politically prevent third parties from entering, but almost all our political defense functions have been disabled by Monaka Oyafune enforcing the equal-authority inspection system. And…”

“If the cameras are right, we can presume that Oyafune either has Group, not the least of which is Accelerator, under her thumb, or is working jointly with them. Refusing her inspection and holing up inside the shelter won’t lead to peace and security…After all, I fully prepared an assassination on her, and it ended in failure. We should assume they currently have more strategic value than a nuclear weapon.”

Clad in his thick powered suit, Shiokishi kept folding his hands together nervously. In contrast, Sugitani, who served him, was more self-possessed.

“…Will they really go through with such a hardball approach, sir? Even if ignoring their official inspection gives them the casus belli they need, attacking this place would lead to a war between General Board members.”

“…They’ll come,” answered Shiokishi, tapping the foot part of his composite armor on the floor. “This all relates to Dragon, after all. They’re grasping at straws, so they’ll come.”

“Group aside, that wouldn’t be Monaka Oyafune’s intent, would it?”

“That woman’s reasons for acting are even more dreadful. I’d thought her declawed until now, but she’s always been the sort of woman who would fight entire countries with her life on the line just because some kid she’d never seen before was crying. There are no political methods that will work. If she’s making her move, the only thing we can do is respond by force.”

“Shall I capture her daughter, Suama Oyafune?”

“It might work for Oyafune, but not Group. Does it seem like we have time to do anything we don’t need to?” responded Shiokishi, almost cutting him off, as though he’d run the simulation on that possibility several times. “We’d split our forces to secure a hostage. What if they occupied this shelter in the meantime? We might have a hostage, but it’d be meaningless if they pointed a blade at my own throat. Doing that wouldn’t lead to a foundation for peace and security.”

…If Shiokishi and his forces got their hands on something more important to the enemy than their lives, then even if they pressed a gun to his head, there would probably be room for negotiation. But this decision to pursue another path was a matter of Shiokishi’s principles. He would never factor the possibility of risking his own life into his plans, not even as a joke.

Whatever the case was to be, Shiokishi made his decision for meeting it:

“We fight them here.”

Sugitani didn’t voice any objections. He would merely obey his master’s decision.

As though he felt his attitude was peaceful and secure, Shiokishi softened his tone and continued. “All of us. Gather the Group pursuit team and the hostage retrieval team here. Hold off their invasion from within the shelter and, in the meantime, have another unit surround them from the outside as well. We’ll crush them with a pincer attack.”

“Oyafune has the justification for her actions. What about that, sir?”

“Yes, we can’t just repel her. Have our intelligence division thoroughly scrape the inspection-request paperwork. They can claim her stamp on the paper is blurry if need be—as long as they can materialize a reason we can’t accept it, we’ll gain the upper hand.”

Shiokishi’s mind worked quickly within his powered suit. His brain was built to do calculations the fastest when pursuing peace and security.

“Ulterior motives are hidden within the reasons for action we give one another. After offering a suspicious justification, all that remains is to win or lose through violence. If we win, it will be easier to influence the other official General Board members…and I’ve made that happen many times before. This will be no different.”

“Yes sir.”

“It’s time to begin. Whatever the case is, I’ll have no peace of mind until Monaka Oyafune and Group are annihilated.”

Having come to an area with many similar dome-shaped shelters, Accelerator and the others stopped.

The shadows grew behind parked cars, building corners, and factory roofs.

At a glance, the scenery was mundane—but professional combat specialists, geared with special bulletproof equipment and weapons like submachine guns and rifles, had blended in with it.

Shiokishi’s pawns.

When Accelerator’s group stopped, they took it as a signal.

Not of surrender or capitulation.

No, they took it as a gesture that they would resist until the bitter end.

Powered suits began to jump off building rooftops, each almost seven meters tall, one after another. Remote-control armored vehicles with arms equipped, often used for bomb disposal, made sudden stops, creating a barricade. Giant, tanklike turrets were attached to the armored cars’ roofs.

Tsuchimikado chuckled in spite of himself. “Classic Shiokishi, so keen on his munitions. The weapons he gives his chess pieces just ooze with playfulness.”

“…What do you think?” asked Musujime. “Someone on the General Board would know normal forces won’t work against Accelerator.”

“Haven’t you noticed that?”

Accelerator, on his crutch, jabbed his jaw toward the sky, toward the very top point of the domed shelter Shiokishi was probably hiding in. There was some kind of basketball-shaped metal sphere on it. It looked almost like an omnidirectional transmission radar used for jamming.

“That thing interferes with AIM fields. I bet the main part of it takes up a ton of space in the dome. The juvenile reformatories in this city have AIM jammers to prevent people escaping using their abilities, right? It’s a special version for the General Board. It’s probably set for you, too. The scariest thing for a shelter that can stand up against nuclear detonations would be a teleport ability that ignores three-dimensional defenses.”

Musujime took the military flashlight off her waist. She twirled it in her hand like a baton and frowned. “…I can use the ability itself, but it feels like my aim would be thrown off. I could warp things, but they’re likely to get stuck in the ground.”

“If this guy is on the General Board, and he’s a weapons and munitions specialist, he’d obviously know my military value. And that these minions could never finish me off,” growled Accelerator, fed up. “But if he can get an AIM-field sample from me during the fight, he might use it to calculate the data for interference waves or something. And if he keeps going, he could wipe out at least Musujime and me by forcing our abilities to go out of control.”

“What will we do, then?” asked Monaka Oyafune, who had never been directly involved in combat in any way, with a somewhat tense expression.

“Same thing I always do.”

Accelerator, in contrast, bent his neck as if to crack it and brought his hand to its side.

To where the button for his choker electrode was.

“Use the front door.”

6

Shiokishi was famously prudent, a fact that was clear from how he kept himself in a powered suit twenty-four hours a day. His base of operations was highly sturdy, too, of course. The domed facility, about two hundred meters across, blended in with the other test shelters in District 2. People said it could withstand standard strategic weapons.

However.

“Not sturdy enough, is it?”

Accelerator’s murmurs drifted on the wind.

“When something uses the catchphrase nuke resistant you gotta use power like this.”

A massive ga-boom rumbled through the air.

What Accelerator fired had been simple. He’d used one hand to grab a car parked nearby and lobbed it with all his might. The physical laws he took advantage of were nothing special; the tool he used wasn’t made of a unique material, either. Just by adding in his anomaly of vector control did a simple projectile throw end up smashing the shelter.

“Let’s go,” muttered Accelerator in annoyance before flicking his electrode back off. To save as much battery power as he could, the Level Five proceeded forward with his handmade crutch. No one present could stop him. The nearby defenders had lost consciousness from the impact caused by the shelter’s destruction, the remote-controlled armored cars had been flipped over, and the powered suits’ joints were destroyed.

Accelerator stepped over the remains of a blasted-away wall section and set foot inside the facility. “Should be ten or twenty minutes before Shiokishi’s forces reorganize. We capture Shiokishi and have him order them to stand down before that happens.”

“Such a pain,” said Musujime, unamused. “If you can do something this monumental anyway, we might as well crush him to death from a distance right now.”

Accelerator answered with a tsk. “We kill him after we get info on Dragon out of him.”

“E-excuse me, but…,” started Oyafune, who had come with them, looking behind her. “Tsuchimikado isn’t following us.”

“He’s holding them off outside,” said Accelerator. “We didn’t check to make sure they’re all down for the count, and reinforcements could still come later.”

“It would be bad if he decoded my AIM diffusion field or Accelerator’s, but Mr. Sunglasses doesn’t rely on his ability anyway.”

Oyafune looked like she wasn’t convinced, but Accelerator and Awaki Musujime ignored her. If he died, then that was that. Group was only held together by their value as a combat team. In Group, you proved that value without saying a word.

Accelerator’s strike had turned the inside of the dome to mush. The interior was now like a Swiss roll that someone had taken a fork to and mashed up as the group went through it. The normal routes didn’t matter. They proceeded farther and farther inside through gaps in collapsed, crushed, and exploded walls.

Eventually, they saw several men who looked like Shiokishi’s personal soldiers lying on the ground. The aftermath of Accelerator’s dome-rattling attack had probably knocked them all out.

“Officially, this is an inspection,” said Accelerator. “Oyafune, it’s your job to have a face-to-face discussion with Shiokishi while we protect you from the flanks.”

“We’ll keep breaking walls until we get to his hideout, but in the end, you’ll be bearing the brunt of—”

Before Musujime could finish, something changed.

All of a sudden, a partition slammed down from the ceiling like a guillotine. It blocked the passage and isolated Accelerator and Musujime from Oyafune.

“Musujime!!”

“!!”

Her ability could freely move people at a distance without regard for three-dimensional restrictions. But as Musujime stared at the partition, she shook her head. “No response. Something else must have happened on the other side. Oyafune isn’t over there.”

“Useless piece of shit!!” Accelerator almost reached for the electrode switch at his neck, but they heard a new set of footsteps.

“I request a match.”

The one who had said that was a man in a suit. He was familiar to Accelerator. It was Shiokishi’s private soldier who’d killed all the former Spark Signal members occupying the District 3 private salon using a large handgun. If he remembered right, the man’s name was Sugitani.

Sugitani took a box of cigarettes from his suit’s inside pocket, then pulled one of the thin tubes out of it with nothing but his lips. “I do believe I told you I’d be praying to never see each other again.”

“That’s rich, coming from the ones who set this all up.”

“I also remember telling you it was your job to see to it that this didn’t come to pass.”

In order to light the cigarette, Sugitani exchanged the box for a cheap lighter. Contrary to his outfit and mood, it was a clear plastic lighter one would find for sale at a convenience store.

“Do you know about Dragon?”

“That?” said Sugitani, bringing the lighter closer to the cigarette in his mouth to light it.

At least, that was how it looked to Accelerator.

But the next thing he heard was the soft shhhh of gas escaping.

The sound came from Sugitani’s lighter, and it knocked Awaki Musujime, who had been standing next to Accelerator, to the ground.

It was as if she’d been punched.

There was no scream.

The strange attack had completely knocked her out.

It’s not lighter gas … ?

The device probably encapsulated a gas of a higher pressure. By releasing it all at once, he’d fired a small paralyzing bullet. With his frontal surprise attack a success, the man spat out the cigarette and said to Accelerator, “Modern combat isn’t about how many forces either side controls. It’s about settling things before it gets to that point.”

“…”

“Shiokishi’s orders. Musujime was a higher priority to destroy than Accelerator—she can hop freely through walls, whereas you only have high destructive power.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“A Koga. Or a descendant anyway,” answered Sugitani in a self-deprecating tone. “A band of cowards who have been doing this sort of thing and calling it justice for a very, very long time.”

As he spoke, he took out his large handgun.

But that probably wasn’t his main weapon. Considering his fighting style until now, he wouldn’t use such obvious methods. Or maybe that was what he was going for, and he’d purposely commit to a direct attack using bullets.

With this kind of enemy, the more someone thought about it, the deeper they sank into the mire.

As Accelerator watched him closely lest he slip up, Sugitani said, “Oyafune is done for.”

Accelerator’s eyebrow twitched at that.

“Two old people from the General Board are now face-to-face, but Shiokishi is wearing his special-order powered suit. It’s too strong for any weapon Oyafune could hide in her clothes to affect it. The woman will die, torn apart by greater force than a heavy construction machine.”

“I doubt Shiokishi would give the okay if the plan involved his own life and limb.”

“Think of it as a bit of selfishness on my part. I’m sure Shiokishi is surprised right now, but he should be able to carry out his duty regardless. Someone armed with a powered suit wouldn’t lose to an old woman, after all.”

Sugitani spoke simply, without sounding especially prideful.

“If we can eliminate Oyafune of the General Board, we will eliminate all political opposition. He will mobilize all of Academy City’s forces to drive you into a corner, and if they go through the appropriate channels to secure a trump card like Last Order, everything will be over for you.”

7

Two of Academy City’s highest executives—two General Board members—were currently meeting face-to-face.

Between them stood a table, one with no teacups and snacks, constructed instead for honest dialogue. It was wrapped in a quiet air, characteristic of the upper class. Accelerator’s attack had fractured the dome and exposed the starry sky to the two people below, but even that seemed tolerable as an element for such an interior.

Oyafune and Shiokishi.

Two elders, both deeply involved in many historical affairs, each offered the other a peaceable smile.

“Where to begin? My request of you is really quite simple. It isn’t money, it isn’t political sway, and it certainly isn’t your life.”

Oyafune was the one to touch things off.

“I’d simply like you to refrain from selfishly integrating and expending the lives of others on all projects and operations you devise and execute in the future. Simple indeed, is it not? All others, aside from yourself, uphold this rule as a matter of course, after all.”

She was right in that her words, when taken in isolation, sounded simple.

But he knew Monaka Oyafune would pursue it aggressively. This wouldn’t end with a verbal promise, with an “All right, I swear not to do it anymore.” She wouldn’t be sated unless she forced Shiokishi to dismantle his private, directly operated forces, then indirectly exerted influence on other units to steal every last drop of the power and authority he needed to hire and use mercenaries.

That would be synonymous with stealing everything from him.

She was essentially eliminating all that made him appear powerful and sentencing him to become a mere layman.

“Oh, yes, and I should ask you about Dragon as well.”

“Is that necessary for you?”

“Not particularly for me, but my collaborators, Group, have asked me to inquire about it.”

Shiokishi watched her through his powered suit helmet, focusing on her face as she sat across from him. Still, he was silent for a moment before opening his mouth to speak.

“…My dear Oyafune, how much do you know about Dragon?”

“Nothing at all. Though if my authority is what it is on paper, I’m sure I would have had several chances to find out. I expect you know best of all why that didn’t come to pass.”

“It is something that must remain out of sight,” he said quietly, not realizing she was criticizing him. “I am doing no more than accomplishing tasks necessary to protect Academy City, one by one. That is how dangerously critical the very word is. You may refer to me as barbaric, but only because you know nothing about Dragon. And I have no intention of telling you.”

“Oh, I am of the same mind,” answered Oyafune immediately, without losing her gentle smile. “And I would stoop to actions considered barbaric if I needed to. If it benefited me protecting those precious to me from your evil grasp, I would have no choice but to pursue this Dragon.”

“Then we are at an impasse.”

“We both say we want to protect Academy City, but I believe we’re referring to different things. That’s why our paths have split.”

“I see.”

Shiokishi gave a single short sigh from beneath his helmet.

Roar!!

A moment later, he used all his powered suit’s output to punch Oyafune with his special-alloy fist.

The powered suit Shiokishi wore was a custom-order piece of equipment, upgraded even beyond the ones the city used for military purposes. The remodeling was geared more toward defensive power and durability than its mobility and compatibility with other firearms, but that only meant the giant fist he flung at Oyafune was all the sturdier.

This was far beyond what a heavy construction vehicle could do.

It would smash an old woman’s body to atoms.

But…

“…You never even gave it a little bit of thought?”

Monaka Oyafune’s body hadn’t been crushed—she didn’t have a single scratch on her.

In fact…

She hadn’t blocked his fist, nor had she even evaded it. His powered suit’s fist had stopped mid-punch. It was like its power had shut off.

And now, it was just a heavy metal cage.

“That I might, just as you protect yourself in a powered suit, adopt measures to protect my life as well?”

“Wh…what…?!”

The woman gripped a knife made of obsidian in her hand.

The Soul Arm reflected Venus’s light as it shone through the ceiling, cracked open by the damage from Accelerator’s attack, and used that reflected radiance to dismantle any and all objects into pieces.

Naturally, however, the weapon did not belong to Monaka Oyafune.

She brought a hand to her face.

As though peeling off the cover of a carton, she stripped away the surface of her face. For just a moment, he saw darker skin underneath, but then the stranger placed a different face on their head.

And that face was…

“Mitsuki…Unabara…?!”

“Oh, you use that name? I had thought for sure you’d call me Etzali,” he answered, waggling the obsidian knife.

In the meantime, the powered suit protecting Shiokishi began to fall to pieces. Every one of its screws came loose, the gaps between steel plates widened, and the motors and gears started dropping to the floor.

It didn’t take very long for all the armor to completely fall apart and expose a middle-aged man in full dress to the outside air. His defenses lost, Shiokishi broke out into a nervous sweat.

Unabara gave a thin, scornful grin. “You seem quite lucky. If this spear’s effective range had reached your body, your flesh and bones would be reduced to a lot of varying pieces right now,” he said. Then he added, “Still, it would have been a problem if that had happened before I could ask you about Dragon.”

Shiokishi, for his part, while pushing away what few mechanical holdouts still clung to him, said, “Oyafune was…I knew it—that coward is watching us from on high, from somewhere safe, isn’t she…?!”

“Is she, I wonder?”

Unabara’s eyes narrowed slightly.

It was the expression of someone who had just encountered harsh disrespect aimed at someone they held in high esteem.

“My talismans use human skin as ingredients, but Mrs. Oyafune didn’t hesitate for a moment. It may have been from her arm, but it still must have hurt a lot to slice off over ten centimeters of skin.”

Unabara’s fingers crawled around the obsidian knife as he closed in, step by step.

“It’s time to ask about Dragon. Or would you rather taste how much pain Mrs. Oyafune went through—the one who you called a coward?”

“Guh…!! Minobe!!”

Shiokishi, backing away, pushed a button embedded in his suit’s inside pocket.

Immediately, a partition opened in the wall, and two tall men appeared. One must have been Minobe.

They moved in front of Unabara, shielding Shiokishi behind them.

“Did you think Sugitani was my sole pillar of security?”

Shiokishi, his expression still trapped and drawn, gave an unnatural smile.

“I’ve always had my security split into two teams in case I was betrayed from within: the Sugitani team and the Minobe team. All so that they could kill each other if things came to that.” He paused. “You may be talented in combat, but you can’t deal with this team by yourself.”

The two tall men remained still as Shiokishi attempted to escape on his own.

Unabara’s face hardened.

But when Shiokishi got near the exit, he suddenly stopped. He was looking at something past the exit, astonished.

“Why?”

He turned back to them again, forgetting his flight.

Then he shouted the question again at his subordinates.

“Why has the rest of the security team been massacred?!”

One of the two men opened his mouth.

But what came out was not an answer to Shiokishi’s question. Instead, he looked at Unabara and said:

“You’re pretty early, Etzali.”

He heard a dull thud.

Something had sprouted out of the side of the General Board member Shiokishi. It was a knife. One thrown haphazardly. But it didn’t have a normal blade made of steel. It was of a stone called obsidian, thoroughly polished, used by members of a certain people.

It wasn’t Unabara’s.

The man called Minobe had thrown it, despite the fact that he was supposed to be acting in Shiokishi’s defense.

For a few moments, Shiokishi remained stiff, looking at the casually launched knife without turning around. But then his body swayed to the side, and he fell over.

The name Etzali.

The selection of an obsidian weapon, a material that was at a glance less practical than metal.

“No…”

“You never gave it a second thought?”

Each of the tall men brought a hand to his face.

“About the possibility that there were others who had infiltrated Academy City’s dark side in the same manner as you?”

Their face skin peeled off noisily. From behind those masks appeared different features—and soon their bodies and even genders began to quickly shift. It was exactly how it had worked for Unabara: a phenomenon created by Aztecan sorcery.

It was a man in his late twenties and a girl in her mid-teens.

“Tecpatl…and Tochtli!!”

Tecpatl was from the organization Unabara—Etzali—used to belong to. He was in charge of things like planning operations. Tochtli was Xóchitl’s fellow comrade.

“We had planned to place ourselves as central factors of Shiokishi’s security lineup, then eventually replace the very man himself, though. But he never takes off his powered suit. And if we physically destroyed the armor, the sensors would alert Sugitani’s group. We were just wondering what to do about it when the lot of you charged in,” said the brown-skinned man, Tecpatl, without sounding particularly regretful about it. “If Shiokishi’s post was to be ruined, then it wouldn’t mean anything to replace him. We’d decided to draw the curtains there, but…at the very last second, we came up with a nice souvenir.”

“…I don’t think the organization would gain very much from you bringing my head back to them.”

“No, that’s not it. You have it all wrong,” answered Tecpatl with a shrug. “Finding you in the shadows and killing you was the whole reason we infiltrated Academy City’s core and tried to replace Shiokishi. After all, belonging to a division like Group makes it impossible to locate you with conventional information networks…On the other hand, there are no problems as long as we have your head.”

8

Awaki Musujime was down.

The only remaining fighters were Accelerator and Sugitani. Glaring directly at the assassin who had named himself a descendant of the Koga, Accelerator touched the switch for the electrode on his neck.

“I’m about to murder you. Hope you don’t mind.”

“I do not. I’m not petty enough to be enraged by a word or two of nonsense.”

Boom!!

Both moved forward at once.

Accelerator controlled his legs’ force vectors and shot ahead like a cannonball, but Sugitani took several lighters from his pocket in response. Casually, he threw the lighters, which were modified to constantly emit gas, then tossed his lit cigarette into them.

Ba-boom!!

The raging flames became a solid wall in the ruined passage.

But that wouldn’t work against Accelerator’s reflection. Without a moment’s hesitation, he burst through the wall, and—

He’s gone?

Accelerator jammed his soles into the floor to brake, having lost his target. But he was too late. Sugitani had distracted him and moved sharply around behind him in the meantime.

“If I recall, Amata Kihara broke your reflection by pulling his fist back right before impact.”

“?!”

A voice and a fist came rushing in from his blind spot.

Accelerator hastily jumped back from his position.

“And Teitoku Kakine used objects that don’t exist in this world to create vectors that are likewise unreal.”

The voice and fist tracked him perfectly.

Sugitani’s footwork was so smooth it was inhuman. He traced around in a curve sharper and quicker than fish in the sea, maintaining his point-blank distance.

There was a loud grrkk!!

Pain jolted through Accelerator’s face, and then Sugitani backed off for the first time.

“I see,” muttered Sugitani, shaking his wrist around. The joint had swelled as though he’d sprained it. “These are unique exceptions they found as a result of investigating their own specialties. I suppose emulation is never perfect.”

“…”

And yet, he had still jarred Accelerator’s brain without using an ability. That was only possible due to Sugitani’s top-class skill. If he were some street punk, it wouldn’t just be his wrist bones—they would have lost control of their blood flow and experienced their internal organs exploding.

“How third-rate,” spat Accelerator, despite having coldly analyzed the situation. “You’ve got some skill, but all you can really do is follow orders from that black-hearted old man? And you’re a descendant of people who called themselves defenders of justice?”

“…”

“Does Shiokishi look like a good guy to you? And are you right for obeying him? Don’t make me laugh. The answer is so obvious a baby could see it.”

“…You are right. The word good is always misused by those in positions of power. Even if that wasn’t the case, one can’t build a perfect system.

“However,” added Sugitani.

Without an ounce of hesitation—

“Does that mean leaving everything to evil would solve every single one of the planet’s problems?”

—Accelerator and Sugitani glared each other down.

Good had met Evil’s gaze and denounced him.

“Be serious. Evil like you and Group—all you’re doing is scavenging for the leftover scraps of good. We constantly stand against hundreds, if not thousands, of tragedies, and you think you’ve beaten us by stopping two or three? Garbage pickers like you think you can fill the world’s belly with scraps?”

“You shithead.”

In response, Accelerator spoke ill of Good.

“The fact that you think those scraps are garbage means your goodness is fake.”

“Fake?” Sugitani raised an eyebrow. “You mean to say a villain like you knows what it means to be an ally to justice?”

“…”

There was a slight pause after the question this time.

Nevertheless, in the face of it, Accelerator said, “Yeah, I do—so well that it pisses me off just thinking about it.”

“I see,” replied Sugitani, reaching into his pants pocket. “But you won’t be seeing that good guy again—because you’re about to die.”

A moment later.

Accelerator’s electrode abruptly lost all effectiveness.

Academy City’s strongest Level Five crumpled to the floor alone. He seemed to be squirming, trying to move his extremities, but he wasn’t getting any real result out of it.

“You probably can’t understand human speech anymore, but there’s a modification in your electrode that allows us to control it remotely. Cut off from the Misaka network, you have zero combat ability.”

After finishing what he had to say, Sugitani glanced at Accelerator’s crutch.

It looked different than the designs from when they’d supplied it. It had undergone several modifications, probably to allow him to stand even after his electrode’s power was gone. But it didn’t seem to have worked out.

“This is what I mean when I say good,” said Sugitani, taking out his large handgun.

It was the gun he’d used to slaughter all the terrorists in the District 3 private salon building. Now that Accelerator had lost his power of reflection, Sugitani could kill him with one shot.

“This is how a man does things, when he lives in a world of cowards but keeps fighting to stay good.”

The only sound then was the loud bang of a gun.

9

Stephanie Gorgeouspalace was still pulling her shotgun’s trigger.

The oafish metal heap shone eerily, reflecting light from the flames that were inundating the underground mall. Its bullet storm contained the power to mow down a run-of-the-mill armored car within seconds from inside one meter. It was no joke, no exaggeration—it could take a car and make it into a fold-up diagram.

Saiai Kinuhata was using an ability called Nitrogen Armor to protect herself, but even that had its limits.

By repeatedly blowing up propane gas tanks, Stephanie would momentarily blow all the air away, creating infinitesimal vacuums near Kinuhata. Now that the nitrogen walls were no longer able to form up, Stephanie’s pellets could pass straight through.

The woman didn’t hesitate.

Her index finger moved, meaning to take advantage of this single instant and pour as many pellets as she could into her target.

Ba-boom!!

The air burst.

The tempestuous pellet spray hiding immense power within roiled the air in the vicinity, swallowed up the dark smoke, and even caused the wall of flames to flicker. Gunshots loud enough to blot out all other sounds went off in succession, the lead pellets piercing into the space Kinuhata occupied. It didn’t matter what angle the situation was examined from—it would be fatal. However, Stephanie didn’t stop there. She continued pulling the trigger, again and again, pumping more bullets in.

The stronger the esper, the more irregular their tactics, because they depended on their own abilities all the more—but she was the opposite. Still, that certainly didn’t mean her power was ordinary or average.

The most basic form of combat was to be incredibly efficient and optimized over many long years of a person’s life. By pursuing such a goal, it was self-evident how strong some people could become.

In other words—

Her bullets shot accurately toward her target without any waste.

From the same underground mall, but from past the wall of flames, she heard what sounded like a boy’s voice.

“Ki…Kinu…K​i​n​u​h​a​t​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​!​!”

The boy seemed to be crying out in death instead of the girl.

Stephanie’s face remained clouded.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t felt the bullets hit. She couldn’t see it, since it was past the fire and smoke, but Saiai Kinuhata’s body would at this very moment be transforming into a meaty pulp.

What Stephanie wasn’t happy with was how easy it had been.

She was taking revenge for Chimitsu Sunazara, yet, it had ended so simply.

She needed to make her opponent suffer much, much, much more.

Why was it over so quickly?

“…Are you messing with me? Is this a joke?”

Stephanie heard the sound of her own teeth gnashing. Grating against each other so hard she thought it might deform her skull.

“There was a lot more than this that I wanted to hit you with. This was still just the opening act! Don’t lower the curtains without asking for my permission!! You destroyed Mr. Sunazara! A person like that wouldn’t die this easily!! Suffer more! Beg for your life!! Stand up and let me kill you!! You had damn well better come back to life so I can kill you a thousand more times!!”

The intense force of the buckshots created a gust of wind, like the air had inflated.

Smoke struck her in the face, and she snorted it up. While coughing, Stephanie finally released her finger from her shotgun’s trigger.

The wall of smoke parted.

There was something on the other side.

Is that all you were? spat Stephanie.

Just as—

Bang!!

A gunshot went off.

A hole appeared in Stephanie’s gut.

And then she saw:

Beyond the smoke, Saiai Kinuhata was aiming a gun at her.

“What…? What?!”

Her face one of shock, Stephanie stared at Kinuhata.

She wasn’t unharmed. There was a large bruise on her little face, as though she’d been punched, and bright-red blood dripped from her widely exposed thigh. But that was all. She had none of the injuries that the automatic shotgun should have caused—nothing to grind her flesh and bones and organs into gruel.

Stephanie didn’t understand.

For now, though, she tried to ready her automatic shotgun at Kinuhata again.

But the single bullet had dulled her movements more than she’d thought.

Before the shotgun’s muzzle could take aim, Kinuhata fired again. And then again, then a third time, the bullets piercing into Stephanie’s chest. Her giant gun slid to the ground.

“You told me not to die, so I decided to humor you. Should I, like, not have?”

“But how…,” began Stephanie before seeing something on the floor.

It was a metal can, about the size of a hair spray canister. But the metal seemed quite a bit thicker compared to its size. And the thick can had ruptured from within, as though it couldn’t withstand the internal pressure.

An English letter was written on the metal can’s surface.

Stephanie recognized it as a chemical symbol.

“Liquid…nitrogen…?!”

“Does it really come as that much of a surprise? If you create, like, a vacuum between two walls and insulate it, it’s not that hard to carry around with you.”

Essentially, when Stephanie created a localized vacuum state, Kinuhata had tossed the liquid nitrogen into the heated air and instantly replenished a large amount of nitrogen.

As Kinuhata held the gun up at her, she smiled thinly. “I manipulate nitrogen. In other words, that’s seriously the only thing I can do. Did you think someone who totally understands that she can’t do a thing if the nitrogen is gone wouldn’t have ever thought about what to do in a case like that? Plus, I’m one of the people who dwells in Academy City’s darkness. I can get whatever I need, like, no problem.”

Flames crawled over the shotgun where it lay and caused the powder inside to ignite.

But Kinuhata didn’t even glance at it.

“You were in Anti-Skill, so you certainly learned a lot about how to fight espers and unlocked the ability to find their weaknesses. But it looks like you totes don’t understand that I’ve always been the kind of person who’s constantly struggled to win and survive.”

Kinuhata holstered her gun as she spoke.

She wasn’t letting Stephanie off the hook. She just wanted to end things for sure, with an attack she was most confident in—her ability.

“Oh, right,” said Kinuhata as though in parting. “An esper like me who has a strong shield and can totally grab cars and throw them is nearly invincible in close combat. My worst enemy is someone sniping me from afar with pinpoint attacks and not giving me a chance to do anything…Chimitsu Sunazara was way more on point than a gun freak like you!”

Stephanie tried to pull her spare handgun from her waist.

Kinuhata moved faster.

The esper’s arm, which could easily lift entire cars, was aimed right at her.

10

Tecpatl—the man who virtually controlled the Aztecan “organization.”

He now stood before Unabara with Xóchitl’s comrade Tochtli in tow. For the sole purpose of killing him, the pariah.

Unabara’s gut told him it was an odd pairing.

He didn’t remember Tochtli and Tecpatl being on very good terms with one another. Neither had the kind of trust required to watch the other’s back in certain death situations. Was organizational hierarchy alone enough to overcome that? Whatever the case, right now, that wasn’t what Unabara needed to be worrying about.

“…” Without thinking, he glanced at the obsidian knife in his hands.

The Spear of Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli.

By reflecting Venus’s light onto an object, the Soul Arm could dismantle even the strongest armor back into its constituent parts. It was just as effective on human bodies. If he hit Tecpatl or Tochtli with it, their bodies would part into flesh and bone more precisely than a skilled artisan butchered cows or pigs.

Could he do it?

They had parted ways, but they were still former comrades. Would it be right?

“Hey, come on.” In contrast to Unabara’s waffling, Tecpatl didn’t even worry about it. “That little thing is all you have? …And here I’d thought for sure that something like this would come up.”

As he spoke, he took something from Tochtli’s hand.

It was a rectangular object that looked like a flat schoolbag.

Long, thin slits were cut out of its bottom, out of which incredibly thin stone plates a few millimeters thick protruded like bread from a toaster.

Tightly carved into one surface were things one could take as characters, symbols, or even images—the Aztec people’s unique information storage method.

It can’t be … !

An awful chill came over Unabara, and at the same time, something in the back of his mind sparked like it’d been stabbed. It was the pain of his brain being corrupted with knowledge none should ever know.

This wasn’t the first time it had happened to him.

Tecpatl smiled, as if to substantiate his suspicions, and said:

“Yes. It’s an original copy.”

As Unabara desperately shook his head, in a state akin to getting dizzy upon standing up, Tecpatl continued, still grinning. “You know we did some…modifications to Xóchitl, right? Our position is good enough that we can even distribute original texts to our advance parties. I’m the one who planned and carried this out, so it’s not surprising I have one, too, is it?”

“You…”

“Bring yours out. I know Xóchitl is alive, which means you must have extracted it.” He paused. “And just so we’re clear, you’ll need more than some obsidian knife to dismantle mine.”

… Is he seriously bringing an original text into real combat…? Damn! What are those characters engraved on that stone plate?

Unabara had no intention of ever reading it again. Instead, as though tasting the poison still clinging to his brain once more, he carefully considered the text Tecpatl held.

It was probably a calendar stone, a type of complicated timekeeping from the Aztec world. They were large, disc-shaped stones with descriptions of how both the world’s destruction and its rebirth functioned. The grimoire they’d embedded inside Xóchitl was derived from it, but Unabara figured Tecpatl had acquired an original of a different derivative, one which emphasized different sections.

Unabara looked up, taking care not to direct his attention at Tecpatl’s original text, and said, “An account of the moon rabbit…?”

“You actually went and read this thing? You’re a bigger daredevil than you seem.”

Tecpatl must have been taking unknown measures to make sure the stone plate’s knowledge didn’t enter his mind; he rapped casually on the stone with his knuckles as he spoke.

“It’s a story about the time when the fifth sun was created. The moon, born in the same era, shone more brightly than any of the gods had initially expected. The moon would soon grow indistinguishable from the sun. To prevent this, the gods threw a rabbit to the moon to weaken its light…And when I use the power of this legend, do you know what kinds of things I can do?”

As soon as he finished, it happened.

Ga-boom!!

Something shot out of Tecpatl’s hand and smashed all the shelter walls from the inside out.

It was a single straight-line attack. Despite everything, the shelter had been created to withstand strategic weapons—and yet, it fell apart in one fell swoop, collapsing on top of Shiokishi’s private soldiers, who were still fighting outside.

“Hold still,” said Tecpatl with a smirk. “Twenty or thirty soldiers just died, I think. Of course, this attack was originally for destroying other celestial bodies in one hit…but it seems like its materials, the rabbit bones, aren’t that good.”

Unabara was surprised.

But not at the sheer force of the attack Tecpatl had unleashed.

He was looking next to Tecpatl, at Tochtli.

Her index finger wobbled…and swayed, like a squid’s tentacle.

“…What did you do?” asked Unabara, his lips quivering. “What did you to do Tochtli?!”

“The rabbit bones— Oh, do I need to explain every little thing to you?”

Tecpatl had launched some kind of projectile attack. And he’d used the term rabbit bones. It wasn’t hard to put two and two together.

Why is Tochtli obeying him … ?

With a natural question in mind as his gaze remained fixed to the brown-haired girl, Tochtli opened her mouth for the first time. And from it came this.

“ … Uh … Agh … gh …”

In that moment, all the heat drained from Mitsuki Unabara’s spine.

It wasn’t human language. She didn’t have a brain or a mind left to think with. Tecpatl, seeing Unabara dumbfounded, burst out into laughter as though he’d been holding it in this whole time.

Why was she helping him this much?

Tochtli and Tecpatl weren’t on very good terms, were they?

The answer was so, so simple.

Besides…

A normal person would never give their bones away without anesthesia.

“Ha-ha-ha!! It’s fun to watch her, isn’t it? I’d guess less than half the bones in her body are left now. The original copy does appear to have a mechanism for swapping human bones with obsidian, but it seems using it comes with significant pain. When I first used it, it blew me away. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter for me as long as I can replenish the stock.”

“Tec…patl…”

Unabara’s lips trembled.

In the meantime, Tochtli’s tentacle-like finger inflated from within, then squeezed back down to its normal shape. Obsidian had rushed into where the bones used to be.

How much pain must that have caused?

And how much humiliation?

“T​e​c​p​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​t​l​l​l​l​l​l​l​l​l​l​l​l​l​l​l​l​l​l​l​l​!​!” Unabara roared, putting his hand to his face. He tore off the skin covering it, revealing his true brown-skinned visage to the world.

Then, as though in response to his rage, something moved.

The scroll-shaped original text in his suit’s inside pocket unfurled on its own accord and reached out. It writhed in the air like a snake, and Unabara grabbed it again, under his own volition.

The original copy that Unabara…or rather, the original copy that Xóchitl took ownership of described its interception as a counterattack against those who took up arms. In Xóchitl’s case, it created a spell that caused those who took up arms to harm themselves with those weapons, but Unabara couldn’t yet draw out that much of its power.

In response, Tecpatl’s original copy, the one that consumed the bones of the girl named Tochtli, described its interception as a long-distance bombardment. Its spell was built on the folktale of the thrown rabbit giving a celestial body its current form, becoming a projectile weapon that could shoot down any enemy.

A clash of grimoires.

Unabara no longer felt aversion to using his. Tecpatl had set foot into territory he shouldn’t have. His mind was seething. It could only think about killing the monster.

“I like it,” responded Tecpatl, holding his stone plate aloft as the owner of an equal grimoire.

“This is our battle. Let us exhaust all our intellect and vie for control over the Aztecs!”

Ga-boom!!

Multiple flashes of light burst from Tecpatl’s hand, and Unabara’s vellum scroll unfolded itself wide to stop them. Countering, the scroll became a tempest of sandpaper-like dust particles; Tecpatl’s tablet swung around and blew it away.

The shock wave alone caused the shelter dome to crack and swell.

This wasn’t a normal fight. He was way beyond Unabara’s specs.

But Unabara’s original copy hadn’t become his ally for nothing.

… Urgh…The headache…!!

Every time he fought, the knowledge would come flowing in. The pain started with his head and ended at his fingertips and toes. Unabara endured, wielding the original copy again.

Original copies of grimoires assisted those who wanted to spread the text’s knowledge. Thus, they couldn’t be weapons for those who simply owned them. If any were to appear who were more suitable than its current owner, it would mercilessly annihilate the “used” owner and jump ship.

It was as though it was testing him.

Kill or let live—the text was deciding for itself which would be a greater boon.

… I don’t care…

Unabara gritted his teeth. Red blood leaked from between them.

… There is an enemy I need to defeat even if it destroys me!!

But willpower alone wouldn’t determine victory.

Another barrage of flashing lights flew out from Tecpatl’s hand. They were stronger than Unabara’s defenses could take. Several of the shots wove around and through his scroll shield to stab into his upper body. Even so, possibly due to the original copy’s assistance, his body was not ripped apart. Instead, it simply tumbled down to the ground.

But he didn’t have the stamina left to get back up.

As Unabara held the scroll open to the air, Tecpatl walked right up to him.

“It’s a matter of experience. And you possess no security against the grimoire. To use it as a weapon, you have to take measures to prevent the counterflow of knowledge.”

“…”

Unabara glared at him, but Tecpatl’s expression didn’t change.

Yet another light appeared in his hand.

A light created from the bones of the girl named Tochtli.

“What…What happened anyway?”

“What?” Tecpatl grinned. “One major fight ended. A fight against the philistines who call themselves the world’s police. We believed that once it ended, we would be able to go back to our peaceful lives. So we continued to fight.”

His grinning was incessant.

“But nothing ended. Nothing about our status, nor our position, nor our ways of life changed at all. Why, then, have we fought? Such a bitter battle, and all we could protect in the end were the interests of some old men standing atop us?”

Finally, his grin faded.

“We’ve already purged the old men who instigated us with utter gibberish. But execute them though we did, nothing changed. That’s all. We lost our direction and our objective. We no longer know where to go from here. That is all.”

Ga-boom!!

This time, the strike from Tecpatl’s hand was a decisive one.

However, it didn’t end Mitsuki Unabara’s life.

The attack Tecpatl had launched from his hand had curved back around and stabbed himself instead.

“…What…?” groaned Tecpatl as he stared at the gaping hole in his stomach.

As Unabara lay crumpled on the floor, he quietly asked, “Did you know this? An original text is not a mere tool or weapon. It allies itself with those who want to spread its knowledge the most—and if needed, it will even turn against its owner.”

That was when Tecpatl saw it:

Unabara had drawn something on the floor in his own blood. It was a sentence from the stone tablet Tecpatl had.

He had just copied the original text’s writing, creating a transcription of the grimoire and thus attempting to spread its knowledge when Tecpatl had made his attack. Because of that, he’d been attacked by his own original text.

“…If you had confronted your original text’s knowledge, maybe this wouldn’t have ended in such an extreme manner. After all, you said you took measures to prevent it from corrupting you. Not only did you not spread the knowledge to others—you didn’t even want to read it yourself. You were hoarding it. Did you really think an original text would allow that…?”

There was no answer.

Tecpatl had fallen onto his knees. Then, as if prostrating himself before Unabara, he collapsed. Unnaturally long, slender shadows stretched from the schoolbag-like lump, which was packed with several stone tablets. They looked like thin, beckoning hands.

Accept me. If not, I will kill you.

That was what it felt like they were saying to Unabara.

It seems original copies quite like me.

“…Fine, then…,” answered Mitsuki Unabara to the grimoire’s request.

A second original copy. The speed of their corruption would reach new levels now, but Unabara didn’t hesitate.

“However,” he suddenly said, looking away from Tecpatl. He turned his gaze so that it reflected the girl who could no longer understand human speech, Tochtli.

He had no obligation to go this far.

But if he didn’t do at least this much, he wouldn’t be able to face Xóchitl.

“First, there’s something I’d like your help with.”

The contract was formed.

In exchange for the girl’s life, Mitsuki Unabara plunged onward, down ever darker paths.

11

Sugitani stood there for a while, silent, his large handgun still pointed in front of him.

Accelerator was facedown on the floor.

He smelled the particular stench of gunpowder bursting.

The scent of blood mixed with it.

However.

It wasn’t his.

A hole had opened up in his chest—the victim was Sugitani, the one who should have had an absolute advantage.

“Wh…? How…?”

The man wobbled slightly.

He leaned back against a wall and slid to the floor as the strength drained out of him.

Mirroring his actions in reverse, Accelerator slowly rose.

It certainly didn’t seem like he’d lost his electrode’s assistance, but the remote-control device in Sugitani’s hand was definitely working. He shouldn’t have been able to use the electrode…

“You noticed the modifications in my crutch, didn’t you?” Accelerator growled. “All these legs for helping with independent walking, the motors, the sensors—they were all dummies. Its actual purpose is to jam the specific waves you were using to control my electrode.”

“What…?”

“If I used only regular interference waves, it would mess up the electromagnetic waves the Misaka network uses. That wouldn’t do me any good. So I waited for you bastards to use yours. Then, I did a rigorous analysis of the frequency, calculated the proper waves to jam only that frequency, and built it into my crutch.”

Yes: When the camper was under attack, Shiokishi’s people had been using their remote-control waves. Accelerator had taken advantage of that and acquired a sample of their specific wavelengths.

So now, their remote-control frequency would always meet with interference from the crutch and never make it to his electrode.

That meant Accelerator hadn’t lost his ability, he could walk on his own, and he could hold a proper conversation.

He took the gun from his pants belt and pointed it at Sugitani.

“This is how evil does things,” said the monster, sounding exasperated with the concept. “You, me—not one thing is different. And don’t get me wrong—I’m not a good guy. If you used the same method, that makes you a grand villain in your own right.”

Sugitani grinned a little.

A moment later, two triggers pulled back.

Two gunshots resounded.

Accelerator’s bullet thrust into Sugitani’s body, while Sugitani’s bullet was deflected.

“…What a bore.”

Accelerator flipped back his electrode switch and proceeded in farther.

“If you’re going to call yourself a good guy, you could at least try to play the part.”

Sugitani had lost consciousness and was just barely breathing.

This was Accelerator’s own brand of evil.

12

Kinuhata sat on the underground mall’s floor, breathing in the flame-heated air.

Stephanie lay nearby.

Hamazura and Takitsubo were apparently past the wall of flame, but it would be too much of a hassle to plunge through it and meet up with them. A better idea would be to get back aboveground first, then regroup.

Kinuhata rubbed her scraped-up cheek with a hand, then looked over to the assassin, who lay next to her.

“…I might be crazy strong, but you went a little too far there.”

“Well, I was fighting for Mr. Sunazara. This was me holding back, I think,” responded Stephanie from where she lay, coughing up blood as she spoke.

Tough woman, thought Kinuhata. “Anyway, you had that shotgun beforehand, but seriously, how the heck did you get a Hexawing attack helicopter to chase us? Do you have other allies?”

“…?”

There was an unnatural silence.

It gave Kinuhata a sinking feeling, so she insisted: “Seriously, how did you get a Hexawing helicopter to chase us?”

“What are you talking about?” answered Stephanie, somewhat taken aback. “If I could have gotten an attack helicopter in a city like this, I would have just outranged you from a distance.”

Kinuhata froze.

What was that all about, then?

There had definitely been a Hexawing chasing after the stolen car Hamazura was driving. The unmanned weapon was meant for Academy City airspace defense. It wasn’t easy to get your hands on.

The woman on the phone said she hadn’t been involved. The girl in the dress, too, said she wouldn’t be doing things the hard way if she could acquire something like that.

And if even Stephanie said she wasn’t connected…

Other people besides her are coming after us? For real? And it’s someone with enough authority to, like, order a Hexawing to sortie … ?

It happened just as she was thinking about it.

Ba-bam!!

The concrete walls around Kinuhata suddenly exploded.

Once they fell, a black-clad special forces team immediately closed in.

They weren’t for arresting Stephanie.

In fact, most of them broke off to capture Kinuhata instead.

“Hamazura!!” she yelled, now immobilized on the ground. “Get the heck out of here! They’re not after me! I think it’s you they want!!”

Yes.

Saiai Kinuhata was, to be sure, someone with a powerful ability and a unique position. But that meant she could guess how much value she had, and how many people would be after her.

The Hexawing from before didn’t match the conditions, which meant she could assume that when it went after the stolen car, the reason must have been a more unknown factor—Shiage Hamazura.

“…!!” Hamazura shouted something from past the flames, but Takitsubo pulled on his arm, urging him to flee.

He wavered for a few moments, then appeared to go along with Takitsubo. Kinuhata knew it was the right choice. She possessed useful value as combat personnel for Academy City. The chances they’d discard her while she was still usable were slim, and she intended to maneuver things so that wouldn’t happen.

After Hamazura and Takitsubo left, Kinuhata heard the clapping of feet from the mall’s entrance. She looked in that direction, still pinned to the ground. A girl in a dress approached.

She used an ability called Heart Measure, and with Item and School gone, she was supposedly one of the members of the new team assembled from the survivors.

The pair, officially allies on paper, glared at each other.

“What are you even doing?” Kinuhata grumbled.

“I didn’t understand the orders one bit, either. I can’t believe they’d put me on a job with leftovers of the Hound Dogs. I’d even listen to you if you could explain it.” The girl in the dress waved her off. “Did you know Aleister is putting together some sort of plan and executing it?”

Kinuhata frowned.

The girl in the dress ignored it. “Irregular factors like Touma Kamijou and Accelerator are apparently controllable enough to fit inside the scope of his Plan. That’s why he can keep his Plan centered, and even if they go out of control, he can take advantage of whatever happens to benefit his Plan in any number of ways,” she said. “I don’t know what the Plan entails, exactly. But anyway, Shiage Hamazura isn’t like them.”

There was a short silence.

The girl in the dress continued, “That Level Zero was a factor who was supposed to have been killed in the fight between the five units. Despite all that, he somehow managed to take down the fourth-ranked Level Five, Shizuri Mugino, by himself, and he’s still alive…Even Aleister couldn’t have perfectly predicted that, it seems.”

As the men held her to the ground, Kinuhata desperately thought about this.

Was what this girl saying true?

“Shiage Hamazura, a Level Zero who should have had no power and no role. Now he’s trying to gain something on his own. Some new, real value that even Aleister doesn’t know about.”

And then the girl in the dress looked down at Kinuhata as if to provoke her.

Or perhaps, to try to get answers out of her.

“Apparently, depending on how things turn out, that could damage Aleister’s Plan even more than Touma Kamijou or Accelerator. That’s why he’s bringing Academy City’s full force to bear to erase him…What do you think? Do you really think he’s worth that much?”

He didn’t know what was going on.

But he kept on running anyway.

Shiage Hamazura and Rikou Takitsubo ran hand in hand through the city enveloped by the night. They came out of the underground mall, burst through the crowds, and jumped onto the roof of a freight train, which was still running despite the late hour. Hunkered down and panting atop the freight car, they went straight through the stations and charged swiftly through tunnels. But no matter how many deep breaths they took, the stamina they lost wouldn’t come back.

But their pursuers came anyway.

They didn’t seem like an average team. There were black shadows running alongside the fast-moving train. Before they knew it, their hunters jumped onto the train car roof, several of the figures inching closer to them. This wasn’t something a person could do with a little special training. These people were like urban legends at this point. If these guys ever saw the bogeyman, they’d probably punch him in the face. There was no way he could fight and win.

But Hamazura had one idea…Hard Taping. Are they wrapping their entire bodies in the same electrically extending cloth springs Komaba used?!

But the goddess of luck smiled on Hamazura and Takitsubo then. Just before the figures could catch up to them, the freight train decelerated, probably closing in on its destination. Supporting Takitsubo’s small form, Hamazura jumped off the train before it completely stopped. He nearly tumbled onto the gravel and bloodied himself, but he barely managed to keep his balance.

He had no idea what district this was, but he flung open a door set into the tunnel wall and flew in desperation down the narrow corridor. How far did he have to run? How long would he have to keep fleeing? None of the conditions were clear, which meant he couldn’t concoct any detailed plans. For now, in this moment, he ran with all his might. Ran through a marathon that went on forever, one he’d started without even knowing the course.

But Hamazura had support.

Takitsubo was at his side.

He’d been chased once before by the fourth-ranked Level Five, Shizuri Mugino. He’d been in a life-or-death situation then, and he’d had to fight on his own. But this time, he wasn’t alone. The most reliable friend he had was at his side. That meant he wasn’t as nervous as before. He would shake them somehow, and he even went so far as to consider how he would rescue the captive Kinuhata.

Unfortunately—

His support was suddenly on the verge of breaking.

Hamazura felt a tug at his sleeve. That’s what he’d thought anyway, but when he turned around, that wasn’t what had happened. The pink-tracksuited Takitsubo had nearly collapsed on the corridor’s floor, still grasping his hand.

“Hey, Takitsubo?”

He hastily tried to hold her up, but she was strangely heavy. It wasn’t the weight of a person who had strength left. It was a sensation like holding a big bag of mud, and it set all his hairs on end.

“Hama…zura…”

“What’s wrong? Hey, Takitsubo! What the hell’s wrong?!” he shouted in a fluster, but somewhere in his mind, he’d predicted this.

To begin with, Rikou Takitsubo had just gotten out of the hospital. She didn’t sound like she was feeling good when she called him from the private salon facility in District 3, either. And when they’d reunited there, Takitsubo had been unconscious.

She’d relapsed.

In her current condition, there was no way she could sprint for an extended period of time. Escape when her life was constantly in peril was an impossibility.

But the enemy wouldn’t wait. All this time, their unknown pursuers were getting closer.

“Takitsubo, can you stand?” Hamazura asked as she continued to sweat profusely, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

In response, she looked into his eyes and said, “Get out of here, Hamazura.”

His heart and mind were nearly at their breaking point, and those words battered them even more.

“At this rate…we’ll both be captured. So you…escape on your own, please.”

Stop messing around, Hamazura thought. He grabbed the exhausted Takitsubo’s arm, looped it around his shoulder, then picked her up to carry her.

“Hamazura—”

“Stay quiet,” he hushed, interrupting her before she could say something more.

She might have been small, but with every ounce of strength gone, her weight might as well have been the ball on a prisoner’s chain.

So what? Hamazura demanded.

His eyes remained locked ahead.

Gritting his teeth, half dragging himself along, Shiage Hamazura stepped forward. He would never abandon Takitsubo.

He couldn’t leave her here. He would rescue her for sure. This senseless, crazy life of a fugitive on the run couldn’t go on forever. He’d turn things around. He’d pull her right out of this danger. That was all that was on his mind as he moved his feet, one in front of the other, ever onward.

But it didn’t last very long.

Though it wasn’t to the degree of Crystals destroying his body like Takitsubo, he wasn’t at his best, either. He’d already fought through numerous battles during the day and then ran several kilometers at full tilt. His stamina wouldn’t hold out. His muscles were screaming. His legs were shaking. He knew he could collapse to the floor at any moment. And meanwhile, several sets of footfalls were closing in from behind. He also heard the clacking noise of submachine gun parts.

They’d be caught at this rate.

If they were caught, they’d be killed.

At that thought, Hamazura tried to move even farther forward, but the strength at last left his legs. They tumbled awkwardly to the floor in an embrace. Hamazura got up and tried to get under Takitsubo’s body again. But he couldn’t lift her. This totally normal girl’s body felt as heavy as a barbell.

“Hamazura…,” rasped Takitsubo from next to him. “It’s okay, Hamazura. I’ll buy you time.”

“Shut the hell up!!” he exclaimed.

But his body wouldn’t move.

Hamazura half climbed over Takitsubo, meaning to shield her from the bullets. He knew they’d have an easy time piercing through a human body, but he didn’t hesitate.

Someone … he prayed, tears forming at the corners of his eyes… Please, do what I can’t. Swoop in heroically and save her life. I need a hero right now…

He knew nobody so convenient would show up. If someone like that existed, Shiage Hamazura wouldn’t be at rock bottom like this in the first place.

But he couldn’t help praying.

Rikou Takitsubo was the one thing he didn’t want to lose.

Footsteps approached. Their numbers increased. There was nothing he could do. He could tell several muzzles were now pointed at them. All he had in his hand was a single pistol. At this rate, he’d be riddled with holes as soon as he reached for it.

He was utterly cornered.

Miracles never happened.

And so it was that…

Shoo-pop!! Countless flashes of light struck out.

They knocked every one of the unknown pursuers down, instantly removing the threat.

He couldn’t figure out what had happened. All he knew was that some sort of ability, or something like it, had been used. By the time he thought that, more than ten of the pursuers were torn apart right before his eyes, their entrails strewn about. This part of the corridor was stained with fresh blood. He didn’t know who had done it, but someone had actually saved them. That was what Hamazura had thought in his daze, still holding on to Rikou Takitsubo.

“Heh-heh-heh…”

It began to seep slowly into Hamazura from the outside, and eventually, as though remembering something forgotten, the relief made its way to his brain.

“Hey, we made it. I don’t know who just provided backup, but we survived…!!”

But then it happened.

“…Haaamazuraaaaa…”

One word.

That way of addressing him alone caused a terrible chill to wash down his back.

He knew that voice. And now that he thought about it, he knew the ability, too.

Meltdown. A form of electron-controlling ability, it could manipulate and launch electrons themselves rather than waves or particles. It was registered to the fourth-ranked Level Five, and its user, its user, its user…Shiage Hamazura had taken her down before.

But now she was coming closer.

Her.

The person who had come for Shiage Hamazura was no hero.

Clip-clap. Clip-clap. Footsteps rang out proudly, as if to boast of their own existence, and they were getting slowly closer. They stepped on the blood and organs of the torn corpses she’d personally torn to pieces, coming straight for them.

A familiar woman.

She had no right eye.

Her left arm was torn off.

A pale-blue light, like a welding arc, was pouring out of her hollow, dark-red eye socket. Her left arm was the same. An arm made of blinding light reached out of her shoulder as if to compensate for the arm that didn’t exist. It must have been considerably high-energy, because he even heard the sound of its electricity, like bugs getting fried in a trap lamp.

It was from her ability.

It was from the fourth-ranked Level Five.

Meltdown.

This wasn’t a cheap ability that just anyone could control. As far as Hamazura knew, only one person could use it.

A ragged voice escaped Shiage Hamazura’s mouth.

He squeezed out the name, not only his vocal cords but his entire body trembling. The words didn’t come out properly.

“Shizuri…Mugino…?!”

“You deserve to be hunted down by better than these lowlifes. After all, you have me—and I decided I’d have you drawn and quartered!!”

Chill!!

This time, the face of true, unbridled despair opened its jaw to swallow them.

13

Accelerator, Motoharu Tsuchimikado, Awaki Musujime, and Mitsuki Unabara were in the deepest part of the domed shelter. In front of them was the defeated Shiokishi. His powered suit had fallen to pieces, and a knife made of black stone was stuck in his gut.

“There are two things we can do that will protect our own.”

Accelerator, on his crutch, put his free hand to his neck and cracked it loudly.

“The first is making you spit out everything you know about Dragon right now. The second thing is taking that knife in you, moving it up and down, and splaying your intestines all over the floor.”

“Dragon, eh…,” mumbled Shiokishi, not even paying much attention to his stab wound. “Have you any suspicions?”

“You’d better not be about to babble on about not actually knowing anything yourself.”

“It would have been easier if that were true. Unfortunately, I did learn of it. I was in a position where I was able to. That was why I worried.”

The four remained silent.

Only Shiokishi’s voice continued.

“It is something no human eyes should ever see. If you demand the details, I will give them, but allow me to say this for your sakes: It’s better not to know. I don’t mean that in the sense of a cheap threat. It is purely the remark of one who knows. To be honest, I didn’t want to know. I wish, from the bottom of my heart, that I’d never known.”

“What is Dragon?” pressed Accelerator, heedless. “And where the hell is Dragon?”

According to Tsuchimikado and Unabara, Dragon was a code word related to angels. And Accelerator had personally witnessed something with wings of light on September 30. Wings that were apparently related to what Amata Kihara was doing, to Last Order and the virus.

“…What are you saying?”

Shiokishi chuckled in spite of himself.

It was too funny to him, seeing people talk so seriously about something they had a completely wrong idea about.

“Dragon is everywhere. Look—it’s behind you now.”

Accelerator thought it was a mean-spirited joke.

But a moment later, he heard dull thuds.

“Tsuchimikado?”

Without thinking, he turned around.

And then he said their names.

“Musujime? Unabara?”

They had all fallen down. Completely knocked out. No noticeable injuries, but also no signs they’d be getting up soon. The members of Group each boasted incredible combat powers. An attack by factors unknown had just taken them all down easily…without even allowing room or time for a counterattack.

And then.

Accelerator saw it.

“It’s not Fuse Kazakiri.”

Standing in a daze with his eyes opened wide, only Accelerator could hear Shiokishi’s voice.

“That is nothing more than a simple production line used in Dragon’s formation.”

Saying all that he needed to, Shiokishi passed out then, possibly from blood loss. He fell to the floor with a grunt, but Accelerator didn’t have the leeway to look his way.

His gaze remained fixed in front of him.

Long, golden hair.

A tall, shining body, and white garments that wrapped loosely around it. He couldn’t tell the exact gender, but if he had to guess based on its appearance, it looked feminine.

An infinitely smooth face, all emotions at once—happiness, anger, sorrow, pleasure—while simultaneously having a basis in something clearly alien to human emotions.

“…Dragon, is it?”

It opened its mouth.

Accelerator had never before felt such a sense of wrongness about something with a human form speaking human words.

“That given name is not mistaken, either. I do also correspond to the symbol of angel…I am, at the very least, far closer to the real thing than those romanticized ideas whispered of on the streets, of extraterrestrial intelligent life-forms, holy guardian angels, or the Secret Chiefs of modern western sorcerers’ societies. My existence, however, differs in concept from the angels described in extant holy books. Therefore, if one wanted to refer to me in a more accurate fashion, one should choose a term from among the following.”

This thing was telling him the answer to the question Accelerator and the others had pursued.

“It is rare that one would cling to this extent. This must mean you find value and interest in what I call myself. And that is why I suppose I shall answer your question.”

This thing was describing Dragon’s identity.

“I am the one who once provided necessary knowledge only in necessary amounts to a strange sorcerer known as Crowley.

“…I am known as Aiwass.”