CHAPTER 4

Two Monsters with an Invitation to Hell
Dragon(≠Angel).

1

Aiwass.

That was what the being, apparently classified under the code name Dragon, called itself.

Accelerator confronted the blond humanoid, very cautiously observing it.

In all honesty, his thoughts wouldn’t connect with what he’d set out to do next.

The basic direction for all of Group, including him, was this: to find Dragon’s identity, the highest secret in Academy City, then use it to bargain with the city’s leaders. They never thought for a second that the Dragon itself would appear before their eyes.

And perhaps…

Perhaps Accelerator had considered, somewhere deep down, the possibility of Dragon’s identity never coming to light.

But now that it was suddenly right in front of him, perhaps his thoughts hadn’t caught up yet.

“That is a very mystified face,” said the being named Aiwass, without changing its expression. Its very golden locks appeared to radiate a faint light.

“Is it truly so incomprehensible that I should appear in this way?”

Of course Accelerator wore an expression of shock. Academy City had been keeping this being under lock and key until now. Why, of all things, would it choose to appear? Accelerator considered several possibilities, then chose the most logical:

“…A servant of Shiokishi’s? You’re too late to serve as reinforcements.”

“Are you being serious?”

Aiwass shook its head. It was clearly expressing its intent, and yet, Accelerator couldn’t even guess at what it was thinking.

He stayed silent for a moment, internally coming to reject his own hypothesis. Yes, Shiokishi must have despised … or more like, feared Dragon, he thought. This wasn’t even close to how one of his pawns would respond.

However.

If that was out, then why had Aiwass appeared before Accelerator?

“Because I have acknowledged a level of value in you, and because of that…I’ve taken something of an interest in you,” said Aiwass—its tone casual, as if to reject everything Group and Shiokishi had done up until that very moment. “You wished to meet me—and thus, I appeared. Are you unsatisfied with that?”

That was insane.

But this being didn’t appear to be hiding anything, either.

Did it mean to say it silently took out Tsuchimikado and the other two because it didn’t find any value or interest in anyone but Accelerator?

Now what … ?

Accelerator lowered his center slightly.

Several people had shown up before now and posed a threat to Accelerator’s life, like Hound Dog’s Amata Kihara and School’s Teitoku Kakine, but this Aiwass was cut from a completely different cloth. He couldn’t even sense malice from it.

Aiwass was supposed to be the most crucial asset for Academy City’s leadership. But there was more than one way to use it; defeating Aiwass was sure to deal major damage to the top brass’s scheming, but maybe there was a more effective way to use this dragon…

In the first place, he didn’t know what kind of role Aiwass had.

Unless he knew that first, he wouldn’t be able to devise effective ways to use the being.

He started to feel like a dog on a leash.

Aiwass realized that and showed emotion for the first time—an expression that seemed surprised. “This result differs from my predictions. I had thought you would charge at me to take revenge for your friends, then end up flat on the floor within three seconds.”

“…What you just said to me is a better way to make that happen,” growled Accelerator.

Yes—Aiwass had taken out Motoharu Tsuchimikado, Awaki Musujime, and Mitsuki Unabara without so much as making a sound.

If one was to ask Accelerator if that was enough to engage in hostilities, he’d have said no. As stated multiple times in the past, to Accelerator, Group was only held together by how valuable each member was to use.

First, he’d extract any information that seemed useful out of this Aiwass. He’d decide whether to be hostile after that.

Having settled on his course of action, Accelerator stared the newcomer down again. “What are you? And why do they hide it with the code name Dragon?”

“Must I start explaining from there?” said the being as if it was about to remark on how surprisingly dull he was. “My identity is nothing special. I’m naught more than a simple hboiebeingaeb…”

Aiwass’s words blurred.

Accelerator frowned, but even the being who had spoken them brought a dubious hand to its throat, checking its voice.

“…Well. I cannot even express this level of meaning in this world. The headers are insufficient. I would struggle to explain it this way. May I take a more roundabout route? It would be simple to convey this directly, but if I did, it would cause a wgbudcollapsewsrui, you see.”

Aiwass didn’t seem like it was speaking in riddles or jokes.

To begin with, Accelerator was hearing things strangely. For some reason, at the moment Aiwass’s voice blurred, the direction of the sound source itself shifted away. It sounded very unnatural to him, as though the left and right speakers in a pair of headphones were reversed.

“Do you know the words Fuse Kazakiri?”

“…?”

He remembered Shiokishi mentioning something about that, but Accelerator didn’t know what they meant. But when Aiwass saw his face, it exhaled softly.

“It is troubling indeed to speak of things from beginning to end. Remember my words and research them on your own time later. In any case, it is a being called various things, one of which is man-made angel. This is accurate given its properties, but it doesn’t reflect Fuse Kazakiri’s true nature. She is really something of a production line for the purpose of giving form to me, Aiwass.”

Accelerator didn’t understand most of that, but the word angel did stick with him.

The wings of light that appeared when Amata Kihara injected Last Order with the virus. Even that wasn’t the important part? It was just a piece of the plan prepared for this Aiwass creature?

“Allow me to use a crystal as an analogy. What substances are close at hand—water or salt? Yes, I believe I’ll use salt this time. Assume that there exists highly dense saltwater called an AIM diffusion field. However, crystallization cannot occur from that alone. In order to proceed efficiently, it is better to inject impurities into the saltwater. It can be a simple twig, or a small grain of dust, or a nsrioangegau such as Fuse Kazakiri…Well, the crystallization itself is simple, but when aiming for the desired shape in the desired size, it then becomes necessary to consider the core’s properties.”

“…What you’re trying to say is that you were created based on this Fuse Kazakiri thing?”

“Strictly speaking, Fuse Kazakiri was the one who was adjusted in order to create me. It would be correct to think of her as a factory assembly line. In any case, I will not deny that I was born after the stylings of Fuse Kazakiri. It would be more accurate to say uymanifesidvif rather than born, but— Blast, my words cannot catch up. I suppose I will say that I was not born, but rather emerged. Strictly speaking, it is different, but I cannot express it in any other way.”

Aiwass brought its index finger to its chest, then moved it down toward its stomach.

“Aleister seems to love his circuitous methodology, but, well—cloning technology is not enough for me.”

If Aiwass was a mass of AIM diffusion fields coming together, that would mean it wasn’t human.

This was all ridiculously fantastic, but Accelerator didn’t laugh it away.

In fact.

He would have felt even stranger had the being standing in front of him said it was a human just like him.

“What will you do?” asked Aiwass. “I appeared out of mere curiosity, but what will your next actions be? What would you like to do? For example, do you desire to use my information to quash Aleister’s ambitions?”

“…Are you being serious?” Those words heightened Accelerator’s caution. “I don’t know what the chairperson’s goals are, but you’re at the center of all this. I mean, to crush his plans means sending you, whose existence is supported by artificial means, back to the void.”

“Indeed.” Aiwass nodded, long hair waving. “But what does that matter?”

“What…?”

“Let us speak of history.” Suddenly, Aiwass veered the conversation in a different direction. “Those who live on the ground here do many different things, celebrating them as ecological or protecting the environment. They say things like many species of animal and plant will go extinct at this rate, earnestly picking empty cans off the road and trying to reduce the amount of smoke.”

“Never seen such a master Peeping Tom before.”

“You would suggest you humans do anything worthy of me watching?”

“Cut the crap. What are you getting at?”

“Only that history will not change at all,” answered Aiwass with ease. “Long ago, an ice age visited this planet. The environment changed drastically, and many animals and plants went extinct…But did history itself end? The flow of time doesn’t budge, regardless of whether the small creatures clinging to its surface live or die. If global thermonuclear war broke out right now, and all higher life vanished from the face of the planet, it means nothing to the thick pillars of history. Ten thousand years, one hundred thousand years—eventually, other plants and animals will appear on their own to replace them.”

“…”

“It’s all the same. Though I may not be one suited to speak of this dimension’s history. This man, Aleister, has not learned his lesson and evidently wishes to use me, but I would not be particularly troubled were his plans to be set back. After ten or a hundred thousand years, I will asbumanifesoagbv…or rather, appear, at another opportunity. Even that has no real worth to me, however.

“Now, then,” added Aiwass, long hair swaying, arms slowly spreading. “What will you do? It may be entertaining to kill me here and frustrate Aleister, you know. That is, if your full powers are capable of such a thing.”

Aiwass was unreadable.

Accelerator felt like random gears in his mind were missing; his normal aggressive thoughts weren’t coming to him. It didn’t matter whether or not he had proof—he knew that even given a long period of time, he wouldn’t find a way through. There was no point in merely fighting. It felt to him as stupid as running on and on, trying to reach the horizon where the sun was setting.

He stayed still, and Aiwass, its hands still spread out wide, continued. “Oh? Are you sure about that? I should say this first— Aleister, whose power you trust in a negative way, is far from a perfect human.”

“What?”

“Several seams have begun to come apart in his schemes.”

Aiwass spoke as though it meant nothing, despite it having to do with literally its entire existence.

“Aleister himself seems to think that each time an irregular phenomenon occurs, he can simply work it into his plan to be beneficial and recover from it. But the small cracks are beginning to grow larger. At this rate, the situation will develop into something that not even Aleister, executor of the plan, would have expected. Yes…”

He had a bad feeling about this.

He could sense he shouldn’t listen.

But Aiwass continued, as though mentally cornering stunted, pitiable humans was the only thing this being could enjoy in their boring world.

“…Yes, like how the core of his plan, Last Order, is headed for certain ‘collapse’ down the road at this rate. Well, she is just a clone, so he might simply be able to create another with the same functions.”

Those two words were enough.

His top priority eliminated all discouraging factors and determined Accelerator’s next actions.

2

Where am I? thought Hamazura as he ran at full speed through the deep, dark corridor.

Where was he? He was alone. Rikou Takitsubo, whom he hadn’t let out of his sight until now, was no longer there.

The reason was simple—they’d been forced apart. The figure slowly following him from behind, as if making sport of him, possessed enough strength to do that. It wasn’t a matter of pure physical power or abilities. Something far more overwhelming—terror—rested in the foundation.

“…Haaamazuraaa.” A voice, audible from beyond the dark.

“?!” Without turning around, Hamazura surged into a sideways leap. He hit the metal railing, his body rattling, leaning over it. By the time he realized this passage was actually a raised bridge, he was already plummeting.

But it was probably still better than the alternative.

A moment later, with a ga-bam, a terrible flash of light stormed past. It melted the very metal walkway he’d just been standing upon, blowing it away and leaving an orange waterfall in its wake.

The Meltdown.

The fourth-ranked Level Five.

“Gah!!”

Right after those monikers crossed his mind, he slammed into the floor on his back.

He must have fallen about three meters, down onto another suspended walkway. And below the metal grating, yet another artificial floor reached past.

This was a very large space. It was probably over a hundred meters across just in width and likely several kilometers long. And even farther below Hamazura’s feet was a line of small jet fighters. A quick glance revealed over twenty of them.

… Which means I’m in the aviation capital of the city, District 23…?

It didn’t seem like any old repair yard. This was probably a testing ground for conducting trials on new models. The freight train Hamazura and Takitsubo had shared had been ferrying materials here.

Then it happened:

The clack of her shoe.

It came from above, probably from the walkway Hamazura had fallen from.

He immediately ducked for cover, diving behind a box-shaped obstacle that looked like a crane control seat.

“Well, it looks like you’re fast to escape, at least. As usual. Are you sure? You left your beloved Takitsubo behind.”

“Erg … !” Hamazura’s back teeth grated back and forth.

He couldn’t see it from behind cover, but he could tell—Shizuri Mugino was probably dragging the limp, disabled Takitsubo along with her one arm. She had a simple reason for not killing her—it was to torment him as much as she could.

In truth, he would have liked to jump out and confront her instead. But if he attacked that monster head-on, he’d never win. He’d be reduced to cinders in a moment, and that would be that, leaving no one to rescue Takitsubo. If her goal of tormenting him was gone, Mugino would kill her without delay.

… Damn it, damn it! Damn it!! Why? Why?! Why did she have to show up now, of all times?!

His hands trembling, he took out his gun and popped out the magazine to check how many rounds he had left. In the meantime, only the demonic voice of Mugino mocking him resounded through the jet fighter testing site.

“Are you panicking because you don’t know how I survived? Cyborgs, cloning, and nanodevices, oh my! If you guess right, I wouldn’t mind giving you a bonus. But you probably wouldn’t get it anyway. You seem pretty dull.”

Ga-bam!! Boom!! Several rays of light shot down in sequence. They hadn’t been aiming at Hamazura precisely, but just the vibrations from the aftermath sent fear coiling around his entire body.

“It’s apparently an application of the ‘negative legacy’ left behind by some perverse doctor named Heaven Canceler, in any case. They said they used an oil-and-fat-based melting skeleton to stabilize my flesh’s regeneration rate, then induced rapid cell division. I don’t think the man himself would have used it like that…though I suppose that doesn’t matter. I’m having too much fun watching you cry.”

Hamazura edged his head out from behind the box to get a look at the situation.

“Haaamazuraaa. Hide-and-seek is nice, but would you mind coming out soon? If you don’t, I’ll start aiming at this precious Takitsubo.”

Agh!! He heard a grunt. Mugino had grabbed Takitsubo’s hair, then held her in front of her like a shield.

Mugino then slowly brought her other arm, the intensely flashing one made from Meltdown, a hair’s breadth away from Takitsubo’s skin.

“Gya-ha-ha!! Now, where should I begin roasting her? Should I melt her little face off? Or should I shove it against her little pink and burn it to a black crisp?! Hey, Hamazura, what do you think? It’s about to turn black like a mummy— Will you still be able to get off if you stick it in?!”

Damn it …

“I’ll count to three. If you don’t come out, the punishment is a brand on Takitsubo’s . You want to abandon her? I bet you’re masturbating to the smell of burning virgin.”

Mugino’s countdown wasn’t the usual drawn-out kind.

In fact…

“Three, two, one…Ka-boom!!”

“Damn it!!”

When she’d rattled off her countdown, Hamazura burst out from behind the crane control box. Immediately, he leveled his gun at Mugino, but she was many times faster. Plus, she was using Takitsubo as a shield.

“There’s a good boy, Hamazura.”

Ga-bam!! A massive burst split through everything.

She moved her fingertips like flicking a rolled-up piece of trash. Nevertheless, what came was an attack more terrifying than even a battleship cannon. It shot straight by Hamazura, striking an oil drum sitting behind him. Whoosh!! The fuel ignited, a blast of hot wind whipped out, and Hamazura’s body flew over five meters into the air.

If she’d wanted to, she could have killed him instantly.

But she didn’t—because she wanted to torment him first.

… Damn it…

It took all his energy to flip his facedown body back up. As he did, he cursed himself. A Level Zero who beat Shizuri Mugino once before? What a joke. Now he understood very well how many coincidences and miracles had interceded on his behalf back then. This woman named Shizuri Mugino wasn’t some low-level monster he could kill many times over with ease. The factor known as Shiage Hamazura did not function as a trump card against her. He couldn’t win like this.

“Hamazuraaa, Hamazuraaa!!”

He heard her calling his name. When he did, he clenched his teeth and tried to get himself up.

But Mugino moved quicker than he did.

Still, it wasn’t to finish off Hamazura now that he couldn’t move properly. From the start, she’d been drawing out their hellish time together so she could thoroughly and completely torture him.

She then set her sights on Rikou Takitsubo.

“What, are you trying to hype yourself up to be a lone, tragic heroine? You’re no normal princess, are you? Didn’t you have the strength to fight at some point?”

“?!” A noise, half gasp and half choke, struggled out of Takitsubo’s tight throat.

Mugino tossed her limp body aside casually, then reached into her pocket with her one natural arm. Out of it she took an object that was about the size of a mechanical pencil’s graphite case.

It was a case for Crystals.

“Ability Stalker. If you put it to full use, you might have been able to reverse my AIM field and hijack my ability, hmm?”

Ping. Her fingertips flicked the small Crystal case. It clattered to the floor and rolled, coming to a stop right next to the fallen girl.

Takitsubo…and their last piece of Crystal. She was the one who could turn things around.

But if she used it, she would surely “break down.” Even her current unenergetic condition was thanks to the side effects from Crystals.

She couldn’t take any more. If she used them even one more time, it would be over.

But…

“You know, if you want to run, you can be my guest.”

Mugino’s words rattled the near-dead girl on the ground.

No, they didn’t just rattle her—they were so forceful they nearly broke her.

“But then I’ll burn Hamazura to a crisp, and he’ll die. Because you abandoned him to his death. Gya-ha-ha-ha!! I don’t really care what you do. Either way, I’m sure I’ll get to see something entertaining!!”

Rikou Takitsubo moaned and reached out a hand.

This was a choice that she knew would bring her own destruction upon her.

She had one reason, but it was enough.

She had to save Shiage Hamazura, who was beaten and about to be killed.

“O​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​!​!”

She groaned like a beast and, finally, her hand grabbed the Crystal case. She flipped open the lid immediately so she wouldn’t hesitate, as though sticking a knife in her own chest. Mugino cackled when she saw it. She seemed amused beyond all else that her feelings of wanting to save someone precious to her would lead to a nightmarish outcome.

… Hamazura…Takitsubo firmly shut her eyes and opened her mouth.

Her shaking hand moved, trying to fling the contents of the Crystal case inside it.

Then it happened.

“M​u​g​i​n​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​o​!​!”

Shiage Hamazura unleashed a scream.

A moment later came the sound of a giant motor. The arm for the crane they used to do maintenance on the jets had shuddered, and when Mugino realized it, she took a few quick steps backward. The hook on the end of the arm, still holding a load, swung around in a wide arc like a giant morning star on a chain. And instead of hitting the one who had dodged it, it struck Takitsubo in the side, just as she was about to take the Crystals.

Grkkk!!

It was an awful noise.

The Crystal case burst open, and Takitsubo went over the railing and disappeared into the level below.

“Ha-ha-ha…”

Despite herself, a grin had formed on Mugino’s lips.

The result wasn’t in her script, but coincidences sometimes brought even greater amusement with them.

“Gya-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!! What the hell was that, Hamazura?! Who were you trying to protect?! Some friend you are, finishing her off personally!!”

But then, as Mugino laughed uproariously, a damp chill suddenly came over her.

She’d been jeering at and mocking Hamazura endlessly, but he’d never reacted. He’d shown no humiliation or regret.

Mugino realized it too late.

Hamazura had been going after Takitsubo from the beginning. He’d both stopped her from using the Crystals and removed her from Mugino’s clutches. Even if it meant harming the person he wanted to protect, it would at least let her avoid a decisive, fatal blow.

She thought back.

The stuff hanging off the crane hook—hadn’t it been a worker-use powered suit, the kind for working with hazardous aviation explosives? Yes, one to give to the frail Takitsubo to raise her chances of survival even a few percentage points.

“…Shizuri Mugino…”

And why would he go that far?

That was obvious.

“It looks like one death just wasn’t enough for you.”

Then, the Level Zero who had once brought down the fourth-ranked Level Five stood up once more.

And ironically, for the same purpose—to save a girl named Rikou Takitsubo.

3

Accelerator switched on his choker electrode.

Now he could use the number-one Level Five ability whenever he wanted: the ability to alter vectors. The power to reflect every possible attack, a power that could bring forth from that trivial capacity catastrophic destruction. As long as he had it, there would be no enemy he couldn’t defeat.

Aiwass had said this to him, a hint of scorn passing across its face.

That if Aleister’s plans continued, Last Order would “collapse” not long into the future.

And implicitly, it had told him this as well:

If you believe you can kill me, then do it. But I’m sure power on your level couldn’t eliminate my existence even temporarily.

… Well, you asked for it. Manipulating his leg force vectors, Accelerator exploded forward. I don’t know if you’re a clump of AIM fields or an angel or what, but nobody who intentionally tries to harm that brat deserves any mercy. I’m wiping you out of existence and making things easier for myself, just like I said!!

Aiwass didn’t even try to dodge. It gazed upon Accelerator, its hands still loosely spread.

Accelerator dove straight into range. He thrust an open hand as hard as he could—and with it, all he had to do was manipulate its vectors, and he’d be able to destroy Aiwass from the inside out.

However.

Ga-bam!!

An instant later, a shock wave of causes unknown pierced through Accelerator’s upper body in a diagonal line.

He’d been cut right through, as though with a heavy katana. Immediately after he felt it, his body slammed into the floor, and he tumbled backward a few times.

An unbelievable amount of fresh blood spewed. It wasn’t only from the gaping wound in his upper body, but from his mouth and his nose as well. All joking and metaphors aside, the wound was so huge it was strange none of his organs were leaking out of him.

“Gh…bh, g​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​a​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​?!”

He didn’t know what had just happened. Several had gotten through his reflection technique before, like Amata Kihara and Teitoku Kakine. But Aiwass was different. It wasn’t using some strange logic exception to slip through. Even after he’d taken a decisive blow, he couldn’t analyze what had just happened to his own body.

“Oh. That was my mistake,” said Aiwass, its voice relaxed in contrast.

Something sprouted from its back, parting through its long, blond hair. Wings. Wings that shone, radiated far too much for human eyes, brighter than a nuclear explosion. Had those wings been what sliced through Accelerator?

They were abnormal.

They weren’t simply golden. They glittered in a pale platinum, with white mixed at its core…Words may not have been enough to describe it, but that was the only way Accelerator’s brain could express it.

Not being able to comprehend something he was physically seeing gave him a strong sense of unease.

“I see you’ve planted some sort of snconstructionbozl-use virus, Aleister. You went through Last Order to embed self-defense bseouabilitygbu in my beuomanifesdnn? Well, I do indeed apologize. It seems he nbspgaddnpsir something like a suicide preventer. If you want to sbgpkillnapedv me, please do something about the nspidhwinggorws. They move of their own accord.”

Aiwass’s words were growing stranger and stranger.

But Accelerator wasn’t exactly listening. His eye color shifted into a red more baleful than the red of the blood spurting from his body. Still fallen, his hand reached out and found the ground, smashing the floor tiles.

“A​b​e​o​u​g​h​a​b​a​e​o​u​g​b​a​o​k​i​l​l​w​o​b​n​o​w​e​u​f​e​r​y​a … !!”

Ga-bam!! Accelerator’s back burst. Jet-black wings carved out from it. Dark wings, in contrast to the pale platinum ones Aiwass had. His upper body bleached in crimson, even his lips and teeth turned bright red, the demon swayed and rose with a gravity-defying smoothness.

“‘Do what thou wilt.’ That shall be thy law?”

Accelerator had no way of knowing, but that sentence was written in the Book of the Law and described the pillar central to a certain sorcerer long ago.

“Unfortunately, you have the wrong rggtimerigeneration. Yours are, in the end, the rsgpowernophe from the eon of Osiris. You cannot hosefenemygierd me, one who lives in Horus.”

There was a massive, thundering roar.

It was the shock wave created by the two types of wings, jet-black and pale platinum, clashing.

The collision created a storm.

Ga-baaaahhhh!! Blazing-hot winds whipped up around Accelerator and Aiwass.

But the battle was far from equal. With the first attack, Accelerator’s black wings shredded apart from their base, and with the second, they came completely off. Something more howl than scream rang out. Meanwhile, Aiwass’s pale-platinum wings swung. Fresh crimson blood scattered, dancing into the air, erased by the whipping winds.

They were in two completely different dimensions.

Despite the power of Accelerator’s black wings, it was like swinging around a heavy wooden club. Aiwass’s, on the other hand, were like swords of legend, thoroughly sharpened by advanced technology.

There was the sound of something falling.

No—a person falling.

“Is that all?” said Aiwass simply, watching Accelerator sink into his pool of blood.

A normal human would have died for sure, but Accelerator was still breathing. He had unconsciously used his vector-altering ability to force his blood to circulate from torn vessel to vessel. Hence, a lot of red liquid now flew around him like juice spilled in space.

But that was it.

All he could do was cling to life. No resuscitation, no miracle, would come from it.

“I had mentioned Last Order as an easy way to tempt you, but this went faster than expected. Your level of maturity wouldn’t even be able to cope with Fuse Kazakiri. You’re getting impatient again, aren’t you, Aleister? …Teitoku Kakine is worth thinking about as well.”

Once it was finished speaking, Aiwass turned on its heel. Using its legs, it left that place. It was actually stranger than seeing it suddenly disappear or take flight would have been.

Until—

Grick!! Aiwass felt something small breaking at its core.

An error had occurred in the AIM diffusion field aggregate’s bonding that governed its existence. Aiwass considered the cause and then turned around. It began to break into pieces, starting with the tips of its golden locks, and even then, Aiwass’s face remained stoic.

“If I’m right…”

A ragged voice.

It belonged to Accelerator, but they weren’t indecipherable words like Aiwass’s speech. He spoke in a human language, saying, “…You’re using…Academy City’s…AIM fields…to emerge…And to control it, you made…this Fuse Kazakiri thing…and put a virus in that brat…Which means—”

“Yes, you’ve thought this through.”

Aiwass smiled, its fingertips crumbling and losing shape all the while.

Its eyes gazed at Accelerator’s crutch.

“Your jammer for blocking waves that remote control your choker—you reconfigured it for the entire Misaka network. The network is essentially a signpost for guiding all of Academy City’s AIM fields. So yes…Blocking the Misaka network’s interference from this space, in this location alone, is indeed like removing the crystal’s core and reverting it to saltwater. However…”

As it spoke, Accelerator’s legs were trembling madly.

Even though Aiwass hadn’t done anything.

“Do you understand? It is also cutting off the only lifeline you have right now.”

“…”

There was only the continuous plips of dripping blood.

Accelerator had been just barely stopping the blood loss by using his ability and forcing his blood to flow through broken vessels. If he blocked off his own vector-altering ability, only one thing could happen.

“…Shut…up…,” he said, lips trembling. He’d set the jamming to grow stronger as time passed. Eventually, he wouldn’t be able to talk or walk. Mustering what strength he had left so he could finish things before that happened, he drew his gun.

Not a strange, unknown power belonging to an angel or a demon or what have you, but a weapon he would wield as a human.

He’d walked this bloody path in order to save one girl named Last Order. To that end, he was determined to make even Last Order his enemy and reign as a soot-black king of evil.

He was a villain—and not the kind who would prostrate himself to save his own life in a place like this.

It was petty and not the type of villain Accelerator presented to the world.

Therefore, he didn’t hesitate to make the decision.

No matter how much of his blood spewed, even if he collapsed, even if all his innards were exposed by his enormous wound—in order to save Last Order, he would pull the trigger his finger was already touching. That was his evil.

“Do what thou wilt. That shall be thy law.”

Aiwass spoke in a singsong voice. Its hands had already broken apart up to the elbows, and its palely shining wings of white-cored platinum were as still as a device with the cogs removed. Its body was partly transparent, and an object that looked like a triangular prism appeared briefly in the center of its head, only to disappear again. Its surface moved around without end, like a keyboard, clacking and clacking and clacking.

When it realized the muzzle was suddenly pointed at it, Aiwass spread its arms—which only went down to the elbows—and spoke with a smile as though welcoming him.

“I see. Then show me thy law.”

A gunshot rang out.

It left behind only two sounds: one like a crystal shattering—and another, the dull thud of a person falling.

4

Shizuri Mugino jumped down to the next level of walkways. The metal grating clanged, echoing through the jet testing center. Hamazura was there, leaning, wounded, against the outside of the crane operator’s box, glaring at Mugino’s one real eye.

“One death just wasn’t enough, hmm?” she mocked. The arm of light she’d created in place of her lost limb crackled. “You’re right. It’s nowhere near enough—if you wanted to face me with words, your complaints could use the help of a few more brain cells!!”

Za-spark!! Her flashing arm swelled explosively.

But Hamazura moved first.

His limp hand held the gun, so he could’ve raised it up, taken aim, and fired. If he’d taken that much time, Mugino would have used it to blow off Hamazura’s limbs quite cleanly.

Instead, he immediately pulled the trigger while his arm still hung low. The bullet naturally flew off in an unexpected direction…and struck a fire extinguisher nearby.

Ba-bom!! Pressed by the gas, a cloud of white powder closed around his profile.

… Hiding in the fog, are we?

“Are you still screwing with me, Hamazuraaa?!”

Giving the impression of someone in the audience throwing a tomato onto the stage during a poorly written play, Mugino’s Meltdown launched a bright beam. A second pure-white ray, then a third, fired off in sequence, carving fatally into the silhouette beyond the fire extinguisher powder and blasting it away.

“Damn, I wanted to take my time crushing him. Did I accidentally kill him instantly?” muttered Mugino in spite of herself.

But the results begged to differ.

The thing she thought she’d blasted away had been one of the cardboard boxes stacked haphazardly next to him. While Mugino was preoccupied with the dummy, Hamazura had immediately jumped off the grated walkway and onto the lowest floor.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. Escaping with a smokescreen and a dummy? …I had no idea you were a goddamn ninja!!”

She fired light downward, mostly out of irritation, then jumped down to the lower level herself.

Several jets were lined up in the vast space. Even for testing purposes, they were already completely finished, paint and all. Missiles and bombs of various sizes were even attached to the underside of their wings—maybe they planned to do tests fully equipped to see if they could bear the loads.

Now, then.

Mugino looked around with her one remaining eye.

Shiage Hamazura was probably hiding somewhere, watching, waiting for his chance. He’d at least realized that she’d shoot him in the back if he kept running at this point.

“…”

She glanced at a jet and briefly wondered if he would use one to counterattack. If he used its 20mm or 30mm Gatling gun and a variety of missiles, she’d probably have a little trouble.

… But no, that would be a bit much, she thought, rejecting the idea. She was sure a street thug like Shiage Hamazura wouldn’t know how to control a specialized vehicle like that. And even if he could, that didn’t change the fact that they were in a warehouse. As for any jets that could fight while standing still—with Mugino’s ability, she could vaporize it in one attack.

She walked slowly down the kilometers-long passage, her soles clicking, and she smirked. This was it, this was it. If he walked up right in front of her, she’d send him to his death in one hit.

But he had to do his fair share to get there.

“Wheeere in the wooorld could you beee, Haaamazuraaa?” she sang with a random rhythm, her flashing arm swaying to and fro.

And then…

“I’m right here.”

Suddenly, she got a stupidly honest response.

“?!”

It came from right next to her. She’d been on the wrong end of a crazy handgun counterattack last time. She twisted around quickly and fired Meltdown before getting a read on her target. Bra-zakk!! A brilliant flashing light surged out, and the jet in the direction she’d released it melted in an orange color.

But just before that, she saw it.

She saw, in the place she’d attacked, a maintenance tractor alongside long and slender bombs loaded like drainpipes at the park…and on top of them, a wireless headset on maximum volume so the sound would leak to its surroundings—plus a wireless LAN-attached fiber scope, probably used for maintaining the planes.

There was no time to consider her options.

Before she could think, the single two-hundred-kilo bomb her heated attack had blasted went up in a brilliant explosion—and caused the bombs, missiles, and airplane fuel nearby to ignite instantly.

Hamazura, who was hiding somewhere far away, didn’t get off scot-free, either.

He’d been working quietly but swiftly after spotting what looked like an electric-powered tractor for pulling around the fighters, and now he was behind cover about five hundred meters away from the explosion. He’d used a small truck loaded with a complete set of painting supplies for changing a jet’s color and used one of the maintenance crew’s wireless transceivers to project his voice. The huge blast had knocked him to the floor.

“G​u​w​a​a​a​a​a​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​!​!”

His eardrums felt like they were going to explode. He felt a strange pressure from within, as though his eyeballs were going to pop out. But what worried him more was Takitsubo. He couldn’t find her. He’d left a radio for guidance somewhere far from where he’d knocked her down and given her a work-use powered suit with the crane, too. It was too heavy to move in normal mode, and its high-mobility mode seemed to require a special electronic key, so she couldn’t use it for battle. It should have given her a little protection against the blast…though he hoped she wasn’t still in the explosion’s radius.

Whatever the case, Shizuri Mugino must have been caught up in the blast.

Fortunately for Hamazura, she still tended to look down on all her enemies. It certainly wasn’t a mistake, necessarily speaking, but it gave way to openings and missteps she didn’t need to have.

… That was a two-hundred-kilo bomb meant for busting pillboxes made of thick concrete. You’re not supposed to use them on unarmed humans. Mugino should be out of the way with that…Now to find Takitsubo and get out of here…

Hamazura tossed the transceiver and the small fiberscope monitor away, then ran back along the path he’d come.

Hot gusts blew madly.

The floor near the site of the explosion was completely collapsed, having caused a cave-in to a basement space under it. Walkways above them had twisted and fallen. Hamazura walked through their midst. He searched high and low, shouting Takitsubo’s name, mindful that a secondary or tertiary explosion could happen at any moment.

And then he heard a rustling.

“Takitsubo?!”

Hamazura looked in that direction.

However…

“Haaamazuraaa…”

A chill.

For an instant, all his body warmth left him.

But by then it was too late.

From inside the dark smoke reached an arm of glinting lights. Hamazura did his best to twist aside, but an awful noise and smell dispersed from near his ear. A sizzle. Like oil dripped into a well-heated frying pan.

“U​g​a​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​h​?​!”

Mugino stepped through the smoke to look down at the writhing boy. “Did you think this…this mass-produced weapon could defeat the city’s number four, Hamazuraaa?”

“Shit, shit shit fuck shit!!”

Hamazura desperately clamped down on the pain devouring his ear, grabbed his gun in both hands, and fired.

But suddenly, Mugino disappeared.

She’d unleashed Meltdown like a rocket engine. She’d probably made the same quick maneuver to avoid the two-hundred-kilo bomb. With a muffled whoosh, she escaped outside his field of view and said, “Your counters are all obvious— Do you really think they’ll work?!”

A massive roar rose up.

It was the sound of the tip of her boot digging into Hamazura’s back and kicking him several meters into the air.

He couldn’t even grunt at this point. He’d stopped breathing, and his body fell—but not onto the floor, oh no; it fell through one of the cracks the bomb had made.

Bam-slam. Ka-bam.

Several shocks hit him, one after another.

Intense pain washed over him, so terrible he honestly thought part of his spine had fallen out of place, but he didn’t have the time to cry about anything. He sensed a chilling intent to kill from above him and used all his energy to roll to the side. A moment later, Mugino’s light stabbed toward him, time and time again.

“Run! Run!! Run away, little piggy!! Let me enjoy this hunt a little longer!!”

Pieces of the floor were stuck all over him. He started to lose track of whether he was the one rolling, or if the tempest of fragments was rolling him. Nevertheless, he twisted and dove behind cover. Perhaps aggravated she’d lost sight of her target, Mugino immediately jumped into the basement space as well.

… Where is this? Is there an exit…?

Hamazura, hiding behind an obstacle, eventually glanced around.

It was an odd sort of room. It was around a hundred square meters, but there were protrusions in the wall at even intervals. And past those protrusions, he could see what looked like an air conditioner vent covering the entire wall. One of the sides was reinforced glass, and he could spot what looked like a control room for something on the other side.

This was an airplane-testing facility.

Which meant…

… a room where they test durability against air friction…?

Hamazura was up against a capsule-shaped model of about three meters. It was made to be the same size as a fighter cockpit. Though it was a model, the reinforced-glass canopy moved up and down properly, and it was made out of the same combination of materials as the real planes.

The stepladder-looking thing had probably kept it in the air, but it had been knocked on its side by the blast. The reinforced-glass canopy covering the cockpit was half-open, too.

“Haaamazuraaa…”

He gave a start. Just hearing his name called made his shoulders jerk. He frantically searched for an exit door, then found one. But it was far away. If he jumped out from behind the cockpit model, she’d shoot him five hundred times before he opened that door.

He couldn’t use that exit.

He’d have to end things here.

But the gun in his hand alone didn’t seem able to kill Mugino. She could use her ability like a rocket engine to flee outside the range of a two-hundred-kilo bomb going off. A normal person wouldn’t even be able to aim a 9mm bullet at her.

He had to use something stronger, something more overwhelming; something that wouldn’t even let her escape. But he wasn’t a powerful esper, and a mere Level Zero like Hamazura couldn’t bring anything like that to the table.

“I swear, this is all so idiotic. It might have bothered you a lot, but it’s bothering me a hell of a lot, too, I’m telling you.”

Click-click. Her footsteps drew closer. If she went around his cover, it was over.

“Anyway, maybe I’m better off than Teitoku Kakine. They picked the number two up in a way worse state than me, apparently. They had to put him in a container with this sticky liquid in it, get all three pieces of his brain back together, hook his side up to this machine bigger than a fridge to make up for his crushed heart—that kind of thing. I hear he’s basically just a big clump of meat they keep around so he can spit out his Level Five ability now.”

Hamazura desperately looked around.

“The General Board chairperson must really want to reuse us. I wonder why? Anyway, the only thing I can say for sure is that you’re dying here.”

He searched for a clue to turn the tables. And…he found a last ray of hope.

“Hey, Hamazura.”

And then it happened.

“Why…?”

Suddenly, he noticed a change in Mugino’s voice. He thought for a moment, then shook his head. He didn’t want to think about it. If he did, he wouldn’t be able to take action. He would hesitate in a situation where a moment’s delay would be fatal.

But Shizuri Mugino still said:

*   *   *

“…I wonder why I had to turn into such a horrid monster.”

Damn it!!! Hamazura was just about to raise his voice.

The one thing he wanted to think about the least right now: the fact that Shizuri Mugino was both a monster and another human woman. He didn’t know what she meant by “why.” Was it that she’d escaped death with technology unknown to him? Was it starting to work for the shady Item organization? Or was it becoming a Level Five? Whatever the case was, Shiage Hamazura didn’t have an answer for any of those questions. All it presented him with was agony.

Hamazura, toying with the small clue he now had, thought once more.

Was it okay to kill her?

Could he bury her as a simple monster and still deserve a happy, smile-filled ending?

“Was that what you wanted me to say, Hamazuraaa?”

An incredible whump rang out.

Mugino, having come around the cockpit in an instant, whipped a kick into Hamazura’s gut. But her assault didn’t end there—seven or eight fast, sharp strikes later, and Hamazura was in deep pain not only on the surface but down to his internal organs.

“Gya-ha-ha!! You’re all twitchy now! Hmm? I don’t know, is blood supposed to be coming from your mouth? Do mouths do that? Maybe I’ll get a fun, super-rare scream out of it!!”

“Guh … gah! Gvbhr … ?!”

… Damn…it…What the hell just happened to my organs…?

The inside of his body shook unnaturally. His organs weren’t working right. They were moving like individual creatures packed into a leather bag. It was the first time in his life he realized a human body could work in this way.

Are they still where they’re supposed to be … ? … They’re not all shuffled around in there, are they … ?

“Oh, come on, don’t be so down. If I give you a nice, gentle rub, maybe your senses will come back, hmm?”

Crrrick!! The tip of her toes dug even more deeply into him.

She tossed him into the half-open cockpit with the force of someone tossing something into a garbage can.

A crackling came immediately after. Mugino’s flashing arm had swelled larger than he’d ever seen it.

“I’ll mix you up with the melted metal, cool you, and make you into a neat house decoration.”

He didn’t have time to think.

Hamazura fired his gun. But it wouldn’t hit Mugino; instead, the bullet veered away…and shattered the reinforced glass on the one wall. Mugino’s smile became even more vicious, but Hamazura’s expression didn’t change. That had been his goal.

It would never have hit her anyway. The weighty glass, shattered by the bullet, collapsed inward…Right on top of the control panel. The pieces pressed down on all kinds of buttons, sending unplanned orders to the giant “device.”

Vwooom. It was a low, dull sound that echoed.

Mugino looked around in confusion, then located the thing that looked like an air conditioner vent set up on the wall, now squirming. Meanwhile, Hamazura edged deeper into the cockpit. Inside the model, all the instruments but one had been removed. He pressed it, and the half-opened glass canopy shut fully, closing him tightly into the cockpit.

Shizuri Mugino, realizing something, finally turned back to Hamazura.

Her lips moved, but he couldn’t hear her through the reinforced glass.

But.

It looked to him, at least partly, that her eyes were like that of a girl about to burst into tears.

A moment later.

Everything outside the cockpit turned into an orange explosion.

The room they were in was a room for testing air friction durability. When fighter jets exceeded the speed of sound, they experienced massive air friction. Their surface temperature would rise to hundreds of degrees. This durability testing room was for making sure the jets could withstand such friction. They obviously couldn’t create air moving at supersonic speeds, so instead, they used a large amount of iron filings to create a wind that would artificially increase how much friction there was.

Hamazura was protected by the model cockpit.

But Mugino had no such luck.

Ga-boom!!

An incredible explosion went off. The entire hundred-meter-square space was filled with hellish winds hundreds of degrees Celsius. Mugino had a way to move at high speeds like rocket engines, but with the entire space filled at once, she had no chance to escape. It really was like a giant fly being swatted aside. Her body was flung straight through the air into the back wall.

After that, he couldn’t see what happened.

Everything outside the clear reinforced glass was orange, leaving him no clear views. It was like he was looking out the window of a space shuttle reentering the atmosphere.

Hamazura covered his face with his hands.

This was not the joy of victory.

He had his eyes shut, praying only that this hell would disappear as soon as humanly possible. Was this really the only thing he could have done? He questioned himself over and over, and it was the only thing on his mind.

Eventually, the hellscape calmed.

For a short while, Hamazura didn’t move a muscle, but eventually, he sat up in the cockpit seat, albeit slowly. He pressed the button, opening the reinforced glass canopy, and fell out of it. A hot, humid air struck his skin. It was like being in an oven.

What had become of Shizuri Mugino?

He didn’t have time to check.

“Hamazura. Hamazura!!”

From somewhere else, he heard a familiar girl’s voice. He looked up and saw Takitsubo looking at him from a crack in the ceiling created by the two hundred-kilo bomb. Hamazura waved. “I’m okay,” he said.

He had chosen Rikou Takitsubo, and for that, he had discarded Shizuri Mugino.

He gave the thought one more moment in his mind, then decided to move forward on his own two feet again.

That, however, was when his cell phone rang.

He picked it up. On the other end was Saiai Kinuhata.

“Hamazura!! Listen to me— Get out of there, like, as fast as you possibly can!!”

“Kinuhata…?!”

“I totally know you’re in the District 23 fighter testing site! That totally doesn’t matter! Another Academy City unit is heading that way to arrest you. And not the good kind of arrest! I can’t, like, totes guarantee you’ll survive!! Take Takitsubo and get away from there now!!”

“What?” Hamazura frowned. He would understand them sending a team after Takitsubo or Kinuhata. But he was just a street thug. Why had things gotten so dramatic? Mugino’s appearance had surprised him, but now that he thought about it, what on earth was that team chasing them before that?

Either way, he didn’t have time to mull it over.

He ran to the durability testing room’s exit, ran up the stairs, and hurried back to Takitsubo’s side.

“Hey! How far away are we supposed to run?! Academy City may be big, but it’s still walled off. If they keep sending people after us forever, they’ll catch us eventually!!”

“Jeez, don’t you have some kind of Skill-Out safehouse or something?!”

“Yeah, but those are just to hide from rival gangs. There’s no way we’d ever be able to get a secret spot that would stay permanently hidden from special forces!!” he shouted into the cell phone, running through the hangar-like area and pulling Takitsubo by the hand. Their pursuers were surely closing in. They’d be killed at this rate.

And then Hamazura stopped running.

There was one—and only one—route that was sure to escape Academy City’s pursuit.

“Hey, Kinuhata. Academy City’s supersonic passenger planes have autopilot features, am I right?”

“Hamazura, you’re not—”

“I know I don’t know how to take off or land, but once we’re in the air, it’d be fine! Isn’t there some kind of manual or something?! For now, we just have to get up there, and we’ll be good. I won’t think about landing. We can jump out in parachutes if we need to, so that’s not an issue!!”

As he spoke, he looked in front of him again. Along with all the fighter jets, there was a huge plane almost eighty meters in length. It was a supersonic passenger jet that could soar at over seven thousand kilometers per hour. If they wanted to get away from Academy City’s special forces, they would just have to flee outside the city.

With its gigantic fuselage, they wouldn’t be able to climb aboard without a specific boarding ramp vehicle.

But possibly due to the two-hundred-kilo bomb’s effects, a walkway was jutting out diagonally. Hamazura and Takitsubo moved up it and into the air, clinging to the side of the passenger jet. Fortunately, it wasn’t locked. They opened the hatch, then climbed aboard.

“Hamazura, can you hear me? The underground hangar you’re in has this scramble liftoff feature thing. Speaking super-broadly, it can set up an electromagnetic catapult hill.”

“What should we do? How do we escape to the skies?!”

“The catapult’s firing function is, like, linked to the cockpit. If you boot up the control computer, you should totes be able to touch the screen with an index finger and lift off.”

He ran to the cockpit in the nose and opened the door to find over a hundred buttons and a flight yoke waiting for him. It almost made him feel dizzy, but he followed Kinuhata’s instructions—she must have been looking at a manual—and began pressing buttons.

Several screens flickered to life, and the four huge engines began a low groan. One of the monitors showed a diagram of the catapult. Following directions, his fingers flew across the monitor, and several of the items on it changed from red to green.

And then:

The underground hangar door flew open wide, and men in black uniforms who must have been the pursuit team flooded in. They looked at the supersonic passenger jet just as it was about to take off and took immediate action.

Without wasting any bullets, they brought around a construction tractor and parked it in such a way that it blocked the catapult.

“Shit!” cursed Hamazura in spite of himself, but he couldn’t stop the commands he’d given at this point.

With a massive gshhhhh noise, the supersonic passenger jet made its way quickly down the catapult rail. He saw one of the black-suited men, the one moving the tractor, hastily climb out of the vehicle, and knew that the supersonic passenger jet was headed straight for it.

They’d crash.

So Hamazura thought, until—

Zzzap!! A tremendous flash of light burst out and knocked the tractor to the side. Before Hamazura could consider where it came from, the electromagnetic catapult launched the supersonic passenger jet from the climbing tunnel up above the surface.

Hamazura didn’t touch the flight yoke; it would have been foolish to do so. Instead, the autopilot program steadily brought the plane horizontal. As long as they didn’t hit any turbulence, he’d be better off leaving it alone.

Mugino …

The flash he’d seen at the end had probably been hers. He didn’t know what reason she had for firing it, but he got the keen feeling they’d meet again somewhere.

“Hamazura…,” came Takitsubo’s voice suddenly from next to him.

Hamazura found he was naturally able to wrap her in a hug. That seemed to finally release the tension, and the two plopped down onto the cockpit floor.

One battle had ended.

And in his arms was but a single girl.

5

Accelerator was slumped on the bloody floor. The amount of blood loss was insane, but strangely, he didn’t feel pain. His limbs wouldn’t move properly, but he felt no fear. Or maybe he’d lost the ability to feel it.

… Is it…over…? he thought, dazed.

One last attack with his life on the line. The bullet he’d fired at the end had pierced right into the triangular prism thing he saw in the Aiwass’s semi-transparent head region. Then there had been the sound of a crystal shattering. He didn’t quite understand what that had been, but he figured it was Aiwass’s weak spot.

However…

“I suppose I should rate that at so-so.”

This time.

This time, true despair washed over Accelerator. Before he realized it, Aiwass was standing in front of him. He didn’t know when, exactly, it had happened. Or how the being before him had recovered, or if the damage really affected it at all, or what that triangular prism was. They’d been engaged in a death match until now, and yet he still hadn’t gotten a single scrap of real information.

“In actuality, I might have gone down there just like Fuse Kazakiri. Even if it hadn’t been as bad as as a clean kill, I wouldn’t have been able to come out for, say, several years. Aleister’s plans would have needed drastic revisions, and you might have been able to rescue Last Order in the meantime.

“However,” continued Aiwass casually—as though saying it didn’t matter if it survived or died—“the security Aleister built seems to be more careful than I’d anticipated. Perhaps he’s a worrywart. In any case, it seems my defenses were made to be less penetrable than I expected.”

“…You piece of shit…”

Accelerator desperately tried to get up.

But he’d lost too much blood. He couldn’t even move his limbs properly. While he struggled, Aiwass continued.

“I feel bad, since you fought with everything you had.”

Aiwass smiled thinly.

Above its head appeared a shining angel halo.

One with a pale platinum glow, a hint of white at its core.

The blond monster that held interest based on objective value and had appeared before someone out of that interest said one final thing.

“…It seems I have a transformation feature.”

Ga-baaaaaaaaam!!!!!!

Accelerator’s consciousness was cut off without mercy.

And thus, his last hope to save that one single girl disintegrated.