INTERLUDE THREE

Mikoto Misaka decided to pore over Academy City’s data for real.

She’d seen that boy at the edge of the picture in the news from Russia, which meant that her hunch was correct—he wasn’t in Japan. And of all the places he could have been, he was just casually walking around the most dangerous place in this war.

Something was up, out there where she couldn’t see. Maybe he was out there fighting some grand evil again, his right fist clenched.

Focusing her attention on her PDA screen, she found several pieces of information.

She had a bad feeling about this.

She remembered when she’d been desperate to get any information on the experiment related to the Sisters.

The screen displayed read: “Sightings of Imagine Breaker in Russia and the Elizalina Alliance of Independent Nations.”

Imagine Breaker must have meant that spiky-haired boy. She recalled him having once called his ability that at some point.

She scrolled down the screen. Along with several maps, there was some kind of annotation written in small lettering. Several arrows had been drawn on the maps…movements of Academy City forces and weaponry, maybe? Or was it the route the boy had traveled?

“By the notification from the General Board chairperson, response to Imagine Breaker will be different from normal.”

The “normal response” was apparently how they clamped down on any factions trying to leak Academy City’s supernatural ability development tech to outside organizations. It was a severe methodology, one that tolerated shooting to kill in the worst cases.

However, for whatever reason, it seemed it didn’t apply to the boy.

She was about to give a sigh of relief, but it was too soon for that. Hadn’t that very incident with the Sisters taught her, to a terrifying degree, how dark the shadowy parts of Academy City were?

“Imagine Breaker is an esper possessing rare value, even throughout all of Academy City. In consideration of that rarity, our objective is to retrieve him alive if possible.

“However.

“Should we discern that the Imagine Breaker will align himself with an organization other than Academy City, our secondary objective is then to swiftly attack him, apply Number Two’s treatment to him, and retrieve him inside a life-support system, thereby minimizing further disruptions.

“We have confirmed that Imagine Breaker is currently acting alongside a member of an external organization.

“Should he only be treating them as a temporary guide, we will withhold punishment, but if he crosses the line, we will execute our secondary objective.

“It will not cause a problem, as we have approval from the General Board chairperson.

“In that case, though it is impossible to view details for authority reasons, he has said his ‘plan’ will still commence.”

“…”

Mikoto Misaka fell silent for a while.

She was certainly surprised, but at the same time, she figured that might be the case.

Also recorded on the PDA were specific paratrooper unit personnel, equipment, and operational schedules for attacking the target boy. Naturally, the military’s airplanes were ready in District 23, where its aeronautics and space-related technology was assembled.

She turned the PDA off and headed for District 23.

…Once, that boy had risked his life to prevent the Sisters from being massacred during the Level Six Shift project, standing up against a great darkness in Academy City. It may have been that he didn’t actually have a good handle on just how terrifying it was. But the undeniable truth was that he’d crossed a dangerous bridge for her sake and the Sisters’.

She had a big debt to repay him.

As she ran, she figured it was high time she paid a little of it back.