EPILOGUE

The Boy and the Stillness
Silent_to_Small_Fire.

“That bastard…,” groaned Stiyl Magnus in St. George’s Cathedral in London.

He’d gotten the report that the Star of Bethlehem had fallen and had crushed Misha Kreutzev from above. But no matter how big a mass it was, he doubted mere physical pressure would defeat a true angel. As it collided, he’d probably brandished his right hand and fought the monster.

And when Stiyl thought about it, wasn’t that the way that man had always done it?

To save the one girl named Index, hadn’t he broken free of all chains, stepping forward without hesitation, even taking a hit hard enough to make him lose his memories?

The air in the cathedral was heavy, a far cry from the clamor of a victory celebration. Only businesslike reports continued—that Misha Kreutzev had vanished, that the four aspects had been reset into their former positions.

Stiyl heard a clatter.

He turned around just as a weary Index was coming over to him. She put a small hand on a stone pillar, her steps wobbling, her eyes on the whiteboard.

“Where’s Touma?”

It was a question nobody could answer.

Right after Index had awoken in the cathedral, before she could even get up out of bed, she told Stiyl the frequency to connect to the Star of Bethlehem. He doubted anyone had told her what had happened. Maybe the other priests or Sisters couldn’t tell her the truth while she was on her way. Finally, Index had come here. To this room, which knew all the results, inside which only a heavy air remained.

She looked around once more, studying the faces of everyone there, and asked again.

“Where’s Touma?”

They needed to find something to escape in.

Shiage Hamazura used a thick branch to dig in the snow.

Right before Shizuri Mugino had attacked, the Russian saboteur team had been bombed by an Academy City super-large fighter jet. The vital equipment for the Steam Dispenser and the bacterial wall had been blown away without leaving anything behind, and the saboteur team that was a slight distance away had been neutralized, too, but the vehicles that unit had tried to use to escape must have been caught in the avalanche and buried under the snow.

In the end, he hadn’t found anything.

The bacteriological weapon’s spray, the battle with number four, the defeat of the Academy City team using weapons “not of this world” and built up using Dark Matter…

At a glance, the results may have seemed so excellent they’d overturn his position as a Level Zero. However, Hamazura and Takitsubo’s original objective was to find something that would allow them to negotiate with Academy City’s leaders. All they’d done was go onto a side road; they hadn’t been getting anywhere down the main street.

They hadn’t found a negotiation tool.

If they stayed here like this, they’d be killed.

They needed to leave this place as soon as they could.

Near Hamazura, as he single-mindedly continued digging through the snow, were Takitsubo and Mugino, holding similarly thick branches and doing the same work. Mugino was Academy City’s number four Level Five, but after the Crystals and the previous battle, she, too, seemed not to be in a state to use Meltdown right away.

Rewrapping her disheveled scarf, Takitsubo said to him, “Hamazura. What should we do now? Should we pick up the masks the assault team was using and use them as a foothold for a negotiation tool?”

“We’ll gather up what we can, but I don’t think they’ll be enough by themselves. Would they really throw such an Achilles’ heel into the middle of enemy lines? That city’s darkness runs deep. For them, even letting those masks get out would probably be acceptable.”

“Let’s use my blood as insurance,” piped in Mugino as she continued working with her thick branch. “Number four’s DNA map. If we each take a chip with a bloodstain on it, we might have a better chance to throw them off if they split us up.”

“…Damn it all.”

But Hamazura was looking away from them. He’d stopped digging in the snow, too. He was looking at somewhere far away, it seemed to Takitsubo and Mugino. They moved their heads to follow his gaze.

And then.

There suddenly came the sound of multiple footsteps scattering the snow. Before they knew it, soldiers had surrounded them in a circle about ten meters away. An Academy City kill team, all wearing white from head to toe. Completely indiscernible through their masks and goggles, they gripped carbines in their hands with suppressors attached.

They’d probably been watching Hamazura and the others in a two- or three-layered formation until now.

Considering the people from Academy City’s underworld, the extra-large combat forces they’d sent in before now—Shizuri Mugino and the masked men—these attackers were a simple team. Meaning they knew perfectly how exhausted this trio was and had sent in optimal troop strength.

Their time was up.

The moment he realized it, his spirit, inside the body he’d been pushing to its very limits, immediately shattered. In fact, he was envious of Takitsubo and Mugino for still glaring at their enemies with a will to fight blazing in their eyes.

But they would have understood, too.

Rikou Takitsubo and Shizuri Mugino, who had been fulfilling important jobs in Academy City’s darkness, had value. It might not be business as usual for them, but there was still room for them to be “retrieved.” Hamazura alone, however, was different. Standing on the stage for this long had been absurd to begin with. Even if the higher-ups had chosen the option to take them alive, that would only apply to Takitsubo and Mugino. Hamazura alone would be shot and killed here like a piece of trash.

That was why their eyes displayed such excessive fighting spirit.

He was happy for it.

But at the same time, he realized he was somehow relieved. If he played his cards right, he’d keep sacrifices to a minimum. Not finding a tool to negotiate with the higher-ups was his own fumble, so he swore to stop any more damage. A clear goal had been born within him.

“…Well. You sure have been causing quite a lot of trouble.”

A new figure appeared, drawing close to Hamazura and the others as they stood surrounded by ten men. It was a woman with hair the hue of chocolate, wearing an expensive suit. However, ruining the whole image was the full-face helmet she had on. It made her behavior, which spoke to a proper upbringing, appear unnatural instead.

“Although, on the other hand, being able to contain things this much may have proven the strength of our security.”

“Who are you?”

“Someone like you,” answered the helmeted woman in the suit immediately. “We may even share the same chain of command.”

“I recognize the way you talk.”

“Oh, please.”

At the response, Mugino and Takitsubo exchanged glances. But a shared acquaintance’s presence didn’t mean they’d let them off the hook, of course. The world wasn’t that accommodating.

The woman in the suit continued. “You have a general idea of how you’ll be split up, I’m sure.”

“…”

“We’ll immediately recover Shizuri Mugino and Rikou Takitsubo. As for Shiage Hamazura, that’s the hard part…Well, the conditions probably don’t match. You seem to have built up enough of an interpersonal relationship to use you as a hostage for Takitsubo, but her fundamental movement capabilities are low to begin with. Even without mental shackles, the research can proceed only by isolating her in a concrete room, and if some sort of action was demanded, it would suffice to bury a super-small balloon in her brain, then remotely expand and shrink her cerebral cortex as needed.”

“Wait,” interrupted Hamazura. “Research? On Takitsubo? Not Mugino?”

“I would guess that those two, at least, have figured it out.”

“Figured what out?”

“Shizuri Mugino used Meltdown when you defeated the masked group outfitted with Teitoku Kakine’s Dark Matter. But it wasn’t that Takitsubo had merely given her verbal instructions. Her Ability Stalker, which interferes with AIM dispersion fields, affected Shizuri Mugino’s personal reality, almost forcing her to take aim…Actually, you could go so far as to say she temporarily overwrote the correctional information.”

He can’t mean…Hamazura thought in awe.

He’d heard that Takitsubo had tried something like that in order to fight Teitoku Kakine.

And Shizuri Mugino had possessed Crystals.

“No, that’s wrong.”

But after studying Hamazura’s face, Mugino quickly denied it.

“Takitsubo isn’t using the Crystals. In fact, we weren’t acting on any sort of operation, either. If we’d had a way to interfere with Level Fives to begin with, her role in Item would have been different…After all, if she could do that, she could strengthen anyone or make anyone go berserk.”

The helmeted woman in the suit shrugged and added, “Originally, the plan to make Takitsubo the eighth was independent of the Crystals. The Tree Diagram’s simulation results came out, but the real-life conditions were too severe and out of our grasp. That was why we set our sights on Crystals instead, which had a just barely similar effect…Of course, those simulations came out the same: almost completely hopeless.”

“…And yet, you still messed with Takitsubo’s body.”

“Yes, because the chance was just too enticing to pass up. After all, if she continued to evolve and became the eighth, she’d be able to reach through AIM dispersion fields and freely control other espers’ personal realities. I’m sure you’re not stupid enough to fail to understand what that means.”

If such a thing was possible…

The personal reality was the wellspring of every ability and phenomenon in the real world. Controlling it meant a lot more than just increasing or decreasing ability levels. To put it simply, she could give Railgun’s ability to Shiage Hamazura and demote Shizuri Mugino to a Level Zero. She could exchange abilities and change their types, too, as she wished. Even the realization of a double esper was a possibility. She could produce all sorts of unsystematic results that ignored affinities and talent.

She could give whatever ability she liked whenever she liked, and take whatever ability she needed wherever she pleased. She could populate a Level Five team for her own convenience, and as for enemy espers, even if it was the number one Accelerator, she could tear his entire personal reality away, disabling him, then kill him.

She’d be far more than the queen of Academy City in that kind of scenario.

There was only one word that could express such a being.

“You see, Rikou Takitsubo…could provide for all of Academy City’s functions on her own.”

The helmeted woman in the suit gave her answer.

“No—considering she could instantly produce abilities of the desired category and level, and also instantly strip away any unneeded abilities, she would reign as a far more advanced esper-raising machine than Academy City in its current state.”

A person with incredible value. So much that it toppled the assumption that there were only seven Level Fives.

“Takitsubo had always had a rare nature, but it was difficult to get her to bloom. We dug up the forbidden research from Kihara’s cohort and even brought out Crystals knowing the risks, but it wasn’t enough stimulation to gain the desired effect…But with this, the pathway to the eighth has opened. Thanks to your wonderful relationship and this terrible war.”

As far as Hamazura knew, the only time Takitsubo had seriously tried to interfere with someone else’s AIM dispersion field was when the second-ranked Teitoku Kakine had been about to kill him. Did that mean Academy City’s leadership had learned from that and purposely let them free to give her an “opportunity” to bloom?

And Takitsubo had obtained a little key.

It was still hard now, but with research, she would become the eighth. Even without the Crystals, she would become a terrifying beast capable of completely controlling the espers all around Academy City.

And she’d do it on her own, with only her one ability.

A being with capabilities that equaled or surpassed all of Academy City’s functions as an esper-raising organization.

Instead of Academy City, an Academy Individual.

However.

That wasn’t what Shiage Hamazura was most shocked about.

It was pushed down, hidden by the impact of the term eighth, but the helmeted woman in the suit had said something he couldn’t overlook. Something that, despite being a dropout, he could absolutely never acknowledge as an Academy City esper.

“…Takitsubo has always had a rare ‘nature’?” confirmed Hamazura, his voice shaking.

Yes.

“Are you saying you knew even before she went into the Curriculum? That no matter how hard you work, or how hard you study, the ones who are gonna succeed will succeed, and the ones who are gonna fail will fail?”

It was an answer more horrifying than hell.

Obviously, Academy City had a system—it was called the System Scan. It investigated an esper’s aptitude using various methods, seeing what their current level was, the type of their ability, whether they’d grow quickly or slowly, things like that.

But that was only supposed to be a rough yardstick. It was believed that even students called Level Zero or Level One would grow if they worked hard enough. That was why they could work hard. Because they’d be rewarded one day. Because they’d bloom one day. They only wished for that.

And yet.

Wasn’t a person who could work hard to go from a Level Zero to a Level Five simply established as someone who could have become a Level Five from the start? Did a person’s nature, sleeping inside them, since before ever studying or enrolling, decide everything? Was the legend that you could make up for talent with hard work just a story to let them dance at their predetermined upper limits?

In that case.

Was there any hope for someone who was determined to be a Level Zero at birth?

“…You know, I always thought it was strange,” said Shizuri Mugino thoughtfully. “I’ve taken a peek at the project related to number three. She was deceived in her childhood, and the DNA map she provided was used as the basis for a project to mass-produce somatic-cell clones for military use…But when you think about it rationally, the timing didn’t make sense. Number three supposedly took time to grow from a Level One to a Level Five. Meaning she wasn’t a Level Five yet when she provided her DNA mapping.”

The term military clone was shocking, too, but Hamazura decided it wasn’t impossible with Academy City’s technology. “Wait, so you mean…The scientists knew from the start? They knew she’d eventually become a Level Five, so they took action before the value of her DNA mapping went up…?”

In response, the woman in the suit heaved a sigh inside her helmet. “Well, even the Parameter List brings evils with it. For example, a Level Five’s DNA patent or biotic resources carry extraordinary value, but securing them costs a significant amount of capital. However, you can obtain it from a Level One with the possibility of becoming a Level Five in the future on a strict budget. Every time a fragmentary list gets leaked, it causes an issue where blood is shed behind the scenes from people trying to get rich quick.”

“…”

“Still, though, I think it’s positive on the whole. Integrating people who would never grow from the beginning into complicated Curricula would be a waste of time, money, and equipment—everything. It’s far more effective to funnel what would be wasted into talented espers.”

“You…bitch…!!”

It was not Hamazura who shouted, but Mugino.

She was furious, and Takitsubo tried to hold her back. Seeing that, the military woman spoke in an amused voice. “My, this isn’t like you at all. After your battles, have you started to empathize with the feelings of the weak?”

“Shut up!!” screamed Mugino, anger in her eye. “That means it’s all your fault Hamazura fell into a place like this!! Takitsubo and I chose this path for ourselves. The road and the environment were both complicated, and I don’t think we’ll be able to correct our course just by solving one problem. But the only thing supporting Hamazura was him being powerless! Because you all decided that for yourselves and cut corners on his Curriculum!! Sure, maybe he couldn’t have become a Level Five. Maybe he would have stopped part of the way there. But if you’d actually given him an equal opportunity, he would have had the chance to grow a little, at least!! And if you had, if you had done that…!!”

…Shiage Hamazura may have never even joined Skill-Out.

He might not have ever needed to be dragged into Item, further into the depths of the darkness.

Maybe he would never have needed to be on the run from Academy City—maybe he could have led a totally normal student life.

…He might have had that boring but blessed world that nobody here was able to grasp, as if it was natural.

“It’s fine,” said Hamazura to Mugino, shaking her head. He was happy remembering that she’d gotten seriously angry for him in this situation. “We are Item. I don’t regret that. So it’s fine.”

Mugino, then, was the one to avert her face, unable to stand it any longer.

Without knowing what kind of expression he was making right now, he changed the topic. “More importantly, you said something interesting.”

While confirming the conditions inside his mind.

“Parameter List. Meaning there’s an actual file? Its existence would be enough to plunge all the students living in Academy City into despair and powerlessness. I don’t know what you and the other leaders are trying to do, but I’m sure you don’t want to risk the City’s functions stopping. Meaning we still have room for negotiation.”

“Unconfirmed intel aside, do you think you’d have a chance to get the real thing? It’s set up so that students like you, especially, will never be able to touch it. And above all…”

Clack-clack, came numerous metallic noises.

The sound of the people in white combat uniforms surrounding them aiming their rifle muzzles.

“Have you forgotten? Your life, at the very least, will end here.”

Mugino’s Meltdown wasn’t usable.

Takitsubo’s Ability Stalker didn’t have an effect on anyone except espers.

Hamazura couldn’t clean up a professional combat group of ten all at once by himself, either.

And…

“I think you’re the one forgetting about something.”

“?”

“Maybe you stop seeing it when you live in a filthy world like that. But this spot I’m standing in now isn’t Academy City. It’s not the same cruel stage. And I’m just a regular Level Zero. I never had any special powers that would let me fight my way out of this huge war by myself.”

“…”

Perhaps feeling like she didn’t need to listen any further, the woman in the suit raised her arm slightly.

That was all.

The men in white put their fingers on their triggers in unison.

Baaaaang!!

A sharp, splitting gunshot rang out across the white snowfield.

There was a red color, sullying the pure-white landscape.

Hamazura hadn’t closed his eyes.

Because he hadn’t needed to.

“Wha…?”

The shocked voice came from the helmeted woman in the suit. And no one could blame her—Hamazura wasn’t the one who had fallen with the gunshot. Nor had it been Takitsubo or Mugino. It had been several of the ten soldiers surrounding them.

At the same time, hidden behind the clusters of trees in the woods and past the bulges of hills, encircling the men surrounding Hamazura and the others at an even wider circle, were about thirty men and women pointing assault rifles their way. They were Russians, but they didn’t appear to be regular soldiers. Their clothing was civilian, and their rifles were somewhat battered, giving them a strange sense of regular usage.

“You alive, Hamazura?!”

Shouting that in Japanese was Digurv.

Next to him, also gripping a rifle, was Grickin, who tsked and said, “You told us to run away, but in the end, everyone came flying back, saying they couldn’t abandon you!! Anyway, are those guys friends of the ones trying to set up the Steam Dispenser?!”

“…Not quite, but thanks. We cheated death thanks to all of you.”

Hamazura slowly exhaled and relaxed himself.

He’d been spotting shadows in the scenery while they were talking to the helmeted woman. After that, he had to drag out the conversation until they finished getting into position.

“…How?”

The woman appeared sincerely confused.

“The state of the war between Academy City and the Russian military has been overwhelmingly one-sided the entire time. After all that, how could we possibly have been placed in a predicament this easily…?”

“Academy City was only in an advantageous position during the war because of its large-scale coordination and their powerful support of one another…Doesn’t mean everyone’s invincible—especially not independent teams running around by themselves like you guys.”

Hamazura forced his still-stiff cheek muscles to move to create a smile.

“You know I’m right. If every single one of you was actually invincible, Takitsubo and I wouldn’t ever have escaped Academy City to begin with.”

“Do you think you’ve won?” spat the woman, smiling scornfully at them. She didn’t seem to care about her fallen colleagues. “The system that’s been monitoring you all until now is still running. Reinforcements will be here soon. Your situation won’t change.”

“Probably…So we’ll just have to finish things before that.”

After saying that, Hamazura spoke to the people from the settlement.

“Digurv, Grickin. You guys tie up the ones in the white combat uniforms and watch them to make sure they don’t try anything funny.”

And then he turned his head toward Item.

“Mugino, you hold Takitsubo back. I’m about to do something a little stimulating.”

“What…?” began the helmeted woman in the suit, but Hamazura didn’t answer her.

Instead, he immediately pulled out his gun and shot her in the right elbow and right knee.

Bang-bang!! Two dry gunshots rang out, and the woman in the suit let out a long scream. Hamazura’s expression didn’t change. He grabbed her suit collar in both hands, then started through the snow, dragging her behind him.

“…There’s a little cave about a hundred meters up. We’ll continue things there.”

His voice was utterly calm, with no emotion in it whatsoever.

“An Academy City interception team will get here soon. I’ve gotta get our negotiation tool ready before then. And I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get it. I’m after the Parameter List. It can be the real thing printed on paper or a password for getting to the data on the Internet. Anyway, you’re telling me everything you know. I’ll make it so your mouth will be open before you even realize it’s happening.”

“Hee-hee…”

“Humans sure are scary, huh?” he said softly, bringing his mouth next to her helmet so that Takitsubo and Mugino couldn’t hear. With an utterly flat voice. “If they can make the excuse that they’re protecting someone precious, they can do the most brutal things. That’s how it seems to me. And you’re about to see how cruel humans can really be.”

Accelerator lay atop a hill.

Neither Last Order nor Misaka Worst was here. Only the white snow, stretching on as far as the eye could see. Accelerator had crashed into the unknown energy mass fired from the fortress eight thousand meters high, but even he didn’t understand what had happened after that. The white wings had disappeared from his back, too. He decided, at least, that his being barely alive like this meant he was able to stop the destruction at the last moment.

He heard a loud noise.

A large transport helicopter with two rotors on it. The hunk of metal was slowly descending to a spot near Accelerator as he looked up into the sky as he was lying there. A sliding door opened, and out of it came several people who looked more like a disaster rescue team than soldiers, wearing baggy protective gear reminiscent of space suits. He could see them bringing down a stretcher attached to their belts.

Retrieval.

Accelerator remembered the time he’d crushed Amata Kihara on September 30. It was the same as back then. He’d come through a grand battle and had invited grand chaos. Instead of leaving it to them to deal with, he put himself in the custody of Academy City’s underworld and taken on dirty jobs.

In the end, no matter how much he fought or how far he ran, even if he left Academy City and fled Japan, he couldn’t escape this massive cycle. He knew he’d faintly realized this. More than his own environment and situation, those of the Sisters and Last Order were just way too severe. He doubted they could live an honest life without Academy City’s support.

They picked up his exhausted body and put him on the stretcher. From above, they wound him in several layers of thick belts. Treating his body as though they were transporting a tool—no, a weapon, they loaded him into the giant helicopter.

He didn’t resist.

With a tremendous shaking, the transport helicopter began to leave the surface.

Strapped in with belts, Accelerator muttered dimly, “What about the kids?”

“Different team.”

Only a couple short words came back.

“Hmph,” snorted Accelerator. “…Then promise me this. Don’t ever give orders using that kid or the Sisters as a shield. And freeze the Third Season. Killing ’em, making ’em, doesn’t matter. Never toy with their lives for your own convenience ever again.”

“…”

“Release everyone in the same circumstances I was in, too. I won’t allow you to use anything as a shield to push dirty jobs on people in the underworld. If I catch you doing it even once, I will not hesitate to turn against you. I will crush you as many times, as many dozens of times as I need to, as long as you keep up these atrocities.”

“You don’t seem to understand anything. Do you think you’re in a position to make a deal?”

“No, you’re the one who doesn’t seem to get it.”

One sentence.

As if sensing danger from it, the researcher in the protective suit put a hand to the side of Accelerator’s neck. His ability worked on proxy calculations from the Misaka network. He was trying to check the switch on the electrode he needed to access the network.

However.

That mindset, of all things, was what Accelerator took advantage of.

The moment the researcher’s fingertips touched the switch, Accelerator, still strapped in with belts, swung his neck. As a result, the finger on the switch slid across it, sliding it to its maximum setting.

His power returned.

The black belts holding his body down instantly flew off. The man in the protective suit was blown to the helicopter wall, and thick cracks formed in the fitted reinforced-glass window. His nearby colleagues got up in a panic, but it was too late.

“This isn’t a negotiation, or a proposal, or a deal, or a plea, or an agreement, or a compromise, or a surrender.”

Accelerator’s arm touched the transport helicopter’s wall.

Like paper ripping, the military-steel wall began to be easily destroyed. An incredibly chilly wind blew in, but the people in the protective suits couldn’t pay attention to that. The terror of never knowing when the helicopter would plummet began to dominate the craft.

Amid it all, the king of monsters ruling over that fear simply said:

“This is my triumphant homecoming, you shitheads.”

Using one finger to toy with the transport helicopter’s minimum aerodynamic balance, wearing a smile that seemed to split his face in two, Accelerator added:

“And to start, I’ll go rescue that kid and Misaka Worst.”

Fiamma of the Right, hand trembling, opened the metal door from the inside.

Because of the damage gnawing away at his whole body, he couldn’t even get up. He rolled outside the escape container.

He was on top of a low mountain.

The Star of Bethlehem he’d built up was nowhere to be found. The skies had returned to their original color, too. And he could no longer hear that constant nearby drumfire. A silent white. As he stared across the Russian scenery expanding out from the escape container, Fiamma came to a vague answer.

It was all over.

He didn’t know what would become of the world after this. He knew he’d picked the best option at the moment. And now that it had been turned away, this world would be continuing its slide down the slope even now. How far would it fall? Or would it veer onto a different course as it fell? He was unable to make any predictions.

That man had instructed him to live in a world like this.

It hadn’t been mere lip service. The man had gone through with it, full force, even giving his only chance to escape to a stranger.

Then now’s when you start getting out there and seeing everything you can.

Those final words rang keenly in his ears. And so Fiamma, without going straight down into the snow, lay atop the ground like this, his objective lost. Needless to say, his path from here on would be a rocky one. He’d thrown the world into chaos, and they’d chase him down as the criminal who caused a war. He wouldn’t have the Roman or Russian Churches’ cooperation. God’s Right Seat was no more. He’d lost the Soul Arm that remotely controlled Index. His arm may have held a special power, but in a restricted situation, if he fought endlessly appearing enemies, it would eventually run out of steam. In this world of the victors, Fiamma would be treated as the one stain remaining.

A life on the run would be like something that whittled away at the surface of his body.

In such a swamp, he doubted he would find what that man had told him about.

“…”

But for some reason, Fiamma couldn’t easily give up the possibility that another had risked his life to leave to him. At the time, that man had certainly seen something Fiamma couldn’t. He hesitated to simply discard it without learning what it was.

He would determine where he was going once he started going, he decided.

Everything lost to him, Fiamma slowly put energy into his whole body once more, with his own feet. Wobbling, he stood up—and took his first step.

And then it happened.

Boom!!

Suddenly, Fiamma’s right arm was cut off at the shoulder.

He hadn’t been able to sense any sorcery activating, or any signs of something similar during the strike. The attack had fired from behind him and brutally sheared his limb off. His right arm, the symbol of his power. Having lost it, Fiamma, scattering red blood onto the white snow, screamed.

Holding the wound with his other hand, he turned around.

There was a strange sorcerer.

Silvery hair, colorless, reaching to his waist. A clean-cut face betraying no expression. Clothing consisting only of a green operating gown in this terrible cold. A strange atmosphere that made him look both male and female, both adult and child, both saint and sinner.

He knew him.

Fiamma of the Right knew this sorcerer.

However.

“…Aleister Crowley…?”

“As I thought, you correctly recognized me even without the vessel. By using a life-support system to mechanically create life force itself, the foundation of mana, I escaped all investigations in the past—but in this state, I suppose it only natural I would not be able to receive its blessings.”

“You—I see—but that logic creates a contradiction. It doesn’t explain why you’re here.”

“I assure you, there is nothing strange about this.”

The sorcerer who should rightly have been in a windowless building in the heart of Academy City answered the question as though it were a matter of course.

“The very existence of Anna Sprengel, window to the Secret Chiefs and collaborator in the Golden society’s establishment, was pronounced dubious…I, too, am one who functioned as a window to Aiwass—a theory of the Secret Chiefs’. Frankly, I doubt Aiwass would undertake such a grandiose, overly straightforward duty as giving permission for the establishment of sorcerer’s societies around the world, and in the first place, there is no need to get such permission, but well, it is likely of the same essence as the being of which Anna spoke. Which means there is nothing mysterious about having exceeded the domain describable with only zeroes and ones.”

Aleister Crowley, even now, existed in the center of Academy City.

But at the same time, Aleister Crowley, even now, existed before Fiamma.

There weren’t multiple clones of him.

He could simply exist in multiple locations in his one body.

A phenomenon that caused fundamental concepts of enumerability to collapse; but that itself was the highest domain. In the first place, the Sephirothic Tree provided an explanation to the spiritual world using various words and numbers, but when it came to upper organizations beyond a certain point, they were purposely left out as something inexplicable with words.

Would one who stepped into that domain arrive at one of those upper organizations? Or would arriving at that upper organization cause it to be transformed into that domain?

Either way, Crowley was in a place in a different dimension.

In an even higher place than Fiamma, who had declared he had the power to save everyone in the world and yet was no more than one of the countable beings in this world.

“…Why?” murmured Fiamma. “I couldn’t do it. Even though I should have had the power to save the world, just as Jesus Christ did. And I couldn’t do that.”

“That was no more than a matter of how you used your power, not its quality or quantity,” said Aleister Crowley in a bored-sounding tone. “In my humble opinion, the age of Crossist spells ended with the completion of the Book of the Law. I actually think you made it quite far. Including your keen eye for the kami-jo, the god above. Had you decided to format not with the rules of a Crossist-domination world—the Age of Osiris—and instead with the Age of Horus after that, you may have set your sights on a place similar to me.”

He who created supernatural powers using science.

He who constructed angels based on their gathering.

Fiamma of the Right, who controlled Michael, knew what that meant. Producing an angel wasn’t merely creating a new form of life. A symbol of an aspect comprising the world—creating that with human hands equated to artificially interfering with the very system underlying this world.

The deed of attempting to embed a human-created cog into the mechanisms God had created, to reassemble a music box into a time bomb.

The inspiration to not only accept the occult but to try to ram precision instruments in it.

The thought processes to guide anything from the old age to the gallows just by thinking about it.

“…Is Aiwass such an attractive being?” asked Fiamma. “An angel that neither the Bible nor theology can explain. And a symbol of an aspect outside God’s hands in a world He created—the clue to tearing down the fate He assigned…You didn’t want the Book of the Law. You wanted the aberrant angel itself that initiated you in its ways.”

Aleister neither confirmed nor denied it.

“Well, originally, this was not the stage in which I should have appeared,” spoke the sorcerer called the most terrible in the world. “You may not understand the value in things, but you got a little too deeply involved with that right hand. You should have just recognized it as something that simply erased any strange powers, but you likely glimpsed what lies within it. I could not rightly leave you. Loath though I may be to admit it, you’ve forced my hand.”

“What lies within…?”

“And this ending, as well. To think it would fall from my hands. Thanks to that, I need to take quite the detour…Ah, I may be feeling a natural anger as a living creature.”

“…”

Fiamma’s eyebrow twitched slightly.

He’d just remembered the thing that had flowed out when he’d cut off that boy’s right arm.

“What was that?”

“I think you know,” came the dismissive response. “Putting aside the fact that the formatting at the core of your actions was too old, it was very similar to my own plan. The idea to prepare a temple filled with aberrant forces, scour that right arm’s power within it, and with that power, readjust the depth of the very phases, resulting in a transformation of the world. How is it different from the miniature world in which a certain kind of power called Academy City is sealed? You need only realign your view of your own actions to a different standpoint. That would have been all it took for you to understand that power’s true essence…Of course, had you succeeded, you may have reached your objective a step even before me.”

And that was why Aleister had come here.

“That parchment. A badly made thing, consolidated by Russian Catholic hands, but it being analyzed by anti-sorcerer institutions such as the English Church would have been a problem as well. I had my teams act in a somewhat gaudy manner this time, but in the end, thankfully, we recovered it…But that alone isn’t enough. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

Fiamma was no fool. It was so Aleister could quash any possibility of Fiamma piecing together Aleister’s plans from the unsuccessful incident he’d caused. Because of that, he couldn’t even transfer custody to a sorcery faction. At this time, Fiamma had gotten the closest to the truth of this world.

“I see.” Only one arm left, Fiamma of the Right still slowly shook his head. “…But none of that matters anymore.”

Strangely, his face was drained of the strange passion that had followed him up until that moment.

As if something he possessed had slipped out of him.

“When I look at your face, I can feel how empty everything I’ve done is. I’ve probably made the same face myself. A face nobody who would really save the world would ever make…At that time, in that place, he stood in a spot where nobody could catch him.”

Fiamma felt like he understood a little of what he’d lacked.

And so he took his left hand, which was covering his wound to hold back the blood loss, and of his own will removed it. At the same time, there was a loud boom!! The spurting blood outlined a giant, transparent arm. His third arm. A power he could no longer control of his own volition—but for a little while, he could still fight.

“I doubt that will work.”

Aleister Crowley didn’t even take a stance. He moved the fingers on a hand, slowly grabbing something invisible. During his pantomiming motion, Fiamma sensed something strange. It felt like a staff, one that couldn’t possibly exist, had revealed itself. No—he was right. It didn’t exist in the real world. Despite that, due to unclassified information such as mood and atmosphere, it was as though he was seeing an illusion—in color, even: silver.

The Blasting Rod.

The rod from an old sorcerer’s tale where Crowley, once referred to as the ultimate evil, had decided to ask his teacher for direction out of pure respect.

“It was never about whether it would work,” Fiamma stated quietly.

Aleister would probably never understand, even given a hundred years.

If true feelings of wanting to save others took precedence, then obviously one’s chance at winning had to be relegated.

Then now’s when you start getting out there and seeing everything you can.

Someone who could answer with that, without hesitation, to an enemy who had said they didn’t understand how big the world was, probably knew a lot more than he did. Much more that wasn’t recorded even in the original copies of grimoires. Fiamma wasn’t even sure he’d grasped a glimpse of it, but because of that, he thought this:

He couldn’t let Aleister crush that underfoot.

Even if it meant confronting a true monster.

That man had risked his life to save the world—and he couldn’t let Aleister trample on that anymore.

The duel’s outcome was clear as day.

Two figures collided, and one fell down the mountain’s sloped surface.

Silence once again returned to the white Russian landscape.

The victor cast a single glance down the slope before saying, while melting his body into the air, “…The fact that you sought to explain the right hand and the Imagine Breaker and the kamijou—god’s purification—with your petty Crossist ideas—that was your failure.”

And then, in faraway London, someone was smiling.

“We detected something!! Only for about seven hundred seconds, but this wavelength is unmistakable. It belongs to the sorcerer Aleister Crowley!!”

St. George’s Cathedral.

As she received the report from an English Puritan Sister, the Archbishop, Laura Stuart, gave a lip-twisting smile.

A man who should have been dead.

A sorcerer who was supposed to have been buried by English Puritan assassins.

There had been an official report that he’d died over sixty years ago, but experts on Crowley continued to exist so that they could deal with the sorcerer’s society that named itself his successor—and the theories that he himself might still be alive. And now, an individually set-up Soul Arm for searching had just given them an unexpected result.

Of course.

For Laura Stuart, that “unexpected result” was no more than how people thought the universe was born—theories existed, but nobody had ever found a way to prove it.

The search spell, which used farsightedness, was nearly useless, only showing a blurred outline of the figure that appeared. The target seemed to be conversing with someone, but they couldn’t make out the details, either.

Nevertheless, that paltry amount of information made Laura confident.

His features had changed quite a bit.

And he may have well have been using some sort of perception-blocking method all this time.

However.

…I knew it. He is alive.

Laura had never believed that his existence had truly disappeared.

Certainly, after World War III, the ones who would gain the most would be the victors: Academy City. After this, the scales of the sorcery-science power balance would unavoidably tip far toward science. The Roman and Russian Churches’ power would weaken, and though the English Church had won the war, they were no more than one of the three largest denominations of Crossism. Academy City, however, was the single leader of the science side. It was a simple matter of power distribution. The victors’ apportionment of world control would, no matter how one looked at it, be in favor of Academy City.

But it wouldn’t end in a place like this.

If Academy City’s general board chairperson was who Laura estimated he was, it then gave her the right to kill Crowley. And traditionally, targets of witch-hunting would forfeit their assets to the Church.

In other words.

There was still a chance to steal everything from the greatest winners of the war: Academy City and the science side.

Obviously, even if her guess was right, he wouldn’t roll over for her. She couldn’t deny the chance a fourth war would happen, either. But those things didn’t matter. As long as there was a chance, as long as there was hope for putting the whole world at their fingertips, none of that mattered a bit.

The Royals had been concerned that it didn’t matter whether Academy City or the Roman Church won World War III—the United Kingdom would be forced to walk a path of decline. Enough so that the second princess, for example, had caused a coup.

Laura Stuart’s answer to that was this:

They could just pluck from the victors.

Pluck away everything they had.

After all, it was the English Church’s special right as an anti-sorcerer organization to put the sorcerer Aleister Crowley to death and keep his dangerous fortunes for themselves.

Had the Roman Church won, things would have moved toward a decisive expansion of the Crossist world as well as the magic side’s domination of the world, so for her, despite being an English Puritan—a faction of Crossism—she’d no longer be able to come up with a pretext. Or at least, she wouldn’t be able to use an inquisition to snatch everything away.

That was why she needed Academy City.

And the situation had taken a delightful turn for the better.

“…Now then, Chairperson Aleister—it is the hour when things truly grow interesting.”

Heh-heh, came a soft chuckle.

Atop an Academy City building, the being called Aiwass was looking at its hands and laughing, distinctly and amusedly.

When Accelerator had interfered with Last Order’s mind, the power holding Aiwass’s existence here had been greatly reduced. Soon, Aiwass would withdraw for a time from the “surface.” Nevertheless, Aiwass was cheerful.

“…You seem to be enjoying yourself.”

It heard a voice. A girl’s.

Hyouka Kazakiri.

The light in her eyes, behind her glasses, was a sharp one, unusual for the constantly afraid girl.

“I am delighted,” said Aiwass, moving its hands out slightly. “More precisely, I am happy this delightful time seems like it will continue. With that method, it would have ended in the blink of an eye. As though not very many dominoes were lined up before someone flicked the first. In order to enjoy this situation, I should retreat into the depths for a time. Livestock is best eaten once it’s fattened.”

“All this for that?”

“Why, yes. Whether or not I had appeared, the command tower would not have lasted long. It didn’t have the strength to line up the dominoes. Thus, to grant the necessary strength, I provided a hint…And he did well. This method was not in my elimination, but in the shift to a different domain. Still, it was a very good job on his part to do this much.”

Whether it saw value and interest or not.

That was the only condition this being, who could instantly destroy this star if it was unnecessary, ever acted on.

“I think you should learn more about what humans are.”

“?”

“It’s strange that you never knew from the start. After all, it’s their power that supports our bodies. They have so much possibility sleeping in them that they can give us form. Needless to say, humans are incredibly strong creatures…If you make light of them, you’ll find your heart pierced before you know it.”

“What are you saying?” answered Aiwass, looking back at Kazakiri but not hiding its excitement. “If a frail human could truly do something like that…That would be so incredibly fascinating, don’t you think?”

Mikoto Misaka arrived on the shore.

But it was a very different shore than Japan’s bathing beaches. It was technically a small fishing port, but she didn’t know if it was running at the moment. After all, the sea had been completely covered in white ice before. The water was flowing.

The VTOL hadn’t had enough fuel, so she’d been forced to land on the surface.

She’d boarded a high-speed freight train, but even then, she’d been definitively late.

She’d gone in the direction of the floating fortress, and kept going, and kept going, and kept going, but what she’d run into was this fishing port.

Possibly because of the evacuation warning from when the fortress was falling, nobody was around. The roads nearby were awfully frozen; maybe after the tsunami had hit, the chill had frozen the water.

She hadn’t found a trace of anything that might provide a clue about the boy.

Looking around at a loss, Mikoto eventually picked up a large stick. From a concrete embankment, she reached out with the stick and stirred around the seawater, its surface covered in ice like a soda at a café.

The tip of the stick caught onto some kind of small plastic clump.

The Sister next to her asked her what it was.

Mikoto couldn’t answer.

Exactly because she’d seen it before.

Its string torn apart by some strong force, it was a Croaker cell phone strap.

Something they’d gotten together on August 30.