Toaru Majutsu no Index

Volume 13, Chapter 8: God\'s Right Seat and the Imaginary Number School District. Fuse=KAZAKIRI.

Part 1

“Aiho!!”

Yoshikawa Kikyou finally found her old friend amid the pouring rain.

The entire area was eerily silent.

Yomikawa was leaning limply against the steering wheel of a domestic sports car parked on the side of the road. Her position had to be putting pressure on her chest which would make it hard to breathe. Even so, she was not stirring in the slightest. She was obviously unconscious.

Yoshikawa tried the driver’s side door and found it was unlocked.

As soon as she opened the metal door, Yomikawa’s upper body swayed and she slid sideways out of the car.

“!”

Yoshikawa somehow managed to catch her and push her back into the seat.

(What happened?)

She brought her palm to Yomikawa’s mouth to see if she was breathing and brought a hand to her neck to check for a pulse. Yomikawa seemed to be alive, but she also showed no sign of coming to. She did not seem to simply be sleeping.

“...”

Yoshikawa ignored the rain and looked around the vicinity of the car.

The car was parked on a large road, but the type of alley in which delinquent boys liked to gather was located not far away.

Yoshikawa first thought Yomikawa may have been attacked by delinquents, but Yomikawa had no obvious injuries. Even another woman could tell Yomikawa Aiho was beautiful. And she was a member of Anti-Skill on top of that. If she had been attacked, her state would have been too horrible to imagine. The car would have also been disassembled so the delinquents could sell the parts for money.

(So was it someone else?)

Yoshikawa frowned.

If it had not been delinquents, who exactly had done this to Yomikawa?

(For now, I need to get her to a hospital. No, taking her to that clinic right over there would be faster than calling an ambulance!)

As Yoshikawa tried to make up her mind, she heard a low grinding noise.

It was the sound of the small printer installed along with the in-vehicle radio. It was printing out a postcard-sized piece of paper.

“Nn...”

Yoshikawa reached over Yomikawa to grab the paper.

And then she froze in place.

The paper said the following:

Report from Saigou Ryouta of Anti-Skill Branch Office 84 and Suzuyama High School.

I have compared the evidence found at the District 5 crime scene with the data in the Bank.

This boy who goes by the name of Accelerator is wanted as a suspect in a case of attempted murder.

Another piece of paper printed out with the first contained a photo of a familiar face.

There was no chance of this being a case of mistaken identity.

Part 2

Accelerator stood in a filthy back alley.

He had returned to District 7, but this did not put him at ease.

A heavy metallic noise rang out amid the sound of rain in the darkness.

It was the sound of the lid of a giant dumpster closing after Accelerator disposed of a Hound Dog member who had become nothing more than an old rag. A red liquid trailed down from the gap between the dumpster and its lid. It looked like the drool of a glutton.

Accelerator leaned his hands on the waist-high dumpster to support his weight and then relaxed his legs to slide down to sit on the ground. He felt like an oil-soaked puddle was soaking into his clothes and skin.

“Ha ha.”

He laughed.

He had crushed flesh for the first time in a while.

It felt like chugging down a can of a certain brand of coffee after not having that brand for a while. It should have felt good, but it only felt empty. He should have been in an uplifted mood, but he could not get over feeling a sense of resignation. He had drunk it down thinking it was so delicious, yet at some point he had started to wonder if it had really never been any better than this. It was a strange state of mind.

He was reminded of something.

It was no longer okay for him to kill people. Or rather, he had realized it had never been okay on August 31. That was how great a turning point his meeting with Last Order had been.

Accelerator did not want to kill anyone like Last Order. And it was possible for him to feel the same way about others who lived in her world such as Yomikawa and Yoshikawa. It was wrong for those naïve people who walked along the path of light to fall prey to those who lurked in the darkness like Accelerator. And so he was prepared to fight all on his own to prevent that from happening.

At first glance, that may seem to be the thought process of a proper human being.

However, there was a hole in his logic.

For example, what if some rotten bastards who were nothing like Last Order appeared before him? What if those irredeemable people tried to take away a redeemable person? In that case, Accelerator was freed from the bonds saying he must not kill. He feared having the residents of the world of light falling victim to the residents of the world of darkness. As long as he hated himself as a resident of that world of darkness, he could never accept anyone else from that world either.

As such, he would unhesitatingly tear through human flesh if certain conditions were met.

He would go nuts until everything he held inside him had been dealt with and nothing but pure white remained.

He would do exactly what he had just done.

“...”

Accelerator hung his head down amid the pouring rain.

In the end, the change in him had not been enough. The turning point on August 31 had not been enough to wipe away the darkness he was so deeply dyed with. That was not enough. It was lacking something. He needed a few more parts before he could return to being a human.

After thinking through that far, he laughed.

It was a laugh of resignation that set him free of something.

He was ruled by solitude.

He had returned to what he had been before meeting Last Order.

“Ha ha...”

Accelerator looked up into the night sky with his back leaning against the dumpster.

The raindrops struck his body.

The clouds were thick. They were so dark that looking at them seemed to darken his heart.

(I don’t even have 4 minutes left in esper mode...)

He double-checked his situation in annoyance.

(Anti-Skill’s after me now. They’ll have scattered my photo all over the city by now. Now I can never return to that world after I defeat Kihara and rescue that brat.)

He had already cut away his ties with Last Order. Even if he saved her before any harm came to her, he could not walk along the same path as her. What he needed now was not to work towards walking down her path. He needed the strength to accept the truth before his eyes. He needed the strength to not care and to save her nonetheless.

He clicked his tongue.

His time with her had not lasted long, but its loss seemed to create a great hole in his chest.

However, this was not enough to make his red gaze waver.

(I’ll accept this. But it changes nothing.)

He grabbed the shotgun that had sunk into a puddle.

(I will drag that brat out of the darkness. That was my only objective from the beginning, so I just have to cut away any excess meat getting in the way. I can take care of myself. Right now, that damn brat’s safety comes first.)

He unsteadily stood up using that weapon as a cane.

Kihara Amata, Hound Dog, Anti-Skill, and anything that might happen after the fact did not matter.

He only needed the one objective.

Thinking about it that way put his mind at ease. He felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his back. He felt like he could achieve any goal he put his mind to.

He had broken the last chain.

Accelerator had regained his position as “strongest” in exchange for something important, and he now began walking through the rainy street with his cane.

He continued on to crush his next target.

He continued on to resolve this problem even if it left him fully dyed in the color of blood.

He had an idea where his prey was.

Part 3

“The entire facility is clear. There’s no one here.”

Dennis, a Hound Dog member, reported the information he had gathered over the radio to the standby team.

“I see,” was all the response he received from his colleagues.

They were in a hospital. Specifically, they were in the large reception lobby on the first floor. One wall was made of glass to take in the most light, but it was night and all the overhead lights were off. The pitch black hospital was quite eerie.

The 14 of them had been ordered to deal with Orson, the former Hound Dog member who had run off. They were also to silence the white nun who had become a witness. They had been told to set up explosives to blow up the entire hospital if need be.

Dennis continued with his report.

“A used smoke bomb was found in a third floor passageway. It had not been long since it was used.”

“The report said a terrorist attack was possible and it was possible someone dangerous was still hiding inside, so all staff and patients were temporarily evacuated,” replied Mike, a colleague who was using a handheld computer to receive another report.

Dennis removed his radio from his ear and said, “So they noticed.”

“Looks that way,” said Mike disinterestedly. “Personally, I feel like this is better.”

“But what if some of the patients need the equipment here in the hospital?”

“They probably used hospital vehicles,” said Mike offhandedly. “They’re special ambulances just under 30 meters long and about the size of a tour bus. They can move quickly to a scene and surgery can be performed onboard.”

“I’ve never heard of those.”

“Of course you haven’t. They failed because their size prevented them from making the turns needed to arrive at a lot of scenes. They may have succeeded somewhere other than Japan. Or maybe they could have created a convoy of smaller ambulances like a naval armada.”

“You’re saying something like that was at this hospital?”

“It has an underground parking garage. It wouldn’t surprise me if this hospital had about 10 of those things. The bedridden patients would be loaded onto them while those that could walk would be evacuated like normal,” said Mike as he turned off his handheld computer. “It’s been a while since communications cut off from the Accelerator suppression team.”

“So they were taken out.”

“We need to send some men to pursue him, so we don’t have time to rest here. Let’s withdraw. If the hospital had everyone flee in such an organized fashion, they’ll have eliminated anything that would indicate their destination.”

“Kihara-san will not like that.”

“He won’t like it any more if we stay here longer and still come back saying we found nothing. This is an issue of priorities. First we eliminate Accelerator and then we can hunt down the people from the hospital. If we cover our failure with a success, even his anger will soften somewhat. At the very least, we won’t be punished. Have everyone gather here,” said Mike in a flat voice.

Just as Dennis was going to switch on his radio to do so, something happened.

A phone started to ring.

“...”

“...”

Dennis and Mike turned around at the same moment.

The sound was coming from the reception counter. That one specific phone was ringing as if someone knew exactly where they were.

“Could this be a trap?”

“I can’t detect any wires or infrared beams.”

Hearing that, Mike climbed over the counter while paying careful attention to his surroundings. After staring at the red blinking light indicating an incoming call, he picked up the receiver.

“You certainly took your time,” said a lighthearted voice.

Mike frowned. If he had not been wearing that black mask, a displeased expression would have been visible. He recognized the voice of the doctor on the other side of the phone. He had once had his life saved by that doctor.

“Heaven Canceler...”

“Speaking with a patient after they leave the hospital is one of the great joys of a doctor, but I do not have much time. I hope you do not mind if I keep this short.”

It seemed the doctor was aware who he was.

He likely never forgot the faces or voices of any patient of his.

(How is he watching us?)

They had knocked all of the facility’s security features before going in, but some other security must have been functioning since that frog-face had been able to contact Mike so perfectly.

“This is bold of you. When hiding, the general idea is to remain silent without making any sort of provocation. Do you want us to track you down with this call?”

“I am not a child who would fail in something so basic. Also, there is something I must do even if it requires some risk.”

“Something you must do?”

“I am an ally to my patients. Even if you are the sort of person who would start a deadly battle around sick patients who cannot move from their beds, I must save you if your life will be taken. What your doctor tells you is important, so please listen to me,” said the doctor smoothly. However, his words contained some slight thorns. “Leave Kihara and run away. If you do not, your life is in danger.”

“Are you serious?”

“You will be crushed by Accelerator.”

“By that coward?”

“You seem to be mistaken about something.” The doctor was not moved. “Accelerator is not on the side of good. He is not white. He may have gained some slight light and obtained a bit of the white of good, but deep down, he is still carries the black of evil. Until now...well, I suppose he was a gray that was infinitely close to black. He is a dangerous and unstable existence that could fall to either side.”

“...”

“Do you understand? You are the ones who dyed him black once more after he had finally obtained that slight bit of white. And therefore, he will not hold back. I am not talking about mercy; I am saying he will not hold back. He will continue dyeing everything with blood so that he can protect that small light from being enveloped by the darkness. You must not meet Accelerator. That is all I have to say to my patient. I repeat: you must not meet Accelerator. He is no longer who you think he is.”

“Such nonsense.”

“I see. It is a shame I could not get through to you,” said the doctor. And then he added, “By the way, who do you think it was that told us of the coming danger?”

“What?”

Mike frowned as a horrible feeling sank into his chest.

(Don’t tell me it was him...)

And then another thought hit him. If it had been him that told the hospital of the danger, he would be able to guess that Hound Dog would come there.

Mike used hand motions to tell Dennis to have the team stay on their guard, but the doctor said one last thing before he could.

“Do not die. As long as you do not, I will save you.”

“Gyaaaahhhhh!!”

A scream that seemed to shake the entire building exploded from the ceiling.

Gunshots rang out from here and there in the building, but those sources of noise fell silent one by one as if someone was snuffing out each one.

Something was approaching.

Mike threw down the receiver and grabbed his submachine gun while Dennis did the same. They hid behind cover, focused their eyes on the darkness, and worked to gather as much information as possible.

And...

“Fear” appeared before their eyes.

The Hound Dog team to which Dennis and Mike belonged was annihilated in about 10 minutes.

Part 4

Vento walked along a rainy street.

(Shit...)

Her movements were slow. She held a hand to her mouth and thick blood leaked through the gaps in her fingers. Her back would occasionally jerk just before she coughed a red clump to the ground.

(What is this? Is this some sort of attack? Damn you. I was so close to killing my target.)

An artificial light illuminated her.

That light was moving.

A large screen was installed on one wall of a department store. It was displaying the news. The announcer’s frantic voice reached Vento’s ears.

It seemed to be a public broadcast.

“Um, currently reports of people suddenly losing consciousness are coming in from all over the country. The police are hurrying to identify the cause, but...”

“Gah...”

The pain and chill deep in her body prevented her from focusing on that news.

Even so, she moved her bloody lips to speak.

“So it’s spread there too. Designating a target for my attack is not easy. But I only needed... to suppress Academy City...”

“Reports of the same symptoms are coming in from some areas overseas as well. This has begun to have an effect on the schedules of airports, railroads, and ships.”

“Sigh...” Vento let out a deep breath before saying, “I hope there are no victims in the Vatican.”

Her tone made it clear she did not care all that much.

The chaos on the news continued, but the show had its own schedule to follow. A different reporter came on and read from the next script.

“Now for economic news. The Fall Sweets Fair has begun at Parallel Sweets Park where different sweets are gathered from around the world. When the park opens...”

“...”

Vento’s eyes rolled over to look at the large screen.

“In the week after the fair opens, over 200 thousand gusts are expected to visit the park. Small- and mid-sized businesses plan to help with the production of the goods, so this will affect the economy of the entire area and-...”

With a great roar, sparks flew and the screen was destroyed.

Vento brought her hammer back up onto her shoulder.

She began walking down the rainy street once more.

Part 5

Kamijou dragged the unconscious customers and workers out into the rain from the family restaurant that looked like it could collapse at any moment. He wanted to ensure they were not crushed when it did. Next, he began treating the injured. Only the men in black had had any limbs blown off. He forcefully tied off the wounds with rope to stop the bleeding. His feelings must not have caught up with him yet because he did not panic even when looking at those wounds. That actually scared him more.

He then called an ambulance, but he guessed they had about a 50/50 chance of reaching the hospital given the state of the city.

(Oh, right. I have to find Last Order...)

Kamijou looked around, but she was of course not there. He ran through the rain and entered a nearby Anti-Skill station. He had thought that would be the likeliest place she would go for help. However, the station was completely silent and he found only an Anti-Skill man collapsed forward on a table.

The situation was the same as the restaurant. Kamijou went around to two or three more distant stations, but they were the same. They would not have been safe. But then where had Last Order run off to?

Time passed as he was running around searching.

He then remembered what was in his pocket.

It was a cute cell phone with a childish design. Last Order had dropped it when she ran from the family restaurant. She could not contact anyone without it.

(She’s being targeted by those men in black and that Roman Catholic woman named Vento... I can’t waste any more time.)

Vento was technically targeting Kamijou, but he doubted she would smile and play nice if Last Order did come across her. She did not seem the type who would be mindful of others just because they were not her actual target.

“...”

Kamijou looked back at Last Order’s cell phone.

He felt bad doing so, but he turned it on and brought up its address book.

Kamijou did not know if Last Order had fled on her own or if she had asked someone she knew for help. But if she had asked for help, he might be able to find her through these addresses. And even if she had not, he needed to inform those she knew of her danger. They could also tell him where Last Order was likely to go.

The address book contained very few entries.

He did not even need to scroll down to see all of them because there were no more than four. The numbers had been entered with no names. It only contained the blunt default entries of “Entry 1”, “Entry 2”, etc. It was possible her guardian had given it to her and she never actually used it herself.

Kamijou began calling each number in turn.

However, they only continued ringing. No one answered. Vento’s strange attack may have spread farther than he thought.

The first three returned only silence.

If the final entry was the same, this method would be a dead end.

He pressed the button with a prayer in his heart.

He brought the cell phone to his ear.

And the dull ringing noise began playing in his ear as he stood beneath the pouring rain.

Part 6

Accelerator glanced around within the dark hospital.

His enemy was lying on the ground having trouble breathing through the blood. They had no other guns of the same model as the shotgun he was using as a cane, so he could not replenish the ammunition. He could have picked up a different model of gun, but he chose not to. He did not want his enemy to think he was relying so much on guns.

(Now then. I’ve crushed two of his teams.)

Accelerator muttered under his breath as he stared out a window being struck by large raindrops.

(That piece of shit Kihara will have to change his plans now. Defeating me will shoot up on his list of priorities. And that will lower the danger to that damn brat.)

At first glance, Accelerator seemed to have an overall advantage, but in reality, he was still in serious trouble. No matter how many normal Hound Dogs he defeated, Kihara might get impatient, but he would not feel fear. After all, Kihara had the special ability to beat down Accelerator barehanded.

And on top of that, Accelerator had no hint as to where Kihara Amata or Last Order were. Accelerator could not take any decisive action. He could only wait for his enemy to make a mistake.

If they had not yet captured Last Order, Accelerator’s previous strategies would still be effective. Kihara would change his plan and send more assassins after him. That would, in turn, leave fewer men to pursue Last Order.

But if Last Order had already been captured by Kihara, Accelerator’s efforts would be a waste. Without knowing where Kihara was, he could not race over to rescue her and no mistake would come no matter how long he waited. Their objective was Last Order, not Accelerator. They would not need to do anything more.

(It’s all or nothing. There’s no common ground here. Fuck, this isn’t funny at all.)

Accelerator clicked his tongue and looked down at his feet. One of the radios used by Hound Dog was there. He crushed it underfoot in anger. It seemed Kihara knew Accelerator had a radio. No important information had been exchanged by radio for a while. It was no longer any use to him.

(But why are they targeting that brat now?)

He leaned his back against the wall.

(If it’s for some research, does it have to do with the Sisters? But that bastard Kihara was right about the Sisters not being all that powerful. Kihara was the idiot that developed me. If they really wanted to use espers for military purposes, it would’ve made more sense to use my DNA map or to create a DNA map even better than mine.)

When Accelerator had been beaten by Kihara near the entrance to the underground mall, Kihara had said something odd. He had the Radio Noise project had not been meant to create clones for the military. He had said they would have used Accelerator’s DNA map instead of the Railgun’s if that had been their intention.

(The Radio Noise project and the Level 6 Shift project after it.)

Accelerator’s gaze wandered lazily around the area.

(What the hell have that brat and I been involved in?)

He felt like he was about to grasp some truth, but his thoughts were cut off before he could.

His cell phone suddenly began vibrating.

“...”

Accelerator held his breath and pulled the small communications device out of his pocket.

It displayed Last Order’s number.

He thought.

(Is this that brat herself or is it Kihara? Could any two options be more different?)

He pressed a button to answer the call.

He pressed the cell phone against his ear.

“Thank goodness! I finally got through!”

The voice did not belong to Last Order. However, it did not belong to Kihara Amata either.

Accelerator thought one of Kihara’s subordinates was using the phone, but then...

(...This voice?)

The voice sounded somehow familiar, but he could not quite place it. The signal was not great and it sounded like this person was outside because he could hear the sounds of rain coming from the speaker.

“I’ve been calling all of the numbers in Last Order’s cell phone. You’re the only one that answered. You may not know what is happening, but I need your help. That girl is in danger!”

It was entirely possible this was a trap.

However, Accelerator had no choice but to step into the trap.

“What’s going on?” he asked while focusing his mind to pick up as much information as possible.

The voice spoke at length.

He explained that he had met Last Order at about the time of the citywide curfew, that she had asked for help because someone she knew had been attacked by a mysterious group, that only unconscious men in black had been there when they went to check, that they had been pursued by more of these men in black, that he had allowed Last Order to escape ahead of him, that he did not know if Last Order was safe, that he could not contact her, and that she needed to be protected as soon as possible because it was unclear if the danger had passed.

Hound Dog could easily know what the men in black had done and where Last Order was.

The odds of a trap grew even higher.

But at the same time...

(That does sound like what that brat would do.)

“Hey, by any chance, are you the one that girl was saying was attacked?”

“Probably.”

“I’m glad you’re okay. I’m worried about Last Order too, so please go hide with her if you find her.”

The conversation was veering off course, so Accelerator brought it back on track.

“Where did you part ways with that brat?”

“Fight Street in District 7...Oh, I suppose that doesn’t help much. That’s only what we call it. Does this road even have an official name?”

A slight silence followed. The person may have been searching for a street sign.

“Found it. Leaf Street on Route 39. Specifically, at a Spanish family restaurant called Olla Podrida.”

Accelerator knew where that was.

It was a lively area with a lot of back alleys away from prying eyes if one moved away from the major roads. Its many connections between the two sides of the city caused a lot of people to be sucked in.

“Which way did she run?”

“I don’t know. The best I could do was have her escape the building. She probably followed the road, but it’s been a while since we parted ways. To be honest, it seems impossible to even guess where she might have gone.”

(Don’t be so sure.)

The curfew had passed, so Academy City’s busses and trains were not running. Even if she tried to hire a taxi, no driver would faithfully stop to pick up a soaking-wet brat who clearly had no money.

Last Order would have been forced to walk.

And while Accelerator had done it to get her away from Kihara, a lot of her strength had been sapped when she had been thrown into water from a great height. And the pouring rain would not help matters regardless. Even if a good bit of time had passed, Last Order was likely working to regain her strength in a building somewhere.

If this person on the phone was telling the truth, Accelerator might actually be able to do something.

And even if it was a trap, it could still lead to some new turn of events.

“Understood. I’ll go retrieve her. You throw away that phone and go back to your normal life.”

“What are you saying!? I’m obviously going to help!!”

Accelerator’s true reasons were the fact that moving on his own would be easier and that he did not want an amateur to disturb the situation, but this person was surprisingly persistent. Accelerator decided this guy was a stupid bastard whether this was a trap or not.

“Fine, you head to the huge metal bridge in District 7. That was our emergency rendezvous point. If she’s still running, she’ll have gone there.”

“Understood,” came back an oddly motivated response.

Needless to say, that had been a complete lie.

“Be careful,” said the voice. “Something’s odd about Academy City today. Some strange person has broken into the city. Also, Anti-Skill and other people are collapsing all over the city.”

“What?”

Accelerator frowned.

That was the first he had heard of someone entering the city or people collapsing around the city.

“The intruder is one thing, but had you really not noticed anything odd about the city? I saw Anti-Skill and those...um...men in black fall victim to it. The restaurant guests had also passed out. And they weren’t physically knocked out from a blow to the gut or anything either. It looked like people walking around had just suddenly passed out. I haven’t bothered to go checking around, but doesn’t it seem oddly quiet tonight?”

“...”

(What is going on?)

Would Kihara Amata really go that far? It bothered him that the Hound Dogs that worked for him had passed out too, but it was possible Kihara would not hesitate to discard his own subordinates.

It filled him with an unpleasant feeling, but he had to put it off until later.

His top priority was retrieving Last Order.

“It looked like an indiscriminate attack, so you be careful too.”

“What a pain...”

A short silence followed those two comments.

Finally, the person on the phone spoke.

“Sorry. I really shouldn’t have left that girl alone.”

“...Don’t feel too bad. I left her alone too.”

Accelerator ended the call there.

He looked down at the cell phone for a moment before shoving it into his pants pocket.

He headed for the hospital’s exit using the shotgun as a cane.

The crucial moment had arrived.

Part 7

Kihara Amata sat within a dark room.

It was an unused office. Most of the equipment used for work had disappeared, leaving behind only a large number of desks and chairs. Kihara sat in one of those chairs with his feet up on the dusty desk.

Men covered in armored uniforms stood around him.

They had gone down in number quite a bit. Only 5 or 6 remained.

Even so, Kihara’s expression was still perfectly calm.

He could always bring in more Hound Dogs. Human trash could be found anywhere. Those that saw Kihara would probably describe him as the representative example of a bad person, but anyone who had no problem criticizing someone like that was the sort of trash who did not think about the feelings of others.

No matter how many were killed, there would always be more to replace them.

And so he was not worried.

“Communications have cut off from multiple teams. Most likely, they have...”

Kihara heard the nervous voice of a subordinate.

He replied with some casual words.

“They either ran off or died. Either way, we’ll need to collect their hearts later.”

Death was not enough to punish failure. Kihara preferred to take parts from the corpse to provide a clear lesson for the others.

“But which one were they taken out by?”

“It doesn’t really matter. I can handle Accelerator. He’s so pathetic it hurts my heart to punch him. ...The real problem is that woman.”

Kihara knew that Academy City had been paralyzed as a city.

And his own subordinates had fallen victim to an identical attack.

He knew that woman was likely the one who had attacked the city. However...

(That was an interesting phenomenon.)

To him, it had not looked like some “invisible physical phenomenon” such as nanotechnology or electromagnetic waves. Normally, someone using that sort of thing would wear a special mask or suit, but that woman had taken no such protective measures.

Kihara spoke to a different subordinate who had been right next to him at the time.

“When I tried to shoot that van Accelerator was in, that woman got in the way. Have you retrieved the group I used as a decoy then?”

“Yes.” That was all it took for the man in black to understand what Kihara was asking. “We are currently checking on the victims with the equipment we have on hand.”

“Are they all in the same state?”

“No. We have found three different varieties. It ranges from some who have simply lost consciousness as if they fell asleep to others who have stiffened up like a rock.”

“What basis determines which variety they fall under? Where they collapsed?”

“Even those who collapsed at the exact same place are divided between the different groups. We do not have enough information to say anything for sure,” continued the man in black. “We have not taken them to a research lab, so we have no accurate readings, but it seems those in the largest group of the collapsed decoys have an extremely low level of oxygen in their bodies. There is no visible necrosis to their body tissue, so they must have the bare minimum needed for their brains and organs to function.”

“...So this artificially induces a state of apparent death.”

Humans and all other animals had defensive instincts that lowered the functions of their body when they lacked what was needed to continue living. The simplest example would be hibernation.

The subordinate continued, “However, supplying a constant amount from an oxygen tank did not help. We need to assume some sort of power is constantly at work here. ...Who is that woman? Dammit, she’s starting to keep our mission success rate down. Both Olaf and Lulu were-...”

Just as he trailed off, the man in black collapsed to the floor. A thud rang loud in Kihara’s ears.

“...”

Kihara Amata glanced around while still sitting in the chair with his feet on the table.

Nothing else happened.

He held his breath for a short while, but there was no sign of a second attack.

He had thought they were being targeted by some kind of ability, but Kihara would have been shot to pieces too if that was the case. He was bothered both by the fact that he had not been the first target and by the timing with which his subordinate collapsed.

(Damn her... How is she targeting us?)

Windows covered one wall of the abandoned office, but Kihara would have been the priority target if they were being targeted through it. Did she have some special means of aiming that did not rely on sight? Was there something that had turned her aim onto that subordinate instead of him?

Kihara thought on the special phenomenon that was even now attacking Hound Dog. Could those attacks be explained with an esper power?

(Not easily.)

Targeting one or two of them would be possible. However, the previous report indicated many more than that had collapsed. Constantly holding the oxygen inside a single human body at a certain level would be hard enough. Perfectly controlling several people spread out across several different locations was simply too much to handle.

And his subordinates had said some of them were showing different symptoms.

(It would be possible if they gathered as many espers to attack as there are victims...but that’s just too high a cost. It doesn’t make sense to tie up one of your soldiers for the sake of a single lackey.)

He was the expert in psychic powers development who had directly developed Accelerator’s powers, so his judgment here was almost guaranteed to be accurate. But then what laws did this bizarre phenomenon fall under?

Even after ruling out esper powers, it could still be done with a variety of technologies such as nanotechnology and electromagnetic waves, but that did not explain why Kihara was unharmed. And even if those technologies could knock a human unconscious, he was not sure they could regulate the amount of oxygen in the blood.

This was not an Academy City esper power or Academy City cutting edge technology.

But ruling those out meant setting foot into the world of the occult.

Could that woman really use some sort of power that was not psychic in nature?

(The unscientific, hm?)

Kihara’s eyes narrowed. He did not deny that possibility.

It was because he stood on the cutting edge of science that he was able to clearly see the outline of that word. While performing thousands and even tens of thousands of experiments, he had glimpsed odd readings that could not be explained by any theory. When he had developed Accelerator, Kihara Amata had vaguely captured the feeling that there were invisible holes in the theories he believed perfectly explained the world.

He clicked his tongue and lowered his legs from the desk.

“It doesn’t matter. We’ll just do what we need to do. Aleister’s getting to be a pain in the ass, so let’s hurry up and finish this.”

Kihara had not been told why Aleister ultimately wanted Last Order to be captured. However, he had been told what he needed to do. He just had to do that.

“Is the Testament ready?”

“I have it here.”

Another subordinate placed a silver attaché case on the desk. The electric brainwashing devices known as Testaments were supposed to be quite large, but they could be made this small if all but the bare minimum was removed.

For the most part, those “unnecessary” parts were what ensured the subject remained safe.

(Accelerator...)

Kihara watched his subordinate unlock the attaché case and put together the device.

He suddenly muttered, “He can manipulate any vector. So what happens with that sort of irregularity?”

“What?”

“Nothing,” replied Kihara.

Part 8

Accelerator arrived at Leaf Street along District 7’s Route 39.

He quickly found the family restaurant the guy on the phone had mentioned. It looked like a building in a country undergoing civil war. It had been destroyed to the point that the reinforced concrete had been stripped bare. Kihara’s Hound Dogs were lying unconscious on the ground after receiving rough first aid. Not even the bare minimum had been done to hide what had happened.

“...”

It was possible this was not a trap after all.

In that case, that guy was telling the truth when he said he let Last Order escape despite being wrapped up in this disaster himself.

(Tch. I need to find that brat, and soon. Where did she get off to?)

If he was lucky, she would have left some sign behind for him, but he doubted she had been composed enough to be that clever. And even if she had, the rain would probably have washed it away.

(That brat will have used the Sisters’ network to escape while following the evidence suppression protocols used during the experiment. That’s the same thing she did during the Amai Ao incident on August 31.)

It filled him with disgust to think back on the experiment, but he had no choice because it could help him here.

(She’ll choose a path that hides her from satellites and stays off of the security robots’ patrol routes.)

The guy on the phone had been searching official places such as Anti-Skill offices, but that was likely the wrong type of place to check. If she was following those evidence suppression protocols, the back alleys would be the most likely.

Accelerator used his shotgun cane to enter a nearby alley. He dragged his weary body along in the pouring rain to walk and walk and walk. He checked each building backdoor he came across. He was looking for traces of an electricity user forcing the lock open.

He found nothing.

This was not the only route and she could be hiding in a building.

He had too few hints.

The more effective her means of fleeing from the enemy, the harder it was for him to search for her.

“God dammit...”

The one thing he knew for sure was that Last Order was somewhere nearby.

If he gave a sign, would Last Order come out? But what sign could he give? Last Order no longer had her cell phone. Without being able to directly communicate with her, his only option was to switch on his electrode and go on a rampage.

But then another method came to Accelerator.

It was such a ridiculous method it had never even occurred to him until now.

He could yell out her name.

Last Order would come out if she heard his voice.

However, walking around calling a child’s name would make him look like a father searching for his lost daughter. That was simply too far removed from Accelerator’s normal values.

It was completely laughable, but he had no other option.

After a terribly annoyed click of his tongue, he took in a deep breath.

However, he never let out his shout.

Just before he did, he saw something.

Something was floating in a filthy rain puddle on the ground.

It was a torn scrap of cloth about the size of a handkerchief. He looked closer and could tell it came from a men’s dress shirt. Accelerator recognized the design of that sleeve. It was the same as the one Last Order wore over her light blue camisole.

A blank appeared in Accelerator’s thoughts. His face grew gradually pale.

(This... It can’t be... But...)

His cell phone rang as if the caller had been waiting for this moment. Accelerator slowly pulled the phone out of his pocket. The screen displayed an unknown number.

(It can’t be him.)

He had no reason to notify Accelerator. He would not do something so obvious, so there was nothing to worry about. Accelerator told himself this was not what he thought it was.

He answered the call.

And a very, very loud voice struck his ear before he even brought the phone up to it.

“How’re you doing, Accelerator? Gya ha ha ha ha!!”

A creaking noise came from the phone in his hand.

His fears had been so perfectly on target that he thought a blood vessel in his head would burst.

His pupils thrashed about. The emotions roiling within him seemed to scatter out around him.

“What do you want, Kihara-kuuun?”

“Just having a bit of fun. In both shogi and chess, the game isn’t over until you announce your victory. People used to do this all the time. You need to enjoy every second of some annoying shit being crushed before your eyes. Is there any better way to enjoy victory?”

“Announcing your victory? Don’t make me fucking laugh.”

“You don’t have to believe me, but isn’t there a scrap of that brat’s shirt in front of you? If you don’t see it, then keep searching. We left that behind on purpose.”

“...”

“Testaments sure are amazing. Sticking a virus in a human’s head isn’t normal. Ha ha! That brat is trembling like crazy!! Give me your address so I can email you a video!!”

Accelerator’s face completely paled.

(Is this why they abducted that brat!?)

Kihara was doing almost the exact same thing Amai Ao had on August 31. He was using a brainwashing machine to directly rewrite Last Order’s brain. Accelerator had no idea what commands were being added, but this was not something any normal person could do. This was as profane an act as rubbing a handful of semen into her brain.

“Y’know, you just don’t understand. Not killing your enemies is definitely an effective technique. After all, there is such a thing as a living hell. Those who mistakenly believe the most frightening thing in the world is death will be unable to withstand the pressure. My men have shown that well enough. But...” Kihara let out a dry breath. He sounded like a teacher disappointed with his student’s incompetence. “I know the truth, so it won’t work on me. It’s obvious as fuck you’re just putting on an act. Here’s a lesson for you, you brat. Corpses may be a work of art, but they only have value when the guy’s dead. Ending their life is the same as finishing up the face of a sculpture. Your art isn’t ready to be displayed in a gallery yet. The hell do you think you’re doing randomly chipping away at some stone and leaving it lying around? That’s rude to the hunk of flesh.”

Accelerator did not respond.

He analyzed his situation.

“So I’ll teach you by example. I’ll show you just how to make some pretty-looking meat. Try not to lose it when you see what’s left of this brat!!”

The laugh that followed seemed as if it would break the speaker.

Accelerator listened to it for a while

Finally, he spoke into the phone.

“So how am I supposed to react to this?”

“What?”

“Should I hold my sides and laugh, you little masochist?”

“C’mon, now. Don’t tell me you can’t properly assess this situation.”

“How about you take this seriously. If you were only doing this to make me suffer, you wouldn’t have retrieved that brat. You would’ve killed her and sent her body to me. What as this about a Testament? Are you stupid? If you were putting on a show, you would use something that’s a little more obvious at a glance,” said Accelerator with a smile. “The thugs loitering around think they’ll gain freedom by sinking into the darkness, but they’re completely wrong. The farther you dig down, the more you’re bound by the hierarchy of power. Isn’t that right, slave dog Kihara-kun.”

“I get it, I get it. You’re really into the screams of that brat right now.”

“How about actually letting me hear one? I’m sick of everything being so dull. I want to know she’s alive. If you want, you can cut off her nose and send it to me.”

“Is that how you want to do this? Well, order now and you can get an ear as an added bonus.”

“Don’t try to scare me. You were hired by someone. That brat serves no purpose for your personal research. You were hired by some bastard who has free use of the likes of you. This person didn’t come crying to you begging that she was left unscathed, now did they? I’m sure they told you it didn’t matter as long her brain and heart were fine. So why are you too scared to lay a finger on her?”

“Fine, fine.”

“You’re pathetic, Kihara-kuuun. Did you open a delivery company? Were you in such a hurry because you’ll get bitched at if you take longer than 30 minutes?”

“I’ll kill you.”

The call suddenly ended.

The sound of the pouring rain seemed to grow much closer.

Accelerator spun his cell phone around in his hand as he analyzed the conversation.

(Given that bastard’s personality, he would’ve gouged out one of that brat’s eyes in front of his phone after I said that. Since he didn’t...he’s definitely working for someone.)

It had been a dangerous gamble, but he could not handle Kihara without taking some risk.

“And that means...”

Someone with the power to hold Kihara in check was backing this.

Given Hound Dog’s equipment, the most likely option was...

(Don’t tell me it’s Academy City itself.)

Most likely it was the board of directors that governed the city. Nothing had changed since that experiment using the Sisters. In fact, it was possible that experiment was directly connected with this incident.

(I don’t know where Kihara is, but that isn’t the case with the board of directors. If I look into this, I might find out more about this plan than just Kihara’s role. Hm? ...Holy shit. This is advancing like crazy. Should things really be going this well?)

Accelerator banged on the wall and smiled.

He snapped his cell phone shut and put it in his pocket.

“Go to fucking hell!! Don’t underestimate meeeeeeeeeee!!” he shouted.

He switched on the choker-style electrode on his neck.

His massive calculation ability returned.

Accelerator stood in a narrow back alley and could only see concrete walls in every direction.

But that did not matter.

He knew his absolute coordinates and where his target was located. His eyes rolled in his head. Thanks to his time soaking in the darkness, Accelerator knew in which direction that building was located.

(My enemy is Academy City! The board chairman controls this city!!)

He knew where the windowless building was.

He knew where the shelter of the city’s board chairman was.

“Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

Accelerator stuck his hand into a nearby concrete wall. He manipulated the vectors so his arm sank in as easily as if the wall was made of tofu. Accelerator shouted so loud blood came from his throat and he moved his arm complexly around in the wall.

He took control of all of the vectors.

A great roar exploded out.

In that instant, earth’s rotation slowed by about 5 minutes for September 30.

His arm took the massive energy of the planet’s rotation and used his vector control to transform it into a demonic strike.

The concrete wall he forcibly gouged out was thrown with frightening speed. Accelerator stood in an alley surrounded by buildings, but the several buildings between him and his target were torn through like paper.

His worries about his surroundings and unrelated people had completely evaporated for an instant.

By the time he came to his senses, he had already thrown it.

He was over two kilometers from his target.

That windowless building was the world’s strongest shelter which was said to be the fortress of Aleister, the chairman of Academy City’s board of directors.

It was said that giant structure would not budge even from the shockwave of a nuclear weapon.

The attack flew with frightening speed.

A tremendous storm of noise exploded out. It did not matter that Accelerator was over two kilometers away. It blew straight through two or three unmanned banks and government office buildings, shot between two buildings on the other side of a street, tore off an electronic billboard attached to the side of a high-rise building, and shot straight toward the target. It could only be called a miracle that no one was injured or killed. He had not given it any thought.

Gray dust blew into the air. His vision was temporarily obstructed.

The dust hung in the air for a while.

Finally, his vision cleared up.

It spread out before him.

“...”

Nothing about the world had changed.

That strike had used the full power of Academy City’s strongest esper and had taken the rotational energy of the earth itself, but even that had not been enough to bring down that windowless building.

The result was clear.

The wall remained as large as ever.

“Kwaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!”

Accelerator collapsed to his knees and slammed his fist into a filthy puddle. No matter what he did, he could not reach Aleister. Some unknown technique had been used to disperse the impact and he had no proof Aleister was even really there. The entire building could be a decoy. But it did not matter. None of it mattered anymore.

Last Order had been taken from him.

He could not think of any way the situation could be any worse.

Every single thing he had wanted to protect had been ripped to shreds.

(I’ll kill him.)

He thought quietly as he switched off his electrode.

The thought of trying to contact Yomikawa or Yoshikawa had completely disappeared from his mind.

(I’ll kill Kihara Amata. I’ll fucking kill him. Killing that piece of shit 100 times over wouldn’t be enough, but I’ll squeeze it all into just once. It all has to start there.)

He unsteadily stood up using his shotgun cane.

His focus turned to the cell phone in his pocket.

Kihara’s number was contained within it. Even if it was a decoy number, it was worth looking into. Even if the normal methods would be useless, he just had to investigate using methods other than the normal ones. Accelerator had no future and Last Order’s future was being stolen at that very moment, so he had no reason to hold back. The databases in Anti-Skill or Judgment stations would be of no use, so he would break into the hideouts of members of the board of directors until he had full access to the Bank. He did not care about those 12 powerful people in the slightest. He would crush their heads or hearts if he had to.

He was willing to set fire to the city to burn Kihara out and kill him down to the very last cell.

He muttered to himself as he slowly walked through that back alley.

He disappeared into even deeper darkness.

Part 9

Aleister was within the windowless building.

Despite that tremendous impact, nothing had changed within the building. He was floating upside down in a cylindrical container filled with red liquid that was located in the center of a large room. The only sign of the impact had been a slight shaking of that red liquid.

(It seems things are getting noisy outside.)

His focus was not turned toward the source of that shaking.

He seemed to be saying something of that level was not even worth a moment’s attention.

Aleister was looking at empty air.

Some technology had caused several square windows to appear in that supposedly empty space. What they displayed changed again and again as Aleister moved his eyes and he entered commands by moving his fingertips.

He could have used a brainwave sensor for those commands instead of moving his body, but he did not.

(Heh heh. I need some exercise occasionally.)

Aleister left most of his bodily functions to his life support device, so he technically did not even need to blink. He did not need to moisten his eyeballs while in that constantly regulated liquid. Even moving his fingertips registered as a significant “event” in his mind. He felt almost divine inspiration in the value of those slight movements and the analysis of the signals sent from his brain and through his nerves.

He had no concept of training his body.

The electric expansion and contraction of his muscles and the regulation of his heart were nothing more than trivial matters he left to machines. Hearing that he had not walked for decades may have sounded unhealthy, but Aleister maintained a more ideal and healthy state than anyone else in the world.

And the same could be said about his intellectual activity.

To Aleister, the brain was nothing more than another part. It was a separate existence from one’s soul or one’s life, so it could be replaced by a substitute as many times as needed. His inspirations were drawn out by cables, gradually ripened within a computer, and returned to Aleister’s brain as his personal opinion. The life support device was his skin, his organs, his brain. It was possible that giant collection of machinery was alive. Just like a transplanted organ became a part of the patient’s body, this collection of metal had approached so close to humanity that it was hard to say whether it was machine or man.

Aleister smiled calmly while surrounded by that hard mass that almost seemed to have a pulse when touched.

A few pieces of data could be seen in the images he was viewing.

One was a map of the Sisters distributed around the world and a graph of their brainwave patterns.

Another was the life form data on a certain something being born within the city.

The third was a long-distance video of Vento leaning up against a railing and coughing.

(Kihara has succeeded in retrieving Last Order. Now that the target code has been inputted and the preparatory phase is complete, the changes are appearing over the “stage” of Academy City.)

Calm came over Aleister’s thoughts. These last minute preparations had resulted in the output being much lower than expected, but it would be enough.

(Development of the Imaginary Number District – Five Elements Institution using the AIM diffusion fields is complete. Using magic within Academy City now will cause any magician to lose control and self destruct. Vento of the Front, was it? Even your body is no exception.)

His inspirations gave birth to new thoughts and his new thoughts gave birth to more inspiration. That cycle constructed the great intellectual torrent that would move history.

(The current output is nowhere near the level needed to cover the world. The spell pressure is at a bearable level...but only for now. That code has yet to be activated. Once Fuse Kazakiri appears, the situation will completely reverse.)

A new window appeared in midair.

It showed Kazakiri Hyouka walking anxiously through the rain while confused by the changes to the city.

Part 10

Vento stood on a metal bridge.

The bridge spanned a large river. The structure was made of metal and asphalt, so it was very dreary. Due to the pouring rain, the dark river below was swollen with muddy water that was surging noisily.

“Cough cough cough...”

She coughed wetly again and again.

Thick blood spilled through the gaps of the hand covering her mouth. Vento looked at her bloody hand. It was trembling.

(What...is this...?)

She did not know what was causing this. She did not know what was happening to her, how much damage it was doing to her body, or whether she would recover or not.

(My body...is specially made... But this has...never happened before. This is not due to that...)

She coughed some more.

More blood splattered onto the already wet road surface.

The pouring rain caused the makeup around her eyes to run a bit. The cloth known as a guimpe that covered her hair was also in disarray. Some disheveled hair could be seen sticking out onto her forehead.

(So is this...a new...magical attack? No...it isn’t. This is Academy City. A magical attack here...is unthinkable. And there is no sign of...a spell having been put together. More importantly, I can intercept anything like that...)

“...!!”

A large tremor ran through Vento’s body.

All pain left her.

This was not because her condition had improved.

It was the opposite. Something had happened that took priority.

She felt pressure. But not on some specific part of her body. She felt like her skin, her organs, and even every last one of her blood vessels was being squeezed.

The source of this pressure was a certain “presence”.

This gigantic presence shook Academy City itself. The presence displayed no hostility. It was not looking at Vento. The situation was similar to a leopard or lion yawning in front of one’s face. Even with no hostility on display, the puny human could only tremble and sweat.

She did not know where the presence was coming from.

The scale was simply too great. It seemed to be enveloping the entire city. Perhaps there was no point in a human searching for the presence of a ferocious beast from within the beast’s stomach. The presence was so intense that Vento could not even grasp its outlines. This was the worst possible type of opponent.

And...

(This strange presence is continuing to grow!?)

That was the most frightening aspect. This gigantic being shook the world, warped the several “layers” piled on top of each other, and blew away the magical laws that stretched out alongside that space. And the pressure was continuing to grow as if to say this was only the beginning. Not even a Christian Saint could manage this much. That left the question of how to interpret this phenomenon.

(Is this...Academy City’s...final line of defense...against the occult?)

This must have been why Aleister had seemed so calm.

This was not good. Vento had paralyzed almost 90% of Academy City’s functions, but this ace up the sleeve could overturn it all. However, she had been thinking it had all gone too easily. Without something like this, the science side could hardly be said to rival the magic side.

“...This...doesn’t matter. Whatever happens, I must carry out my mission.”

Vento uttered a short word under her breath.

It was her younger brother’s name.

That was all it took for Vento to recover somewhat from the trembling assaulting her body. The fear of not knowing why she was coughing up blood was alleviated. Calm returned to her thoughts. A strong core returned to her shaken heart.

(I have already taken away 90% of the city’s functionality. I still have the advantage. This just means Aleister is feeling cornered enough to bring out his secret weapon.)

“I can win this,” Vento concluded while wiping blood from her mouth.

(He can no longer receive any secret assistance. I don’t know what position Kamijou Touma holds in this city, but not even Aleister can prevent his death.)

Anti-Skill and Judgment who protected the city had been annihilated. That type of person tended to receive her attack first. She had begun to forget with the appearance of this great new foe, but Vento had made great advances since she arrived.

She only needed to kill her target.

She only needed to kill Kamijou Touma.

(I hate science.)

Vento thought while placing her hands on the railing.

(I loathe science.)

She hated science for what it had done to her here. She loathed science for being unable to save her brother’s life.

Vento wiped her mouth with her arm and took a long, deep breath.

New life entered her damaged body.

Just as she started to leave the bridge to quickly kill Kamijou Touma...

A tremendous roar exploded out.

Some long distance attack had been fired. The buildings near the firing site were all destroyed. The attack continued diagonally for about 10 kilometers before striking another building.

(What was that...?)

This attack had no connection to God’s Right Seat or the Roman Catholic Church. The invasion unit should still be outside the city.

Academy City must have had a problem other than her.

Vento frowned, but did not have the leeway to worry about it too much.

“...”

She produced a hammer wrapped in barbed wire from thin air and grabbed it.

The piercings in Vento’s face qualified as “metal piercing flesh”, so they possessed the attributes of the nails used to hold the Son of God to the cross. Needless to say, the hammer represented the hammer used to nail the Son of God to that execution device.

A single noise had prompted her to prepare for battle.

The sound of footsteps.

Part 11

Kamijou Touma followed the advice of the person on the phone and ran to the metal bridge.

However, he did not find Last Order there.

He found God’s Right Seat.

He found Vento of the Front.

“Wha-...You!!” roared Kamijou as Vento swung her giant hammer while turning around.

A blunt mass of air tore through the rain and Kamijou knocked it away with his right hand.

An invisible tension ran between the two of them.

“Why are you here!? What did you do with Last Order!?” shouted Kamijou.

Vento frowned before replying, “Are you here to let me kill you?”

“I’m asking what you did with that girl!!”

“Last Order? I don’t know anything about that!!”

The two of them yelled at each other.

However, it did not develop into an actual fight.

A tremendous light suddenly assaulted their eyes.

When his vision was taken out, Kamijou went on guard, assuming it was a strategy of Vento’s. However, he could hear Vento gritting her teeth as well.

He could not grasp what had happened and then the sound and shockwave struck a moment later like with lightning.

All of the joints in his body cried out.

“Gwaahh!!”

Kamijou collapsed to the road. That large bridge made of metal shook like a suspension bridge. He heard a number of bolts burst due to the motion.

(...Kh. What is going on?)

Kamijou shook his head while crouching down.

The gap between light and sound meant this was a distant event.

(Where’s Vento...!?)

The light was not bright enough to blind him over a long period of time. Kamijou frantically stood up and looked around.

(What?)

She was not looking at Kamijou.

Vento’s eyes were fixed on some distant object with her hands on the railing and the hammer on the ground next to her.

“That bastard... Aleister!!”

Her hate-filled cry rang out.

The anger in her voice was dozens of times stronger and clearer than when she had directed it at Kamijou.

Vento turned back toward him.

“I’ll deal with you later. ...I’ll kill him. I see. So this is the true form of the Imaginary Number District – Five Elements Institution! Damn you. Do you want to mock us this badlyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!?”

She grabbed her hammer and swung it full-force at her feet.

The asphalt was smashed to pieces with a great roar.

“!!”

Kamijou covered his face with both hands and Vento was gone by the time he could see again.

(She disappeared? Wait, it can’t be!!)

He frantically ran over to the railing. However, he could see nothing but the black river noisily flowing by when he peered down. The rain had swollen the river by quite a bit. Had she jumped down there? Or had she used some sort of magic?

(What is going on? What was she looking at?)

Vento had attacked Academy City to kill Kamijou Touma.

Yet now she had completely abandoned her primary target.

Kamijou moved his gaze up from the river and looked straight ahead.

He wanted to see what Vento had been looking at.

“You’re kidding...”

Part 12

–Imaginary Number District – Five Elements Institution has begun partial development.

–The corresponding coordinates are almost the exact center of Academy City District 7.

–The additional module has overwritten the base theoretical model known as Kazakiri Hyouka.

–Both internal and external changes have been confirmed in the theoretical model.

–The code has been authenticated within the superior model known as Last Order that controls the Sisters.

–Forced control of the Misaka Network has succeeded in artificially guiding all AIM diffusion fields in Academy City.

–Phase 1 complete.

–The physical rules are confirmed to have changed.

–Fuse Kazakiri will now appear within Academy City.

–All in the affected area should prepare for sudden shockwaves.

Part 13

Academy City was wrapped in rain that night.

Little light covered the roads that had significantly less traffic than normal. The same could be said for the buildings. As if every resident of the city was out for the night, the lights were either out or left on. The nighttime scenery seemed somehow left behind and lacking in uniformity.

A tremendous light filled one corner of the city.

With a roar, countless wings swept out from the center of the light. Those dozens of wings were as sharp as blades. Each individual one measured from 10 to 100 meters and they spread out high, high into the sky as if to defy heaven.

There were buildings in the area, but the wings showed no sign of caring.

They tore through the buildings like wet paper. The wings flapped leisurely while ripping apart those puny human constructions. They seemed to wordlessly proclaim that humans were not the masters of this world.

They looked like giant peacock feathers made of crystal.

“It can’t be...”

Kamijou Touma blankly stared at the wings from the bridge.

He recognized this.

He recognized this extremely unscientific existence that he could see so far in the distance.

He had felt this same horrific presence when that existence naming itself Misha Kreutzev had appeared.

That existence had prepared a spell that would easily destroy all of humanity while almost killing a Saint on the side.

The name for that existence was...

“An angel!?”

Even as he spoke that word, his mind could not keep up with how insufficient his power was.

(G-give me a break! There’s already enough going on!! What the hell is happening in this city tonight!?)

From the look on Vento’s face, this was likely not something prepared by the Roman Catholic Church.

But what else could explain it?

Why did he need the word “angel” for something happening in Academy City?

Was a magical organization even more dangerous than the Roman Catholic Church or God’s Right Seat lurking within the city?

Or...

Had the supposedly scientific Academy City brought this angel down into the human world?

Kamijou was left puzzling over the situation while the distant angel wings slowly moved.

Light flashed between two of the largest wings as if from some strange kind of electrical discharge.

And in the next instant, a destructive attack was let loose.

The grand flash of lightning produced flew outside of Academy City with the snake-like movements of a living creature. Kamijou followed the afterimage with his eyes. As if the ground had been packed full of explosives below the site the brilliant light struck, the forest, the ground, the trees, and the people were blown up into the sky. Academy City’s exit should have been at about the point of the horizon, yet Kamijou clearly saw something rise and fall like a wave. That was how massive an amount of substance had been blown into the air.

After a few seconds, the sound of an explosion struck his body.

The sound alone was practically a shockwave. It held enough force to almost knock him over. The entire bridge creaked ominously just like when the angel had appeared. Kamijou realized it would be dangerous to stay where he was.

“...!!”

With Last Order, Vento, and those men in black, the day had been filled with problems, but this stood apart from all the others. If something like that moved about as it pleased, Academy City would be destroyed. And the damage might not remain within Academy City.

(But what about Last Order!?)

It was true he needed to protect her. That guy on the phone had said this bridge was their rendezvous point, but Last Order was nowhere to be found. Had she actually showed up here? Or had she run off when she saw Vento?

(Dammit!!)

Kamijou pulled out Last Order’s phone and called one of the registered numbers.

It connected right away.

“Hey! I came to the bridge, but Last Order isn’t here! Have you found-...”

“Are you a complete moron!? You aren’t supposed to just believe me!!” shouted the other guy before Kamijou could finish. He continued speaking while Kamijou was completely taken aback. “I’ll have that brat located soon. At the very least, you aren’t gonna find her just by running randomly around the city. I’ll take care of it, so you go home!!”

“...”

(Dammit.)

It pained him that he could not help.

“Sorry. Did you see that just now? An amazing light and dozens of wings appeared in one part of the city.”

“Yeah, it fired something at the outer perimeter of the city.”

“I need to stop that angel, so I really won’t be able to help you.”

“I don’t care,” was the carefree reply.

“Sorry,” apologized Kamijou once more. “Don’t die.”

“You either.”

Kamijou ended the call, put the phone in his pocket, and looked up.

That angel that had destroyed several buildings was vividly showing off its majestic form.

Between the lines 8

He thought his eardrums were going to burst.

Tsuchimikado Motoharu lay bloody atop watery mud. He had been in the abandoned bus maintenance facility in that forest, but no sign of it remained. Everything had been dug up, blown away, and blasted to pieces before raining down once more. Tons of trees were buried under the muddy earth as if a large-scale landslide had occurred.

There was no sign of his enemies either. They had either been buried by the mud or blown to pieces.

Tsuchimikado had been saved by the rain.

The spell he most specialized in was the Black Spell which used water.

Tsuchimikado Motoharu held the greatest ability as an Onmyou expert. Sudden though it had been, he had given his all towards putting together a defensive spell. Even then, he had barely survived.

“Cough!?”

However, he still coughed up some blood.

He could not use magic without damaging his body, but this was more than that. The defensive spell had clearly been breached and his body had been ripped into by an external shock.

The wooden stakes were gone.

Not only had the core of the spell been destroyed, but the entire surrounding terrain had been destroyed.

(What...?)

Tsuchimikado’s thoughts raced as he lay half-buried in mud.

(What happened...?)

They had been attacked by a long-distance attack, but he could not imagine what spell could have done it. And the attack had come from the direction of Academy City. The unnatural situation prevented him from simply deciding a magical attack must have come from the Roman Catholic Church.

He could not get up, so he twisted his head around instead.

(You’re...kidding me...)

He saw the countless wings spreading out in the distance within Academy City.

He could only see a small shadow from where he was. The outer walls and tall buildings hid the base, but simply seeing those wings was enough for him to stop breathing.

This was an angel.

Its outer appearance resembled that of Misha Kreutzev, but it was completely different on the inside. While the Archangel Gabriel had given off a piercing chill, this gave off more of an atmosphere of discomfort. It was like smelling a hot and stuffy room filled with adhesive.

This was an artificially created angel.

That accurate attack had been fired at the magicians who opposed Academy City.

(A...lei...ster...)

Tsuchimikado Motoharu moved his lips without thinking.

This was the Imaginary Number District – Five Elements Institution. That artificial “realm” was focused in the center of Academy City and was created by controlling the AIM diffusion fields given off by the Sisters scattered around the world.

“Did you create this...you bastard?”

The appearance of the angel had to have caused a huge commotion within the city.

However, Tsuchimikado had expected the completion of that “realm” to eliminate all forms of the occult, kill off all magicians, and destroy all institutions of magic. Tsuchimikado was still alive and had felt nothing off about the construction of his spell.

Most likely, the Imaginary Number District was incomplete.

If it was not, Tsuchimikado would have been wrapped up in the elimination of all magic.

And if Aleister had brought this out before it was complete...

(This is due to God’s Right Seat... Academy City must be at a stalemate too...)

Or perhaps this was nothing more than a part of his plan.

However, this was no time to think on it.

He had to get up and leave before the next attack came. With that thing up and running, Aleister would begin truly exterminating his enemies. He would not just oppose them; he would begin a counterattack. He would crush every single assassin sent from the Roman Catholic Church. And Tsuchimikado would be caught in the middle of it here.

“Gh...”

Tsuchimikado poured strength into his legs, but they would not move properly.

The previous shockwave had done serious damage to the core of his body.

“Pant pant...”

He tried to slowly stand.

His body would not move.

The angel within Academy City began producing more ominous light.

The second attack was coming.

He knew it was, but his legs would not move.

He gritted his teeth.

He looked forward.

He could not die here. He refused to give up.