3_Chapter 2_ Radio Noise

CHAPTER 2 Radio Noise Level2(Product_Model) 1 He had remedial classes the next day, too. Being a lone student, sitting in the middle of a classroom soaked in the afternoon sunlight, conjured up sadness within him. At the beginning, Kamijou was making sarcastic remarks like, “Wow, I must be in some village elementary school where you can clearly see the country’s declining population!” Unfortunately, and as he thought it would, the novelty had worn off after this had continued for three or four days. By the fifth and sixth, the only feelings left within him were those of tedium. However, there were only two more days of makeup classes, including today. He wasn’t too far from the desperate mood of “yeah, my vacation finally starts on August twenty-second!” But he was still happy he’d be liberated from this. He looked at the podium directly in front of him. There stood his female teacher, Komoe Tsukuyomi. She was 135 centimeters tall and at a glance looked only twelve years old; only her face was peeking above the podium. She was reading out of a textbook atop it. But wouldn’t it be a lot easier to read if you held it in your hands? he pondered. “Now for the requisites for the ESP Card trials reenacted in the United States in 1992. The materials for the card changed from vinyl resin to ABS resin. This was in response to a trick whereby rubbing finger grease, your fingerprints, onto the front of the card, you could make it so you couldn’t tell what kind of card it was when it was flipped over— Wait, Kami, are you actually listening to me?” “…Well, Miss Komoe, I’m listening and everything, but…Does this have something to do with our powers?” Kamijou was a Level Zero Impotent. Machines of the finest workmanship had measured him and given the results: that he couldn’t bend a spoon even if he strained his head’s blood vessels to their bursting point. And yet he had to go to remedial classes because his “powers” were weak. He couldn’t make heads or tails of that. Then Miss Komoe’s lips turned into a frown, as if she had noticed that contradiction as well. “But, but! If you give up because you say you have no power, then you won’t be able to make any progress. So first you should start with the basics and learn where these powers come from. Then maybe you can discover how to bring out your very own power. That’s what Miss Komoe thinks personally.” “Miss Komoe.” “Yeess?” “…You look like you’re pushing yourself, but it seems to me there’s no progress to be made in the first place.” “Kami! I won’t tell you that you’ll succeed just as long as you put effort into it, but those who don’t put any effort into it will never know success! Even Miss Misaka from Tokiwadai Middle School, who ranks third out of all 2.3 million people here, started out as a Level One Deficient. But she tried her best and then some and was able to reach Level Five! So, Kami, you have to try your best, too!” “…She’s number three? But she delivers roundhouses to vending machines!” “? Kami, are you acquainted with Miss Misaka?” “Not particularly. Back to the conversation, Miss Komoe, but Kamijou isn’t someone who can get it going with this. You might as well tell me, ‘Look, this high school baseball player is so active, but despite being the same age, you’re so lazy; don’t you think it’s disgraceful?’ like I’m watching TV or something! Blech!” “Please don’t blech! You’ll make Miss Komoe distressed, too!” “Is that so? Miss Komoe, if you’re so distressed, why does your face look so happy?” “Eh, ah…well, that’s…You see, it’s because your teacher…She loves—” “Ack?!” “—her classes, okay?” “…Ah, right. Your classes. That surprised me…Wait, hey! I went through all that to deflect the topic and make pointless conversation, and you just went back to the main topic on me!” “A-ha-ha. It’s a hundred years too soon for you to try and take on Miss Komoe with gum-smacking techniques. Here, Kami, please read from page 182 of your textbook about the defensive thought walls of psychometers with regard to criminal investigation, okay?” And today’s remedial classes go by once again. 2 Thus, today’s makeup classes ended again. The time was 6:40 PM. Kamijou was walking lazily through the shopping district under the evening light. He had missed getting on the last train, which was set up to be perfectly timed with the end of school. The last trains and buses in Academy City were generally at six thirty to prevent students staying out late on the town. The policy of putting all the means of transportation to sleep then was apparently to suppress kids going out at night. Just one more day. Still one more day? Anyway, it’s been a long time coming…Damn it, when it’s over, I’m going to the beach or something! thought Kamijou as he headed back home in the sunset. It didn’t look like the wind was blowing, but the propellers on the wind generators were spinning around and around. “Hm?” Then he spotted the back of someone he knew in the midst of the crowd of people. A brown-haired girl wearing Tokiwadai Middle School’s summer uniform—it was Mikoto Misaka. Well, no reason for me to avoid her. Kamijou trotted a bit and came up alongside her. “Heya. You just getting out of makeup classes, too?” “Eh?” Mikoto responded in an unfeminine way. “Oh, it’s you. I’m tired today, and I was going to preserve the strength I had left, so I’ll let you off the hook with the buzzy stuff today. What did you need?” “Well, I didn’t really need anything…We’re going the same way, so I just figured I wanted to go home with you.” “Is that right?” Her eyes narrowed just slightly. “You’re telling a lady of Tokiwadai that you ‘just figured you wanted to walk back home’ with her? Hah, do you have any idea how many men have worked their asses off to stand where you are now?” “…Man, ladies who act like princesses are the worst.” “It was a joke, stupid,” she retorted, sticking out her tongue. “The important part isn’t what school you go to, but what you learn there. I’m mature enough to at least know that.” “Hum. I guess everyone has their own theories. Anyway, is your little sister not with you? She helped carry all that juice back yesterday, so I was sort of thinking I’d like to thank her.” Mikoto’s eyebrow gave a twitch. The movement was only a few millimeters, but those few millimeters oddly bothered Kamijou. “My little sister…Did you meet her again after that?” “Uh…” Bad, thought Kamijou. She had grabbed Little Misaka’s hand and forced her away from him yesterday. With that in mind, wouldn’t it have been a better idea to have kept their second meeting a secret? She narrowed her eyes again a little. “What. Maybe you can’t get my little sister out of that head of yours?” “That’s not it! She helped carry those cans back, so I just wanted to thank—” “So even though we’re visually the same, you’d still choose my little sister? Or maybe you couldn’t decide, and you were trying to purchase a set of twin sisters?” “I’m telling you, that isn’t what I’m saying! Where did you learn that stuff, anyway?!” Kamijou and Mikoto walked down the main road, bickering with each other all the while. Many wind turbines stood on this main road. He raised his eyes above their rotating propeller blades and saw a blimp floating through the evening sky. The wide screen plastered onto it was displaying today’s Academy City news, about how there had been three consecutive incidents in the past two weeks where agencies related to muscular dystrophy had announced their withdrawals and a cold wind blowing through the entire market was feared. The conversation came to a halt, perhaps because his focus had turned to the blimp. The word blimp might sound like it comes from ages past, but it was apparently a fuelless, eco-friendly aircraft that ran on solar power, generated lift via heating carbon gas inside the ship with a heater, and gained propulsion through the turning of giant motors. If they’re seriously developing stuff like that, then I wonder if we’re really gonna hit the bottom of the planet’s fossil fuels soon, he thought to himself like it wasn’t related to him. Mikoto remarked, “I really hate that blimp, you know.” “Huh? Why?” asked Kamijou, looking up at it again. If he recalled correctly, the Academy City Unified Board of Directors had put it up there in order to make the students more informed about current events. “…Because people are following policies decided on by machines, that’s why,” she answered quietly, like she was spitting out something annoying. He looked back at her again, at a loss. There was nothing weird about her face. Nothing was strange about it. It was sort of like she had made it back up before he saw a ruined clay mask. “Yeah? What was it? Er, the Tree Diagram, was that what it was called? Hah, are you the type who can’t stand how humans lose to machines at chess?” Simply, the Tree Diagram was the smartest supercomputer in the world. It was the ultimate predictive simulator created under the pretenses of delivering more perfect weather forecasts. The words weather forecast may seem familiar. In reality, though, the field is one in which you can forecast the weather but not state it positively. This is because the movements of each and every particle in the air that create the weather display these complexities, which involve things like the butterfly effect and chaos theory. So even if you can say that there’s an 80 percent chance of it raining tomorrow, you cannot assert that rain will definitely be falling at precisely 9:10 AM. This concept is similar to quantum mechanics. However, the Tree Diagram evolved these weather forecasts into weather prophecies. It didn’t do anything complicated. All it needed to do is predict the motion of every particle in the air floating through the world, and it could arrive at a singular answer. It had some whacked-out specs, but according to one theory, the Tree Diagram’s usage as a weather forecaster was actually a front, and that the goal was to use it for some other purpose. For instance, there was just one irregularity in its forecasting. It forecast the weather for the next month all at once. It was still never wrong, so there wasn’t any problem with it doing so. Frankly, he thought that was pointless effort. One might understand if they considered how overwhelmingly easier it is to get the next week’s weather wrong than the next day’s. If one wanted to accurately know the weather, repeating the calculation each day would make it go more smoothly. But despite that, the Tree Diagram specifically chose a more difficult method, relying on its processing power. Incidentally, according to rumors… Apparently the time left over was being utilized for simulating calculations for research. Drug responses, physiological responses, electron reactions—they would have the Tree Diagram calculate all of these, then after confirming the answer it spit out with two or three trials, they would complete a new medicine. It was pretty crazy. Talk was that there were even researchers who hated touching lab rats and didn’t know how to handle a test tube. A supercomputer possessing such immense power had its share of enemies, as well. Nobody knew when machine-hating human supremacists would commit a terrorist attack. Human-hating electronic supremacists could also try and sneak into the Tree Diagram’s storeroom to steal the technology. For all of these reasons, the Tree Diagram was installed in a place unreachable by human hands in order to protect against external foes. To make it blunt, the man-made satellite shot up by Academy City was the Tree Diagram itself. Rocket technology was not originally permitted to be developed by anyone but national agencies. And yet, it was being used privately in a place like this—it spoke to the depth of the influence Academy City had against the world. Well, on the other hand, it’s valuable enough for someone to let something so crazy pass, I suppose, mused Kamijou, staring vaguely up into the evening sky. Even now, the Tree Diagram might be calculating the end of the world from outside the atmosphere. “A steel brain looking down on humans from the sky, huh? But it’s not like it could possibly turn on humans, right? This isn’t some cheap science fiction movie. When all’s said and done, it’s the same thing as an ATM—it just does whatever buttons someone presses on it.” Right. However much calculating capacity it had, the Tree Diagram can’t operate without human intervention in the first place. An ATM destroying someone isn’t due to machines rising up in rebellion, it’s just that it’s being used in an unplanned way by humans—same thing. “…” Mikoto didn’t respond. She looked up at the night sky one last time. Was she watching the blimp? Were her eyes piercing to something farther away? Kamijou didn’t know. “The Tree Diagram…loaded onto the man-made satellite Orihime 1 and launched above Academy City under the pretense of analyzing weather pattern data—identified as the world’s greatest supercomputer, to which no one will be able to catch up for another twenty-five years…,” she said, as if rolling it around in her mouth, as if reading from an Academy City pamphlet. “…That’s what they say, but I wonder. Does such a ridiculous absolute simulator even exist at all?” “Huh?” Kamijou looked at her again, but she continued. “Just kidding! Ah, I turned into a bit of a poet, aha-ha-ha” Whoosh. She karate chopped him for no reason. When he looked at her, he saw only brisk, impertinent, selfish Mikoto Misaka. “Ow! What the heck did you do that for?!” “Man, don’t you have any dreams? You’ve never thought about dramatic friendship between a person and a high-tech sci-fi computer with a human heart? Nothing romantic like that?” “Listen here, you…” “Like a fighting maid robot or something.” “Listen to me! Wait, there’s no romance in that or dramatic friendship, either! Are you even really a proper lady?! Aren’t you supposed to be reading romance novels with a cup of tea in one hand?!” “Whaaat? Quit that. What era of golden idols did you take that from? Every week on Monday and Wednesday I go to the convenience store and stand there reading manga! I mean, I’m only human!” “Buy it! Also, you’re bothering people around you!” Without regard for Kamijou’s declaration, she said, “I’m this way, see ya,” and left immediately. He stared at Mikoto’s back. Her mood was entirely different from a moment ago. He tilted his head and wondered… …I just don’t get it. Is that just that thing where puberty makes you…Would it even be okay to say that? Maybe she just hates me. 3 Given all of that, however, he couldn’t figure out what he was looking at. …That’s Mikoto, isn’t it? What’s she doing? Kamijou had parted with Mikoto, and after walking down the road a bit, he saw Mikoto crouched at the roadside. She was directly below a wind turbine, and there was a cardboard box placed at the foot of its post. This is bad, I’ve seen this somewhere before. His brain began to blare warnings at him at the same time he saw a black cat buried in the box. Was she trying to feed it? She was slowly moving a sweet bun in her hand toward it, but the terrified cat had its ears lowered and was curled up as if she was waving her fist at it. ? She went a different way and left me because she doesn’t like me, right? So why is she right down the road? There’s no reason for her to get here before me. Once the question marks in his head stopped flying around, he finally caught on. At Mikoto’s squatting feet was a pair of what looked like night-vision goggles. It wasn’t Mikoto—it was Little Misaka, who looked just like her. “…Boy, without the goggles, I really can’t tell them apart,” Kamijou remarked to himself. Still looking at the black cat without expression, Little Misaka came to a halt. With not a single word, her neck turned like a lighthouse to face him. “Heya. Just wanted to say thanks for the juice and the fleas from yesterday.” “…I am not particularly out for gratitude, responds Misaka.” With a hint of annoyance creeping into her inscrutable face, she slung the goggles on the ground over her forehead. She also withdrew the hand holding the sweet bun. “The only reason I removed my goggles was to be in accordance with previously obtained information that cats possess a dislike of shining things like lenses, Misaka explains. Perhaps I need to apologize for making you mistake me for Big Sister?” As she spoke, she hid the sweet bun behind her hand for some reason, her face still impassive. For a cat who had been so afraid until now, it began to mew discontentedly. Kamijou’s head dropped to one side with a “?”. “If I made you apologize for something stupid like that, everyone in the world would demand an apology from me, I think,” he sighed. “But if cats don’t like lenses, then why did you put your goggles back on? What, did you not personally want to be seen like that?” Indeed, it was hard to tell, what with the tranquillity of her wooden movements. Kamijou at least thought he saw her put them back on out of nervousness at being seen without him. “…Not really, answers Misaka.” Her voice came back to him immediately, but her expression was somehow misted over. Kamijou tilted his head with a “?” again. Little Misaka, deadpan and dispassionate, had taken off her goggles so as not to scare the kitten and had crouched and beckoned to it with a sweet bun in one hand. It was certainly far from her normal image, but he didn’t think it was really something she needed to hide. “Then why don’t you just give it the sweet bun? Cats don’t hate them, do they?” “No…That isn’t really…” Her motions jerked to a stop. “Whatever the case, Misaka feeding this cat is most likely impossible, Misaka says in conclusion. Because Misaka has one fatal flaw, she adds.” “Don’t call it a flaw, it makes it sound bad.” “No, the word flaw is appropriate. Misaka’s body generates a weak electric field, explains Misaka. It is too weak for human bodies to sense, but as it appears, it is different for other creatures.” “?” “Animals exhibit odd behaviors believed to be precursors to earthquakes. Many say this is also because they are responding to changes in electrical fields created by the planet’s subterranean tectonic movements, Misaka explains in layman’s terms.” “…Hmm. I suppose that means animals run away because they dislike it, then. In other words, animals don’t find you likable because of the electric field?” A tinge of irritation came over Little Misaka’s face. “I am not being disliked. I believe I am just not good with them, corrects Misaka.” “…” This made him feel bad, so Kamijou decided not to press any further. Little Misaka peered at the black cat with placid eyes, hated by all animals because of her body’s electric field. He sensed that he might be getting in the way here, then went to sneak away, but… “Wait, Misaka calls, encouraging him to stop.” “Whoa! She caught me by just my aura!” “Listen. There is one black cat here, Misaka says, pointing out the contents of the cardboard box. Do you really mean to leave without giving this hungry black cat anything? questions Misaka.” “…Wait, why do I have to be the one to pay for its snacks when you’re the one trying to make friends with it? Besides, you’ve got a sweet bun in your hand right there!” “I was not referring to that. There is an abandoned kitten here—why is it that you do not consider adopting it? Misaka demands again. Do you know what happens to animals collected by those from public health centers? Misaka says, launching into an allegory. First, they put the animal inside a transparent polycarbonate case, and then they inject into the box twenty milliliters of ADS10, a poisonous gas—” “Wah!” Kamijou shouted loudly, cutting her off. This conversation was incredibly awkward, especially given the fact that he was looking at a frightened cat. “You adopt it! You found it, and you were feeding it, too!” Kamijou cried out as if it was obvious, but… “…It is impossible for Misaka to raise this cat, admits Misaka. Misaka’s living environment is remarkably different from yours, explains Misaka.” Maybe her dorm’s got strict policies, he thought. But his own residence hall didn’t permit keeping pets, either. As someone who generally had zero intent to follow rules he didn’t know the reasons for, it seemed weird to him that Little Misaka would give up on the black cat just for that, but… She was crouching and just staring intently at it. Her expressionless eyes followed the black cat, despite knowing that it would never get attached to her. “…Wow.” Kamijou stopped walking in spite of himself. He had been worried about this from the beginning, ever since he had adopted the first one—that adopting one would lead to adopting another, which would lead to picking up a third and even a fourth. Of course, though, the wallet of the Kamijou residence wasn’t nearly fat enough to build an entire animal kingdom. He wanted to refuse if he could. Unfortunately, he felt like Little Misaka would just stare at the black cat until morning if he let them be. She could even get into a fight with the people from the public health center. “D-damn it…! Wasn’t this the same exact thing that happened before?!” “I find it impossible to understand what you are saying, but does this mean you possess the intention to adopt this black cat? Misaka inquires. In the case that you do not, employees from the public health center will—” “Ah, shit, I got it, I got it, so stop staring up at me with those empty eyes and talking about public health centers!” We’ve got rotten luck, you and me both, he thought to the timid black cat, gathering it up from the cardboard box into his hands. “That’s right, a name! This is your cat, after all, so take responsibility and name it!” “…It’s Misaka’s?” “Yes, it’s yours.” Kamijou looked down at the black cat in his hands. It looked back up at him nervously. Little Misaka wasn’t paying attention to them; her vacant eyes turned toward the night sky for just a moment, and she said… “Dog.” “What?” “I will name this black cat ‘dog,’ Misaka christens…Dog, even though it’s a cat. Hee-hee.” Somehow, the sight of Little Misaka laughing quietly like she was remembering something was a little scary. “…No, I mean. Think about it more seriously, please, since this is a living creature, and give it a more dignified name.” “Then, Ieyasu Tokugawa, reconsiders Misaka.” “Too dignified! Just wait, are you one of those characters who acts like she’s thinking, but her mind is actually totally blank?!” “Then, Schrödinger—” “Stop doing that! A doctor who talked merrily about shoving a cat into a box spewing poison gas can’t possibly have liked kittens, even if it was just a thought experiment!” In the end, they decided to save naming the cat for later. However, it seemed to Kamijou that if they went on like this without deciding on one, it would be decided with a blunt name like “Later” or something, he thought, groaning. 4 The sky’s color had resolved from orange into purple. As Kamijou plodded along a main road, his gaze fell to the black cat in his arms. He felt like he should figure out how to raise it now that he had decided in earnest to shelter pets. …Well, it’s only a little, but I do know a few things. Now, Index, on the other hand… He sighed. The townscape he walked through was beginning to shift into the shades of nighttime. If they had been simple, mean-spirited pranks, he could just get rid of the mean-spirited bit. Unfortunately, what Index did had been entirely out of good intentions; she thought it was the right thing to do. This put him in a most intractable situation. Her intent being wholly pure meant that she would stop and think about whether what she was doing was correct. He needed to run to the bookstore and buy a book on how to raise cats ASAP or else the beaming sister in white would soon come to be known under a different name: the cat killer. “We are going in a different direction than yesterday, Misaka points out,” said Little Misaka as she walked alongside him. Every time she stole a glance at the cat in his hands, he felt it somewhat unbearable. Cats didn’t like her because of the electric field, but it seemed to him that she actually wanted to stroke the cat really badly, and she was just considering its feelings over her own and suppressing it. “Uhh, just a side trip, that’s all. There’s a book I sort of wanted.” “Your objective is to go to the bookstore? asks Misaka. Geographically speaking, it might have been quicker if we had taken a right turn at the previous intersection, says Misaka, looking behind her.” “Urk. Not the store for new books—the used bookstore down a little farther. New or used, won’t make a difference, right?” “A hundred yen for a book would be ideal,” he answered. …Incidentally, unbeknownst to Kamijou, knowledge and common sense about living beings changes by the hour. Take the training routines for baseball players, for example. Ten years ago, a book might have this written in it like it was perfectly normal: “Q: How can I throw the ball faster? A: If you throw it harder, it will go faster. Even if it starts to hurt, just battle through it.” If this were actually put into practice, it would surely ruin someone’s shoulder joints. “You are looking for a publication regarding the raising of cats? probes Misaka.” “Not really a publication, just some info. Besides, you saw those things in the nun clothes and shrine maiden outfit before, didn’t you?” “…” Little Misaka looked at Kamijou impassively. “I will say this again. Treat the cat’s life carelessly and you will be tried for property damage, warns Misaka.” “Ah, huh? Wait, are you mad?” “I am not mad. This is not something you can get away with just because you say you weren’t involved, Misaka says, urging caution. If you leave those two alone while knowing what they are doing, that places responsibility on your shoulders as well, Misaka offers objectively.” “…I’m sorry. Little Misaka, are you mad?” “I am not mad. In the first place, this isn’t a case where the absence from the law makes it okay, Misaka admonishes you. Thinking about this sensibly—” “Uhh…” He swallowed the urge to whine about how sick and tired he was of this. “Anyway, it’ll be fine. After all, Index and Himegami are both only doing what they think is good for the cat. They won’t inflict harm on it, or torture it, or do anything that they would clearly think is bad for it.” “As far as I can see from the situation yesterday, the level of trust I can assign to your words is incredibly close to zero, Misaka responds. And besides, how do you plan on dealing with it if the book has something mistaken in it? I believe Misaka should advise you, as she knows how to handle ca—” “Aaahh!” Kamijou didn’t listen until the end. “I’m telling you, it’ll be fine! They won’t inflict harm on it or torture it! They wouldn’t do anything they would clearly think is bad for the cat!” “…I have the feeling you are only repeating yourself word for word, the only difference being the tension in your voice, Misaka says, offering her thoughts. That wasn’t my request—what I meant was, Misaka is—” “Abgha!” He had no idea what was going on anymore. “I’b tebbing you it’b be bine! Inbex anb Hibebami are both onby boing bat they bink is bood for the bat abter all! They bon’t inflibt barm on it or borbure it or anything that they bould clearby bink ib bad bor it!” “…Grr.” “Hah…hah…oh, there’s the bookstore! There it is!” While he had been going on like that, they had meanwhile arrived at a big used bookstore chain. Kamijou looked down at the black cat in his arms and pondered it for a moment. “Hm. Now that I think of it, I wonder if I should take the cat inside.” “That was a clear breach of the required level of explanation, but please refrain from entrusting it to me, Misaka says, seizing the initiative.” “…Why, because cats don’t like you because of the electrical field your body puts out? Well, then. It looks like it’s a wall you’re gonna need to climb over in order to give birth to true friendship, now, isn’t it? Take this—Killer Cat Boooomb!” Kamijou turned sideways to face Little Misaka and, predicting she would catch it, slowly tossed the black cat at her. Of course, it was a foregone conclusion that the cat would land beautifully even if she didn’t catch it, given its reflexes and mobility…Despite that, Little Misaka, just as Kamijou anticipated, reflexively held out her arms. How sad the nature of an animal enthusiast is. Before Little Misaka could complain, Kamijou disappeared into the bookstore. “…Good grief. Just what neural impulses approved the throwing of a kitten? Misaka grumbles to herself,” grumbled Little Misaka, now standing alone in the Academy City sunset. The black cat, reacting to the electromagnetic waves being released from her body, looked at her with frightened eyes. She considered lowering it onto the ground, but the cat hadn’t accepted that Little Misaka and Kamijou were its “owners,” so she got the feeling that if she took her hands off of it, it would run away forever. The cat in question was merely a kitten, but there was no possible way a person could chase down a cat seriously trying to flee. But still, it was important that the first thing the owners needed to perform was to give it food, prepare a bed for it, and give it a sense of security, assuring it that it didn’t need to run away from them. “…And of all the things, he threw it, says Misaka, breathing a sigh,” she said, her face completely blank. The silver lining was that the black cat wasn’t baring its claws or particularly struggling around. It was probably more in the realm of fear than of obedience. She certainly wanted to try touching the cat, even though it would be better to restrain herself if it was this scared of her…She sighed again… …and then she noticed it. It being summer break, boys and girls in casual wear were swarming the main streets of Academy City in the evening glow. Misaka’s school uniform probably stood out quite a bit more than any of them. But even so—she was completely ordinary compared to the boy she was looking at now. It was a young man, whose hair and skin were both terrifyingly white. She didn’t mean white as in “clean” or “innocent,” but rather the polar opposite: white muddied with impurity. As if to further emphasize his rotting pallor, his clothes were collectively black. And his eyes… Red like fresh blood, crimson like a burning flame, scarlet like hell were those twin orbs embedded in his head. He was far away amid the throng, and yet his very existence was astonishingly vivid. The boy wasn’t doing something in particular. The boy was doing nothing exceptional, and yet… If she ventured to say it, that hellish young man standing there was itself an abnormality in the middle of this peaceful city. Accelerator. The one extolled as the strongest Level Five in Academy City—and perhaps the strongest in the world—was simply watching Little Misaka. As he stared, he just smiled in silence. “…” She quietly lowered the black cat to the ground. It will be killed. Anything with me will be caught up in the war and will surely be killed, I understand that. But it didn’t leave her side. It trembled in distress but didn’t run away; rather it looked up at her face as if its legs wouldn’t move and meowed. Accelerator regarded Little Misaka and grinned a grin far removed from the concept of “white”—a distorted, warped, corrupted, white-hot, cloudy, wrathful grin. A single image passed through her mind. A scene in the dead of night, an exploded Metal-eater ripping off a girl’s right arm. Little Misaka’s ordinary life had ended at this moment. From this moment on, her hell began. 5 The air-conditioned store was abound with boys and girls. This was a location of a large used-bookstore chain. Aside from its low prices, it made sure you knew its policy of it being permissible to stand and read in the aisles. Many of the people here at the moment were the type who wanted to read manga, just not enough to purchase it. “…” Kamijou stood among them, aghast. There was, in fact, a book called How to Raise Cats sitting right there on the bookshelf in front of him. Exposure to light had caused its cover slip to fade, but that made it even cheaper, so he wasn’t about to complain. But what’s with this ordering scheme? he wondered. Next to How to Raise Cats was a book called Delicious Ways to Cook Beef. “…Okay, I guess they’re both about animals, but still…” Moving his eyes farther to the side in succession, he saw a book called The Latest! Scientific Cows in Ranch Buildings. There were a handful of buildings in Academy City that didn’t have any windows. Called “agricultural buildings,” they were used for raising hydroponic vegetables and animals for consumption. Inside the buildings, the vegetables, bathed in ultraviolet light, inhaled carbon dioxide passed through air purifiers and spread their roots into water fortified with all kinds of nutrients. When people outside of Academy City hear this, they apparently call it “gross.” They appeared to think that scientifically created food was bad for their bodies. …Even though it’s the opposite. How can you possibly eat vegetables raised from soil when you don’t even know what kind of industrial wastes and effluents were in it? It’s that kind of difference in values separating the inside of Academy City from the outside. Without giving it any more thought, he removed How to Raise Cats from the shelf. She dashed around the back of the used bookstore into an alley. One of her shoes slipped off. Judging that it would be detrimental to her to run while wearing only one shoe, she took the other one off and left it behind as well, then pressed on. At first glance, her brown hair cut to shoulder length, her white short-sleeved blouse, her summer sweater, and her pleated skirt would give her the impression of a Tokiwadai Middle School student. In addition, the name Mikoto Misaka might come to those who were familiar with her. However, there were two things making it nonsensical to call her a middle school student. One was the pair of army precision goggles sitting on her forehead. The other was the assault rifle she gripped in her right hand. Though technically an assault rifle, it was made out of a laminated plastic rather than steel. Additionally, its form possessed a functional beauty reminiscent of a jet fighter. This would probably cause it to look like a toy gun that might appear in the world of science fiction. That analogy wasn’t far off the mark. The rifle, the F2000R Toy Soldier, would acquire its target via infrared light, and it was able to adjust the trajectory of its bullets in real time, using electronic controls, to give them the greatest chance of hitting the target. The wielder doesn’t need to think about the direction of the wind or predicted evasion patterns of the target. All they needed to do was point the barrel in the direction this “thought-processing device” said to, and anyone could become an expert. In addition, thanks to the special impact-absorbing rubber enveloping the body of the gun and its carbon gas, the recoil from firing was nearly nonexistent. The antitank Metal-eater rifle was a monster that even grown men couldn’t handle, but the F2000R, which had so little recoil it wouldn’t even crack an egg, was a beast that even second graders could operate with ease. In spite of having such a beast in her hands, she was nonetheless unable to take on the role of the pursuer. Her raging pulse, her extremely irregular breathing, her thoughts blinking on and off again chaotically—all of these indicated exactly which one of them was the hunted. A shadow approached her from the rear. The pale boy drew to within just ten meters of her and said, “Hah-hah! Why ya runnin’ away? You tryin’ to seduce me by shakin’ your ass all happy like that?!” There was no place to run in this narrow, straight alley from someone wielding a gun, nor was there anywhere to hide—and yet, despite being unarmed, he was still reveling in the wild enthusiasm of the predator. Without interrupting her flight, she twisted around her body from the waist to see behind her. The muzzle of the F2000R she was holding at her hip sent its piercing gaze upon the pale boy, Accelerator, as if to freeze his hot midsummer’s enthusiasm. She didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger. The rifle quietly swallowed both the impact and the noise of it firing. With a minimal, sharply explosive sound like that of a cheap firecracker, it sent 5.56 mm bullets from its tip and drove them precisely into the boy’s vitals. Or rather, it should have. “…?!” Her body locked up in consternation. The 5.56 mm bullets boasted enough power to plunge through an entire automobile from one side to the other, but as soon as they struck the boy’s body, they were repelled in every direction. It was as if she had fired a flimsy handgun at the front plating of an armored car. Scritch. By the time she heard the sound of flesh being crushed, a reddish hole had already opened wide in her right shoulder. One of the reflected bullets had lanced through it. “…Eh…gh!” Her body staggered. She immediately attempted to place a hand on the wall, but then her legs twisted and she rammed into the dirty concrete headfirst. She slid down the wall and collapsed to the ground. “Hey, now, to kill some time, you wanna do a riddle or two? Okay, here you go: Exactly what did Accelerator just do, eh?!” He laughed maniacally at her. When she looked up, the boy sprung one leg into the air, put all his weight behind it, and brought his foot down toward her skull to try and crush it. “!” She immediately rolled along the filthy ground to evade the incoming stomp. As she came out of the roll, she readied the F2000R, aimed up, and pulled the trigger. She fired the stream of bullets from close range—there was essentially zero distance between them. The shells went precisely at the pale boy’s eyes, to say nothing of his face. But again, the instant they made contact with his soft eyeballs, they bounced away. The pale boy didn’t even blink. What came over that clouded face of his was a smile that looked like a hideous burn. His white hand swept into the air. His hand—she hadn’t a clue what effect it would have. “…!” She quickly hurled the now-empty F2000R at his face. She didn’t think it would deal a mortal blow. She was only trying to create an opening for a moment so she could think of a plan. But the boy still didn’t move a muscle. The moment the body of the F2000R collided with his face, the gun shattered to pieces, like it had been chomped on by giant, invisible fangs. She was astonished but had no time to pause to gape. Twisting herself around, she rolled, finally putting a step of distance between them. She waved her left hand around—it was the only one that would still move—gathered power into it, and… …unleashed a spear of lightning. The purple lance thrust forward at the speed of light. It should have had enough destructive force behind it to knock a person out. She didn’t think it would deal a mortal blow. If she could just daze him and figure out a means of escape, that was enough. But even so. Even despite that. Of all the things that could have happened, the thundering javelin that crashed into the boy bounced back into her own chest. “Gah…?!” Thump! She fell to the ground with an impact that felt like a wooden hammer had been driven into her breast. Her breathing ceased, and all over, her muscles began to spasm. She quickly managed one word from her trembling lips. “Reflec…ted…?!” “Nope, sorry! It’s sort of like that, but my true nature is different!” She tried to somehow get away from him. But because of the electricity she herself had launched, her body wasn’t listening to a thing she told it. “The answer is that I altered its vector! Momentum, heat, electricity…If any kind of vector so much as touches my skin, I can change it. Though I have it set on reflect by default!” I don’t believe it, she thought, looking up at him. The 2.3 million espers living in Academy City were indeed special. However, those who could use their abilities to defeat a handgun were in the minority. If you could win against a handgun, then what about a machine gun? If you could win against a machine gun, what about a tank? What about a combat fighter? A battleship? A submarine? Ultimately, what about a nuclear missile? There were no espers who could defeat something like that. The thing is, if you’re going to go all the way through controlling someone’s brain and changing their genetic makeup to create a power that can combat guns, then you could have just gone and bought a handgun or something. It’s just a cheap weapon anybody could buy in a supermarket in the United States for thirty thousand yen. Going through all the legal loopholes and creating a large-scale Ability Development organization just for that? It would be ridiculous. Therefore, Academy City’s objective was not the espers. They were nothing more than the litmus paper in science experiments. The real treasure lies in why those espers are born and what the underlying mechanisms are. And yet, this boy stood out alone as different. Motion, heat, current—he could alter the direction of anything, so even if an ultimate weapon, like a nuclear missile, were dropped on his head, he’d come out unharmed. Explosions that would mow down everything, high heat that would incinerate everything, neutrons and radiation that would annihilate everything—he could reflect all of that. The strongest Level Five in Academy City: Accelerator, the One-Way Road. The term behemoth came to mind. This creature posing as a human being had the power to make an enemy of the entire world by himself and live through it. He crouched at her side. “A Level Five who controls all vectors, huh.” It was so incredibly out of this world, but the boy spoke like it was nothing. “If I use it, I can do stuff like this, too, y’know?” As he said that, he dug his slender index finger into the dark red hole in her right shoulder. His motion was akin to a child squashing a bug walking along the road. “…” Squelch, came a noise like an apple being split. Her body stiffened in extreme pain. “Now then, here’s a question for the loser struggling to turn the tables,” the pale Accelerator said mockingly. “I’m touching ‘blood’ right now. I am touching the flow of blood. Now, if I take this vector, and I reverse the direction of the blood flow, what do you think will happen to the human body? If you get it correct, I’ll put you to sleep nice and easy. ” No sooner did her face go blank, presented with something she didn’t know… …than a pain exceeding all imagination assaulted her body. “What’s this?” When Kamijou came out of the used bookstore with a shopping bag in one hand, he stopped in spite of himself and muttered. Little Misaka should have been waiting here, but she was nowhere to be found. Maybe she got angry at me forcing her to take care of the cat and left, he wondered. Only the black cat remained, sitting on the ground by itself. Kamijou gathered up the cat, who was flopping its ears down and shivering somewhat, then took another look around. There was nothing particularly out of place on this road glistening in the sunset. There was just a lot of kids in casual clothing walking around, all heading back to their dorms after a day filled with fun. ? As he looked around, he inadvertently felt something coming from the ordinary scene. He swung around his head to get another look at things. There it was—an alley in the gap between the used bookstore and another building next to it. Something about it bothered him. What is it? What exactly is getting to me? he thought, taking a closer look. The entrance to the back alley bordered the tiled road, and nearby, the propellers of a wind turbine were spinning around and around, clattering all the while. There were a lot of leaves gathered from the roadside trees at the entrance, as if it was never really cleaned at all, along with a girl’s shoe on the ground. The tiled road also broke off at the alley’s entrance, and on the ground of the narrow passage was some pretty makeshift-looking asphalt— —A girl’s shoe? “…?” Still holding the black cat, he approached the entrance to the pathway. A bad omen slithered through his body like a bag of centipedes. A girl’s shoe, just one, on the ground. It was a pretty school standard–looking, brown-colored loafer. The shoe wasn’t especially dirty—in fact, it was fairly clean—which meant that not much time had passed since it was left there. Kamijou stared into the path. The sun was starting to set over the horizon already, so its light wasn’t coming through the openings between buildings. He couldn’t see anything farther down just by taking a little peek in. It was like a darkness, opening up into the entrance of a cave. “…” He took a step into the alley. With but a simple motion, he thought he felt the temperature around him drop two or three degrees. The sensation of having tread upon the unknown rose from his feet and slowly up to the rest of his body. He pressed on. There on the unkempt ground he found the other shoe. He advanced farther. His grim premonition swelled. Slowly, slowly, he thought, but his feet were rapidly speeding up. What am I worried about? he wondered, but his breathing and pulse were accelerating like he was falling down a hill. Then he noticed markings on the wall, like something had cut into it. Marks like someone was shaving away the concrete with an iron nail. And it wasn’t just one or two of them—the wall was scarred as if someone had been swinging a metal pole all over the place. His feet stepped on something. Golden metal…No, it was closer to the color of copper. It was a metallic tube about the size of a double-A battery. Kamijou saw that it was a bullet shell cartridge, the likes of which he’d never seen before except in movies. A smell, sort of like the smoky scent after fireworks, lingered faintly in the air. What is…? Kamijou resisted giving voice to his unconscious thought. He proceeded deeper anyway, walking as quietly as he could for some reason. Every time he took a step, he got the weird sense that the air was getting dirtier. When he plunged in a little deeper, he saw something sitting on the ground on the other side of this dimly lit place. No, to be more accurate, he saw someone lying on the ground. From here, he could see feet. He could see two feet. The rest of the body was invisible to him, swallowed up by the darkness ahead. Something was spread about around the feet. It was a mess of fragments, similar to plastic, and some sort of spring—like the wreckage of a toy. “Misaka…?” Why did her name come out first right then? Kamijou didn’t know. He took another step forward, carving a path into the unseen. There he saw her. Little Misaka was lying there, reduced to a corpse. 6 She was faceup, eyes pointed overhead, to the square-shaped violet skies enclosed by the buildings. There was a sea of blood. It was such an ocean it might make one doubt just how much blood was stored inside the human body. It wasn’t only on the ground. Both walls had been splattered by a red pigment at a height about eye level with Kamijou. It looked almost as if someone had been squeezed like a sponge, like every last drop of blood had come out. One girl was in the center of this crimson ground zero. Her arms and legs, which extended from her short sleeves and skirt, had been torn off. It was more than likely the same story underneath her clothes. Her uniform was dyed with such vivid scarlet that you couldn’t tell what color it originally was. Even though her whole body was ripped apart, however, there wasn’t a modicum of damage on her clothing. It was as if someone had fed a thin wire into all of her blood vessels and then dragged it back out again. Her body was ripped apart from the inside out along the flow of blood. The way her arms were cut open reminded him of science class frog dissections. Neither was there anything close to a “face” on her sundered form. Instead, like a flower in bloom, or perhaps like a boiled egg with its shell pulled off, there was only a dark red cavity, revealing bundles of pink muscle and yellow, gelatinous fat within. “U…ah” Kamijou automatically took a step back from the red and violet scene. The black cat started meowing up at him painfully, as if he had started to crush it with his arms. “Agh…” He had witnessed hell before. The hell was called Misawa Cram School. But the corpses he had seen then were all either covered in armor or melted into pure gold. The fact that they were flesh and blood had never truly set in. But this was different. The urge to vomit rose in his throat like he had shoved a finger down it. Don’t throw up! Kamijou’s mind roared. Why the hell would you look at her and throw up? That’s Little Misaka, you know! Someplace in his brain was shouting rose-colored logic at him…and that’s when he caught sight of Little Misaka’s skirt. Something was protruding from her skirt, from between her legs. A thin layer of purple covered its pink surface, and it was soft and spongy— “Uh, geh!” That instant, Kamijou could endure it no longer, and he bent over. That sour taste spread into his mouth, and immediately after, the contents of his stomach all flew out. He vomited. That was someone who had been talking to him with a smile just ten minutes ago. The queer fact nearly burned out the cogs in his thoughts. The vomit fell to the ground with a disgusting noise as it mingled with the edge of the pool of blood, creating an odd-looking marble pattern. Blood. With that, at last, he realized. The blood hadn’t dried at all. Blood fluid coagulates in fifteen minutes—therefore, the person who did this ought to still be nearby. The one who did this. Kamijou blanched at his own words. Indeed, however he looked at this, it didn’t seem like an accident or a suicide. His head was swimming. The only remaining possibility didn’t want to manifest itself into words. Just then… Crumple. He heard some kind of noise coming from deeper in the alley. “?!” Ordinarily, he’d have assumed it could have just been a stray cat or something. But this sea of blood had already flown far beyond the category of common sense. His feet stepped back of their own accord. The darkness was indeed frightening, but the more important thing was that he couldn’t even consider walking past Little Misaka like this. One step, then another…As he withdrew, he recalled the solid sensation in his pocket. It was his cell phone. I’ll get help from someone, he thought, but then won’t the danger come to me while they take their sweet time getting here? Even if I do get help, I need to get out of here first, he concluded, turning his back to Little Misaka. He started to run away and retreated from the back road. He had thought this alley was totally straight, but he slammed into the wall a few times as the ground beneath his feet rocked back and forth. He hit some buttons on his cell phone as he ran, but his fingers were shaking, so he didn’t really know what he pressed. It might have been 110, it might have been 119, or maybe 117, or 177. Anyway, he pressed something. The ringtone sounded a few times, and then he heard a bzt sound. It finally went through! He braced, but all he heard from the other end was a cold electronic sound going boop, boop. Kamijou took the phone away from his ear and looked at the screen. He didn’t have any reception. Suddenly, he really wanted to throw it. Weird how inconvenient cell phones can be, huh? thought Kamijou in a daze. He had used his phone to try and call for help, but it said that it had no signal in the narrow alley. With no other choice, he exited from the path and dialed 119 again, this time from in front of the used bookstore. If someone were to ask what he said over the phone, he wouldn’t be able to answer. The only record of his crazy, nonsensical attempt at an explanation was recorded as an entry in his call history for the rare number 119. On the main road was the hustle and bustle of normal, ordinary life. He didn’t think anyone would believe it if he told them there was a destroyed girl’s corpse lying on the ground just a few steps into that alley. “…” His gaze fell to the cell phone in his hand. In all honesty, he needed to let Mikoto know, too. Unfortunately, he didn’t know her cell phone number. Even that one small thing was beyond his ability at the moment, and it made him feel enormously helpless. The black cat in Kamijou’s arms yawned. He had called 119, but the police had come along instead. His biological clock was beginning to go astray, so he didn’t quite know how much time had elapsed since notifying them. He got the feeling it had been more than an hour, but at the same time, he felt like it had only been about ten seconds. According to the screen on his cell phone, thirty minutes had passed. At first he thought his phone was broken, but when he looked up at the sky, he found it had gone from purple to the deep blue of night. He blankly stared at the light from the twinkling stars. “…” He quietly watched the police’s arrival. To be more precise, they were Anti-Skills, not police. They weren’t espers; they were more like soldiers armed with next-generation weaponry. It looked as if they were currently under the impression there had been a homicide by a berserk esper. Nearly ten Anti-Skills alighted from a windowless station wagon, each protected by a jet-black helmet and a suit made of special fiber—very robotic outfits. In their hands were these strange things that looked sort of like rifles. The equipment seemed to speak to their priority: capture the criminal, not defend the civilians. “…You? Excuse me!” An Anti-Skill suddenly addressed him as he sat there in a stupor. He twisted his head. They only heard my voice, so they shouldn’t know my face, right…? But when he looked around, he saw that the Anti-Skills had spread out and were apparently calling on other people nearby, one after the other. “Oh, I’m the one who notified you. Except I called for an ambulance, not the police…” “Is that so? When there’s an incident involving criminality, it’s set up so the police naturally get notified as well. We probably arrived quicker than they did. Well then…” The Anti-Skill looked him in the eyes. “…The alley in question, is it that one? Also, could you tell us a little about what it’s like inside right now? It would be a big help.” Kamijou shut his eyes once. What he had seen in the back alley was stuck to the backs of his eyelids like glue. And he said, “…There’s a person dead.” His voice was surprisingly calm, which annoyed him. “The whole body was, like, torn to pieces…I don’t know the weapon used or anything. I think it might have been some kind of power.” With every word that came out of him, he felt more nauseous. It was an unpleasant feeling. It felt like the sensation in his paralyzed body was returning. “She was somebody I knew. I only met her two days ago, but if you showed me a picture of her, I’d know who it is. Ah, I don’t…Why am I staying this calm? I should be more distraught, right? So then, why, why am I…!” “That’s enough.” The Anti-Skill shook her head a little. “You made the best choice. That’s why we’re here. It’s not that you couldn’t do anything.” “…I ran away, you know?” “Still. You did good,” replied the Anti-Skill. Kamijou knew that these words were only temporary comfort. But those words were enough to hit his mental brakes. He just barely averted a complete breakdown. “Normally we’d want the witness to come along with us, but do you want to? Looking at you, we can’t seem to force you to, but…” He felt a chill run up his spine when he heard that. His fingertips were on pins and needles, like the scape of flesh and blood and entrails was burned into his eyes. “…I’ll go,” said Kamijou, black cat in his hands. He didn’t know why. He just didn’t want to run away anymore. Will I have to look at it again? When Kamijou considered the prospect, he shivered. But he still had to go into that alley. What had happened in that darkness? There was no way he wasn’t going to figure that out. The fortified Anti-Skills took up positions to protect him, and he led them into the back alley. …Huh? As soon as he took one step into it, he felt like something was wrong. The shoe wasn’t there. Yes, right at the start, Kamijou had seen one of a pair of ladies’ loafers sitting at the entrance to the alley. And as he went deeper in, he saw the other one lying on the ground, hadn’t he? He turned back to look behind him. There was indeed a shoe plopped on the ground at the entrance. But the second shoe, which should have been dropped farther down, was nowhere to be found. …? Kamijou felt a heavy weight drop into his gut, but the Anti-Skills rapidly pressed forward. Next there should be an empty cartridge on the path and marks on the wall. Yes—there should have been. And yet there was no cartridge. It looked like someone had come through and cleaned it. There wasn’t a single thing on the filthy ground. The scratches on the wall had been sanded down by something. It couldn’t erase the marks themselves, but it was enough to conceal what had made them. It was almost like somebody was desperately trying to hide them. …Wait a minute. Kamijou got a bad feeling about this. The pressure in his stomach dropped. He wanted to stop for a moment and think about this, but the Anti-Skills nevertheless progressed quickly. An eerie sensation struck him, like insects were crawling beneath his skin. The vanished loafer and cartridge. The clearly sanded-away marks on the wall. He got the feeling that these scattered words and phrases were giving way to a strange chemical reaction, attempting to coalesce into a singular meaning. He wanted to stop for a moment. But he could not. His feet were dragged forward as if they were being pulled along by an invisible rope connected to the Anti-Skills. Then they finally arrived. Kamijou’s breath stopped. It was the site of the homicide—the entire ground covered in blood, and Little Misaka sinking into it, having passed away. The corpse that should have been there was nowhere in sight. 7 It wasn’t just the corpse that was missing. In addition to the ground, even the crimson blood staining the walls at his left and right had vanished entirely, wiped away like it had been nothing more than dirt on glass. There wasn’t any hair or any pieces of flesh scattered about anymore. He didn’t smell blood in the air, either. Even the scent of flesh no longer remained. As if there wasn’t any corpse here to begin with…as if there had been no incident in the first place. “Eh?” The first thing to escape from Kamijou’s lips was a grunt of surprise. He stopped, and the Anti-Skills in the lead turned back to look at him. “What’s wrong? Is there something bothering you?” “No, not like that…” First, he pointed to the ground. “It’s there. There was…supposed to be…a corpse there, but…” “What?” The Anti-Skills looked at the ground, but of course, there wasn’t a single drop of blood, to say nothing of a dead body. There also weren’t any particular signs of it having been cleaned up, nor were there traces of any stains. They exchanged looks with one another through their helmets. A sour air came over them. Some of them relaxed their shoulders, and some were clearly glaring at Kamijou. “W-wait a minute! There was seriously someone dead here!” “I understand.” One of the Anti-Skills looked at him. “If what you saw was real, then was it actually in this spot? Could you have gotten confused and mistaken it for a different place? Is that at all possible?” His words were gentle, but they lacked seriousness, like a flat soda. Kamijou thought his tone sounded like one that you might use when comforting an excited, intractable drunk. What happened…? He was at a loss. Had it been just an illusion? If it was, then where did Little Misaka go? She should have been waiting in front of the bookstore. He took out his cell phone. The fastest way to discern whether it was some hallucination or the real thing was to simply call up Little Misaka and confirm. If the call went through fine, then Little Misaka was “alive.” But he hadn’t the slightest clue what her cell phone number was. Making a call. He couldn’t even perform that single task…The only option left for Kamijou was to guess on his own. “…” He stood frozen in that spot. The scene before his eyes was in every way ordinary—enough so to make him doubt his very memories. And, in reality, he was happier that his memories were the more doubtful. If that was the case, then everything that had happened was just some sort of trick, and he gave the police a nonsensical notification about it. Little Misaka was walking lazily and aimlessly along somewhere totally different, and when she remembered the black cat, she’d appear before him again unexpectedly. Of course that future would have been much more preferable. …Damn it. What’s going on? He was happier with thinking Little Misaka wasn’t dead. Still, he felt a hesitation at rejecting the reality he had seen, playing it off as an illusion with scant few words. The queer contradiction started to gnaw at his heart. “What the hell is going on here, damn it?!” Eventually, he just couldn’t deal with it anymore. He pushed aside the Anti-Skills and ran deeper into the alley. He heard their voices behind him, trying to get him to stop, but they probably wouldn’t come chase him. They were already just about to put everything down to a prank call. The cat in his hands offered a meow. He ran through the dark passages without any idea what he was trying to find. Well, he was looking for something; he just didn’t know what that something was. It partly seemed like the only reason for his run was to vent all the strange stuff he had pent up. As he continued to dart down the dim, rotting alleyway, he came to a T-intersection. The path was split, going right and left. To the right was the same old, narrow passage continuing into the darkness, but in the other direction, he could see the lights of streetlamps shining. That way probably led to a main road. It seemed like light at the end of a tunnel. His emotions imparted his desire to take the left path. He thought, however, that leaving this back alley behind was the same as giving up. So he headed into the blackness to his right. It got a bit wider here than before, just barely turning into a way rather than a path. On the other hand, there were buckets, abandoned bicycles, and other various things strewn about, perhaps because of the added space. All sorts of fluids were flowing out of knocked-over beer cases and cardboard boxes that looked like they’d absorbed water. They were all mixed and combined to form some kind of viscous liquid. And in that liquid he saw what looked like footprints leading farther down the path. Kamijou followed them with his eyes, and when he peered into the dark ahead, he saw something rustling. Someone was there. He froze. His heart nearly exploded with surprise. The black cat started squirming around, distressed. All the nervousness might have caused him to tighten his hold on it. “Who’s there?!” he tried shouting, but he actually really did not know who they were. Whoever was in the blackness noticed the voice and looked at him. The person was unexpectedly shorter than he. It looked like a girl. However, there was something that looked like a sleeping bag slung over her shoulder, and it was really ominous. Yes, a sleeping bag. A bag meant for pushing someone unconscious into. The silhouette of that sleeping bag, bent over the person’s shoulder like a fulcrum, looked like an exhausted, drained female. What’s…that…? He couldn’t help but stand dumbstruck at the oh-so-vivid silhouette. A living human was stuffed in there…Actually, it was more like a jumble of disassembled mannequin parts shoved in it. The form as a whole looked destroyed, but various pieces, like wrists and ankles, pushed out from the fabric in an oddly lifelike manner. And Kamijou saw… …that somebody, who had only been a shadow until now because they were in the darkness. The somebody, who had clearly been put into a sleeping bag. Kamijou saw… …that somebody, on the other side of the darkness, past the darkness that had now been rubbed away was… Little Misaka. “Wha…?” Kamijou’s motions came to a complete halt at what he saw. The black cat in his arms offered a friendly cry, which was rather strange, given the situation. There was no doubt that she was Little Misaka. Brown shoulder-length hair, with army goggles on the forehead…A short-sleeved white blouse with a summer sweater and a pleated skirt…There she stood, as if she had been repaired using a mold. He didn’t know what to think about this, but… “I apologize. I planned to return once I completed my work, Misaka says, offering an apology to start off.” Her stare, her bearing, the air she exuded, her tone of voice—they all belonged to her, beyond a shadow of a doubt. “Hey, hold on. You are Little Misaka, right?” If she was, then was everything before actually just a realistic illusion? Dissatisfied as he was with that explanation, the figure of Little Misaka was nevertheless standing there, the same as she always was. He sunk weakly to the ground. “Damn it. Then what was all that?” spat Kamijou. “Ah, sorry. This might be a really sickening story to tell you in particular, but up until now, I thought you had gotten into something dangerous or something. It seems like you’re fine, though. Thank goodness.” “…There are parts of what you say that I do not quite understand…” Well, I suppose she wouldn’t, thought Kamijou. I don’t really know why I had that sort of hallucination, but everything is okay if Little Misaka is fine, right? he decided… “…Misaka has died in all properness, reports Misaka.” Kamijou’s breath stuck in his throat. Little Misaka is in front of me. But now that she mentions it, what could be in that sleeping bag she has on her shoulder? he realized a bit late. It was like a broken mannequin had been thrown into it, since its shape implied that its joints were all facing in ways they shouldn’t be. What is in that sleeping bag? he puzzled, shifting his gaze to it. Then something leaped into his vision. Something had jutted out from the fasteners on the sleeping bag. Like a clump of grass, peeking out of the openings between the fasteners, was brown— —hair. He gasped as a nondescript chill surged through his body. Is she carrying a realistic, life-sized doll? he thought. However, that brown hair was all too familiar. Yes—its color, its luster, everything about it was the exact same as the girl holding that sleeping bag. “Wait…a second. What…are you carrying exactly? What the hell is in that sleeping bag?” “…? You do not know? Misaka responds with a question. I had thought you were related to this experiment because you were present in the test area, but…I see. You certainly do appear to have little to do with the experiment, Misaka answers by intuition.” Experiment…? Kamijou was quiet for a moment. He didn’t understand her at all. “Just to be sure, I will confirm with the password, Misaka says, as she promised. ZXC741ASD852QWE963, she tests.” “Wh…at? Hey, what have you been going on about?” “As you cannot decode the password, it does not seem that you are a participant in this experiment, Misaka says, supplementing her intuition with evidence grounded in logic.” It might as well have been an alien language coming out of her mouth at this point. He looked at her dubiously, but she continued. “It’s Sister inside this sleeping bag, Misaka answers.” Replying to his doubts was indeed Little Misaka’s voice… But, from behind Little Misaka, he heard a clap of footsteps approaching. For some reason, the voice was coming from somewhere more distant than Little Misaka’s. It was like it had reached him from farther down the alley. And, in reality, Kamijou’s sense was right on the mark. With only the clip-clap of footsteps, somebody was approaching Little Misaka from behind. “I apologize for leaving the black cat behind, Misaka asserts.” The person who appeared out of the darkness—it was a girl who looked cut from the exact same mold as Little Misaka. What? She has the same face as Little Misaka…Does that mean this one is Mikoto? “However, I was not willing to drag an animal into unnecessary conflict, says Misaka, defending herself.” But he was wrong. There hadn’t been just one set of footsteps. “I’d like to apologize to you for all this as well, says Misaka, bowing her head.” Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten—the number of unique sets of footsteps was increasing endlessly. “It seems that we have caused you unnecessary worry because of the experiment, says—” “However, there is no need to fear—” “The fact that you called the police was also—” “A correct judgment—” “Is the black cat safe? asks—” “All of the Misakas here are Misaka, so—” “However, if I were really the killer, then what did you plan to do?—” “The details are confidential, so I cannot explain, but in any case, no crime was committed here, Misaka answers.—” “…Wha?” Kamijou automatically took a step back from the Misakas who were appearing one after the other. His back ran into something with a thump. He turned around to see more Misakas, with the exact same face, looking at him with that blank expression. “What’s…all this?” As he stood face-to-face with this situation in bewilderment, he tried to make all the puzzle pieces fit together in his mind. Was what he had seen no hallucination at all, then? Had one of the identical Misakas been killed? When he saw Little Misaka shouldering that corpse, it seemed also like she was trying to hide the body… The truth is, if you use a coagulant and a hair dryer, you can harden blood in one minute easy. It was the same concept as solidifying tempura oil with chemicals in order to discard it. Plus, you can use a few solutions to erase fingerprints and luminol detections pretty simply. He still thought something was odd, though. From the start, the presence of so many people who looked exactly the same struck him as strange. Identical twins—in other words twins who look the same—do indeed have the same skeletal structure, since they are equivalent at a genetic level. But the way it happened in dramas and novels, where the twins would have the exact same face, was a far cry from reality. For example, say that there was a person named Tanaka. Depending on if Tanaka decided to train every day to become a baseball player, versus if he decided to screw it and eat candy all day, the layout of his muscles and fat would obviously be different. Sleep, exercise, eating habits, stress—even if they were born at the same time, if the “rhythm” of one’s lifestyle changes, that person’s body would obviously change along with it. To add to that, people don’t normally strive to ensure that their sleep, exercise, and eating habits align with each other to some kind of schedule. In the face of that, the girls he was seeing looked way too alike. They looked far too similar to one girl named Mikoto Misaka. Their sleeping times measured by a clock, their amount of exercise dictated by a ruler, the quantity of food they ate weighed on a scale… Yes, it was as if everything about Mikoto Misaka were being calculated by precise equipment, and all of them were being made to align with her actions. Almost as if someone had created them. “” Kamijou took a look around and then laid eyes upon the sleeping bag one more time. It seemed like they knew him. It looked like they knew the black cat, too. But it would make even less sense if they did. Who was the Little Misaka he’d known until now? Was she in this crowd right now, or were there many more Misakas aside from her? Could the girl stuffed into that sleeping bag really be the Little Misaka he had been talki— “Oh, you needn’t worry, answers Misaka.” As he stood there, mouth agape, the one to address him this time was the Misaka shouldering the sleeping bag. “The Misaka you have interacted with before now is serial number 10032—in other words, this Misaka, she responds.” She motioned to herself with her free hand and continued. “Our brain waves are linked to one another by means of Misaka’s ability to control electricity. This is all no more than the other Misakas sharing number 10032’s memory, Misaka adds to her explanation.” Linked brain waves—this suddenly turned into an unbelievable story, but if they were twins, then it was possible. Like one’s fingerprints and voice print, brain waves differed from person to person. Even if one tried streaming someone else’s brain waves into their own, the only result would be a few cells getting destroyed. But if two people were genetically identical to each other… Whatever, that doesn’t matter, thought Kamijou. He asked her who she was. “We are the Sisters—somatic cell clones of our big sister, who is one of only seven Level Fives in Academy City—created for mass production in the military, answers Misaka.” He demanded to know what she was doing. “Just an experiment, answers Misaka. Allow us to apologize to you once more for getting you involved in the latest trial, Misaka says, bowing her head.” He questioned…or rather, he was about to say something, but his mouth suddenly refused to work. The girl in front of him was so extremely different and so incredibly distant. Kamijou rested his back against the wall of the alley, alone, the black cat in his arms. The multitude of Misakas had disappeared into the darkness. They were most likely bringing out the corpse and wiping off any and all worthwhile evidence. In addition, those “experiments” would continue. He didn’t know what they were exactly, but they probably involved more Misakas being killed and their corpses being dragged away, all without anyone knowing. He suddenly felt the urge to throw up at the words somatic cell clones. The spine of the book he had found by coincidence at the used bookstore floated back across his mind. The Latest! Scientific Cows in Ranch Buildings. They live their whole lives, breathing conditioned air and drinking nutrients in a building with no windows, raised for the sole purpose of being eaten. Their guts are cut open; their organs are dragged out; they’re sliced into thin pieces, put into tray packs, and scattered around butcher shops and supermarkets throughout the city. Ugh…Kamijou felt the sour taste of stomach acid rising in the back of his throat. At the moment, he was seriously considering becoming a vegetarian. However, there were many pragmatists in the world who didn’t pay any heed to it. These were the kind of people who would do all that to humans—cut open their guts, drag out their organs, slice them into thin pieces, and put them into tray packs—and they would probably go on with these “experiments” without twitching an eyebrow. He didn’t know what these experiments were all about. He didn’t know if he’d understand it even if something this atrocious was explained to him. But there was one thing he could state for sure: The longer this experiment went on, the more lives would continue to be lost. …Experiment? Kamijou felt himself hung up on something about that. Right, an experiment. Little Misaka had called it an experiment, hadn’t she? Wouldn’t that mean some research organization was behind it all? When he thought about it that way, the specialized term somatic cell clones made sense to him, too. Somatic cell clones weren’t born in the same way as a baby. It was a human-creation method that involved extracting a person’s genetic data from a single hair or drop of blood…and once he thought that far ahead, he paused. A single hair. Yes. A person would need genes, the raw materials, in order to make this kind of clone. It didn’t matter whether it was a strand of hair or a bit of blood—one just needed that ingredient. Little Misaka had told him they were mass-production, military-use models of Mikoto Misaka. Could she have…? Kamijou caught his breath. In spite of himself, he looked up at the sky, boxed into a square, at his hopeless notion. Could Mikoto Misaka have known about this? 8 Tonight they were having yakiniku—grilled meat. Miss Komoe, who looked twelve years old, gazed at the twelve-thousand-yen Splendid Yakiniku Set she had bought on sale at the supermarket. The number of people living here had increased, of course. It was also one rank above the eight-thousand-yen Beautiful Yakiniku Set she usually ate from. Incidentally, there being more people residing here at the moment wasn’t all that rare an occurrence for Miss Komoe. She was, at her core, an educator, so she made a “hobby” out of picking up runaway girls and giving them a temporary place to stay until they figured out what they wanted to do. …The latest one, little Izanami, went to apprentice at a bread shop a month ago. Now that I stop and think about it, I’ve been living by myself for quite a while now, huh? Miss Komoe removed a few different varieties of beer from her fridge so she could compare their tastes. The particular seasonal affinity of yakiniku was unclear to her, because in this day and age, you can obtain any kind of food all year round. But though she appeared only twelve, Miss Komoe was a teacher who knew her beers. For her, yakiniku was a decidedly summer dish. In fact, she decided that today, cooking the meat would be up to her roommate boarding here without paying rent. To state it bluntly, Miss Komoe was planning to drink beer and be served meat on long chopsticks tonight. In other words, she felt a bit like a queen. Meanwhile, this roommate, Aisa Himegami, had finished preparing the hot plate. She was now performing a ceremony in front of the tea table positioned dead center in the room, one in which she sat in lotus position to kill the worldly desire called an appetite. The term lotus position may sound bombastic. All she was really doing was sitting cross-legged, enduring her empty stomach, and quelling her urge to ask if dinner was ready. Miss Komoe was one of the people who seasoned her meat before cooking it. Everyone has their own myriad preferences, but she loved the double structure of putting sauce on the meat before cooking it and then again afterward. Of course, cooking meat with the sauce on it would be a disaster—the hot plate and the room would be filled with stench and smoke. She didn’t mind it, though. The floor and walls in her room already, for some reason, had strange rune-like sketches drawn all over them; the tatami had been sliced by what seemed like a sword; there were bloodstains left all over the place; there were burn marks on the walls; and to top it all off, the walls and ceiling had been wrecked by what she could only surmise was some kind of beam weapon. It had been repaired with plywood for the time being, but her security deposit and compensation money were pretty screwed. …Urr. Tomorrow for sure, I’ll give Kami a good scolding and ask him what happened. She heaved a sigh, but then collected herself and headed for the tea table with a large dish of meat in her hands. Himegami already had the rice cooker in her arms, implying she was one of the people who would drown her meat in sauce and eat it on rice. “I’m going to turn on the hot plate, okay? Hime, you lost the game of rock-paper-scissors, so you’re on slave labor duty. Get those serving chopsticks ready! Now then, please cook the meat lickety-split for Teacher~.” “Okay. But first. A scary story from Academy City.” “…It will take more than the seven wonders to make Miss Komoe cry. Besides, there are even opinions, dishonorable though they are, that Miss Komoe herself might be one of the seven wonders! So I’m totally okay and completely unconcerned, all right?” The seven wonders were urban legends passed down in Academy City. However, they weren’t the usual scary, occult ghost stories; they tended to be conspiracy theories of the government hiding the existence of UFOs or something. The urban legends here, frankly, were mostly related to the talk of the town—the Imaginary Number School District, the Five Elements Society. They say that everything that had happened in Academy City was the work of one single research institute. The company housing for employees, its recreational centers, and other related establishments are said to have kept on multiplying, at some point ballooning into one giant city. But at the present time, no one knew where in the city the “institute that started it all” was. There were plenty of rumors, though. For example, that the institute had gone bankrupt some ten years before, away from the eyes of people. For example, that it was hidden underground. For example, that you might see it every day, but it’s camouflaged as a perfectly normal school. For example, that it was hidden in some sort of warped space made from a special ability or some fictional technology. The seven wonders were rumors and had hundreds of variations depending on the storyteller, but every one of them was alike in that none had any kind of backing. It was something that should, for all intents and purposes, exist, and yet no one noticed its presence. Twenty-three school districts existed in Academy City, and the one that didn’t fit into any of those numbers was… The Imaginary Number School District or the Five Elements Society. And there were tales that inside this imaginary district—this invisible research institute—there were all sorts of super-technology. Some say that it had an AI controlling all of the world’s ethics, military affairs, and economy. Some say that it preserved the DNA of great men and saints, and as a result of analyzing them, it could create infinite geniuses in some clone factory. Some say that the silicon synapses used in the Tree Diagram’s processing engine could only be produced with the Imaginary Number School District’s sci-fi tech, so no one would be able to reactivate it ever again should something go wrong. Some say that expert “hound dogs” were investigating the Imaginary Number School District from the shadows, but when they got close to its mysteries, they were kidnapped and tortured for information. Some say that eternal life has been perfected in the Imaginary Number School District and the test subject is Miss Komoe. But that would be a huge infringement on personal rights, no matter how you looked at it…! Miss Komoe quietly sighed, beer in one hand. Himegami sat facing her at the tea table. She patted her hands together, declaring: “All right, time for scary stories.” “Okay, jeez, just get it over with already please! Hurry up!” “’Kay. Then here’s one. The polynuclear aromatic carbonation that comes about from grilling the meat. It’s actually a carcinogen.” “W-wait, scary stories that are actually real aren’t fit for summertime at all!” “There’s no point in worrying about it now. You’ve already eaten so much of it without knowing.” “That’s too much! This is all a plan to whittle away my appetite and monopolize all the meat, isn’t it, Hime!” At the mercy of psychological warfare, Miss Komoe heard the sound of her intercom going ding-dong. “Mh, it looks like we have a visitor. It’s probably a circular notice, but Hime, please answer the door properly. In the meantime, Teacher will cook the meat by herself and eat it by herself.” Himegami looked at Miss Komoe, who was making a crabby face, then rose without a sound. As she was about to go toward the door, she suddenly turned, saying: “That can of beer. Aluminum cans contain metallic poison. If you drink a lot of it, poison will accumulate inside your body little by little. One of the reasons the Roman Empire died out. Is supposedly because they used too many metal tools. Hee-hee.” Her appetite now reduced to nothing, Miss Komoe’s entire face created an expression that was about to burst into tears. “And also.” “…There’s something else?” “I’m the one cooking the meat today. You can just sit there and eat it.” Himegami approached the door, then bent down to look through the peephole to see outside. The newspaper solicitors around this area seemed pretty extreme in their methodology, so if worse came to worst, she’d have no recourse but to chain the door, open it a little, then take her magic stick (gas gun) standing in the entrance. She’d shove it through the gap in the door and chase them away with a fully automatic attack. (Warning: Incidentally, as of 1993, its sale has been prohibited by the Diet due to its excessive power. Its nickname was “head crusher.”) But there was no one to be seen out the peephole. “?” I wonder if it was someone playing a prank? Just in case, she armed herself with her gas gun and slowly opened the door. As the door opened out, it hit something with a clonk and stopped. Is there a block or something down there? She lowered her gaze. There was a sister dressed in white, collapsed. Her head was resting on the door. A curled-up calico was happily wagging its tail right next to her. “Ai…I’m so hungry…” This homeless, jobless person dying in the streets mumbled something. Himegami closed the door. “Huh? Who was it?” came Miss Komoe’s voice. “No one,” replied Himegami in nonchalance. Then, though, rallying the last of her strength, the girl slammed on the door a couple times. It was no use. Himegami tried opening the door once more. The white nun was holding Sphinx out to her, as if to say, “Please, at least take the cat.” This was all really pathetic, so in the end she decided to let Index into the apartment. “T-Touma never came back, so I thought I was gonna starve to death!” the sister in white said, exhausted. She was already sitting at the tea table, a couple of long chopsticks in a balled fist. She doesn’t feel like anything is wrong with going into another person’s house and sitting down at their dinner table. Perhaps that’s a talent in its own right, pondered Himegami. The cat, meanwhile, was sitting on Index’s knees, looking up at the ceiling, and opening its mouth a little. It looked like a tactic to snatch the food that Index was going to drop. They had suddenly gotten a guest, but it would take more than that for the twelve-thousand-yen Splendid Yakiniku Set to leave their stomachs unsatisfied. Miss Komoe, caretaker skills at full blast, ended up taking over sole initiative of the hot plate and starting up the yakiniku. “What are supernatural abilities, you ask?” Miss Komoe responded to Index, using her chopsticks to flip over a piece of meat on the hot plate. Index, suspiciously eyeing the half-cooked meat, nodded slightly and grunted in affirmation. “Putting it simply, it’s a theory of Schrödinger’s, but…You’re probably not familiar with the story of Schrödinger in the first place, are you?” Miss Komoe pointed with her chopsticks as if to say, “Eat your carrots, too, not just the meat,” but everyone present ignored her. “Schrö-ding-er?” “That’s right. Mr. Schrödinger is the name of a quantum physics professor. He gave us a story called Schrödinger’s cat. It’s extremely cruel and heartless for those of us pet lovers, so why don’t I arrange it a bit?” The meat finished cooking, so she wrapped it in vegetables and placed it on Index’s dish. Without hesitation, Index separated them and gave only the vegetables to the calico. The calico, however, refused them with a kitty punch. “Here I have a single box,” began Miss Komoe, taking a box of chocolate that was laying on the tatami in her free hand. “Now, what could be in this box? Yes, the little nun over there.” “Mm. There’s obviously chocolate in there! Touma has those at his house, too.” “But there is hard candy in this box.” “That was kind of an unfair question…” “Now, a question, little nun. What could be in this box?” “You just said it was hard candy!” “I did, indeed. But we won’t know until we open it up. There’s always the possibility that Teacher is lying to you.” “…” “In other words, two possibilities exist for this box right now: the possibility that chocolate is inside, and the possibility that hard candy is inside. Of course, there’s only really one of those inside the box, okay? But both of the possibilities are in there, all jumbled up.” Miss Komoe jiggled the chocolate box a little. “When we open it and check the contents, those two possibilities resolve themselves into a single result. The inside of the box is fifty percent chocolate or fifty percent hard candy. By observing it, we can change this into one hundred percent chocolate. That’s what I mean.” “Let’s check inside,” she said, opening up the box. Inside were small chocolates. “Now then, what if…” She closed the box again. “In this box, there’s both a fifty percent possibility to be chocolate and a fifty percent possibility to be hard candy. Now, little nun, what do you think is inside this box?” “? I don’t really get much of this, but I just saw chocolate in there!” “That’s right. At this point in time, a normal person can only take the fifty percent chocolate possibility. However…” She shook the box a bit. “What if there was someone who could take the fifty percent hard candy possibility? What would happen?” “Hmm? If that was the case, then the inside of the box would change into hard can—” Index appeared to realize something as she said it. Yes, something out of the ordinary, something supernatural, would occur. “That is indeed the true identity of espers’ abilities. Many possibilities exist in our reality. Some of these are fire coming from your hands or reading somebody’s mind. This one percent of ‘unnatural possibilities’ is left out of the rest of the ninety-nine percent of common sense, but it’s exactly what supernatural abilities are.” Miss Komoe twirled her chopsticks around. “On the other hand, that’s why these abnormal powers aren’t omnipotent. For example, there are only the two possibilities in this box—fifty percent chocolate and fifty percent hard candy—and the chances of bubble gum coming out of it are zero percent. These powers can’t be used in places or conditions where something isn’t possible in the first place.” “?” “What we call espers are those people whose power to see the reality of this fifty percent chocolate and fifty percent hard candy has been shifted away from that of normal people. RSPK Syndrome—in layman’s terms, some children lose the ability to perceive reality as it is because of poltergeists, or via trauma or excessive stress. Also, the Gantzfeldt Experiment used in Ability Development purposely shuts down your five senses and essentially cuts you off from normal reality.” Miss Komoe spun her chopsticks some more. “An ‘esper’ who has been cut off from the usual reality can acquire a personal reality that differs from the rest of us. As a result, they alter the microscopic world using different laws than regular people…They can acquire ‘powers’ like breaking things without touching them or seeing the future a year from now just by closing their eyes.” Miss Komoe’s words sounded like they were all from an alien planet, and Index had no clue what she meant. “The ‘Mnemonics’ we carry out refers to artificially creating one of these personal realities. To put it more simply, we help cause certain kinds of disorders in their brains by using things like medicine and suggestion.” However, the word disorder pierced into Index’s chest. There was a certain boy who always said that he didn’t have any power. He would claim this casually, like it was obvious. But there was a lot of hard work piled up behind those words. It’s beyond salvation, thought Index. She didn’t mean the boy who couldn’t obtain anything no matter how hard he tried. She meant the boy who smiled and accepted not obtaining anything as the obvious outcome. He was beyond salvation. “Well, actually, people like Kamijou are the ones who matter.” “…? You know about Touma’s power?” “Well, Kamijou has been a naughty one since he first enrolled, after all. A lot has happened. Yes, a lot. Ehee-hee, ehee-hee. “Hee-hee,” went Miss Komoe, pressing both hands to her cheeks and wiggling around. Index and Himegami saw that and simultaneously stopped moving. In their minds were the words, Not again! That jerk! “Although, Teacher personally believes that it’s the Level Zeroes, not just Kami, who present the most opportunity for research.” Miss Komoe was the only one who didn’t realize the change in the air in the room. “Everyone should awaken powers by going through the fixed Curriculum for Ability Development. Despite that, there are people who don’t awaken to anything. That means that there has to be some law that we haven’t figured out yet. In fact, they may just be the key to figuring out the System.” “System?” “It refers to the one who arrives at heaven’s intent in an ungodly body. Our objective is to see what lies beyond Level Five, after all. We humans don’t understand the truth of the universe. So it’s simple. If there were someone with a status above human, they should obviously be able to understand God’s answers.” “…” Index stopped moving in shock. She remembered hearing those words. In Kaballah, there is a concept called the Sephirothic Tree. It was a ten-tiered hierarchical diagram describing the ranks of humans, angels, and God in an easy to understand manner. Unfortunately, the all-important God wasn’t depicted on it. Ein Sof Ohr (000), Ein Sof (00), Ein (0). These, the territories of the gods, cannot be understood by man. Their concepts are inexpressible by human tongues, so they are not displayed on the Sephirothic Tree. However, a religious system had appeared and flipped this around. It was a doctrine, which said that if humans are incapable of understanding something, then they needed to obtain bodies above those of men. Humans are undeveloped gods, and by training oneself, one can attain the body of a god and freely control the works of God—this is what was said by the first maverick heretics of Crossism, who were considered dangerous by even John of the Twelve Apostles. Gnosticism—the doctrine of a perfect intelligence. “Ars…Magna,” whispered Himegami, touching the giant cross at her chest. Yes. The man who had once used alchemy to reach Ars Magna, in terms of his lineage, at least, matched this. Because in alchemy, Ars Magna—the “great work”—was not a method of transmuting lead into gold, but rather an art to sublimate a human soul that was dull as lead into the golden soul of an angel. Those of occult practice, who had strayed from the straight and narrow, were prone to take a liking to Gnosticism. But how had that taken root in Academy City? This place was the polar opposite of the world Index lived in, the Church. Did that imply that people may think differently, but their ultimate destination is the same? Or perhaps… The color of the sky had fully shifted into night’s deep blue. …I wonder if Index is all right. Kamijou recalled the sister in white who was (or should have been) waiting for him back at his student dorm. It would be a mistake to expect any cooking skills out of Index, so maybe she’s stomping around the room in hunger, he thought. He considered giving her a call with his cell phone, but he decided against it. When he called her last week from Misawa Cram School, it had ended up dragging her into a battlefield she shouldn’t have gotten wrapped up in. “…” Cutting short his thoughts of Index, he turned again to the task at hand. First, he was heading toward Tokiwadai Middle School’s dormitories in search of Mikoto Misaka. Many of the bus stops in Academy City were named with a school establishment, such as Twelfth School District: Takasaki College Front or Twenty-Second School District: Shizuna High Pool Front. It was natural, what with all the buses in Academy City being school buses. It turned out that there was simply a bus stop called Seventh School District: Tokiwadai Middle School Dormitory. Normally, the city buses were set up to make their last run at the end of the school day. Apparently, though, on this line, there were provisional buses running at night for cram school summer classes. He expected nothing less of a private institute. “Here we are.” Kamijou got off the bus, black cat in one hand, and looked up at the building. All around it were the usual concrete buildings, but for some reason, this three-story was the only one built out of stone. It was a very western-looking building that seemed to have an odd history just plopped down here. It almost looked like it was a boardinghouse from a foreign country that had just been disassembled and imported here. There wasn’t anything like a courtyard; it was just suddenly there, standing beside the road, like a business building. It was a little bit funny that in spite of the structure being awfully majestic, there were clothes being hung out to dry from windows like you might see normally. The cat, reacting to the things fluttering in the breeze, swayed its head from left to right with the clothes. He went for the front entrance, but as he expected, there was a strict lock on it. At first glance, they were wooden double doors, but they were likely some sort of special material—carbon fiber, perhaps. In any case, it seemed that the entrance wouldn’t sustain a dent even if a truck slammed into it. Inside the old-fashioned (or at least made to seem old-fashioned) keyhole, he saw a red, shining lamp, telling him that there was probably a sensor in the doorknob. It probably takes your fingerprint and maybe the bioelectricity from your skin or your pulse pattern and investigates them. Or maybe it looks up your DNA code from the fat on your finger, thought Kamijou noncommittally. A ton of mailboxes sat in lines next to the door. It wasn’t far removed from the newspaper boxes in apartment buildings. As far as he could tell from looking at the names written on them, Mikoto lived in room 208. All he had left to do was use the intercom. This was the same as those in apartments as well—it was set up so a person could input the room number using a calculator-like keypad and be put directly through. Contacting Mikoto’s room would be simple. He just had to press the buttons for two, zero, and eight. Straightforward though it may have been, Kamijou’s fingers paused in the air. Thinking about it logically, there couldn’t possibly be any way Mikoto wasn’t involved in that “experiment” at all. The somatic cell clones of her, the Sisters, would have needed her to cooperate with the people in the experiment so that they could actually obtain her cells. What should he say when he saw her? This experiment was horrifying. It killed people so casually, so Kamijou was scared of hearing the details of it from her mouth. He dreaded seeing her face as she told him the hidden truth. The black cat meowed restlessly. Kamijou thought back to the girl he had met at the vending machine. She showed no embarrassment around strangers. Could that really all have been an act to cover the truth? Or was it some strange, actual intent? Did she want to cooperate with the experiment, then go on smiling even though she knew the Sisters were dying? Neither of those things was the picture that Kamijou had in his head of Mikoto Misaka. His false image would crumble to pieces as soon as he hit the intercom. And then, he realized that at some point, he had become frightened of that fake vision breaking apart. He didn’t have a reason. He probably just thought it had been nice to walk home with her. “…” Will you press it anyway? His fingers trembled. If he did, there would be no going back. He wouldn’t be able to cancel it. After this, the facts that he was ignorant of would, without a doubt, surge into him like a roller-coaster car starting down a steep hill. He didn’t know what he should do. Without knowing what to do, his fingers pressed the intercom. He heard the click of plastic buttons being depressed. Beep, went the speaker, opening a portal to an alien world. “Ah, umm…” He didn’t know what he should say. But he needed to say something. “…This is Kamijou. Is Misaka there?” The words that escaped his lips were extraordinarily unconventional. Those mere few seconds of silence, awaiting the voice of the person on the other end, felt frightfully grave to Kamijou. He heard some kind of noise from the other end. It was the sound of someone inhaling. The usual Mikoto was probably across the intercom. Mikoto in the peace of mind that Kamijou knew nothing of any experiments. The intercom’s silence lasted only a short moment. “Huh? Is that you, Mr. Kamijou?” He heard the awkwardly slow-moving voice of someone who was definitely not Mikoto. “Ah, oops…Is this the wrong room?” “Oh no, no, you’re absolutely fine. Did you need something from Big Sister? I share a room with her.” I’ve heard that voice somewhere. Kamijou thought for a moment, then remembered. It was the middle school girl who had called Mikoto “Big Sister” last night—her name was Kuroko Shirai. “Er, all right. Then I take it Misaka hasn’t come back yet?” “This is the case. But it is my belief that Big Sister shall return quite soon, as the security on the entrance down there is aligned with the curfew.” The drawn-out tone of voice continued over the intercom. “If you have something you need from Big Sister, I would recommend coming in and waiting for her. After all, I cannot advise you two missing each other.” The intercom cut off with a click, and he heard the sound of the entrance lock being opened. From the multiple tick-tick-clink metallic sound, he deduced that the door utilized a number of different locks at once. The cat seemed surprised at the somewhat savage noise. …Is it really okay… …to go in like this? he thought, angling his head. But right now, he wanted to hear what Mikoto had to say, so he decided to take her roommate up on her offer. Passing through the entrance brought him into a giant hall. It certainly seemed like nobles were living here; the keynote color of the walls and ceiling was white, and a red carpet laid on the floor stood out like a sore thumb. At first he thought it was just the vulgar, bad taste of the newly rich, but he got the feeling that this loud color scheme would quickly bring the presence of any intruders into bold relief. Whether there was soundproofing involved or everyone here was just plain polite, the interior of the building was wrapped in the sort of quiet one would find at a shrine or a temple. Ignoring the passages leading to the right and left from the foyer, he headed toward the stairway in the middle, which led to hallways on the second and third floors. As far as he could tell from the mailbox, Mikoto’s room was 208. Which probably means she’s on the second floor, he thought reasonably. He ascended the stairs and exited onto the left path on the second story. He found room 208 almost right away. The room number was indicated with gold lettering on the wooden door, and meanwhile, the cat was having a staring contest with its own face reflected in the polished doorframe. It’s like a hotel room, he noted. He noticed the absence of an intercom on the room’s door as well, also in the same fashion as a hotel. Kamijou knocked unobtrusively, and a voice answered back from within. “Come in. The door isn’t locked, so please open it up yourself.” Swinging it open revealed what was indeed a very hotel-like room. On entering, Kamijou saw a door to what seemed to be a unit bath standing to the side, and the only furnishings inside were two beds, a side table, and a small refrigerator. There was no notion of a closet. It appeared they kept all their personal possessions packed into the giant suitcase beside their bed. Kuroko Shirai was still in her pigtails, not having let her hair down even within the room. She was sitting somewhat unnaturally on one of the beds, still clad in her summer uniform. She didn’t pay even a passing glance at the black cat in his hands, as if she didn’t have much interest in animals. But, well… Kamijou looked the place over again. Despite having received permission from her roommate, he was uncomfortable coming into their room while the one he actually came to see was absent. Kuroko Shirai noticed his look and gave him a small smile. “I’m sorry. This room is really only for sleeping in, so it’s not set up to treat guests properly. If you’re waiting for Big Sister, please have a seat on the other bed.” “…Er, I don’t think so. I don’t have her permission, and—” “There is no need to worry. That bed is mine.” “What the heck are you doing?! What are you, some kind of pervert, rolling around on someone else’s bed like that?!” “Mgh, I cannot let that one go. Humans all have things they can’t tell anyone else, that they think are perfectly okay. Like putting your mouth on the recorder of the girl you like or stealing her bike seat. Things like that.” “No, they don’t! How in the hell do you manage to warp such pure feelings like that?! You, Mikoto…You call yourselves proper ladies?!” In spite of his shout, Kuroko’s cheeks puffed out, unconvinced. Jeez, Mikoto must have a pretty rough time of it at school, too, he reflected, leaning his back against a wall. “But anyway, I thought you were surely a grade lower than her, since you call her Big Sister and everything. So you were classmates after all.” The black cat began to struggle around, staring underneath the bed, implying it had an interest in narrow, enclosed spaces. He didn’t let it out of his arms. “No, you misunderstand. I am indeed Big Sister’s full-fledged underclassman. I just got her previous roommate to go away for a little while…using completely legal methods, of course.” She’s scary! Kamijou grimaced a little, and Kuroko mentioned, “…It’s because Big Sister has lots of enemies. Though it’s the case for someone who possesses such power, don’t you think it would be just too harsh for her to share a sleeping space with a traitor?” “…” He fell silent. The cat stopped fussing and looked up at him. “In any case.” Kuroko looked back at him. “You wouldn’t happen to be the gentleman who starts up fights with Big Sister all the time, would you?” “?” He didn’t really know if what she said was true, since he had no memories. It seemed like he and Mikoto were familiar with each other before, but he couldn’t quite pin down what their relationship was like. Kuroko took a look at his mystified face and heaved a sigh. “…If I’m wrong, then that’s okay. I just wanted to have the honor of seeing, if only for a little bit, the face of her support system.” “Support system?” “Yes. Though Big Sister doesn’t realize it yet. My goodness! If somebody always goes on ranting about a person with a gleeful look, whether it’s during meals or while bathing or while trying to go to sleep…well, anyone would catch on.” Kuroko let out a breath. “…Honestly, if Big Sister wanted allies, she doesn’t have to look any further than here. When she makes that face, like it’s the only place in the world where she belongs…that can definitely get to me a little.” Kuroko started to cower a little, but Kamijou leaned his head to one side. “…? Is she really that kind of person? I feel like she’s at the center of a circle, always using leadership whenever and wherever she is.” “That’s exactly why, you know? Big Sister is used to being a leader all the time, so even if she can stand at the middle of the ring, she can’t mingle with those outside it. She stands above others, and even though she can defeat enemies, she can’t avoid making them…What someone like her needs is a person who will view her as an equal. Well, those are my thoughts on the matter anyway.” “…” Kamijou thought back to Mikoto when they had been together that evening. She was selfish, quick to answer, didn’t listen to him, and if anything bothered her, she’d go all buzzy-buzz on him. But she also seemed to him to be very relaxed. It was as if she was stretching out wide, released from the pressure weighing down on her shoulders during the day. Walking the road with him after school was probably a safe zone for her. The smiles she made were honest enough to make him think so and were altogether defenseless. However… Was that truly the case? Was the only time she smiled when she was with him? Wasn’t there the possibility she was just crazy enough to grin carelessly and always insist on having the last word with Kamijou, even though she watched the Sisters dying before her eyes? His own thoughts made him want to throw up. Why can’t I trust her? he thought, doubting himself. “Big Sister probably feels shy about it without realizing—” she said, dreamily looking at a spot she would never reach. “And because she’s so embarrassed, she takes on a more, you might say, aggressive attitude than necessary.” Kamijou quietly inhaled. He had thought Mikoto was scary just before. And he was ashamed at himself for thinking that. But he couldn’t stop himself from feeling that way. If Kamijou’s guess was correct, then Mikoto knew of the experiment, understood that the Sisters were being killed so cruelly, and was still cooperating with them. And even though she was aware of all that, she walked along next to Kamijou with a smile. It was as if there was a mush of squishy organs on a table with dinner placed atop them, and she was chomping down on the food and loving it—that kind of weird example crossed his mind. Kamijou didn’t want to think she was that sort of person. He felt hesitation again at asking her of the experiment and hearing it from her own lips. But that didn’t mean he could leave Little Misaka like that. In the end, he didn’t have a clue what he should be doing. Then… After thinking all that, his ears picked up the clip-clap sound of footsteps approaching from the hallway outside the door. The black cat’s ears perked up. A sticky sweat broke out on his palms. Mikoto…is she back?! That’s what he was waiting for, but for some reason, a fierce nervousness and anxiety befell him. His heartbeat grew irregular, beating with odd force. Kuroko, meanwhile, listened for a moment, then leaped out of bed. “That’s bad. There’s a residential adviser going around!” “…Huh?” She waved her hands around at Kamijou, who was staring blankly at the unexpected perspective. “Wh-what’ll we do? If the RAs see you, it won’t be pretty.” “You seem pretty sure it’s a residential adviser. How can you tell that by just their footsteps?” “They’re dangerous enough to warrant being able to. Anyhow, they’re a pure evil that does surprise inspections on the rooms, so if you could hide yourself under the bed or something, that would be great.” No sooner than the words had left her mouth had she grabbed ahold of Kamijou’s head and was trying to force it underneath Mikoto’s bed. The black cat cried out in discontent. “Ow! You know, this is crazy, I can’t fit under here! Think about this rationally! Rationally!” “I’m telling you, a gentleman being present in the girls’ dorm of Tokiwadai is not normal at all! Damn, what a pain, I’ll just use teleport and…huh? Hey, why isn’t my power working on you?!” “Well, I mean, that’s probably my right hand…Ow! Hey! Listen to me, you…!” After a bit of this and that, Kamijou and the black cat ended up stuffed underneath the bed like luggage in a car trunk. To his surprise, it seemed quite clean down here. There wasn’t a speck of dust to be found. …But wait, people wear their shoes in this room! Doesn’t that essentially mean, figuratively, that I’ve currently got my face on bare ground?! Though the underside of the bed was cramped, there was something else that had arrived there before him: a huge stuffed bear crammed under here. It was about the same height he was. The place was extremely confined, so as Kamijou was reflexively pushing the stuffed animal around himself, in came the sound of a door opening, no knocking included. He heard a low female voice. “Shirai. It’s time for dinner, so assemble in the cafeteria…Misaka? I have not received an outing notice from her, so you don’t mind being docked a point due to shared responsibility if she breaks curfew, right?” It seemed it was actually an RA. He was in a relatively desperate situation, but for some reason he felt relieved—at the fact that it wasn’t Mikoto Misaka who had entered the room. This time he heard Kuroko. “No, no. I think that if it was really something urgent, she wouldn’t have had time to turn in a notice. I cannot accept a point dock because I believe in Big Sister.” Kuroko had apparently pushed the RA out of the room and left. Kamijou stayed there for a little while, rigidly. He couldn’t see his surroundings from underneath the bed, so it could end up turning into one of those things where the RA would come back in if he nonchalantly crawled out. Whew… If things are like this, then getting out of this place is gonna be a pain in the ass, he thought with a sigh. He shot another look at the stuffed bear crammed under the bed with him. He had considered it a fanciful taste quite unlike Mikoto…but when he looked more carefully, he saw a bandage wrap concealing one eye, and the entire body was covered in more bandages, too. The stitches decorating it brought it from fanciful to funky. The black cat stared unwaveringly at the stuffed animal. Then all of a sudden it whipped out a punch at its face with its front leg. Despite his life-and-death situation of being hidden under a bed in a girls’ dormitory, Kamijou thought, That was a cute kitty punch. Kamijou, who found it heartwarming enough to cause trouble, suddenly heard a brutal scritch sound. “Gah! D-don’t start with the clawing, idiot!” The cat cried out as Kamijou tore it from the stuffed animal and patted the surface of the cloth. That was when the palm of his hand felt something stiff and hard, quite unusual for a stuffed animal. It felt like something was inside. When he gave it a closer look, a few of the stitches here and there had been modified into zippers. It had a lot of little pockets in it. As he ran his hands over the stuffed animal to see why, he felt what seemed to be a small jar or bottle. Maybe she was hiding perfume in it. Did the cat’s nose not take a liking to the smell? It seemed to him that Mikoto was concealing something in there that was against school rules. Like a drug smuggler. Taking the size of this big stuffed animal into account, she probably had quite a bit of whatever it was she didn’t want other people to see in there. Kamijou sighed and removed his hands from the bear… “Huh?” Then Kamijou noticed something. There was a thick collar wrapped around the bear’s neck like a pants belt. There was “Killerkuma” or something written on it, but that didn’t matter. He tried looking from above and saw a zipper attached in a straight line across its neck, hidden by the collar. It was set up so it would be difficult to open because the tight collar was in the way. In addition to the collar being a decoration, it had a rugged padlock attached to it. This zipper clearly worked differently from the others. Whatever was hidden inside there was probably the thing Mikoto most wanted to keep away from the eyes of others. Kamijou didn’t consider going all the way and seeing what it was. However, the zipper was half open. It looked like there was some paper in there. The corner of a paper was sticking out from inside the semi-opened zipper. That was all. It was all it was. I should just leave it, he thought. Digging around for other people’s secrets is bad. It’s bad. But on that paper, this was written in the font of a word processor: “Trial Number 07-15-2005071112a Relating to the Sisters, the mass-produced Radio Noise espers, the Level Five One-Way Road ‘Accelerator’s’” Kamijou gave a start. The paper was only sticking out of the zipper a little bit, so he couldn’t read any more. He shut his eyes. This was probably something he wouldn’t be able to come back from once he saw it. So if he didn’t look at it, he could still turn back. This was his final warning. The perfume-hating black cat took a long, menacing breath. “…” Kamijou pondered this for a moment, then opened his eyes. Pretend I didn’t see it…? If I was clever enough to do that, then I wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place. In order to get out the sheet of paper, he needed to open the zipper all the way. Unfortunately, the collar with the padlock on it was wrapped around the zipper, covering it up, and presenting him with an obstacle…Well, that’s what one would normally think. However, this was a stuffed animal. He squeezed the bear’s head as hard as he could. The soft silk floss easily deformed, widening the gap between the bear and its collar. Then he shoved his free hand’s fingers into it and opened the zipper. Close to twenty sheets of report paper came out. It looked like all the data had been printed, but he checked the date and the name written in the corner of the page. “Utilization of the Sisters, the mass-produced Adepts dubbed ‘Radio Noise’: Method for the Level Five Superpower ‘Accelerator’ to evolve to the Level Six Absolute” That was the name of the report. Level…Six? Kamijou leaned his head to one side, puzzled. The current highest level should be Five. He crawled out from underneath the bed and skimmed over the letters on the report again. There wasn’t a single research institute or person in charge written anywhere on there. It was almost as if it was saying that even if it was leaked, there would be no way to prove anything. The contents of the report were technical, and there were many words that weren’t Japanese. Kamijou fully activated his knowledge and tried to convert the words into ones he could comprehend. “There are seven Level Fives in Academy City. “However, as a result of the predictive calculations used by the Tree Diagram, it was verified that only one of them was able to reach the as-yet-unseen Level Six, the Absolute. The other Level Five espers would all either mature in a different direction or else their bodies’ balance would be destroyed by increasing the dosage of medicine.” There were various graphs alongside the names of the seven Level Five espers, but he skipped over them. “The one esper who is able to reach Level Six is called Accelerator, the One-Way Road.” Accelerator. His face bunched up at the unfamiliar term. There was what looked like a supplementary explanation in a foreign language, but he couldn’t read it, so he decided to keep going. “Accelerator is, in reality, the strongest Level Five in Academy City. According to the Tree Diagram, by using that element, it was calculated that he would reach Level Six by integrating two hundred fifty years’ worth of normal Curricula.” When he read what was written underneath there, his heart leaped into his throat. It said that there was a summary of methods to have a human body active for 250 years on a separate page as reference materials. “We set the ‘250-year method’ aside for the moment and searched for another way. “As a result, the Tree Diagram derived a method different from the normal Curricula. In essence, we could stimulate his growth via the use of his abilities in real combat. There were numerous reports that the firing accuracy of telekinetic abilities, pyrokinetic abilities, etc. would get higher, we used this argument. “The method was to prepare special battlefields and have combat proceed according to predefined scenarios, thus manipulating the direction of his growth toward real combat.” Kamijou’s hands jerked to a halt. Real combat. He got the distinct feeling that those words and the Sister’s corpse lying on the ground were connected somehow. “The result of the calculations carried out by the Tree Diagram simulator set up 128 battlefields and revealed that by killing Railgun 128 times, Accelerator would shift to Level Six.” He had heard the word Railgun before. You know, you should brag more that you defeated Mikoto Misaka, the Railgun. Which means that the things written here are referring to her, then? he thought. But he felt calling her a “cooperator of the experiment” was pretty inappropriate. Kill. Kamijou’s hands shook. His breathing went out of whack and he felt like the floor was spinning. Unconsciously, he leaned himself against a wall. “However, we cannot, of course, prepare 128 of the same Level Five Railguns. Therefore, we gave our attention to a project we were working on at the same time, the Railgun mass-production project: the Sisters.” His heart was beating strangely. He could feel the warmth from his fingertips being stolen away. The black cat’s meowing was rattling his brain like a church bell. “Of course, the actual Railgun and the mass-produced Sisters have different specs. Even being liberal, they are only as strong as a Level Three Expert.” Something about all this is definitely wrong, his mind protested. “As a result of the Tree Diagram recalculating using these, it prepared twenty thousand battlefields, discovering that by using twenty thousand of the Sisters, we can achieve the same result as above.” But whatever was wrong, it was being followed, and it was being carried out. “The twenty thousand battlefields and combat scenarios are described on separate pages.” I wonder, just what is written on those ones? he contemplated. Twenty thousand ways to die. When, where, how, and in what manner would each and every one of those Sisters branded with code numbers die? It was beyond horrifying. The most nauseating part was not the killing, but rather the fact that even the ones to be killed were acting out their roles according to a script. …It is impossible for Misaka to raise this cat, admits Misaka. Misaka’s living environment is remarkably different from yours, explains Misaka. What did she feel like when she said that? When she looked at the black cat, what on earth was she thinking? When she entrusted it to Kamijou, what did she feel? “We diverted the original project for this Sisters production method. “We prepared a fertilized egg from somatic cells extracted from Railgun’s hair. By using doses of medication Zid-02, Riz-13, Hel-03, etc., we accelerated their rate of growth.” Standing face-to-face with such a hopeless situation… And yet she still didn’t ask to be saved. What could be going through her mind? “As a result, we are able to obtain a fourteen-year-old body, the same as Railgun’s, in roughly fourteen days. Since they are clone bodies made from somatic cells that were originally degraded, because we altered their growth speed via drugs, there is a high possibility that they have a shorter life span than the original Railgun, but we can presume that it will not cause their specs to drastically change over the course of the experiment.” Was she in despair? Was she despairing that she could never be saved, no matter what she chose and no matter how she proceeded? “The real problem isn’t the hardware, but the software. “Fundamental brain information activity like language, movement, and logic are constructed during the first six years of life. However, the time given to the Sisters, with their abnormal growth, is merely 144 hours or less. It would be difficult to have them learn through normal teaching methods. “Therefore, we decided to install this fundamental information by using Testament, the brainwashing equipment.” Or did she… Did she believe that her being killed by someone was a normal, everyday occurrence? She wouldn’t despair, nor would she give up. Had she been under the impression that this kind of hell was, in the first place… …just an ordinary sight? “We can perform the first 9,802 experiments on-site. However, due to the battlefield requirements for the other 10,198 experiments, we must perform them outside the premises. Relating to the disposal of the corpses, etc., we will limit the battlefields to a single academic district of Academy City, and—” This is nuts. Kamijou crushed the report in his fingers. “This is unbelievable…” This is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard, he thought. They’re okay with killing twenty thousand people just to raise one elite esper…You could search the entire world and not find that kind of reasoning. He bit down on his teeth. But despite that, he had in his hands the insane report. He was staring at a real-life story cruel enough that it would be prohibited, even if it were fiction. “This is freaking unbelievable, damn it!” A girl had been created just to be killed. She was a clump of flesh, created from a nucleus taken out of someone’s somatic cells and buried into an unharmed egg cell, then mixed with a bunch of drugs in some test tube. A girl who looked fourteen had been living locked up in a cold laboratory this whole time, never having been given a name, called instead by her number. But so what? Even if Little Misaka was something created just to be killed, and even if she was just created from a nucleus taken out of someone’s somatic cells and buried into an egg cell…Even if she was living in a cold laboratory the whole time, never having been given a name, called instead by her number… Despite all that, she had extended a helping hand of her own volition when Kamijou dropped all those cans of juice. When she learned that the calico had fleas, she got rid of them for him. She didn’t show it on her face, but somehow, Little Misaka seemed happy when she was with the black cat. These weren’t remarkable or anything. For a normal person, it might seem like it was nothing, not something to particularly think about, something natural done naturally. But on the other hand… That meant that Little Misaka was someone who was able to naturally do things you would think are natural—she was a human. A lab rat…There was no way it was right to call her that. “…Why…don’t you even realize that?” Kamijou gritted his teeth. The cat’s mewing echoed through the room quiet as a graveyard. From the fact that this report was hidden here and that Little Misaka was a clone created from Mikoto’s cells, there was no doubt left that Mikoto was involved in this experiment. A bloody experiment, one wherein twenty thousand people would be killed. He didn’t understand what someone who would cooperate with that must feel. He balled his hand tightly into a fist, and— “Huh?” Then he realized it. This report was originally data that had been printed. On the upper left corner of the copy paper were written the name of the data and a date. That itself wasn’t a problem. The problem was the pair of bar codes inscribed right next to them. They looked like the product codes on the back of books, one atop the other. “…” There were many Internet terminals in Academy City, and each one of them had a specific security “rank” attached to it. For example, cell phones were rank D, computers in libraries and personal computers were rank C, the information terminals used by the teachers were rank B, special institute terminals were rank A, and the board’s classified terminals were Rank S. It was like that. Even if connected to the same Internet, a rank D terminal couldn’t access rank C information. This wasn’t the ruling class exerting its authority or anything; it was simply that it’d be a problem for the administration if students could access and view final exam answers or physical examination data—that was all. Wait a second, this bar code is… Kamijou peered at the bar code in the corner of the report. Right, as far as he knew, the upper one was the terminal ID and the lower one was the data ID. The bar codes looked like things stuck to a box of candy, and underneath the black-and-white stripes, there were numbers lined up. The upper—the terminal code was 415872-C. The lower—the data code was 385671-A. That’s odd, he thought. The terminal rank was C, but the data rank was A. It was an impossible violation of the rules. Besides, if Mikoto obtained this report via the proper routes, she could have just used one of the A-rank terminals in the research facility. Which meant that she didn’t get it via proper routes. A hacker…or, more accurately, a cracker? Was that what they were called when they just take a peek at the data instead of destroying it? Kamijou didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. Anyway, the important thing was that Mikoto did not acquire these documents by legitimate means. In other words, Mikoto might not have been a collaborator in this “experiment.” “…” He gave the report another look. After flipping through a few pages, he suddenly felt something with a harder touch to it, different from the others. He took that page out from the bundle to ascertain the strange texture’s identity. It was a map. The map displayed all the areas in Academy City. It was folded up many times. When he spread it out, he found it was about the size of a bookcase. He hadn’t noticed it until now—maybe because it was in the middle of the stack and because the paper it was on was very thin to begin with. The map was considerably detailed, showing even the positions of alleyways and buildings. And an X mark was drawn in a few places with red Magic Marker. “…?” Those markings felt somehow ominous, but the map didn’t have the names of buildings on it. Kamijou took out his cell phone. It had a car navigator and a GPS in it. He entered the coordinates of the X marks on the map into his phone, which displayed an enlarged map image that actually had the names on it.Kanasaki University Muscular Dystrophy Research CenterMuscular dystrophy…? he puzzled. Muscular dystrophy was an incurable disease. In simple terms, it was a sickness where you were unable to send signals to your muscles, and since they no longer moved at all, they would steadily atrophy. But what did an institution researching muscular dystrophy have to do with this report? His head tilted to one side, he looked up the names of the other buildings with the X marks on them.Mizuho Agency Pathological Analysis Institute Higuchi Pharmaceuticals Seventh Pharmaceutics Research CenterKamijou wasn’t very familiar with the institutions’ names themselves, but he recalled something: the news dripping out of the big screen on the blimp. There had been three cases of research establishments related to muscular dystrophy announcing their retirement of operations, one after another, and it had the entire market worrying about a downturn. The black cat meowed uneasily. What had Mikoto said about that news? I really hate that blimp, you know. He drew in his breath. The map buried in this report. The X marks drawn in red marker on it. The research institutions that were all similar in the fact that they were studying the disease. If you set the report, the experiment, and the map all equal to one another, then it would mean that they were probably the “research institutes” carrying out this “experiment.” But what did the company retirements mean? And what did those red X marks drawn on the map mean? Dizziness struck him. He had no idea why…but he had abruptly, unexpectedly, come to a single question. It’s already night, so why hasn’t Mikoto Misaka come back yet? What could she be doing right now? It might have been nothing. Maybe she was just lost in a fighting game at an arcade, spewing steam from her head. But something seemed sinister. The research labs going down one after the other…the X-shaped scrawls in red marker inscribed as if following them…the fact that there had been three cases of research establishments related to muscular dystrophy announcing their retirement of operations, one after another, and it had the entire market nervous about a downturn…The X marks had been drawn on those buildings on the map as if to crush them, not in black or blue, not with a circle or square—marked with, of all things, a red-colored X. What did it all mean? Kamijou had already arrived at the conclusion that this report hadn’t been acquired legally. He had then speculated that Mikoto might not have been a collaborator with the experiment at all. What if Mikoto had refused to cooperate with the researchers… …but then she figured out that they were continuing the “experiment” in direct violation of her own will? In that case, what would the actions she took be? If they were taken in order to stop the experiment, then… “I see…” If they were taken with Little Misaka—no, all the Sisters in mind, then… “I…I get it…” He didn’t know what Mikoto wanted to do. But at least there was something he could say for sure. Mikoto Misaka certainly hadn’t thought nothing of the experiment. He didn’t know what her reason was for smiling in front of Kamijou while hiding the truth, but… If Mikoto Misaka had never thought of the experiment as a simple drop in the bucket, then… Touma Kamijou could probably make himself her ally. He got the feeling that there wasn’t anything going on sticking around here. No, even if that was the most effective option, he couldn’t stand for another second waiting intently here. Kamijou grabbed the black cat by its neck and burst out of the room. He wasn’t paying any heed to the fact that someone might see him. In total disregard of any onlookers who may have been present, he ran down the hallway, darted down the stairs, threw open the door at the entrance, and burst out of the building. 9 Reading the report had eaten up a sizable chunk of time, so the sky was already blanketed in the complete nighttime darkness. Kamijou rushed through the shopping district. The black cat in his arms was rocking around, and it raised unpleasant cries. He had no basis for his current actions. He didn’t know what Mikoto was doing, he didn’t know where she was, and he didn’t know whether or not he should be worried about it. In spite of that, the very ambiguity, the fact that he didn’t know plunged him deeper into a pit of anxiety. He dashed onward, not understanding anything, as if trying to rid himself of the unease by engrossing himself in some kind of work. He ran aimlessly, but he had to look for her. The contradiction made Kamijou needlessly impatient. For now, he needed to run through the dark clouds to seek out Mikoto. However, a certain part of him was relieved. Relieved at this situation, where he was able to worry about her again. He cut across the crowds of people and continued his sprint. A wind generator’s propellers were spinning in the distance. I can’t even feel any wind right now, thought Kamijou, when suddenly he slammed on the brakes. Its propellers were rotating despite the absence of wind. Just that one turbine, about a hundred meters away, was slowly gyrating. That’s weird, he noted…when something hit him like a brick. The word turbine or generator really just refers to a motor. Motors have an interesting characteristic: The axle the coil rides on normally spins when provided with electricity, but one can also create electricity by spinning it physically. In addition, a person can get the motor to turn by pouring specific electromagnetic waves into it. That’s how the microwave generators on the cutting edge of Academy City tech worked. The propeller—the motor—was gyrating without any wind. In other words, it was reacting to invisible electromagnetic waves. …If I just…follow them. Kamijou shifted the black cat in his arms, then shot off running, slicing left and right through the crowds. The young men and women going about their business watched him as he cut through the flow of people, disturbing it, but he couldn’t bother with that. Time was not on his side right now. He didn’t even know whether it was spinning in the first place. The wind generator’s propeller had only been swaying very slightly. Despite that, he darted forward, chasing the propeller showing that faint sign of oddness, and turned another corner. Little by little, its movement grew more noticeable. Beyond this spinning propeller was another propeller, turning just a teensy bit faster than the first, and beyond that one was a propeller spinning faster still. It felt like he was steadily drawing closer to some invisible explosion epicenter. He ran on… …to the outskirts of the city, where no lights were, invited by the spinning pinwheels on this windless night.