4_Chapter 3_ Railgun

CHAPTER 3 Railgun Level5 1 The sky’s hue was now the black of a lake on a moonless night. There was a crescent moon out tonight. The light shining from the sneering mouth was all too weak. Far away from the center of the city, this iron bridge had no streetlights. When combined with the black of the river beneath her eyes, it looked like this spot had sunken into darkness on its own. Mikoto Misaka, alone, with both her hands on the railing, stared vacantly at the distant town lights. Pale blue sparks fizzed and cracked around her. The term lightning strike might conjure up terrifyingly painful images, but they were a gentle light for her. She still remembered the evening she was first able to use her power. She buried herself inside her futon and flung small, crackling sparks all night long. They had reminded her of twinkling stars. Back then, she had honestly believed that as she grew older, as she grew stronger, she might even be able to create a full sky of stars. Yes, that was before she grew older. Now, she thought she wasn’t even worth having dreams. “…” She squeezed the railing, then loosened her grip again. The simple action caused her to slightly narrow her eyes and smile. It was an action natural enough for anyone to do. However, there were certainly people in the world who could not. “…Muscular dystrophy, huh…,” came the words from her slender lips. Muscular dystrophy is an incurable disease with no known cause, where one’s muscles will slowly start to fail. As not moving your body will cause your muscle strength to wane, the sickness steadily steals all the power in your muscles, until finally you lose even the freedom of your heart and lungs. Of course, Mikoto didn’t have muscular dystrophy. She also wasn’t close to anyone who was suffering from it. But she could still imagine how difficult it must be to live with. It’s not like the person had done anything wrong, and yet from the moment of their inception, their bodies wouldn’t work the way they willed them to. They would look at their ailing bodies, know that there was naught they could do about it, and finally, they would lose their ability to get out of bed. No matter how far out they stretched their arms, hoping for salvation, no one would take them in theirs. Mikoto didn’t think a life like that was fair at all. There was once a researcher who asked her if she wanted to try saving those people. “By using your one and only power, we may be able to save victims of muscular dystrophy,” the man in white said, extending his arm to her for a handshake. Muscular dystrophy is an illness wherein one’s muscles don’t move the way one wants. Signals from one’s brain are transmitted to muscles by way of electric signals. If they had the power to manipulate bioelectric fields, then it could be possible to send signals to the muscles by some means other than through one’s normal neural pathways. They might find it within their power to extend the light of salvation to those whose bodies decay over time, who can do nothing about it, who fall, little by little, into that dark abyss inhabited by anxiety and fear. “…” Once upon a time, a small child had believed those words beyond doubt. She thought that if her power to use lightning was elucidated and they successfully “implanted” it, then she could save a lot of muscular dystrophy victims. That was how Mikoto Misaka’s DNA was officially recorded into the Academy City data banks. Recently, however, rumors of the military Sisters being created from her genome started to spread through Academy City. It wasn’t particularly unusual. She was an honors student at a distinguished Ability Development school, Tokiwadai Middle, and she was one of only seven Level Fives in the city. There was certainly no lack of baseless gossip along those sorts of lines, and so she hadn’t believed any of them. Or perhaps she just didn’t want to. Reality, however, had snuck up on her and smashed her dream to pieces with a hammer. “…” The weaker copies of her, dubbed Radio Noise, developed by the military—the Sisters had already entered into the production phase, and the current situation was one where they could create limitless amounts of clones with the press of a button. On top of that, the Sisters weren’t even allowed the life of a weapon—the purpose of their lives was to be killed as experimental animals…just like dissected frogs. “Why “…did it have to turn out this way?” Mikoto whispered, her lips trembling. She knew why, of course. It was because a younger Mikoto had recklessly given them her DNA mapping. Had that man in white been lying to her from the start? Or had their research once been healthy but had been altered halfway through? She didn’t know anymore. Once upon a time, a girl wished to help those in need… …and that very desire was transformed into the slaughter of twenty thousand people. “…” That’s why she wanted to stop it. She knew she had to put an end to this lunatic experiment even if it came at the expense of her life. She didn’t think that risking your life was cool. She didn’t have a death wish, either. In actuality her body was shivering, the energy in her chilling fingertips was withdrawing, and as if there were too much noise around her, she couldn’t think straight. She wanted to shout out “help me” if she could. But such a thing was forbidden. Into the back of her mind floated the face of a certain boy. The young man, who was older than her, possessed some unknown power that enabled him to handle one of the only seven Level Five espers in Academy City quite easily, and yet he had been branded with the stigma of a Level Zero Impotent. Despite such undeserved treatment, he had this strength that allowed him to disregard things as being not important—and that attitude was no front, was no bluff. He never let his immense capacity make him extravagant. He could face down anyone indiscriminately, equally, however weak or powerful the person may be. He was a very strong young man. Now that she was thinking of it, she and this boy had fought against each other on this very bridge a few weeks ago. He had played the clown and purposely let those unrelated thugs chase him around in order to distance them from the trigger-happy Mikoto, and then he ran away. If… Back then, if she had already realized the full extent of this “experiment” hidden in the underside of the city, if she had cried out to him for help, would he have stood up for her? She knew he would have. She felt like he would be able to do what she couldn’t. However, she thought asking for his help for her alone would be the coward’s way out. Close to ten thousand Sisters had already been killed because of her. There were no doubts that the remaining ten thousand were already standing on the precipice of death. She thought it unforgivable to beg for help for her own sake, when she, a beast whose hands were stained with blood, flesh, bone, fat, and organs, shouldered such a grave sin. “…Help me…” That’s exactly why she couldn’t let that voice come out anywhere there were people. Her scared, hurt, and tattered whisper vanished into the night. “Help me already…” A cry, one that would never reach anyone, escaped her mouth, unable to endure it. And then, she heard the meowing voice of a kitten. Mikoto looked down. The cat’s black fur, unlike the darkness, radiated gentle warmth, and it was sitting at her feet. It looked up at her and gave another mew like an innocent child. Where on earth did this cat come from? she thought, when… …she heard the clack of a footstep. “…” She brought her head up. With only the light from the needle-thin crescent moon expressing the environment around her, on this iron bridge with no streetlights, on this night bursting with darkness… “…What the heck are you doing here?” That boy arrived, as if cutting his way through it. He arrived like a hero, rushing to her side after hearing her shouts swallowed by the dark. 2 Mikoto stood there absentmindedly, isolated, on the nighttime iron bridge. Kamijou honestly thought his heart might break at his view of her from afar. Her face in profile looked so weak, so frail, and so exhausted, like it could just disappear at any moment. She was usually so gung ho, so the sight of her like this made it all the more painful. That’s why Kamijou hesitated to call out to her. But not doing so was out of the question. “…What the heck are you doing here?” Having heard his voice, Mikoto looked at him. There was the Mikoto Misaka who was energetic, conceited, and selfish, just like she usually was. “Hmph. I can do whatever I want, wherever I want. I’m Railgun, a Level Five, you know? If some delinquents want to come up to me just because I’m out late, then let ’em. I don’t care. Also, I don’t really think you’ve got the right to say anything about it.” Nevertheless, Kamijou felt like he’d seen what was underneath her facade, precisely because she showed him such a perfectly ordinary face. He couldn’t stand to see her like that anymore. So he said… “…Stop it.” Just for a moment, her expression blinked away, but in the next it snapped back to normal. “Stop what exactly? Stupid. This is Mikoto you’re talking about. You know, the one who kicks vending machines to get her drink? A little evening walk isn’t—” She tried to respond, though unconvincingly, with that doubtful “ordinary” behavior, but— “Just stop it, will you? I know all about Little Misaka, and the Sisters, and this ‘experiment,’ and Accelerator, so let’s both cut the crap already.” Kamijou pulled out the sheaf of papers. It was the insane report printed on twenty or so sheets of copy paper. “__” In that moment, Mikoto Misaka’s everyday act shattered into a million pieces. She probably didn’t realize where the muscles in her face were moving; her cheeks twitched like it had broken. His heart throbbed with anguish. Kamijou had probably just destroyed something she had been trying to protect at all costs, even to the extent of completely repressing herself. He started to move forward in spite of that, but… “Aah, jeez, why do you do this stuff?” she shot back, cutting him off. “If you’ve got that report, that means you came into my room without asking, didn’t you? And then you went looking inside a stuffed animal…You’re more persistent than a sister-in-law, you know that? Man. I guess I’m supposed to be thankful or something that you got so deeply into this to the point where you forget what’s going on around you, but you know, that would normally get you executed. Executed!” Mikoto said all this casually, grinning as always. That smile looked like it had let go of something, and it made his chest hurt even more. “So would you mind telling me just one thing?” Mikoto’s voice—bright and fairly forceful. Kamijou reflexively asked, “What?” “In the end, you saw that and thought I needed to be worried about? Did you think that you couldn’t forgive me?” Her voice was oddly cheerful. It was as if she knew he had come to denounce her. It was as if she thought that no one in the entire world would actually worry about her. Her voice strangely struck a nerve. “…Of course I worried about you.” His low, crushing voice caused Mikoto’s expression to turn to one of slight surprise. “Well, I guess someone lying like that is better than no one saying anything at all, no?” She laughed. She laughed with eyes that had given up on something, with eyes witnessing a distant dream. “…It’s not a damn lie.” The words found their way out of Kamijou’s mouth automatically. “What…?” Mikoto scowled. “I said, I’m not fucking lying!” he yelled back. Mikoto’s shoulders started trembling more than the black cat was. For some reason, he just couldn’t forgive her for making that face. So this time, he did move forward. “I apologize for going into your room without permission. I did tell your roommate, but that’s no excuse. You can shock me with as much of that buzzy stuff as you want for that. But what are you doing? I don’t think you got this report by asking permission, either. There was this map buried in there. They all seem like institutes researching sicknesses, but what are those red X marks drawn on it? It’s almost like…” He paused after getting that far. Mikoto looked at him and answered quietly. “…Like they’re kill marks, I presume?” Her voice was emotionless enough to fill him with terror. It was transparent, and it could freeze someone solid if they had known her before now. The black cat at her feet looked up at her anxiously. “Well, that’s what they are. But it’s not like I went all Railgun on them or anything like that,” she said happily. “A single piece of lab machinery costs millions. I just got in through the Internet and used my power to blow ’em to bits. So the institutes that can’t function anymore go under, and their projects get frozen for good…” Mikoto said all this like she was singing and enjoying herself, but there she stopped abruptly. “…Well, at least, they were supposed to.” “Supposed…to?” “Yeah. It’s actually pretty easy to shut down one or two research institutions. But some other one ends up picking up the experiment where it left off. However many I squash, however many times I get in their way, the experiment just keeps getting passed on. I guess the prospect of the first-ever Level Six is just too sweet for those important scientists to turn a blind eye to.” Her voice really did sound completely drained. It was as if it contained an enlightened despair, like she had lived a thousand years and bore witness to all the darkness of the human heart. “…You know those kids? They all say they’re test animals with a straight face,” she dropped. “Test animals. You know how rats and marmots and stuff get treated?” she said almost angrily. “I looked it up because it was bothering me, but boy, is it cruel. They cut holes open in their live skulls with a saw without even giving them anesthesia, then drip drugs directly into their brains, all in a search for data. They see how many millimeters of the medicine it takes before they start coughing up blood and die in agony. They do this every single day and record their results in, like, picture diaries. When they run out of data, they put together a male and a female in a cage. Then, when the experiment is over, they just dump the leftover mice into an incinerator.” She clenched her teeth, and her throat moved like it was suppressing a gag. “Those kids all know exactly what test animals are. And yet they still call themselves that totally calmly.” Unable to stand it, she bit down on her lip. Unable to stop it, her lip let flow red blood. “But we have the report, right? If we hand it in properly to the Anti-Skills, wouldn’t the board do something about it? Isn’t cloning humans against international law?” Academy City was certainly doing some crazy things—from its Curricula involving medications and its independent development of rocket technology—but for all its wiggling through loopholes, it was still aware of the law. The city creating twenty thousand clones of human flesh and blood in order to dissect them was clearly in conflict with international code and shouldn’t normally be plausible. If news of it leaked to the outside, factions that viewed the city in a less than positive light would use it as an excuse to sweep in and break everything down. And yet, Mikoto’s face was astounded at what he said. “From a human point of view the experiment is wrong, but from a scholar’s point of view, it’s correct. Even if it breaks the law, even if they’re shouldering huge risks, and even if their methods stray into the inhumane, it’s science that ‘needs’ to be carried out.” “That’s insane! Who would let something that crazy—?” “Yeah, it’s crazy. But don’t you think it’s strange? This city is constantly under the surveillance of those satellites. It doesn’t matter how much you sneak around. It shouldn’t be possible to fool the eye in the skies.” This put Kamijou at a loss. That would mean the general board overseeing Academy City was… “They’re keeping quiet about it. And that includes the city police, the Anti-Skills and Judgment, of course. They’re in control of the city’s laws, so if we just waltz up with a report in our hands, they could just capture us instead,” she explained, lowering her gaze to the black cat at her feet…as if trying to fight back her anger. “…This is wrong,” he rumbled. Rules are placed on people to protect others. Not only were they staying silent about people being killed, they would even go so far as to arrest anyone who tried to save them…It seemed distinctly like they were putting the cart before the horse. Mikoto grinned a little at him. It was the exhausted smile of an adult directed at a child who didn’t understand anything. “Yes, it is wrong. Relying on someone else is wrong. This is a problem I created, so it falls to me to take responsibility and rescue those kids.” “…” He fell quiet. She twisted her small lips a little and continued. “When you think about it, it’s simple. This experiment is to make Accelerator stronger. So things are simple. If the whole Accelerator part goes away, the experiment will fall apart in midair.” In other words, this is what she wanted to do: Erase Accelerator from existence by her own power. She would try to save the remaining ten thousand Sisters, even if her hands were sullied with murder. But Kamijou said, straight and to the point: “You’re lying.” Mikoto’s face turned to one of surprise, and Kamijou pressed further. “I said it. Yeah, I said it, didn’t I? To cut the crap. You can’t defeat Accelerator. I mean, if you could have, you’d have gone straight for him. You’re the one who blasts me with your buzzy attacks just because you get a little bit angry. You wouldn’t have been pressed this far and kept quiet like this.” “…” “Ruining research institutes, tipping off the general board…I knew what you were thinking was roundabout for someone like you. You’re the type to brawl it out with anyone you don’t like, aren’t you? You’re not some Goody Two-shoes who would look for evidence and tattle to a teacher.” Kamijou paused to breathe. “…Since you didn’t do that, it means that you couldn’t, even if you wanted to. Like, there is such a vast gap between yours and Accelerator’s strength that it wouldn’t even be a fight in the first place.” And he knew even without that logic, Mikoto couldn’t kill Accelerator. Mikoto Misaka stood up because she couldn’t allow any more Sisters to die. There was no way someone like that would be able to justify killing a human being to stop another from dying. “That’s what I’m saying. You can’t solve it by fighting him fair and square, but even if you try to go through the back gate, they’re better at it. So why didn’t you ask someone? If you know you can’t do something yourself, then all you have to do is ask for someone’s help, right?” She quieted a little at what he said. Not even the sound of wind could be heard on this nighttime iron bridge. In the silence, only the black cat was meowing lovingly. “…By killing Railgun 128 times, Accelerator can shift to Level Six,” she said suddenly into the darkness. “What?” He wrinkled his brow. “But they can’t prepare 128 Railguns,” she sung in loneliness. “So they’ll prepare twenty thousand Sisters as weaker copies of Railgun instead. “So then…” The words slid off her tongue like she was talking about an enjoyable dream. “What if I didn’t have that much value?” Kamijou sucked in his breath. “Even if he kills me 128 times, he wouldn’t get anywhere near Level Six…What if I could make the scientists think that way?” she said, smiling. “The Tree Diagram actually spit out the result that if Accelerator and Railgun were to fight, even if I put my all in running away, I would die in 185 moves. But what if we could settle things more quickly? What if I lost on the first move, then had no other choice but to fall over onto my ass and crawl away clumsily?” She smiled as she said all this, as if she was really enjoying it. “The scientists who saw it would probably think this: The Tree Diagram’s predictive calculations are wonderful, but even machines can make mistakes sometimes.” She gave a ragged grin as she said all this. “…” Kamijou bit back on his teeth. Bringing down the research institute carrying out this experiment wouldn’t do her any good, since it would just be picked back up by some other laboratory. To stop them, she needed to make them think that there was no value, no meaning in the experiment in the first place. That’s why Mikoto was about to go throw a match with Accelerator. Whether by a bluff or acting, she just needed to force the scientists into a mind-set that the simulation the experiment was based on was incorrect. Even if that meant sacrificing her own life. But that was… “Are you telling me that’s going to mean something? Even if you fool the scientists one time, they’ll just use the Tree Diagram to recalculate again, and if they get the same result, they’ll just start the experiment again!” Kamijou’s loud shout caused the cat to twitch in fright. But Mikoto’s returning voice was soft enough to comfort it again. “It’s all right. That won’t happen. See, the Tree Diagram actually got shot down by an attack of unknown origin from the ground about two weeks ago. Though the higher-ups are all keeping it a secret to save face. So they can’t do those calculations over again.” He had no memories, and she didn’t know the details, so neither would understand…the fact that a single strike from the dragon king controlled by a nun in white had plunged through the atmosphere and cleaved a satellite in two. “Hah. But it’s just so ridiculous. That whole ‘according to the predictive calculations~’ nonsense they’re feeding to everyone right now is just data the Tree Diagram spit out months ago, and people are still moving in tune to it.” Kamijou remembered what Mikoto said the other evening. I really hate that blimp. …Because people are following policies decided on by machines, that’s why. “But this is my chance. Now that they can’t use the Tree Diagram to recalculate anything, those third-rates who’ve just been gobbling up the answers it spits out won’t even be able to analyze which parts were correct and which weren’t. So if there was just one mistake in their data, they’d be forced to stop the entire experiment. It’s just like a computer program having a weird bug and crashing.” That was all this girl could do. Even if she put herself on the line and threw away her life trying to defend someone…Even though she would do all that, she couldn’t even heroically fight the enemy head-on and defeat him, nor could she bravely downright defend someone. All she could do was this one thing: Try and prove to them, with her own life as payment, that an answer that was originally correct had actually been wrong. “…” Kamijou clenched his teeth. It didn’t even necessarily equate to success even if she did go that far with her bluff. If the scientists caught on to Mikoto’s act, it would be over. And there was a chance that even if she did prove that the predictive calculations had been incorrect, they would still foolishly resume the experiment. However, she still couldn’t do anything more than that. The only thing left was to pray to God that the experiment would stop. “I get it…,” he sighed. He didn’t know what emotions were showing on his face. “You’re trying to die, aren’t you?” “Yes.” She nodded. “You seriously believe that by dying you can save the last ten thousand Sisters, don’t you?” “Yes.” She nodded. Then Mikoto moved her foot just one step forward and came face-to-face with Kamijou again. “Now that you understand, get out of my way. I’m going to meet Accelerator. I’ve already stolen the data and learned the locations of the twenty thousand battlefields. Before one of the Sisters starts fighting, I’ll cut in and end the fight just like that. “So get out of my way,” she said. “…” Kamijou gritted his teeth. It was true that there might not be any other way to stop the experiment and rescue the Sisters. There are problems in the world that can’t be solved with a fistfight. Whether it was Imagine Breaker or Railgun, this was all just a logical extension of a kids’ pretend battle in the first place. They were all too powerless in the face of “organizations” created by the society of adults. To stop this experiment… To stand against this adult society, maybe the only way left that would be granted was for Mikoto to die. He bit down again. Little Misaka crossed his mind. She had helped pick up the scattered cans of juice without expecting anything in return, got the fleas off of the calico, and yet she was somehow defenseless and bothered by her body, which cats hated. She hadn’t done anything bad and now she would positively be killed, and that made his teeth grind. “I’m not moving.” Mikoto returned his words with a look of sincere surprise. “You’re not…moving…?” “Nope,” he confirmed, standing in her way. After seeing her like this and hearing everything—after all that, of course he wouldn’t move. But Mikoto was not convinced. Lips atremble with anger, she laid down her next words with a disbelieving expression. “What…are you saying? Do you know what you’re saying right now? If I don’t die, ten thousand Sisters will be killed. Or do you have some other way? You’re not really thinking that it’s okay if they die because they’re just degraded copies…?” The black cat didn’t understand human words. But it certainly quivered at hers. Of course, Kamijou was well aware. He didn’t consider ten thousand Sisters dying to be acceptable. It also wasn’t like he had any other plans up his sleeve. He understood the fact that if Mikoto didn’t die, ten thousand Sisters would be killed like lab rats. He tried to understand. And Mikoto was right. He didn’t have a clue what he was saying. “…I still don’t want to.” He didn’t have an inkling as to what her circumstances were. But she was trying to throw away her very life to save the Sisters. This wounded girl, who thought of others even more than herself, was a wreck and would be killed, alone, and no one else would know—he didn’t want to see the kind of “peace” an act like that would create. “—” For a moment, and only a moment, a glimpse of surprise crossed her face, but… …that expression had already disappeared into anger. “I see. You’re gonna stop me, huh? You think the lives of ten thousand Sisters aren’t worth anything, huh?” Tension ran through the air surrounding them with a frizzle. The black cat at Mikoto’s feet flopped down its ears in fright. “I can’t stand seeing those kids be hurt any longer. I was only thinking that I’d defend them with my own hands…If you say you’ll stop me, then I’ll shoot you down right here. This is my final warning, got it? Get out of the way.” Kamijou silently shook his head. The edges of Mikoto’s lips twisted. “Hah! You’re funny. What, you’re gonna stop me by force, then? Fine! I won’t hold back, either. I still don’t know what kind of power you have, but this time, I’ve got no intention of losing. So ball your fists like your life depends on it…” A pale blue spark darted from around Mikoto’s shoulders with a bzzt. “…because if you don’t, you’re really gonna die.” The spark that came out of her illuminated the bridge, linked to the handrail, then dispersed. The cat removed itself from Mikoto’s side, surprised at the brutal tone this created. There were just seven meters between the two of them. It wasn’t close enough for Kamijou to be able to cross it in one step, and it was definitely well within range for Mikoto to launch a light-speed lightning attack at him. It was obvious at a glance which of them was at an advantage and which at a disadvantage. Words would probably no longer reach this girl. Now that they wouldn’t, there was only one way left to stop her. “…” Kamijou thrust his right hand to the side. He opened his clenched fist once; the action was like he was unlocking a seal on his hand. Mikoto’s eyes narrowed slightly. He gritted his teeth so hard his jaw might break, took his opened hand, and… …didn’t close it again. “Wait, what the heck are you…,” Mikoto stammered at Kamijou, who wouldn’t move no matter how long she waited. He didn’t reply. She became indignant, disallowing of his attitude. “I just told you to fight, didn’t I? If you want to stop me, then do it by force! Are you stupid or something? I’m obviously gonna shoot you even if you’re defenseless!” The words full of contempt flew from her mouth like cannonballs. In response, he answered with just three words. “ight.” “—? What did you—” She lowered her eyebrows just a bit. “I won’t fight.” His words petrified her. She stared at him like he had three heads. “Are you…stupid? Hah, you really are a moron, aren’t you! I don’t have any other way of doing this, so I could easily shoot you in the back even though I trust you, and yet you’re saying that! What kind of half-assed world are you drowning in? This isn’t your everyday life here, you know! More than ten thousand people have been killed just like that already. This isn’t everyday life; it’s hell tinted with blood and flesh and fat and organs, and some wait-and-see attitude like that won’t—” “—I still will not fight you…!” Mikoto’s abuse sounded as if the jaws of hells had opened upon him, but even that was erased by Kamijou’s roar. He brought his remaining left hand up and out to the side to form a pair with his already raised right hand. They formed a cross to block her way and as an indication that he had no intent to fight. “Da…mn. I’m telling you, fight me…” Her shoulders shivered. The sparks electrifying her body could no longer be held within it, and all the surplus bluish-white electrical snakes burst out onto the railings and the ground near her, one after another. But Kamijou still didn’t close his fist. He didn’t want to. The reason he stood before her was because he was worried about her. She was about to set foot into a place dangerous to enter alone, so he wanted to stop her. This wreck of a girl never asked for saving, even until the very end of the end. He didn’t want to see her wishing for her own death all alone, and he didn’t want her to bear even one more wound; that’s why he had wanted to stand here. And yet he couldn’t point his fists at her. Kamijou could not punch Mikoto. Looking at him, she spread pale blue flashes from her entire body. “…I’m telling you to fight me, damn it” A moment later, she finally shot a spear of lightning from her bangs. The maximum voltage of a lightning strike born of nature is one billion volts. Hers rivaled that. A blue-and-white lance of light created from a ferocious, billion-volt charge. The attack pierced through the atmosphere, broke down the oxygen atoms in the air and rearranged them into ozone, and flew at Kamijou across the seven-meter gap separating them in the blink of an eye. Whump! came a howling noise. The blue, electric javelin plunged straight past Kamijou’s face. “I’m shooting for real next time,” she said through closed teeth. “If you’ve got the will to fight, then clench your fist! If you don’t, then don’t stand in my way! Don’t trample all over someone’s hopes with your half-assed feelings!” Crackle, came a fierce cry as sparks burst out of her hair again. This time, the strike fired straight at Touma Kamijou’s heart. Her attack had her demand behind it: that he clench his fist right now. Kamijou, despite that, did not. He didn’t want to raise a finger against this girl. Then the brutally shrieking lightning lance struck him directly in the heart. 3 Feeling like he’d been swept off his feet by a cannonball, Kamijou’s body slammed into the ground. He rolled across it like that for one or two meters. His form collapsed with his limbs sprawled out violently, kind of reminiscent of a broken puppet. “Eh?” For the first time, Mikoto was more surprised than Kamijou at what she was seeing. She didn’t understand what his power was like, but he had never allowed a single attack to hit him in all the fights they had until now. Every time he used that strange ability to wipe out her strikes, she rapidly escalated them. At some point, she had begun to see him as an invincible existence, able to easily handle any attack she could throw at him. That’s why she fired the lightning lance. In some distorted way, she had trusted him… …to comfortably nullify an offensive of this level. “But…” …This has…gotta be some kind of mistake, she thought. She looked at the boy lying on the bridge. Mikoto was well aware of what happened to a human body if you poured a billion volts of high-tension electricity into it all at once. That boy would never be standing up again. She knew that. She had done all of this. She knew that. She understood it, but… Just then, the boy who never should have risen again moved. He gritted his teeth, rallied all his strength, and stood up. “Wh…” She certainly whispered, “Why,” then. Kamijou’s power hadn’t erased her electricity. It definitely struck his body. And in spite of all that, he had gotten up under his own strength—without relying on any special abilities. And… Even after taking a billion-volt surge to the chest, he didn’t ball his hands into fists. That’s why Mikoto had dazedly asked, “Why?” “…I don’t…know,” he said through clenched teeth. “I don’t know why I don’t want to fight you. I don’t even know if I have some other good plan! But I can’t stand it! I don’t want to see you gettin’ yourself hurt! I don’t even know what I’m saying right now! But can you blame me? Of course I don’t want to point my fists at you!” Wha…? She was at a total loss. The boy was shouting like he was about to cough up blood. He looked ready to collapse at any moment, the way he was desperately planting his feet on the ground like that. “I don’t know what else to do, I don’t know what else you should do, but I still don’t want to! Why do you have to go and die?! Why do you have to get killed by someone?! Of fucking course I can’t accept that!” The boy probably realized that his words were no longer reaching her. But he still cried out. He very likely didn’t have a reason. It was just that there was something there—something that made him unwilling to give up despite his logical understanding of it. “…” That moment, only for a moment, Mikoto bit her lip. Once before, there was a girl who had whispered, “Help me,” so that no one else could hear. That boy had appeared, as if to answer her plea. If she said, “Help me,” the boy would doubtlessly bring about whatever miracle they needed. Mikoto Misaka, though, said to herself that she couldn’t allow that to happen. It was her own fault that more than ten thousand Sisters had been killed. And yet it would be absolutely unforgivable for her to seek out someone else to fulfill her selfish desire for delivery. “Shut…up, already,” she said through quivering lips. “I don’t have the right to get you to listen to my words at this point. Even if there were some perfect world, where everyone smiled and everyone was saved…I don’t have any place in it! “Out of the way!” she roared. Sparks fluttered from her bangs with a crackle. This time for sure, she thought, he would either have to raise his fist against her or yield the way. And yet the boy just wouldn’t grasp his fists. The lightning lance, no longer under her control, pierced straight through his chest. Whump! came a deafening noise. But the boy didn’t die. In fact, he didn’t even fall down. He was putting all his strength into his legs, though they were about to give out, and stood there broken but still in her way. “…You…realize it, too, right? No one is gonna…be helped by this. Even if you die and you saved the lives of ten thousand Sisters…You think they’ll be thankful they were saved by you doing this? The Sisters you wanted to save aren’t that petty!” “Shut up! Just be quiet already and fight! I’m not the good person you think I am! I dumped a billion volts of lightning into you, so why the hell do you still not get it?!” Mikoto fired another spear as if to intimidate him. But he still didn’t put strength into his right hand. The lance of lightning went straight for him, then collided directly with his chest. And he still didn’t go down. However many attacks he took, he wouldn’t go down. “I already killed more than ten thousand people! There’s no reason it would be okay for a villain like me to live in this world! Why the hell are you standing up for a villain?!” “You’re not a damn villain,” he said. Mikoto frowned, doubtful, but… “If you were a bad person, then why am I still alive?” “Eh?” Mikoto stammered. “You said a billion volts. There’s no way a normal human could live after being jolted by that kind of high tension. Didn’t you think you were doing something strange? Or maybe you were holding back unconsciously or something like that.” “Holding…back?” she said, her face puzzled. “There’s…no way. I was ready to kill you. I knew that you were…defenseless…and I knew you wouldn’t resist…but I still…!” “But you still couldn’t kill me.” “…” Mikoto abruptly fell silent. He was right. Normally, a human shouldn’t be able to live through being struck by a billion volts. However, there were exceptions. For example, store-brand stun guns would deliver two hundred or three hundred thousand volts, but people don’t die from that. On the other hand, people can be electrocuted from wall outlets with only one hundred volts and be killed by it. The reason for this isn’t because of the voltage, or tension—it’s due to the level of amperage, or electric current. Wattage equals volts times amps, so it doesn’t matter how high the voltage is. If the amperage is low enough, you wouldn’t die. In other words, although the voltage of the lightning lance Mikoto fired was terrifyingly high, the amperage was horrifyingly low. It was just like those fake swords used in period dramas; the attacks they make are for show, without any malice behind them. But Mikoto didn’t intend to go easy on him. She had definitely shot him with everything she had. So she just stood there, looking at Kamijou, not understanding why this phenomenon had occurred. Fizzle. Kamijou stared at Mikoto, trembling like a scared feline, dead center. “For you, giving your life to save the Sisters might be your final dream—” he said, battered. “But in the end, despite that…You’re a good enough person that you can’t even kill the guy trying to steal your final hope, aren’t you?” he said, absolutely exhausted, but somehow managing a cheerful grin. She grunted and faltered, looking at Kamijou confusedly. Her eyes wavered like a small child who had lost her way. Mikoto Misaka didn’t want Touma Kamijou getting any further into this experiment. That’s exactly why she so easily spoke of all the brutal details when he asked about it. She wanted him to feel hopeless after hearing it. When she one-sidedly attacked him with lightning, it was also because she wanted him to realize he wasn’t getting through to her and that he should give up. If Kamijou had just lost faith in Mikoto… …then he wouldn’t follow her and get involved with this experiment of swirling death. “Just…stop it.” Her hands grabbed her head. But he said he would still stop her despite that. However many filthy insults she flung at him, even if she kept on attacking him while he was defenseless, he had declared that he didn’t care. At this rate, that boy would go too far. He would delve too deeply into an abnormal world far removed from his everyday life—a whirlpool of blood and dirt from which he wouldn’t be able to turn back. “I have to die to save those kids! There’s no other way! Isn’t that enough?! I’ll die by myself, and if that can rescue everyone, that’s a wonderful thing, right?! If you think that, then get out of my way!” Mikoto covered her ears with her hands and shut her eyes tightly. —But she thought she heard the words I’m not moving manage to slip through. “…You’ll die,” she muttered, eyes closed. “From here on, you won’t be saved! If you take the full brunt of my next attack, you definitely won’t survive! So if you don’t want to die, then get out of my way!” The voices of purple sparks flowing around her alternated, heavily and sharply. The volume got rapidly louder, as if she had activated some strange weapon. “…” And yet the boy didn’t take one step… …as if to assert that an attack like this didn’t even give him a reason to back off. Mikoto bit down on her lip. Bluffing wouldn’t work against him. As long as she wasn’t shooting life-or-death strikes at him, she’d never be able to get him to give up. If he knew this wasn’t a bluff, even he should need to fight. —But still, she was sure she heard his cry that he wouldn’t move. Finally able to endure it no longer, she shouted. A flash, like piercing her toughly shut eyelids. A roar, like plunging past the hands covering her ears. It wasn’t one of weak current and high decorative tension. What she unleashed was a bona fide spear of lightning that could even pierce the heavens. In a flash, without light or sound… Wham The sound of a direct hit, like a fireworks factory had exploded, rang out. Despite that, the boy never clenched his right hand. In the end, the story was as simple as that. 4 Mikoto opened her eyes timorously, and she saw him, lying there a few meters away from her. He was prone, unmoving. A thin smoke, like the kind produced by joss sticks, was slowly wafting from a few spots on his clothing. In the same way that game consoles heat up when you play video games for a long period of time, a body will get hotter when electricity is passed through it via a process called Joule heating. It looked like the massive Joule heat created by the high-tension electrical current had charred his body with light sunburns here and there. However, he no longer writhed from the pain of those scorch marks. “Ah…” There, Mikoto suddenly realized it had ended. This time for sure. This time, unquestionably, that boy would never get up again. The shock had likely stopped his heart, since it was flooded with an actual high-tension current rather than a counterfeit one. She heard the black cat give a meow. Her body and thoughts both wobbly, she looked back. There, a couple meters away from her, a black cat was sitting scared to death. It wasn’t bristling its fur, though, nor was it baring its teeth or claws. Those innocent eyes seemed to be pleading with her: Why would you do something like that? “Ahh…” When she looked at the cat, she swiftly comprehended. In the end, Mikoto had done…that…to him. It was as if she had suddenly sent a surge of lightning into an innocent, cute kitten nuzzling its nose against her, trusting her with everything it had. The boy truly did have many options to choose from. For example, after reading the report, he could have pretended he hadn’t and gone back to a false ordinary life. Even if he had wanted to stop her, he could have concealed the fact that he had read it. Then, when she turned her back to him without having any misgivings, he could have whacked her upside the head as hard as he could and knocked her out. But he didn’t do those things. He went into her room by himself, directly revealed to her that he had read the report, exposed his true feelings that he didn’t want to fight her, made clear all of his own intentions, and still tried to stop her face-to-face. It was just like playing poker with his hand faceup. It was akin to declaring he’d shoot scissors before a game of rock-paper-scissors. Why would he do something that dangerous? If he had betrayed her trust and assaulted her from behind, he could have ended things much more safely. “…” The reason was obvious. Mikoto trusted that boy. At the very least, being around him presented her with a kind of safe zone, since he didn’t know anything about the experiment. Just like a kitten curled up in the sunlight, taking an afternoon catnap. It was likely that he couldn’t have stabbed her in the back. He clearly never wanted to do that, even if it was the safest, most certain option. His wish—never to hurt her, even when she held a gun to his head. His belief—that they could work things out by talking, without resorting to violence. But in the end, his words didn’t reach her, and she pulled the trigger. “…” Mikoto gritted her teeth. There was nothing left to stop her. She felt like she’d been liberated as something like resignation cleanly cut through a slender thread inside her. The sensation was like that of a balloon with its string cut off, free to fly as far away as it could—like she had obtained her freedom, in which some decisive destruction awaited her— Kamijou’s fingers twitched. “?!” She was benumbed at the sight of the unbelievable reality. The fallen boy’s right hand, sprawled out to his side, jerked. Those fingers moved slowly across the ground, stroking it gently. It wasn’t in revenge against the person who’d done this to him. It also wasn’t in terror, in a desire to run away as fast as he could. He had said so from the beginning. I won’t fight. I don’t want to fight. His persistence indicated his want to extend a hand of salvation to a lonely, isolated girl who had cried out for help. That was all. “…Wh…hy?” she murmured. It wasn’t like he knew everything about her situation just from having read the report. The fact that she had provided her DNA map for the purpose of healing muscular dystrophy, the fact that it had been converted for military purposes before she knew it, the fact that her aspiration to save people had flipped into bringing twenty thousand people to their deaths… He shouldn’t have known any of that. And yet he had still stood up to her. He’d stood up…for her. But that was… “St…op,” she said, a child on the verge of tears, wagging her head to and fro. If he got to his feet again, she’d have to eliminate him in order to save the Sisters—he was an obstacle. She could go easy on him, of course. But the fact that he was still moving was strange. Even the slightest attack, made for the most playful of reasons, could be the shock that stopped his heart. So she said simply… “Stop…it…” She didn’t want him to get up anymore. If he was still alive, she wanted him to just fall unconscious. That way she could go to Accelerator without having to kill him. If he would just give up on her, no one else would get hurt. If he would just lose faith in her, he would be released from this suffering. But he moved his fingers. Even though he couldn’t even move his body. He channeled every bit of strength, every fiber of his being, into his hand, and at the very end managed to wiggle one finger. “Ahh…” Mikoto slowly raised her hand toward him. This boy would probably never stop. Even if his limbs were cut off. Even if his eyes and ears were destroyed. He’d never give up as long as his heart was still beating. So there was no other way. If he was going to impede her saving the Sisters, then she had to get rid of him in order to go forward. She carefully aimed her palm at him… …But she could fire no spear of lightning at him. Mikoto’s frozen lacrimal glands took on heat. It was no use. She couldn’t shoot him. She didn’t know why. She didn’t know the correct answer. She just didn’t want to. She couldn’t bear to see him die. Just the thought of it made her want to throw a fit. Help me. Those two words that she shouldn’t have ever let anyone hear came out of her mouth… …as if she was praying to a god she didn’t know existed or not. Transparent rust fell from the lacrimal glands that should have long ago corroded. 5 Kamijou’s vision faded in and out. He could see Mikoto standing there dumbfounded as he laid there, stretched out on the bridge. The lightning attacks had stopped. Tears fell in big droplets from the eyes of Mikoto, who was unmoving, like a small child. Think… In desperation, he braced his heart, which felt liable to shatter to pieces at any moment, and considered it absently. The girl before him had said this: There’s no choice but for me to die. She didn’t say that she wanted to die or that it was okay if she died. She definitely said that there was no choice but for her to die. That was the only important part. She wasn’t wishing for death. It was just that she had no other options from which to choose. For example, if a person is given three options, then told they absolutely need to choose one of them, but all three of them said “suicide,” they can’t choose anything except “suicide.” It was absolutely wrong to force the kind of responsibility to make that choice onto her. So think… If three choices were “suicide,” then he just had to get a fourth option ready for her. If there was an option that said “live nonetheless,” then the girl who had no choice but to die would definitely choose the new option. Think of what that fourth option is… A choice in which the experiment would come to an end without Mikoto Misaka having to die. A choice in which not a single person lost anything. A choice in which they could save the Sisters. A dreamlike choice. She had said it herself. She didn’t put it into words, but she was definitely saying this: I actually want to live, but there’s no other path aside from me choosing to die, she said. If you search and can’t find one, then make one yourself… Accelerator would be able to shift to Level Six by killing Railgun 128 times. One hundred twenty eight Railguns couldn’t be prepared. So instead, they readied degraded copies of Railgun, the Sisters. The same result could be achieved by killing twenty thousand of the Sisters. The experiment had been mapped out by the Tree Diagram’s predictive calculations. As soon as she runs a research institute into the ground, the experiment gets inherited by another one. In order to stop the experiment, they needed to force them to think that the experiment wouldn’t be of any value in the first place. Wait…? Then Kamijou caught onto something that seemed a little off. But in the next moment, the repeated exposure to all those high-tension electric shocks caused his faint consciousness to flee hastily into darkness.