5_Chapter 4_ Accelerator

CHAPTER 4 Accelerator Level5(Extend) 1 The chill around her steadily sharpened as night crept into the air. Despite it being the middle of summer, she felt as if a frozen blade were being held against her face. With a precise, machinelike cadence, serial number 10032, “Little Misaka,” passed through the shopping district and into a section of the city containing a quiet industrial area. Walking through an uninhabited road dotted with a line of streetlights, she ruminated on the details of the experiment about to take place here. The absolute coordinates of the test location were X-228561, Y-568714. The starting time would be 8:30 PM JST on the dot. The sample to be used was number 10032. Her purpose was to induce an approach during a battle in which “reflection” cannot be applied. “…” Little Misaka’s mind was saturated with careful considerations of the scenario that would kill her, but her expression wasn’t grim. She possessed neither fear nor hatred, nor did the concept of quitting even come to mind. Her face was simply a true lack of emotion. Seeing her would likely make a person think of the sense of peril accompanying a clockwork puppet teetering toward the edge of a cliff. Little Misaka was not, however, a deviant who didn’t give any weight to the lives of living beings. Should she be presented with somebody on the verge of death, she had the ability to immediately look up the options she could take and then choose the most pertinent one. However, she could not direct this toward herself. Her body could be automatically produced at the press of a button, thousands of times over as long as the requisite materials were procured. Her mind was a void into which information had been installed using Testament, much like overwriting data on a hard drive. One hundred eighty thousand yen was the price tag on Little Misaka’s life. She was no more than a high-end personal computer. Even so, if manufacturing technologies sufficiently advanced, she could be sold for a lower price on a large scale—enough that she would be tossed into a bargain sale bin. …And that is why there is one thing I don’t understand, thinks Misaka. Something suddenly came to her as she trekked down the dark night path. The boy the many Misakas had encountered in the alley had caught his breath in surprise. It was as if some unbearable fact had been shoved down his throat, and that even afterward, he was saying that he didn’t want to accept it. Little Misaka thought back to what he had said. Who are you? Those words weren’t meant to question Little Misaka. What are you doing? He seemed like he was asking her something so that he could hear her somehow deny it. Can he really not accept it? she thought, face still impassive. Can he really not accept this world of twenty thousand Sisters, whose hearts all stop in accordance with their operation? …I do not know. I cannot understand it, ponders Misaka, harboring doubts as to the boy’s state of mind. I shouldn’t think about what I cannot understand in the first place, she concluded, as if to say that it’s okay to not know the feelings of a toad swimming in a gutter. However, if that was the case… Then why on earth did she recall his face? If doing so really had no value, then she wouldn’t have recalled it at all. After all, there’s no need to commit to memory the shapes and colors of pieces of chewing gum stuck to the ground on a train platform a week ago, after all. She should have been mentally assembling the information regarding the experiment soon to be carried out. If she failed in this situation, she would cause inconvenience for many. Just why did her thoughts digress and bring up the face of a boy with no relation to the experiment? “…” Little Misaka couldn’t figure it out. I shouldn’t think about what doesn’t matter in the first place, she concluded. She couldn’t even understand such a pointless, tiny thing. Ignorant of it all, she headed alone for her own place of execution. Her precise footfalls were like a ticking time bomb. 2 Kamijou was lying sideways on the windless iron bridge. He slowly opened his eyes. The amount of time that had passed while he was unconscious from taking the brunt of the high-tension current was likely short. A digital clock would probably show ten or twenty seconds at the most. However, the tips of his outstretched fingers and toes felt abnormally icy. His normal blood flow was being obstructed. His heartbeat might have grown irregular from the impact of the electric shock, and in the worst case, his heart may have altogether stopped once or twice while he was out. With hands and feet strewn like a puppet thrown in the corner of a room, its owner bored with it, he stared lazily, without moving his neck. “…” He channeled strength into his fingertips to test them, and his index finger moved slowly, like an insect at death’s doorstep. He managed to move his eyelids and blink, too. Air was being sucked in and out through the gap between his lips, extremely thin though it was, and he could barely hear his pulse in his sprawled body. That’s a relief, he mouthed. My body…can still move. That means I can still get back up. “What…are you doing, idiot?” He heard a girl’s voice above him, extremely nearby. At last, Kamijou noticed the odd softness pressing against his cheek. It appeared that Mikoto had him resting on her lap. “…You’re so beat up, and you were lying on the dirty ground, and even if it was just for a short time, your heart might have stopped, but you…” Her voice was trembling. It wasn’t the voice of one of the only seven Level Fives in Academy City, nor did it belong to the young lady of Tokiwadai Middle School called Railgun. It was the voice of a completely ordinary girl, shivering alone in the darkness. “…How can you still be smiling?” Clear tears dripped onto Kamijou’s cheek from above. “…” Thank goodness. He moved his lips, but no voice came out. Thank goodness I could be her ally. He narrowed his eyes ever so slightly in joy. The black cat let out a meow at his ear. A rough-feeling, small tongue was touching his hand, as if it was gently licking his wounds. “I’ve got it,” he said, still limp. Mikoto didn’t answer. The only sound that reached him was that of her rubbing her eyes with her fingers to dry her tears. “…I figured out a way to stop the experiment.” Mikoto’s throat made a hic noise as she caught her breath in surprise. “It’s so simple I wonder why I didn’t think of it before.” This entire experiment was just a bunch of scientists following a scenario described by the Tree Diagram. That’s why Mikoto had thought that if she could make them think this “scenario,” which was actually correct, was wrong, then maybe the experiment would stop. Yes—if that was all it took to stop the experiment, then the rest was simple. “…I mean, the fact that Accelerator is the strongest in Academy City is obviously part of the Tree Diagram’s calculations…” If they could stop the experiment just by leading them to believe a bluff, then… “…Then it’s easy. They keep going on and on about how Accelerator is the strongest, so we just have to make the scientists think like this: He is actually really weak.” Yes—for example, if Accelerator, spoken of as Academy City’s toughest… …What if he got beaten easily in some pointless road brawl? Even if the simulation’s results described him as strongest in the city, would they still go on thinking that way after seeing him lose pathetically? Wouldn’t it be possible… …to make the researchers think that the prediction given by the machine was mistaken? “That’s impossible…,” Mikoto answered shortly. “The experiment won’t be stopped with such a simple method. I mean, I’m Level Five, same as him, right? If Railgun defeats Accelerator, the same rank, the scientists would probably think it was within their margin of error. They wouldn’t think Accelerator was actually weak or anything,” she muttered, frustrated… …like she was clenching her teeth, like she was stained with blood. “And besides, even if we teamed up, we still couldn’t beat him,” she said, biting back anger at her own inability. “I’ve only ever seen Accelerator directly once. But I could tell from just that. All I did was look up his ability a little in the data banks, and I got goose bumps from it. The way he fights doesn’t involve winning or losing. For him, fighting means one-sidedly murdering his opponent.” “…” That’s probably true, noted Kamijou. The Tree Diagram had already derived that if Railgun and Accelerator were to fight, the odds of Mikoto coming out alive were 185 to 1. This was probably an exceedingly correct answer. Even if Mikoto Misaka tried every means available to her, however hard she tried, she would never be able to defeat Accelerator. That’s why the impulsive, straightforward Mikoto also couldn’t just go up and punch him and, in the end, got herself to thinking that the only way to stop the experiment and save the Sisters in the end was for her to be killed. Kamijou understood. It was easy to see that Mikoto Misaka couldn’t beat Accelerator. “Then it just has to be me fighting him, right?” Mikoto swallowed her breath in astonishment at that. But there was no other way. If a Level Five defeated a Level Five, they couldn’t get the scientists to think that Accelerator was really a weakling. If, however, Touma Kamijou, the weakest Level Zero in Academy City, were to beat up Accelerator, the strongest Level Five in Academy City…then what? Of course, they could end up thinking he was actually a ridiculously strong esper, despite being someone who had low marks up until now. However, the city’s System Scan had pried into all the nooks and crannies of his body; he would never be able to remove the stigma, the letter, of a Level Zero Impotent, because that’s just what his Imagine Breaker was. Accelerator, losing cleanly to Kamijou, a Level Zero by all measurements. Would they really think he was the strongest in Academy City after that? “…” Now that he knew what to do, the rest was simple. Kamijou tried to lift his head off of Mikoto’s lap, but his body wouldn’t move properly. A stabbing sensation shot through him as his head slid off of her onto the hard ground beneath. But he could still grit his teeth and move his fingers, quivering like caterpillars. Slowly, slowly, his five fingers caught on a groove in the asphalt. Then, mustering all the strength in his body like he was lifting a barbell, he finally brought his body off of the ground. Kamijou’s body felt so exhausted as he knelt there on one leg that he thought five years had shaved off his life span. Seeing him holding it in like that, Mikoto asked, her voice shaky… “What…are you doing?” as if she were witnessing something she couldn’t believe. “There’s no use. You’re only saying that because you don’t know Accelerator’s ability! I’m telling you, it’s ridiculous to think you can fight some rule-breaking manga villain…some guy who can turn all the armies in the world against him and grin and take them head-on!” “…” He didn’t respond. He simply, silently, pushed more strength into his feet to try and stand up further from his current kneeling position. “Accelerator’s real ability is that he can freely manipulate the vector of anything, whether it’s momentum, heat, or electrical current, just by touching it with his skin. Even though we know his power, we can’t find a way to beat him! It’s totally unfair!” Mikoto shouted, as if at the all-too-outrageous reality itself. “All of his attacks hit you, but none of yours hit him, since just by shooting something it’ll get reflected. There isn’t a human alive who can stand against that absurd One-Way Road!” “…” He didn’t respond. He poured all the power he had into his shaking knees in an attempt to stand, still trembling rigidly. “He’s something else! Think of him as some kind of other-dimensional being as the rest of us espers. From the start, there’s no way you can win by facing such a rule-breaking human from the front. And not to mention your body right now! Like that…against a monster like him… “…You can’t possibly win,” she whimpered in a voice that sounded like she would cry. “Please don’t stand up again,” she begged him. “…” He still didn’t respond. He moved his body, about to give out under him, and slowly, slowly brought his upper half up. “Why?” she cried like a lost child. “…” He didn’t know himself. He didn’t have a clue how strong Accelerator was. He didn’t have an inkling what he could do with his body this messed up. The Imagine Breaker still slept in his right hand, though… …and without a doubt, he possessed within him a reason for clenching that fist. For he believed that if he could use that hand and save a girl unable to move and driven to a dead end by Accelerator, then that would be wonderful. Thus, Kamijou arose. He planted his own feet and no one else’s onto terra firma. “Misaka, you were originally going to Accelerator, weren’t you?” He looked at her. It seemed like it had been such a long time since he had seen her eyes. They were beet red from weeping. “Tell me, Misaka. Where is he about to start the experiment?” 3 Little Misaka arrived at her destination: a train switching yard. Analogous to a garage for buses, this was where a great many trains were maintained and where the cars would go to rest after their last run for the day. The wide area was about the size of a school courtyard. One side was covered in the same sort of gravel as the kind under railroad tracks, and there were more than ten rails all lined up parallel to one another. At the end of the tracks were many sheds with large shutters, like the rental garages at a harbor. Surrounding the outside of the sorting yard sat a large quantity of metal containers used for freight trains. They were piled up like bricks, with height rivaling three-story buildings. Thanks to the cluttered mound of containers, the outskirts of the switchyard were as complicated as a three-dimensional labyrinth. If the containers were mountains, the switchyard in the middle would be a basin. There was no sign of life in the sorting yard. The final run for trains in Academy City was at the end of the school day, so human presence disappeared swiftly from these yards as well. The workers’ lamps were off, too, and without any private homes nearby, there was no light. Despite the metropolis in which 2.3 million people lived, this place was wrapped in a darkness black enough to allow stars not normally visible to be seen when she looked up at the night sky. At the center of this uninhabited darkness stood something. The strongest esper in Academy City—Accelerator. When Little Misaka saw him there, assimilated into the dark around them, she felt an illusion that she had been thrown into Accelerator’s giant organs. The boy of white laughed in the blackness. That eerie pallor, like an eyeball dropped into boiling water, simmering gently. “The time’s about eight twenty-five, eh? So then, you’re the dummy target for the next experiment, yeah?” Out of Accelerator’s mouth came a voice, like the white darkness had spit it out. He smiled so wide it seemed to tear his face apart. Little Misaka didn’t move an eyebrow, though, and replied, “Yes, Misaka’s serial number is 10032, responds Misaka. But would it not be proper to first confirm the password just to be sure you are a participant in the experiment? suggests Misaka.” “…Tch. Throwin’ off my rhythm,” he spat. “Whatever. I don’t got the right to say anything to someone tagging along, since this whole ‘experiment’ is to make me stronger. But you sure do seem calm. Don’t you think about stuff in this kind of situation or anythin’?” “I am having difficulty understanding the vague word stuff, answers Misaka. There are three minutes and twenty seconds remaining before the start of the experiment. Have you completed your preparations? confirms Misaka.” Accelerator narrowed his eyes ever so slightly, then bit something in his mouth in exasperation. Chew, chew. It looked like he was chewing on gum and drawing out its sugary flavor. “? What are you ingesting? asks Misaka.” “Ah, a finger.” Accelerator replied casually, spitting what was in his mouth to the side like spit. It was a crushed, saliva-covered, sloppy piece of flesh… And yet, that thin female fingertip had barely managed to retain its form. “I had the chance, so I figured I’d borrow one for a bit, y’know? But man, human flesh really ain’t all that good or anything. I heard stuff about it having little fat and tasting sour, but this is way beyond that. When ya bite it, it feels like you’re tearing apart a thin bundle of stuff. Those pigs and cows and shit that evolved for our consumption really are admirable, ain’t they?” Accelerator wiped his lips with his arm, as if removing the taste from his mouth. However, Little Misaka moved nary a muscle at his action. “General pork and beef are treated with phlebotomy, then seasoned with salt and spices, offers Misaka. In addition, one can observe a change in protein quality by heating it up, so a comparison to the taste of living flesh would yield an inaccurately performed experiment, would it not? suggests Misaka candidly.” “’Zat so?” responded Accelerator, peeved. Little Misaka didn’t understand why Accelerator would ask a question like that. It was true that she had frozen in fright when she spied him in front of the used bookstore, but that was because the black cat was at her feet. She feared involving entirely unrelated lives with this experiment. “Seriously, after doing this ten thousand times, a guy gets bored, so I was just thinkin’ we could kill a little time or somethin’, but I guess not. You’re impossible to talk to, you know that?” he said, relaxing. “You know, I don’t get why you throw away your life like this. I mean, my life is the most important thing for me, and I’m always thinkin’ my own body is the best. That’s why there’s no limit to my thirst for more power. I don’t really give a damn how many hundreds or thousands of you die for it, I can just laugh it off, ya know?” “Misaka is the one who cannot understand parts of what you say, answers Misaka. You are already the strongest Level Five in Academy City, correct? If you already stand at a place where nobody can hope to reach, you would feel no need to aim yet above that, estimates Misaka.” “The strongest, heh,” answered Accelerator in an uninterested tone. “Strongest, strongest, strongest, huh? Well, yeah, sure. I’m the strongest esper in this city, so that probably means I’m the top esper in the entire world, too. “But, y’know,” he responded, looking truly bored. “In the end, I’m only the strongest. I am the strongest esper in Academy City. Hmph. So why does everyone around me know that? Frankly, it’s because they actually fought Accelerator and lost, right? So in other words, ‘his strength seems interestin’, so let’s pick a fight with him’—that’s all they think of me.” Those red eyes turned into a happy grin. “That’s no good. No good at all. What’s Level Five for, then? I’m goin’ beyond that. I want absolute power, so it would be ridiculous to even think of challenging me or even considering the thought of fighting me at all.” He declared that he aimed for that sort of invincibility. The boy offering his own aspirations slowly extended his two slender arms out to either side. His suffering right and his poisonous left. Spreading his hands parallel to the ground, he smiled. His arms were like venomous snakes that could kill a person at a touch. Like a holy cross spouting darkness. “So, we good now? Just die already, you good-for-nothing manufacturing error.” However, Little Misaka didn’t twitch an eyebrow at the boy grinning mockingly at her. She simply declared indifferently with a voice like a clockwork puppet: “Eight twenty-nine PM, forty-five seconds, forty-six, forty-seven— We shall now proceed with trial number 10032. The subject, Accelerator, should please stand by in his designated location, conveys Misaka.” Thus… …began the unavoidable experiment at 8:30 PM sharp. 4 Having left the black cat with Mikoto for the moment, Kamijou dashed through the night streets alone. There was a sizable industrial area on the west edge of Academy City. Apparently, the train switchyard there was the location of the 10,032nd “trial.” “…” He remembered hearing the number 10,032. Little Misaka had given it as her serial number back in that alley. Could it be…, he asked himself, urgency gripping his heart. He needed to get to the trial area as soon as he could, but unfortunately, the buses and trains had also already returned early to their garages at the final school closing time. With the majority of the transportation facilities asleep for the night, he had no choice but to run under his own strength. Though he was aware his body didn’t have much stamina left, he didn’t have the luxury of calmly pacing. He grit his teeth, intent to run through the shopping district at full force. Forcing his wrecked body to move, he continued his sprint, whittling down what stamina he had left (if he had any to begin with). He made it past the shopping district and into a residential area, feeling the bustle and illumination of the city grow farther and farther away. As he hurried past them, even the student dormitories began to grow sparse. After cutting through a small wooded area that was grown artificially, he came to the industrial area. Academy City contained many of such areas for commercializing research inventions created by its citizens. However, they were different from the backstreet workshops like the filthy rental warehouses downtown. The “manufacturing buildings” were tall but without windows, and they stretched on endlessly through the city. They were arranged into sections quite properly, but because of that, not a hint of life emanated from them. It might be faster to imagine a city made up entirely of office complexes. There was no one in town. The factories were set up to operate twenty-four hours, but because of the perfect soundproofing applied to them, they didn’t make a peep. With this view like a dead city, Kamijou felt a chill on this midsummer’s night. Mikoto, left by herself on the iron bridge, held the frightened black cat in both arms. Now that she thought of it, animals didn’t like the electromagnetic waves unconsciously emitted from her body. But that wasn’t important to remember. “…What an idiot,” she muttered to herself in the darkness. She had wanted to stop him. At the very least, she had wanted to go with him to the test area. But Kamijou had told her no. What was important was that Imagine Breaker defeat Accelerator. Another Level Five being present, especially if she took Kamijou’s side, would end up transforming the result into a party of people, including a Level Five, having defeated Accelerator. He told her that if she wanted to rescue Little Misaka, then she should leave this to him. He promised that he would come back with Little Misaka at all costs. Mikoto stared down the bridge from which he had disappeared. She understood it logically. She wouldn’t be able to do anything if she went to the test site. In fact, she ran the risk of destroying the solution he had labored to come up with. So she needed to stay here. She got that. In a logical sense, she knew that. But… Something aside from logic wasn’t quite as willing to understand. Mikoto gritted her teeth. “…Like hell I can do that, you asshole!” She ended up chasing after Kamijou, holding the cat by the neck. There was no way she would leave him be. 5 At 8:30 PM, the switchyard transformed into a battlefield. The unlit area blinked with pale blue camera-like flashes. The two pairs of footsteps belonging to Little Misaka and Accelerator pounded into the gravel. They were separated by less than ten meters. “Hah! Why’re ya walkin’ around like it’s nothin’? No plan? If you wanna feel the pain that bad, then I’ll make you cry! Maybe suck on a cough drop or somethin’!” Accelerator, his arms still spread wide, crouched and closed in on Little Misaka like a wild beast. His charge lacked the very concept of defense. It didn’t even have the concept of offense. This was the battle of someone who reflects every attack and kills an opponent just by touching them. It was simply a matter of how quickly and certainly he could make physical contact with his opponent. That’s all he needed to think about. Since attacks would all bounce off him, there was no slowing him down. Given this outrageous mayhem, like he was a tank plunging straight into the middle of a demolition squad, Little Misaka— “Ah?” He let out a discontented voice. Little Misaka had taken backward steps to place distance between them, as if running away from his pursuit. To the right, then to the left; as she kept up her flight, she surveyed the situation around her. Accelerator, the carnivorous animal, truly bored, shifted his attention and was hot on her heels. “What, what, what is this, this unsightly display? Hey, now, just what are you expecting, eh?! It doesn’t matter how long you stall, a miracle ain’t gonna happen!” Little Misaka didn’t listen. She continued to widen the gap between them, her enemy ever in her sight. Accelerator, whose head vessels were about to explode out of his indignation toward her halfhearted act, noticed then the air around him was tingling; it was charged. “You’re such a freakin’ bore! Don’t you know this ain’t gonna do shit? Were you thinkin’ I’d just play along with your useless resistance?! Hah, not a chance!” Accelerator laughed scornfully. Whatever kind of attack it was, he could reflect it as soon as it made contact. In any case, Little Misaka seemed scared and wasn’t firing any lightning attacks at him directly. Sparks were bursting around him, but there wasn’t a single attack-like attack within them. What the hell’s she doin’? he thought, grinding his teeth. Then he realized that he was short of breath. He thought for a moment he’d been talking too much while he was running and used too much oxygen, but something else was up. He smelled something. The sharp scent was ringing warning sirens. “There’s no wind tonight, I see…” Little Misaka’s voice echoed through the windless switchyard. “…which means Misaka may have a chance at victory, says Misaka over her shoulder.” Accelerator again took in the situation around him. Little Misaka was still running away, the lightning being placed around him, the unusual shortness of breath, and himself, who would reflect every attack directed at him. Hah. I get it. Ozone, huh? It’s possible to break apart the oxygen in the air by using an electric charge. Normally, what one calls oxygen is itself comprised of two oxygen atoms, but once two oxygen atoms have been split apart, they have the property of connecting three apiece into “ozone.” Oxygen and ozone are entirely different. Breathing it wouldn’t fill up your lungs. And as one can guess from its use in antibacterials and sterilizers, ozone is toxic. There wasn’t an attack that could ever get to Accelerator, but he was no different from other humans in that his body inhaled oxygen and exhaled carbon dioxide. Therefore…should the oxygen around him be utterly depleted, it would be possible to drag him into an oxygen-deprived state. There was no need for Little Misaka to draw close to him. Instead, she got as far away from him as possible and continued to steal the oxygen from positions where his attacks wouldn’t hit her—that was the important part. “All right, all right! You’re the freakin’ best, you know that?! I take it back, you really are tryin’ to be a worthy opponent! Ha-ha, this ain’t boring at all! Ten thousand of you were killed, why not bring out a crafty trick like this! Is that it?!” Accelerator stuck to his pursuit, smiling gleefully. He was positively beaming, even though he was the one being driven back. “How-ev-er. There’s a weak spot!” Little Misaka’s shoulders suddenly gave a twitch and trembled for a second, and he continued: “If I catch you, then your plan is a failure” His advancing foot suddenly caused the gravel behind him to explode. He probably altered his foot’s direction. As if he had fired rocket engines on his heels, he took merely one step and closed the seven meters with the speed of a bullet. Shocked, Little Misaka attempted to jump backward—but Accelerator charged right up to her much more quickly and ruthlessly than she could act. “Hey, you’re really gonna die if you’re not dodgin’ this shit with all you got!” The left hand he thrust forward as he shouted gently stroked her cheek…However, when his hand touched, Little Misaka’s neck gave a most disagreeable snap. Her vision spun, her body rotated like a bamboo-copter, and she came down hard onto the gravel below. And yet he had taken it easy on her. If he had really wanted to kill her, her body would have exploded the moment he touched her skin. “Okay, then! Got a question for ya. How many freakin’ times have you died already?!” With his broken laughter, Accelerator resembled an all-encroaching darkness. His smile ripped across his face, broadening, filling her view. Mouth opened wide enough that drool might fall out, he flung a jeer at her. Everything from this point on was Accelerator having free rein. Taking advantage of the opening in her defense, he shoved the toe of his shoe into her curled-up body and threw a fist at her arched back to stop it from moving. He made each blow only strong enough to break her body and not kill her. She plunged into a whirlpool of pain comparable to being thrown into an oil drum, which was then struck by a metal baseball bat many times over. “Gh…fuh…?!” Even rounding her back now a challenge, Little Misaka lost out to the force of the kicks jutting into her gut and flopped on the ground faceup. Blood was flowing over one eye, blocking its sight; had her forehead been cut? Her vision grew vague and blurry as Accelerator took a rough breath. He was wiping saliva trickling from that slicing smile with one of his hands. After all of that, Little Misaka still held no resentment toward him. It wasn’t that she couldn’t hate him if she wanted to; it was just that she hadn’t ever learned the value of her own life. The experiment, which used one 180,000 yen Little Misaka life, would end, and her remains would be collected and disposed of like a frog after dissection. That was all. It should have been it. And yet, Accelerator jerked to a halt, having noticed something. He slowly craned his neck to look over his shoulder and behind him. What…is…? Accelerator’s body stood as a wall directly in front of the prone Misaka’s position, so she couldn’t tell what he had spotted. However, he was frozen in place, as if he had managed to somehow forget that this was the all-important experiment to elevate his status from “the strongest” to “invincible.” “…Hey. What happens to the experiment now?” he asked abruptly, still unmoving. Hazily, she thought his question rather out of place, having asked the person he was trying to kill. Though she waited, Accelerator didn’t budge from that position. She crawled along the gravel and followed his gaze. There, she saw a civilian—one who had no connection to the experiment. There stood Touma Kamijou. Accelerator probably didn’t know what the manual had to say on civilians interfering with the experiment. He stared at the newly arrived high school student with an uncertain look, and then: “…Get away from her, you bastard.” Kamijou spoke as if stabbing those words into Accelerator. A fury that seemed almost shocking to the touch engulfed his body. “I said, get the hell away from Little Misaka this instant. Are you deaf?” Accelerator’s face bunched up in a scowl at that. Then he finally turned back to her. Giving her a somewhat reproachful, red gaze, he asked: “You. Misaka’s the name of your model, that right? So what, does this guy know you or somethin’? Hey, look, I’m beggin’ ya, don’t drag unrelated civilians into the test area!” His face looked like he had lost interest in something. “…Seriously now, work with me here. So what do I do? Should I go and make sure the guy never speaks of the secrets of this experiment again, or what? Damn, that’ll leave a shitty taste in my mouth. I mean, he’s not some disposable puppet like you, he’s a real-life—” “I said, stop your fucking babbling and get the hell away from her, you piece of garbage” The thunderbolt of Kamijou’s bellow stopped Accelerator’s words in their tracks. Accelerator stared at him. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He stared like a child who had never been scolded once since birth. “Who do you think you are? You got no idea who you’re pissin’ off here. You’re callin’ me a piece of garbage? I’m one a the only seven Level Fives in this city, and they even say I’m way above all of them, and you’re callin’ me a piece of garbage?! What are you, God? Don’t make me laugh.” His low, quiet, bloodthirsty voice seeping with static electricity escaped into the air around them. It was as if his tremendous malice converted all of the night’s blackness into millions of eyeballs, and they all stared Kamijou down. “…” However, the boy still stared back at him. His scorching eyes silently said that he didn’t care whether his enemy was the strongest, or highest, or best, or whatever. “…Heh. That’s interesting…” Accelerator’s red pupils froze. There was a difference between being “the strongest” and being “invincible.” “Invincible” refers to when the battle is decided before it even starts, whereas “the strongest” is only decided after actually fighting. In other words… Accelerator being the strongest meant only that people wanted to pick fights with him just to see— “—You’re pretty funny, you know that?” His focus shifted away from Misaka and settled on Kamijou, meaning that he was leaving this experiment to the side for the moment; crushing Kamijou was a hundred times more important to him. The eyes of the boy of white contained a crimson, bestial enthusiasm. His grin was thin and broad—slashing across his face like a knife through melted cheese. “…” However, Kamijou didn’t take a single step away. His foot took another step forward. “What…” Little Misaka couldn’t believe what she was seeing. That boy was about to attempt combat with Accelerator. This was someone who could defeat entire armies with a smirk on his face. He didn’t even have weapons. That boy said this to Accelerator. He demanded he get away from Little Misaka immediately. That meant that his reason for showing up at this battlefield… His reason for putting his life on the line… “…are you doing? Misaka begins to ask,” she stammered, her voice shaking. “…O-oh, it’s the little sister. But man, you two really look alike. Do you even weigh the same as her?” She didn’t give a thought to how greatly her worthless self would die in this “experiment.” “…Heya. Thanks for the stuff with the juice and the fleas yesterday.” But he wasn’t at all part of this, nor could he be reproduced en masse. “…Oh right, a name! This is your cat, so take responsibility and name it, all right?” Could she let even one normal person in the world be hurt because of this experiment— What is…this… Something inside her was stinging with pain. Try as she might, she couldn’t figure out what it was or why it was there. …Misaka bears doubts as to her own state of mind. Despite that, Kamijou kept his mouth shut and took yet another step into the battle zone. Little Misaka forced her thoughts to a halt and began to implore him to stop. “What are you doing? asks Misaka a second time. You are irreplaceable, yet you are here for an imitation that can be created however many times is needed. What on earth are you doing? asks Misaka a third and final time.” Her logic was consistent. Her tone was undisturbed. What she said seemed measured. It appeared to have come from her programming. This led her to conclude that her mental state was all green. In spite of that, her heart was beating out of control. Her breath was unbelievably shallow—she tried again and again to breathe, but she couldn’t capture any oxygen. Little Misaka wanted to stop that boy from entering the test area. Little Misaka wanted to prevent that boy from clashing with Accelerator. But her useless, messed-up body wouldn’t move normally, so still lying on the gravel, she continued to plead with him to stop him from entering. She did not realize that her words were his very impetus. “Misaka can be automatically manufactured at the press of a button, so long as the required materials and medicines are procured, explains Misaka. A borrowed mind in an artificial body. My retail price is 180,000 yen. Why would you stop the entire experiment just to save the 9,968 remaining in the inventory—” “…Shut up,” the boy cut her off. “Wha…t?” Little Misaka asked in return. “I said shut up, got it? None of that matters. Artificial bodies, borrowed minds. Automatically producing more at the press of a button given the necessary equipment and drugs. Your price being 180,000 yen. I don’t give a damn about any of that! Words like that don’t mean a damn thing!” The boy roared with a fiery anger, as if howling at the night sky. And yet his voice was pitiful, as if being struck with cold raindrops. “I’m standing here to save you! I’m fighting to rescue you and not anybody else! So spare me the artificial body, borrowed mind, being produced automatically at the press of a button, retail price bullshit!” Little Misaka failed to understand. She didn’t comprehend what this boy was trying to say. It wasn’t like she had lied. She could, in fact, be automatically produced as many times as needed at the push of a button. If they were missing one, they could replenish their numbers with another, and if they needed twenty thousand, they could just add twenty thousand more. That was all she really was, wasn’t she? “—There’s only one of you in the world, moron! It’s so simple, and yet you don’t get it!” But for some reason, the boy’s roaring voice, powerful enough that she thought he might cough up blood, reached her. She hadn’t believed him or anything. Little Misaka still thought losing her life wouldn’t be a problem. But here, in front of her, was someone yelling that he didn’t want to lose someone so insignificant. The boy probably had no powers of his own. He didn’t possess anything that would cause him to be called the strongest in Academy City, either. “Don’t go dying on me. I’ve still got a million complaints for you—” And yet, Little Misaka thought that this boy was strong. “—so I’m going to go ahead and save you now. Shut up and watch from there.” She had been able to think that his way of life made him stronger than anyone else. 6 He may have been the strongest, but Accelerator was not invincible. As long as his was an abnormal power, Kamijou’s Imagine Breaker would shatter it with a mere caress, even if it was a miracle from God. Accelerator’s “reflection” might be an unbreakable defense capable of bouncing back a nuclear explosion, but it wouldn’t protect him from at least Kamijou’s right hand. Whether or not he was the strongest, able to take on the entire world against him… …if it wasn’t impenetrable enough to defend against his one and only Imagine Breaker… …then there was sure to be a chance at victory hiding within that margin of error. “…” Kamijou checked his surroundings. All around him, in an area approximately one hundred meters in diameter, the ground was covered with gravel and steel rails. The two of them stood on this level playing field, nowhere to hide. Ten meters separated them. If he ran with all he had, he could bridge that distance in just three or four steps. He stopped breathing. Then he lowered his body slightly like a spring. “Oh…woooohh!” With Accelerator dead in his sights, he exploded into a sprint. His opponent, however, didn’t make a move. And he didn’t even make a fist; both hands were still dangling at his sides, he wasn’t properly calculating his center of balance. With a smile that seemed to melt through his face, he… Step. As if tapping to a beat, Accelerator lightly touched the gravel with the sole of one foot. Roar In that moment, the gravel underfoot erupted as if he had stepped on a land mine. The cloud of gravel scattered in all directions, bringing to mind a shotgun going off at point-blank range. “…!” By the time Kamijou realized it, it was too late. As soon as he raised his arms to protect himself, at least a dozen pebbles, both big and small, crashed into his body with a dull, loud wham! The overwhelming impact gently lifted his legs off the ground. Before he knew it, he’d been blown backward with great force. He rolled along the ground and, after tumbling a few meters, finally drew to a stop. “…You’re slow.” As he laid there, dizzy with pain, an unpleasant voice—one like pieces of rusted metal scraping together—encroached upon his awareness. He looked in that direction without even thinking to stand back up. “You ain’t worth my time at all. You’re a hundred years too frickin’ slow!” Accelerator stomped his foot into the ground. Somehow altering the vector of the impact, one of the steel rails sleeping at Accelerator’s feet sprung upright. He punched the standing rail away with the back of his hand like one might swat away a spider. The action was almost like giving a light knock on the head to an unreasonable child. However, a deafening gong! like the sound of a church bell reverberated throughout the switchyard. The rail bent over in the middle, then flew straight for Kamijou with the force of a cannonball. “” He urgently rolled along the ground, then leaped to get out of its way. A moment later, the squashed clod of steel plunged straight into the area he had been sleeping in, like a holy sword. I dodged it by the skin of my teeth, thought Kamijou, when the heavy metal lump, weighing hundreds of kilograms, uplifted a storm of gravel from the impact. It looked just like a meteorite falling into the ocean. Countless tiny stones penetrated through to his entire body. A blow to the chest drove the oxygen from his lungs. “Gah…hah…!” He fell to the ground, and Accelerator sent two more rails hurling at him, then a third. The steel anvils dancing through the air were no more avoidable than the bullets of a handgun. If he got hit by one, he would unequivocally die. Even if he managed to slip by them, a hail of gravel would come down on him like a rain of buckshot, and over time the accumulated damage would eventually kill him. The only thing he could do about any of this was to keep tumbling across the ground. He predicted the direction the gravel would fly in after being whipped up by the cannon shells thrusting into the ground. By jumping in the same direction, he could at least lessen the damage a little…That was virtually his only option. He couldn’t get close. He dodged ten or twenty steel rails, bombarded by the rocks and dust all the while; as this was happening, he was being gradually led from the middle of the switchyard to its outer edges. Even so, he considered the battlefield to be at a stalemate. He was being one-sidedly beat up on, of course, but he believed that Accelerator had yet to be able to land a decisive blow. However, with a whoosh, his line of thought was cut off by the sound of slicing wind. “…?” He suddenly leaped backward, thinking a rail was flying at him…so he could kill the impact of the shotgun blast of gravel as much as he could. Despite that being his intention, however, the metal pillar, for some reason, never came. Still on his guard, Kamijou knitted his brows dubiously… …as a steel rail whipped right over his head and stabbed into the ground behind him. “?!” At the time, he had already jumped backward to dampen the blow. The rain of gravel assailed him from behind at zero range. It was analogous to a truck driving at one hundred kilometers per hour colliding with another one going the same speed. All that damage he had ended up increasing slammed into his back. Winded as if someone had hit him with a baseball bat as hard as they could, Kamijou clumsily crumpled to the ground. Whoosh-whoosh, came the sound of the night air slicing apart. Kamijou raised his head to see many steel rails falling from the sky. Wha…? He immediately tried to roll to avoid them, but the rails simultaneously hit the ground in all four directions. Huge clusters of gravel rushed toward him. It was almost like getting ganged up on by five or six guys. He couldn’t defend nor could he evade in this case. His options gone, more than a hundred of the shots stabbed into him from head to toe, limbs jerking about like a beached lobster. “Guh…geh…agh…! Hah…hah…!” Nevertheless, he grabbed onto one of the rails sticking out of the ground and leveraged it to pull himself back up to his feet. It certainly didn’t help that his legs were shaking badly because of all the hits he took from Mikoto’s lightning earlier. It also didn’t do him any good for his mouth to be awash with the taste of blood. As his consciousness hung on for dear life, he saw it. Far in front of him. It was Accelerator, lowering himself as if his body were one giant compressing spring. “Aha! See, you’re slow, slow, slow, way too slow! You’re just actin’ like some pig askin’ to be eaten! Step it up and act like a fox, and gimme a little bit of fun, you piece of garbage!” There were thirty meters currently dividing them. Without any regard to that fact, Accelerator strode over the distance with just two steps. The gravel at his feet came up like a rocket. He closed the distance with the same sort of movements as a rock skipping across water. With incredible speed, he came into melee range with Kamijou. A tinge of nervousness sunk into him somewhere around his stomach. He instantly tried to stick out his arm, but Accelerator’s foot hit the ground before that. A steel rail lying under him bounded up into the air like a pogo stick. The bolts attached to the crossties started popping out like buttons on a shirt. Before Kamijou even had time to be startled, the rail performed an uppercut and slammed into Kamijou’s jaw. “Gh, goh…!” His body snapped up into the air. His feet were twenty centimeters off the ground. Accelerator watched him with satisfaction, and then, setting his sights on Kamijou’s floating, now-undefended torso, he opened the fingers of his right hand like the claws of a demon. That hand, which had fired a rail at him like a comet with a single, gentle stroke. “” The instant he saw Accelerator’s right hand coming at him, in the manner of a venomous cobra, he thrust out his own right hand, even though he was still hovering in the air. Somehow, someway, his hand batted away Accelerator’s, as if to prove to him that there was, in fact, a silver lining. And with that insignificant action… …Accelerator gave him a look of utter disbelief… …and stomped hard on the earth as if to drive the concern from his mind. A ground slam. The lethal gravel that burst upward battered the uplifted Kamijou all over. His breath left him, and then he fell onto the ground, limp as a corpse. He rolled over and over for several meters with his limbs outstretched. Then, with a thump, his back hit something, and he finally managed to stop. “…?” It was the wall of containers. Mountainous piles of storage containers enclosed the switchyard. Accelerator and Little Misaka had been right in the middle of the area, but it seemed that he’d retreated dozens of meters during his continuous dodging. The heaps were five or six boxes high, boasting roughly the height of a three-story building. He gave a glance to the wall of containers his back was up against, but… “Hey, you looked away, didn’t you, you moron! If you wanna die that badly, I’ll mess up your corpse so splendidly it’ll be put in Guinness” Mad laughter. Kamijou turned back around in a hurry. Accelerator had just lowered his body slightly and kicked hard off the ground a few meters away, leaping up into the air. It was only a standing jump, and yet his slim form instantly reached an apex of four meters. Aimed straight at Kamijou’s head was a flying kick with all his opponent’s weight behind it. He immediately rolled to the side to dodge, and Accelerator’s leg collided with the metal wall of containers he had been up against a moment ago. Boom came a deafening sound like a church bell. Suddenly, the mountain of containers came crashing down. He had essentially pulled the bottom brick out of a stack of building blocks. Accelerator’s flying kick squashed the bottom level of containers like a paper carton. Immediately, the containers on the upper levels above them rocked back and forth, then came tumbling down. Not only did they come down—they brought the blocks adjacent to them into the fold as well, and the entire ridge of containers fell apart like a house of cards. Kamijou caught his breath and looked above him. The crates, spinning toward him like giant dice, were hurtling through the air. They were about to sprinkle the ground with a heavy rain. “!” He immediately got to his feet. He just about jumped to the side and out of the way of the approaching boxes, but before that, he caught something out of the corner of his eye. It was Accelerator, hunching down like a coiling snake. In that startled moment, his opponent shot toward him, fast as a bullet, as if trying to chase him down as he fled from the containers. A deluge of containers, each weighing more than a ton, was nothing someone who could reflect any forces needed to worry about evading. Kamijou, however, was a different story. If he tried to dodge the container above him, he wouldn’t be able to dodge Accelerator’s pursuit… …but if he tried to intercept Accelerator with his right hand, he’d be squashed by the container. “…!” He didn’t waste any time. He kicked the gravel at his feet up toward the closing enemy. Of course, that didn’t make him stop. “Ha-ha! You think that’ll work or somethin’? If you’re gonna do somethin’…then at least make it good” The swarm of gravel collided with Accelerator’s body. When it did, the barrage altered its trajectory, ricocheting straight back at Kamijou even faster than he had sent them. He immediately crossed his arms in front of him to protect his face and chest. Not a moment later, the cluster of pebbles assailed him with the force of a shotgun, striking him all over his body. He was blown a few meters backward as if he really had been blasted with a cannonball. Thus he avoided the containers overhead… …as well as placed distance between him and the incoming Accelerator. “Aah?” Accelerator gave a groan that almost sounded like admiration, and immediately after, the containers all collided with him. A huge gravelly fog flew into the air, and all the dust obscured Kamijou’s vision. Then a stampede of containers came cutting through the cloud, one-sidedly rolling toward him with intent to kill. They danced around with the unpredictability of dice inside a cup and raged about like they possessed sentience. Damn it…! Kamijou made a last-ditch effort, jumping to the side to flee from the bounding boxes. For the moment, the crates stopped, but the dust they whipped up obstructed his vision. No, wait, this wasn’t dust. Apparently there had been flour or something inside the containers. He found himself unable to see more than a foot in front of him with the powdery mist. It was a white, 360-degree curtain surrounding him. He didn’t know when or where Accelerator would come diving through it to attack him. A hopeless anxiety settled within him. It felt like he’d been thrown into a wild beast’s cage blindfolded. Contrary to his expectations, he heard a voice coming from the white fog in front of him. As if to purposely call attention to his own position. “Hmph. Looks like there was some flour in those containers. There ain’t any wind today; it feels good, but you know, this could kind of be a dangerous situation, eh?” “?” Kamijou dubiously watched for his opponent to come out at him, but… “Well, you know how accidental explosions happen in mines and stuff, right? They’re not because they were messin’ around with explosives or anything.” His playful voice gave away the grin on his face. “I hear it’s actually ’cos the fine particles from the shaved-down rocks and stuff inside the mine get all in the air. Just like now.” Kamijou’s shoulders jerked. He suddenly realized what Accelerator was trying to do, and he immediately tried to drag his mangled body away from it. “I’m told that the powder floats into the air, and then there’s a spark. Somethin’ about the speed of oxygen combustion going through the freakin’ roof. In the end, the air itself just turns into one huge bomb supposedly.” Kamijou was no longer listening. Without sparing another glance, he ran on to get away from there as soon as possible. His back turned to Accelerator, he fled from the giant space covered in powder. He ran, ran, and ran some more. Then Accelerator’s voice dug right into his spine. “Hey. You’ve at least heard of dust explosions, eh?” Just then, all noise was deadened. The very area throughout which the flour particles had spread, thirty meters in diameter, had turned into a giant bomb. It was as if gasoline in a gaseous state had been ignited—the air all around him exploded into a whirlwind of flame and burning winds. It was then that Kamijou just barely made it out from the misty curtain. The wave of impact struck him in the back and flung his body down onto the gravel, but at least he had managed to avoid being caught in the fire. However, the difference between a dust explosion and a normal one is the way in which it burns through the oxygen in the air. This explosion sucked up all of the oxygen around him in the blink of an eye, dramatically lowering the air pressure. Fortunately, they were out in the open, not a confined space, so it wasn’t enough to create a vacuum. However, the dramatic change in pressure squeezed his insides tightly. Of course, had this been a vacuum, his body would have exploded. “Gah…hah…!” Kamijou barely managed to move his wounded body and stagger to his feet. The switchyard had lit up like afternoon thanks to the sea of flames. He turned back to look toward where the containers he’d fled from had been. Accelerator was walking toward him. Calmly, he trod closer, amid the crimson purgatory he himself had created. “Man, oh, man. Oh, right. Didn’t I just go through this before? It’s tough even for me if there ain’t any oxygen. Ah, thought I’d die there for a sec. You might be the first person in the world to get me to a spot where I thought I’d die. At least you can be happy about that, right?” His singsong voice really did sound like he was just making small talk. “Ku-ku. I wonder if that rules out the whole tagline they slap on me? You know, about it being A-OK to shoot a nuke at me? Well, actually, I guess I’d just hafta bring along an oxygen tank. Hey, if I recall, there was a kind the size of a hair-spray bottle, eh? Any idea how much those can do?” Witnessing the boy persisting in his lighthearted conversation despite walking within the hellfire caused terror to seize Kamijou’s heart. “…!” He immediately tried to take up a fighting stance. However, the damage had already permeated down to his legs. They were trembling badly. “…So? What’re ya gettin’ ready for anyway?” asked Accelerator, within the flames, tilting his head like an innocent kid. “You can pull out all the stops, but you won’t get a step closer. And even if ya did get close to me, what could you do then, huh?” He spread his arms wide refreshingly in the inferno. “Anything that touches my body has its vector changed. Even your blood flow counts, got it? So if you ever accidentally touch me, that’s it. All of your arteries and organs will explode and you’ll die for good. Ya dig?” “…” Kamijou stopped his legs from shaking. Even if his right hand could break through Accelerator’s reflection… What could he do after that? The only part of him that could touch the guy was his right hand, so he was essentially boxing with the other behind his back. And even if his hand did make it to Accelerator’s face, if he grabbed onto his arm just once before he could pull it back, then it would be… However, Accelerator grinned amiably at the frozen Kamijou. “Well. It’s not like you have to worry about it that much. I mean, I actually think you tried pretty damn hard, you know? The fact that you’re still breathing against the great Accelerator by itself is a freakin’ miracle. It’d be sorta greedy to ask any more, you know?” He smiled at him in a good-natured way in the middle of this duel to the death. “Lord, man. Good thing your potential is so low. My reflection won’t work as well if you’re that weak! Man, you saw right through to my, whaddayacallit, vulnerability. If you were one of those stupid strong Judgment members or one of them Anti-Skills carrying some high-tech weapons with ’em, I woulda reflected their first attack and that woulda been it.” Accelerator applauded him, standing in that blazing ocean. And then, in a voice that sounded sincerely comforting and appreciative… “Ya did good. Ya did real good…So just rest now.” His body sank down low through the flames. Roar! The pale boy sprinted at Kamijou with the speed of a bullet, dispersing even the sea of fire in the process. Though there were dozens of meters between them, he brought it to nothing within two or three steps. He slid right up to Kamijou like a rock skipping across water. “…!” A jolt of tension crawled from his stomach up to the tip of his nose. His suffering right and his poisonous left. Those hands could alter the vector of anything they touched, and they were simultaneously hands of darkness able to grant a permanent end to any living creature. For example, a simple stroke of the skin would allow him to reverse the flow of blood in his veins or the direction of the bioelectric field around his body—either way, the person’s heart would explode. Accelerator put his hands together. His pair of palms, linked as if bound by handcuffs, thrust fiercely toward Kamijou’s face. He instantly tried to move back, but his trembling legs were snarled. Moving them properly was something he couldn’t do. Those hands of his approached his face, ready to crush his very soul. “Damn it…aahh!” He reflexively shut his eyes, then swung out his right hand in the knowledge that his desperate act would fail. He threw his right hand out in front after depriving himself of his vision, without knowing what he was even aiming for… …Thud. With some kind of dull sensation, it punched Accelerator’s face away. “Eh?” If anything, at first, Kamijou was more surprised at his strike than Accelerator was at being stricken. He never thought it would hit him. And he was under the impression that even if it did connect, such a bloodied, weak fist wouldn’t actually do any harm. However, it blew Accelerator backward and he fell onto the gravel and writhed. “Ah-ha? That…hurt. Ha-ha. What was that? Interesting. Ha-ha-ha, damn it. Great, that’s the best! You really did a wonderful number on me, you know that?!” The pale boy crouched on the ground, like a demon about to hatch from an egg, and laughed with wild enthusiasm. However, Kamijou wasn’t listening to him. Now that he thought of it, something had been weird since the start. He’d battled with Accelerator this far, so why hadn’t he realized it yet? There was an overwhelming handicap separating the two of them. Accelerator could kill someone just by touching them. On the other side of things, Kamijou would die instantly if he touched him with anything but his right hand. To top it all off, the damage he’d taken from Mikoto’s lightning attacks still lingered in him, and he wasn’t in a state to move his legs properly. And yet…Even though he was fighting with such a handicap… …Wait… Accelerator came right up close to him. That right hand of his, which could kill a person with a touch, flew straight at his face. …Wait, is he… Kamijou avoided it just by bending his neck to the side. He didn’t have any kind of training in the army or anything, but avoiding it came easily to him. Could he be… He balled his right hand into a fist. Then he stepped in even closer to Accelerator, who had missed his attack, to land a counter. Could he actually be…a total weakling? “Gbah?!” Kamijou’s fist struck Accelerator square in the face. Accelerator’s hands, moving at him in a knifelike, complicated pattern, failed to so much as nick Kamijou’s skin. Weaving around his two cobra-like arms, Kamijou placed a third fist right smack in Accelerator’s face again. “Damn it, what is this? What the hell’s with the way you’re movin’?! Quit zigging and zagging like that! What are you, a freakin’ eel?!” Accelerator made an attempt to latch on to the fist retreating from his face, but Kamijou’s hand slithered back out too smoothly. “Hah, you’ve never lost, huh?” Kamijou taunted, dancing to and fro. “That’s exactly why you’re weak! You can beat anyone with one hit, and you can reflect any attack with ease. Someone like that would never know how to brawl!” Yes—the difference between the two of them came down to that. Accelerator didn’t battle with anyone—he one-sidedly murdered them. And because the ability his body had was altogether too strong, he never needed to learn how to fight for real. Looking at him now, Kamijou could see that Accelerator’s stance was a mess. He wasn’t making fists; his open hands pretty much announced that he would be jamming his fingers at him. He also wasn’t giving any thought to the way he carried himself or to his center of gravity. But that’s just how powerful Accelerator’s ability was—worrying about any of that had never been a necessity. He was able to insta-kill every enemy who presented himself, so he never had to practice techniques to skillfully defeat enemies. He was able to reflect any attack, so he also never had to put in the effort to try and read through those attacks and dodge or block them. Technique and effort—they are, essentially, the means granted to the weak to compensate for their lack of strength. However, Accelerator’s “strength” was no more than that of his ability. It wasn’t his own strength. What if there were a right hand that could render the one-trick pony useless? The opponent was not some invincible enemy whom he could never defeat no matter how hard he tried. If he was only the strongest—an enemy who was simply difficult to beat—then… Kamijou’s chance at victory lied within that ever-so-slight gap between being invincible and being the strongest. “Tch…You’re gonna regret runnin’ your mouth like that, you piece of garbage!” Accelerator lightly tapped the ground with one foot. A steel rail sleeping underfoot bounced up like a kangaroo. The steel cannonball would make it to Kamijou’s body if he could just pummel him away with it. However, Kamijou didn’t allow that. Predicting his attack, he moved to intercept it, bringing his right fist into Accelerator’s face again. As his body slammed into the ground and tumbled away, he manipulated the “direction” of the gravel splashing up in his wake and fired off a huge shotgun blast at Kamijou’s upper body. It didn’t connect. It was such a telegraphed attack. All he needed to do to evade it was drop to the ground like he was going to start crawling. It wasn’t as if Kamijou was an especially good fighter. Even against common thugs, he could only win one-on-one; if it was against two, then it was dangerous; and three meant he was getting the hell out of there. That was the extent of his skill. Despite that, Accelerator didn’t reach him. Kamijou’s own thrown punches didn’t have the weight of his body behind them. They were more like jabs in boxing. They were only to gauge the enemy. More power was used to pull his arm back than to thrust it forward. However, despite that, Accelerator took them like he was being hit by a truck. The fact that Accelerator had never been defeated also meant that he had never really fought before. His ability had always been so strong that he didn’t have a chance to utilize regular exercise abilities. Kamijou couldn’t earn crushing victories in altercations with street punks, but he was more than able to deliver the smackdown to this homebody who’d never fought anyone in his life. Accelerator, having taken a handful of quick rights to the face, reached out his hand recklessly and shouted. “…! Kh-hah, how interesting. What the hell is that right hand?!” The strongest of them all, who hadn’t a loss to his name… And the weakest of them all, who refused to give up no matter how much he lost. As to the question of which was stronger, the verdict here would go to Kamijou. If he lost one hundred times, he’d get back up a hundred times. If he lost one thousand times, he’d crawl back to his feet one thousand times. Those losses converted into power, and that power slammed a right fist into Accelerator’s nose. Until now, he had reflected every single attack coming at him. Even if he understood that a blow would present a threat, those thoughts wouldn’t be connected to any reflex to avoid it. He didn’t pay attention to the blows to the face; he only recklessly followed the fleeing Kamijou while waving his arms around. It looked for all the world like a small child being lovingly teased by an adult. Accelerator himself was the one who understood this the best, and he couldn’t stand it. His pride as the strongest in Academy City was teetering over the ravine between it and reality with scraping noises. Scritch-scratch. An unfamiliar pain that seemed about to crush his nose chipped away at Accelerator’s concentration even further. “Damn. Damn! Damn it” There was an explosion at the howling Accelerator’s feet. His body leaped toward Kamijou like a bullet. The impact of the soles of his feet kicking off the ground—by optimizing the kinetic energy therein that would have otherwise dispersed, he quickened his movement speed by two times normal, or maybe even three. However. “What is this, damn it? Why can’t I hit you one fucking time?!” Despite his carnivorous velocity, he couldn’t reach Kamijou. It didn’t matter how much speed he achieved. As long as his aim was obvious, it was easily avoided. A knife can be used to kill someone, but if a kindergartener is the one holding it, it doesn’t present a threat. The fight had been virtually decided already. The injuries from Kamijou’s small punches had piled up by now, and they had drained the energy from the legs of the strongest and wimpiest esper of Academy City. Right when the strength left Accelerator’s knees with a crack… Crunch! Kamijou’s fist rammed into Accelerator’s face with the full power he hadn’t used until now. He hit him like a golf club whacking a ball. By twisting his waist and using it as leverage, Kamijou’s one hit knocked Accelerator off his feet and sent him rolling to the ground beneath. “Hah…hah…?!” Accelerator sat up and looked in front of him. After confirming Touma Kamijou wandering toward him, he used his hand to push himself backward. It hurts. For someone who had automatically reflected any attack that came at him, it was an unfamiliar sensation. To him, all pain spots were simply sensors that transmitted pleasure from his skin to his brain. His infantile nervous system had a complete lack of resistance to “pain,” and such intense stimuli made it feel about to burn out. “…Those Sisters were all living in the best way they could, too.” Kamijou gripped his right hand. “They tried their hardest to keep on living, and they put so much work into it…,” he said, clenching his teeth. “…So why the hell does someone like you have to devour them all?!” Accelerator’s movements froze in pure terror. But Kamijou didn’t stop. Accelerator shook his head as if to say, “Please, no.” He didn’t know what losing was like. He had never lost before—not once in his whole life. He hadn’t a shred of tolerance to losing. Of course not. Until this very moment, he’d been someone no one had ever even considered could be defeated. However, Kamijou still didn’t stop. The night wind teased his bangs, which swayed like a nameless flower blooming in a graveyard. …Wind? Suddenly, as Kamijou, the look of the devil on his face, drew closer, Accelerator noticed something. Wind. “Kuh…” Accelerator grinned. Kamijou stopped in spite of himself. Perhaps he got the sense of some indescribable danger. Accelerator didn’t worry about it. Now that he had realized it, it was too late. “Kuka…” His power was to change the direction of anything he touched. Momentum, heat, electrical current. No matter what force it was, if it had a vector, he could manipulate all of it. That’s all his power was. “Kukaki…” Then in the same way… If his hand could catch the direction of the wind current in the atmosphere… Then it was possible to grasp the entirety of the gargantuan wind movements flowing in every corner of the world…! “Kukakikekokakakikukekikikokakakikukokokukekekekokikukakukekekokakukekikakokekikikukukukikikakikukokukukekukakikukokekukekukikukikokikakaka…” Accelerator reached up with his hand as if to grab the invisible moon. Roar came the sound of the wind swirling. The boy in front of him blanched. It was too late for him to realize it now. An enormous atmospheric vortex, like a hole opened in the earth, was already above his head, taking on the form of a sphere and waiting there to be launched. The gravel around him danced into the air with clicks and clacks, and the huge whirlwind of destruction, dozens of meters around, uttered the delighted cry of a newborn. Smiling, Accelerator called, “Kill him.” The wrecking ball made of the world’s atmosphere cut through the wind… And the 120-meter-per-second maelstrom, spinning fast enough to fling cars out of the way, morphed into a howling lance and easily flew toward the boy as if directed by a giant’s hand. 7 Sound, wind, and air all deadened. Accelerator beheld the terrible spectacle he had created. The gravel, which had once been covering the switchyard, was being ripped into the air by the mass of wind. It would hide one area from vision, then reveal another, many times over. The boy was blown backward a good twenty meters and had crashed into the support pillar of wind generator back-first. He was leaning against it, crumpled on the ground. It might have been more pleasant for him had he fallen onto the gravel. Either way, the end result would be the same. Ramming wind at 120 meters per second into something was not too different from a car running into something during a traffic accident, no brakes. In reality, Kamijou wasn’t budging an inch. Beneath that pillar, his limbs were sprawled out. Accelerator saw him and doubted whether he was even still alive. “…Hmph.” For something he’d thought of by chance, this had been stronger than he’d predicted. But it was still incomplete. Unlike his automatic reflection capabilities, altering the direction of something by his own volition required him, of course, to consider both its original direction and that which he wished to change it into. The wind—more accurately, the flow of air—is described by complex equations that involve chaos theory. Without using the Tree Diagram, no one could get close to an accurate prediction. He didn’t think that he, just one person, had calculated the flow of all the air in the atmosphere in his head. What he just did took everything he had. He only manipulated the wind in Academy City here and there. But still, this power…He didn’t need the strength of a Level Six anymore. If he could determine the wind flow more perfectly and more accurately, then he could obtain a might capable of destroying the planet itself. The whole world was in his hands. A feeling of elation surged through Accelerator’s body. He only felt the triumphant sensation rising in his throat so vividly because he’d been driven to the brink of defeat. He was sure of it again. Nothing existed in this world with the ability to stop him. Whether it be a nuclear bomb or a strange right hand, nothing could prove to be an obstacle to him. “Ku…” Accelerator finally started to laugh. “What in God’s name was that?! You talked real big, but when it came to it, you were all bark! Now get back up like a cool loser should so I can smash you again!” He howled above, spreading his arms as if to embrace the night sky. “Compressing the air…compressing…compress. Hah, I get it. Yeah, I thought of something real good. Hey, stand up, ‘weakest.’ It won’t be worth it unless you stick with me for a while longer!” Kamijou didn’t reply. Dozens of steel rails stuck out of the ground, like crosses marking graves. In the midst of it, only raging gales and mad laughter blew through this cemetery like a wind of death. The black cat at Mikoto’s feet meowed unhappily. Mikoto Misaka took that moment to set foot into the switchyard. She had been watching Kamijou’s battle since its inception. Time and time again, she had wanted to intervene, but doing that would mean this plan would fail. Until this very second, she could do nothing but watch silently as Kamijou was beaten further and further to a pulp. She was at her limit. If she let that boy fight for any longer, he really would die. “Stop right there, Accelerator!” From dozens of meters away, Mikoto stuck out her hand. It was already gripping a coin placed atop her thumb. Purple sparks poured from her body. All she had to do was give a light flick of her thumb to fire it at three times the speed of sound, the skill that had earned her the nickname Railgun. But Accelerator didn’t even turn to look. The violent winds increased in intensity as if to challenge her. If she made an attack, its full force would bounce right back. Bombard him with one powerful strike and that impact would fly straight back at her. “…” Her fingers trembled. If a Railgun were reflected, it would blow her to pieces at thrice the speed of sound. Odds were 185 to 1 that in a battle between Railgun and Accelerator, Mikoto Misaka would be brutally killed. The result of that calculation, spit out by a cold machine, unalterable, stabbed icicles into her heart. Despite that, she raised her eyes. You don’t want to protect somebody because you know you could defeat their enemies. You fight enemies you know you can’t beat because you want to protect someone. “…op, Misaka.” Just then, she heard her name being called. It was a very weak voice, but one belonging to a boy she knew well. “…Stop, Misaka!” Mikoto’s hand paused at Touma Kamijou’s cry of agony. In Kamijou’s plan, if Imagine Breaker, an Impotent, didn’t defeat Accelerator, a Superpower, then they couldn’t fool the scientists. That strategy would fail at the moment Mikoto raised a hand to interfere. If Mikoto didn’t interfere, the storm system would annihilate Kamijou’s body… …And if she did, it would mean Kamijou would have let ten thousand Sisters die. “…” Nevertheless, she couldn’t stand by and watch. Of course she didn’t want to let the Sisters be killed. She had one more method to use. If she lost to Accelerator on purpose, the scientists might be tricked and stop the experiment. She didn’t want to die. In the end, though, it mattered not how much she struggled. There had never been any other options available to her from the start. “…I’m sorry.” That’s why she took this last chance to apologize to Kamijou. None of the choices she could make would be able to save him. Letting him be crushed by the maelstrom was out of the question, and Kamijou wouldn’t be able to endure it if he let the Sisters die or if Mikoto died alone to stop it. He desired a conclusion where he wouldn’t lose anyone, he wouldn’t lose anything, and everyone would go home happy. She apologized because she was about to blast that dream to kingdom come. “So I’m sorry…” She apologized in a singsong voice for being so selfish. “…But I still think I want you to live.” Kamijou shouted at her to stop. He stretched out with one hand that would never reach her, desperately trying to stop her, despite being so beaten up he could no longer stand. Mikoto smiled softly. He didn’t realize it—it was because he was here to say it that she was able to overcome her fear of death. “__” She pointed her right hand at Accelerator, the enemy she would never defeat. If she used her magnetic rail and popped the coin, there would be no going back. Accelerator wouldn’t take any damage because of his omnipotent reflection, but she should still be able to avoid the death that would approach her afterward. I wonder why it had to turn out this way, she thought vaguely. Why can’t there be another ending? A totally different one, a better one, where everyone can smile? The one everyone wants? Why can’t there be a conclusion where no one has to die, no one has to lose anything, and everyone can smile and go back home? Mikoto’s thoughts hung idly in the air, and as if to mock them, Accelerator spread his arms and stared up into the night sky. Suddenly, all the wind floating through the city focused on one single point about a hundred meters above his head. As soon as a violent storm gathered there, a brilliant white light appeared, like the kind a welding torch might emit. Plasma. When air is compressed, it takes on heat; internal combustion engines use this principle. All the air in the city had been shrunk at an extremely high rate of compression, transformed into a superheated ball more than ten thousand degrees Celsius, forcing the atoms in the air nearby to break into cations and electrons, then completing its metamorphosis into a high-energy plasmatic state. The single point of light sucked in air and immediately swelled to twenty meters in diameter. The brilliant white glow utterly conquered the darkness surrounding them. Waves from the searing heat caused a burning pain on her skin. “!” Mikoto’s spine cried out to her as if she were just paralyzed. A human could no longer defend against a strike like that. The storm of high heat was enough to uproot a nuclear shelter right out of the ground; even thinking about opposing it nakedly was ridiculous. In the category of lightning users, Mikoto Misaka was without a doubt the strongest in Academy City. Since plasma is atoms that have split into cations and electrons, then she might be able to return them to atoms by placing the electrons back into the cations. But what would come of that? Even if she reverted the plasma back to its original state, Accelerator would just collect more wind and re-create it. It would be no use to try electric attacks, either. Preventing this onslaught would require someone who could manipulate the wind like he was doing now. It goes without saying that while Mikoto could use lightning, she had no way to control wind. She gritted her teeth as the reality of her powerlessness dawned on her, and— —then, she realized something simple: The important thing was that if she could manipulate the wind, she could stop Accelerator. “Ah.” Mikoto hung her mouth open like an idiot. Clatter-clatter. The wind generator’s propellers were making a sound like a laughing skull as they spun. That plasma was something created from compressing the wind gathered from throughout the city. It was nothing compared to using the entire world’s wind, so that meant there must be some limitation on his ability. For example, perhaps he needed to calculate the wind’s original and desired vectors in order to control them of his own will, unlike his simple “reflection.” Then she should mess with the wind in the city, thus messing with his calculations. There were many wind generators all over Academy City. There were more than 100,000 of them, weren’t there? Also, by infusing the propellers with specific electromagnetic waves, one could get them to start turning. Even if each single propeller only created a miniscule breeze, more than 100,000 of them churning the air was a different story. It might be enough to cause Accelerator to release his control on the wind. But it wouldn’t mean anything if Mikoto, a Level Five, were to manipulate the propellers. In this battle, she couldn’t directly intervene or stop the experiment. If she were obeying the condition that she would not use her own ability to interfere with this fight, then technically… This was a job for Little Misaka and for no one else in the world. Little Misaka’s and Mikoto’s power were on different levels. Little Misaka’s “Radio Noise,” a watered-down version of Mikoto’s ability, could only be called Level Two at most. Given the amount of propellers they needed to get moving, she wasn’t worth much. However, there were ten thousand Sisters about the city. And unlike Accelerator, doing all of the wind flow calculations by himself, the ten thousand Sisters could link their brains via their brain waves and predict the wind flow in unison. Just like the Tree Diagram had done with its superefficient parallel processing. Little Misaka’s broken body didn’t seem to still have the strength for her to get up onto her feet again by herself. She hesitated to demand yet another reckless thing of her. But it was the only thing she could do. “Please, get up. I know I’m asking a lot, and I know how cruel what I’m saying is to you. But please, just once, get up!” But asking was all she could do. “There’s something I want you to do. No, there’s something that only you can do!” No one losing anyone or anything… Smiling together and going home together…for that… “Just once! Please hear me out! I can’t protect you all. No matter how much I struggle and strive for it, I could never protect you! So please, please!” One where everyone is smiling, the one everyone wants… To arrive at the happiest conclusion…for that… “Please, use your strength to protect his dream!” Little Misaka, her consciousness cutting in and out intermittently, certainly heard the original’s cry. What she said was indeed absurd, she thought. If she was going to crack the whip and force Little Misaka to use her ability, even though her heart seemed about to stop, then why couldn’t she just use her own, which was many times superior? Hazily she wondered, but didn’t understand it. However, she couldn’t complain. The original’s words were unreasonably violent, but… For some reason, Little Misaka saw in her a child on the verge of crying, begging for help. “…” Little Misaka had never discovered any worth in her life. Her mind was empty, injected with a program, and placed into a body of flesh reproducible at the push of a button. She seriously believed that she was easily replaceable should her 180,000 yen life be destroyed. Unfortunately, she thought, But I still don’t want to. Her life didn’t actually have any value, but now that she knew that there were people who would feel sadness over losing such a paltry thing, she could no longer die. And she was able to think that if her paltry existence was able to help the girl on the verge of tears, then, well, that would be a wonderful thing. There was something she had to do. She had found something she needed to protect. “There’s something I want you to do. No, there’s something that only you can do!” I find it difficult to understand the meaning in what she says— Slowly, Little Misaka began to direct strength to her limbs. —but somehow, it has given me quite the surprise, thinks Misaka, noting her candid feelings. It was because there was someone to say that to her… …that she was able to stand once more. 8 Roar! The wind moaned, and the spherical mass of plasma floating overhead collapsed. “Wha…?” Accelerator looked up automatically. The energy had been drawn from wind all over the city and squeezed tightly enough into one point to create plasma. The wind had shifted. It was only for a moment, but it definitely changed. The event had introduced an error into the air’s rate of compression and had caused the plasma to flicker. Did I mess up the calculation? he thought, rebuilding the equations anew. It was a pain; unlike his simple reflection, actual control necessitated that he calculate both the vector before it changes and the one after. That said, it only took ten seconds for Accelerator to perfectly adjust this enormous calculation. This level of thought wasn’t a problem for someone whose brain had been developed. Ability Development was a part of the teaching methods of Academy City. In other words, the strongest esper equated to the smartest esper. However… As if to escape from the equations assembled by his perfect mind, the stream of wind in the city suddenly changed its movement. It wasn’t a coincidence; it was almost like the wind itself had a will and was slipping through the gaps in his calculations. The mass of compressed air above him started to disperse, and the plasma began to melt away into the air. What? What the hell’s this?! My calculations are free from error! And besides, these irregular squid movements can’t possibly be from natural wind! Could he truly be unlucky enough for an actual wind user to be using their power somewhere in the city? No, this irregular air flow was permeating every corner of the city. If there was a wind user with the abilities to outpace his own calculations, they would have to be a designated Level Five. But as far as he knew, there were no espers like that among the seven Superpowers. Then what the hell…, he thought, panicked, when he picked up a dry clatter-clatter sound. It was the sound of the propellers on the wind turbines turning. Wa…it. Yeah, I heard of this. They got some electric dynamo motor, and you can get it to spin if you fire some microwaves at it…! Accelerator turned back to the Sister, whom he should have beaten down already. However, he didn’t see a girl on her deathbed. The person who was there was his enemy. That…bastard…! Accelerator’s red eyes shifted into a murderous scarlet. Even if his control over the plasma and the raging winds had been hijacked, the Sisters were no threat to him. The only thing on the planet that could penetrate his flawless defenses was that right hand. “I’ll kill you.” Accelerator took a step toward the Sister, a skin-splitting smile coming onto his face. Then Mikoto Misaka stepped between the two of them. “…Think I’ll let you?” Mikoto’s voice was quiet enough compared to the raging vortex that the air might have swallowed it completely. But for some reason, it plunged straight into his eardrums. “Hah. Don’t push your luck, you low level. You can’t reach me. You can’t even slow me down. Eye exams only go up to twenty over ten, right? Same thing. The highest level in Academy City’s Five, so I’m actually just putting up with it here.” Mikoto didn’t respond with anything. She probably understood that fact the best. She was standing here and now because she still didn’t want to run away. Accelerator decided she was in the way, so he figured he’d go ahead and kill her first, then— Rustle. He heard the sound of something from behind him. “…” Accelerator slowly turned around. There before him, he saw the unbelievable. The boy, the one who got blown back by 120-meter-per-second wind and crashed into the support beam of a wind generator, was slowly getting back to his feet. There were too many wounds on the boy’s body to count. It also seemed like blood was spurting from the wounds whenever he as much as nudged a nearby muscle. He couldn’t channel much power into his body, both his legs quaked, and both his arms hung lazily at his sides like the branches of a willow. And yet he still wouldn’t stay down. No matter what. “Tsk!” The moisture fled from Accelerator’s throat, leaving it as dry as a desert. Looking at him sensibly, it was clear that boy couldn’t fight anymore. A person who had sustained that kind of critical damage should be easy prey for Accelerator to smash. If he didn’t want to fight face on, he could always kill Mikoto and the Sister, then retake his control over the gales and plasma. He was standing a lot closer to them than he was to the boy, after all. His logic sung a sweet tune to him: that he could win with ease if he dealt with them calmly. However, something else in him dreaded showing his back to that. Every corner of his body grated with blaring warning signals. If he were a normal person, he would have realized that it was the fear of pain and dealt with it. “You’re damn interesting…” Accelerator clenched his fists. “…You’re the most interesting thing I’ve ever met, ya know that?!” Kamijou brought his smashed-up body one step forward. He felt like all his blood would turn to steam from the smallest of movements. He felt like his consciousness would run away from the most miniscule of thoughts. In spite of that, he advanced. Within such a haze, he didn’t have a proper grasp of the situation. Why was all this violent wind blowing? Why had the plasma disappeared? By what logic had he survived? His mind was in such a desolate state that his mind had left such important things by the wayside. But there was just one thing. Directly in front of him, he saw Accelerator trying to kill Little Misaka. He saw Mikoto step between them to act as her shield. And that was all he needed to know. That was more than enough reason for him to get up again. “You’re damn interesting…” He heard Accelerator’s voice. “…You’re the most interesting thing I’ve ever met, ya know that?!” As he howled this into the night sky, he clenched a fist and dashed toward him with intent to kill. He closed the distance in the blink of an eye, like he was shot out of a cannon, using that power of his to change the direction of his feet’s force as they kicked off the ground. Convenient, thought Kamijou. There was nothing better than for Accelerator to come to him. Given his battered body, he would probably have collapsed before getting to him. Touma Kamijou had no strength. The strength to stand on his feet and walk. The strength to form words with his tongue. The strength to have thoughts in his head. His body had not even the tiny amount of vitality required for any of these. However, he gripped his right hand. Into a fist. And brought his eyes up. Accelerator flew straight up to Touma Kamijou at the speed of a racing bullet. His suffering right and his poisonous left. Those hands of his, either of which would kill a man with just a touch, approached Kamijou’s face. For a moment, time seemed to stop. Pouring all the power remaining in his body, which was as minute as strained lees, Kamijou swung his head down and ducked. The suffering right passed through empty space above him, and he batted away the follow-up from the poisonous left. “Grit your teeth, ‘strongest’…,” said Kamijou to Accelerator, whose heart had frozen, his two-part killing blow nullified. At super-close range, near enough to touch, he grinned like a savage beast. “…My ‘weakest’ attack is gonna hurt a bit!” Then… Touma Kamijou’s right fist plowed into Accelerator’s face. His slender, pale body slammed down into the gravel, and he tumbled away with his arms and legs violently flailing.