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Volume 21, Chapter 5: The Complex Game Board that is a Battlefield. Enter_Project.

Part 1

A line of trucks was stopped at a town that was covered with pure white snow.

A spiky haired boy named Kamijou Touma sat within one of those trucks. The inside of the vehicle was filled with the smell of meat and sauce. The magician girl named Lessar sitting next to him was fishing through the paper bag from a worldwide fast food chain. It seemed the war had not had an effect on the distribution of goods needed for the restaurant.

Kamijou threw a nugget covered in red sauce into his mouth.

“I never thought I’d end up tasting this familiar flavor here in Russia. Don’t they at least have a borscht burger they only sell in Russia or something?”

“Having the same flavor all across the globe is actually pretty convenient. It’s especially useful when you don’t really like the local food,” responded Lessar as she found the fries she had been looking for.

However, Kamijou was not an international salaryman who went on overseas business trips a lot. He would rather give Russian food a try.

But he also knew that they were not in a position where they could just leisurely enjoy their food.

Lessar dipped the tip of a French fry into the red sauce Kamijou had while she spoke with a serious expression.

“We managed to get this far by mixing in with wartime group travelers and brokers smuggling people out of the country, but this is as far as we can go in the trucks. The Russian military base Fiamma is in is about 40 kilometers away. Just like when we got in before, we’ll sneak in using the underground train used for taking in materiel.”

“...But we’re coming from a different direction this time, right? I didn’t see this city last time.”

“If we entered through the exact same route, they’d find us right away. We restrained a Russian Orthodox magician at the station over there, remember?”

Lessar must have felt one French fry wasn’t enough because she then stuffed 4 or 5 more into her mouth like a Gatling gun of fries.

“From the slight accent in their speech, I’m pretty sure magicians living in this city were used at that station. That means it’s possible another track is prepared either here or nearby.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Secret bases are usually customized to be more easily used by the ones that work there. It’s simple enough to fill it with labyrinths and traps, but you can’t work quickly if it takes 2 or 3 hours to get through it all each time. As someone who has secretly set up and worked in bases in the UK, I know what I’m talking about.”

“Hmm,” said Kamijou as he ate his last nugget. “What do we do about the people who came in the trucks on Elizalina’s orders?”

“They were just there to play their part allowing us to pretend to be brokers smuggling people out of the country. They have a bit of military experience, but they can’t stand up to top class Russian forces and certainly can’t do anything against professional Russian Orthodox magicians. Now that we’ve made it this far, their role is over. They just have to pretend to have some ‘customers’ and return to the Elizalina Alliance.”

Complex feelings swirled within Kamijou’s chest. He wasn’t sure if that made him more uneasy or relieved.

His opponent was Fiamma of the Right, a top class monster even within the magic side.

He had no guarantee that he could win. Kamijou was just a high school student, so he wanted as much help as he could get. However, he had a hard time thinking of anyone who could take on that monster. He didn’t want to just use the people fighting alongside him as shields.

But then that applied to Lessar, too.

Kamijou glanced over at Lessar’s face. She was stuffing salt-covered fries into her mouth.

“Mhat ih iht? (What is it?)”

“Nothing.” Kamijou responded to Lessar’s puzzled expression before he changed the subject. “So what’s with these brokers?”

“Oh, are you not familiar with them? I would think they would have a good connection to Japan,” Lessar responded lightly after swallowing her fries. “In countries with land borders, illegally crossing the border can be as easy as crossing a fence at night. And during a war, a seemingly unending stream of people will want to leave the country because of all the explosions and such.”

“...Are there really that many people flowing into the Elizalina Alliance?”

“And the opposite too,” Lessar said. “Whether Russia wins or Academy City wins, even an amateur can tell that it will be over before long. No one wants to belong to a losing country. In that way, fleeing the country is a gamble. Where you stand after the war can have a major effect on the rest of your life. If you misread things, you could end up being branded with the stigma of a losing country after fleeing the country, so you need to be careful. ...It seems some people go back and forth between two different countries countless times. It’s like they’re restlessly waiting for the music to end in a game of musical chairs.”

“...”

Kamijou didn’t like the sound of that.

The people moving from one country to another were not doing it because someone else was forcing them. They were doing so of their own free will in order to gain happiness. But it was all based in unease and fear. Normally, they would have no need to abandon their homes and birthplaces.

It may be the same for everyone.

Of their own free will, people were mistakenly throwing out precious things that they normally would not have needed to abandon. That may have been what that large war was as a whole.

“Let’s just get this over with,” Lessar said in a cheerful tone as she stuck her arm in the fast food bag and dug around. “Fiamma is pulling the strings of this war. Taking that bastard out is the fastest way to end this war and bring peace to the world. And if the UK can grab up a bunch of war reparations money, it’ll be a perfect ending.”

“...Yeah.”

Kamijou didn’t know what the war reparations thing was about, but he agreed with Lessar. Whatever was going on, what Kamijou had to do remained the same.

“I need to go punch Fiamma and save Index.”

“Now that that’s decided, I need to build up my nutrition with this triple!!”

“Hey, can you even eat that vaulting box-like burger without taking it apart?”

He didn’t think there was any way it would fit in Lessar’s small mouth.

“Don’t worry. I take pride in my ability to fit things so large in my mouth that it surprises everyone around me. And I don’t mind if you imagine that scene in an indecent way.”

After saying something incomprehensible as usual, Lessar bit into the three-layer hamburger. The large piece of food bent into a wide V-shape with Lessar’s mouth in the middle.

Immediately afterwards, the mass of ground beef shot out of the opposite side of the burger than Lessar was biting into. The juicy hamburger landed on Kamijou’s school uniform.

“...”

There was a short silence.

Kamijou looked between his clothes and Lessar’s face with a look of regret on his face.

And then Lessar spoke up.

“Th-this is my chance!! I’ll pay for it with my body!!”

“Why are there stars shining in your eyes as you lick your lips!? You haven’t changed your ways at all!!”

Part 2

The explosions continued without ceasing.

Both the sky and land in Russia was white. In a place about 25 kilometers north of the border with the Elizalina Alliance of Independent Nations an unhealthy-looking black smoke disrupted that pure white landscape. Atop the snow stood tanks and other armored vehicles that looked like empty cans that had been crushed between gears. Chunks of concrete that had once been used in the walls and ceilings of buildings were also scattered about. The black smoke blotting out the white was coming from that wreckage.

Hamazura Shiage felt that it smelled of death.

But that wreckage was not from the vehicles that had attacked the village Hamazura and the others had been in.

It was the privateers’ base.

The fortress had been fortified with the latest Russian equipment, but it looked like it had been sucked into a whirlwind of destruction.

Of course, Hamazura and the others could not do something like that.

The privateers had attacked the village twice, but those attacks had not been carried out by all of their forces. The number on standby at the base had actually been greater. The amount there was easily more than 5...no, 10 times as many. A certain number were needed just to keep the base running effectively.

Then who had done it?

The answer to that question was displayed through the binoculars before Hamazura’s eyes.

Blue clothes.

A giant sword.

A large man who had called himself a mercenary.

Before that battle had begun, the man had exchanged a few words with them after taking out an attack helicopter, but Hamazura had not understood any of it. With terms like “Saint” and “magician”, Hamazura felt as if the man were from some completely different culture.

There wasn’t much he knew about the situation.

He knew the large man was named Acqua, he knew the man possessed some kind of power that was not an esper power, and he knew that the man was their ally and was thus going to assault the privateers’ base.

It all seemed like some kind of joke.

But...

(...Are you fucking kidding me? I don’t know how he’s doing it, but I’m not even sure our Level 5s would be able to carry this out so one-sidedly.)

With each swing of his sword, a large amount of snow melted creating a few dozen tons of water that assaulted the tanks and other armored vehicles. The countless rockets fired from the helicopters were all intercepted by twice as many ice spears. A sphere of water vapor in the middle of the enemy lines exploded out and broke through the thick reinforced concrete fortress like a typhoon blowing through a plastic umbrella.

A supernatural phenomenon.

A natural disaster.

As it ignored gravity and floated hundreds of meters up in the air, that was exactly what the attacking great mass of water was. It was like becoming the prey of a giant snake. The privateers who had been so into the deadly fight before had chills going down their spines at the sight of such a one-sided massacre.

“What is that...?” muttered Digurv who was inside the same anti-aircraft gun. “Is that one the espers they say are being developed in Academy City?”

Hamazura knew it was not.

But the battle ended before he had a chance to say as much.

No, it hadn’t even been a battle.

Destruction, elimination, and subjugation were all better words for the 20 minute fight.

“...That is taken care of, but only for now I suppose. Even a rotten country can easily gain more people to do its bidding,” said the blue mercenary with no intonation in his voice while he rested his giant sword on his shoulder.

Hamazura had no idea when he had appeared.

Hamazura had been watching him through the binoculars until just a second before.

The mercenary was not even slightly out of breath. It made it seem absolutely ridiculous that he had been in a life or death battle just before.

(What the hell is going on?)

Hamazura opened the upper hatch and climbed out. He grimaced at the cold that seemed to cut into him and the smell of smoke that was many times stronger outside.

The large man wearing blue gripped a giant sword in his hand. The sword was more than 3 meters long and probably weighed a few hundred kilograms. It was clearly too big for a human to carry in one hand.

“Let me ask again: What are you?” Hamazura asked as he stood there dumbfounded.

“I am Acqua of the Back, a rogue mercenary.”

It seemed the man had intended to answer the question with that response, but it did not resolve any of the questions Hamazura had. He still did not know how the man gained his strength that exceeded the limits of the human body, where the man’s loyalties lay, and whose side he was on.

(An esper...?)

Hamazura was reminded of what Digurv had said before.

Hamazura had lived in Academy City up to that point, so he naturally put any mysterious phenomena in that category.

However, this was different.

Even then, spheres of water floated as if in zero gravity around the large man. They were the ones that had protected him from the heat, flames, and shockwave of the attack helicopters exploding.

An esper could not use two different powers.

(Is he controlling the water in his body to raise his strength? No, the human body is weak to internal pressure. Doing that would just cause his blood vessels and cells to burst, so that doesn’t explain it. But then...)

After thinking through it that far, Hamazura felt like he was being thrown back into the whirling chaos once more.

Could it be that there was something else out there that allowed one to overcome the normal laws of physics besides the psychic powers of Academy City?

“Hamazura,” called a voice from within the anti-aircraft gun.

It was the Russian soldier named Glickin who had fought alongside them. He looked at Hamazura with a face stiffened with tension.

“This is bad... The radio is picking up some kind of signal. Its encrypted, so I don’t know what it contains, but it’s getting stronger.”

“So whatever it is, it’s getting closer,” said Digurv who was also within the anti-aircraft gun. “Is it reinforcements for the privateers?”

“Wait,” Hamazura said cutting them off.

He knew who it was that was sending the radio transmissions.

He could see something on the white horizon with his binoculars. Over 30 tanks were headed in their direction. The technology used was fundamentally different from the technology in the vehicle Hamazura stood on. The general design and even the materials used in the armor were in a completely different league.

And the military force was not solely comprised of tanks.

Almost hiding behind the tanks that were in the lead, Hamazura could see numerous soldiers wearing what looked like suits of armor made of composite materials. The armored vehicles that did not have any weapons on them were likely power trucks that supplied electrical power for the various high-tech weapons. Flying above them all were 30 cm long objects that looked like simple radio controlled airplanes. They seemed to be reconnaissance UAVs, but some of them had small tubes installed on the wings. They were likely small grenades with tail fins like on darts to help them soar. That way those UAVs could easily carry out small bombings.

They were unlike the privateers from before.

It wasn’t just one type of weapon.

Many different types of soldiers and weapons were in the formation in order to make up for each other’s weaknesses. There was no sense of “having fun” visible in their equipment. There was no opening that could be taken advantage of, so Hamazura and the others had no way of winning.

Hamazura gulped and then spoke.

“It’s not the privateers...”

“What?”

Digurv frowned and Hamazura clarified.

“That’s an Academy City force.”

Hamazura had spotted soldiers lined up behind the tanks. The suits of armor made of composite materials they wore were Academy City powered suits. Hamazura didn’t know the specific type of tank he was seeing, but he knew that only Academy City could bring about something like that.

(...It looks like that’s the official force. They don’t seem connected to the darker side of things like we were.)

Of course, it was possible people from the city’s darkness were using the normal Academy City equipment, but Hamazura rejected that possibility based more on his sense of smell than knowledge. People in the darkness like Hamazura would not move about that openly. And even if they did, they would leave behind a certain “smell”.

“It seems they’re coming to occupy this area,” said Acqua in a flat voice as he rested his giant sword on his shoulder. “Should I destroy them?”

“...No. I don’t know if it’s what you’re after, but from the standpoint of protecting the village, it would be better if we didn’t resist,” Hamazura said shaking his head. “I don’t know who exactly you are, but I can tell you’re a true monster. And enough of one that I can’t figure out how you’re doing that stuff despite myself having lived in Academy City. However, you can’t just continue protecting one place, right? It would be better to just let Academy City set up camp here. Once they occupy the area, they’ll protect it for months. They’ll take care of any more privateers that get sent in. Lashing out now would not help that village.”

“...”

Acqua nodded slightly. He seemed to have accepted Hamazura’s view.

“But,” said Digurv. “Weren’t you being chased by Academy City, Hamazura?”

Hamazura froze at hearing that question.

But it only lasted a few seconds.

“...We have no other choice.”

They weren’t as bad as the privateers, but Academy City’s forces were not your normal army. Hamazura knew that because he had fled from them. But they would still be effective as a means of keeping the Russians and especially the privateers from attacking.

That village was a comfortable place. The people there had all worried about Takitsubo’s condition despite her having suddenly showed up. However, Hamazura couldn’t let Takitsubo and himself get captured by Academy City. That couldn’t happen until he had found something to negotiate with.

So he had no choice but to flee.

Hamazura had to flee from the village he had risked his life to protect.

“I doubt they know I’m here, but there’s a good chance they’ll figure it out when they use their complex sensors to search the area. I doubt they’ve brought any students out here, but if they do have Psychometer, they’ll figure it out right away. So don’t hide any information. Tell them everything that happened here. Don’t do anything that would make the soldiers suspicious. If you help them, they’ll protect you.”

Hamazura gathered his thoughts together and spoke to Digurv about a basic plan.

“Of course, the Academy City forces are not allies of justice or anything like that. They’re nothing more than a different military force from Russia. But you can use them and make them your allies. Just sell them the information on me and you can get their help.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding,” Digurv said quietly in a voice that was shaking with anger. “Do you really think we would abandon someone who fought for us just for our own convenience?”

“Then what are you going to do? Who knows when the privateers will be replaced. It could be tomorrow or it could be in a week. It could be a few hundred of them and it could be a few thousand of them. Are you saying you can fight all of them on your own? That clearly isn’t realistic.”

“But...”

“I have no intention of having my life cut short and I’m not going to force your hand. I will live on and I will run as far away as I need to in order to do so.” Hamazura stretched out his hand and lightly tapped the armor of the damaged anti-aircraft gun. “So believe in me just this once. Don’t give up. What we hold within ourselves is not something cheap enough to just abandon because of a war.”

Hamazura thought he heard someone say “sorry” from within the anti-aircraft gun.

He thought he heard it, but he acted as if he hadn’t because that was not a situation in which Digurv or Glickin should be apologizing.

He then looked over towards Acqua of the Back.

“I forgot to say something.”

“What?”

“Thanks. If you hadn’t shown up, the villagers, the girl I’ve fallen for, and I would have been killed. ...I’ll return the favor someday.”

He didn’t have time to wait for the man to respond. The Academy City force would soon occupy that village and seal off the traffic network. He had to retrieve Takitsubo from the village and get out of there before that happened.

Hamazura left Acqua and brought the anti-aircraft gun near the village where he got out of the steel vehicle and ran along the snow. The villagers were not in the destroyed buildings. They had evacuated to the forest to the south. Hamazura hurried in that direction.

It felt like an invisible pressure was pushing him on from behind. He tripped and fell multiple times on the way, but he still headed as quickly as he could to the forest.

When he arrived, he heard many stifled breaths. He caught glimpses of people hiding behind the trees. They were the villagers. When they realized the person rushing in was Hamazura, they rushed out. Someone yelled something in Russian and a mother with a small child came over toward him. She was holding Takitsubo Rikou’s limp form in her arms.

“Are you okay, Takitsubo?”

“Hamazura, I’m glad you’re safe.”

“Sorry. Everything’s gotten to be a real pain in the ass again.”

He explained the situation to Takitsubo who frowned and slowly moved her lips as sweat dripped down her face.

“...The Elizalina Alliance.”

“What?”

“Russia is being invaded by Academy City. At this rate, we will not be able to escape the Academy City bases and their patrols. But Academy City will lose any pretext on which to invade if we leave the country.”

It was true that the border with the Elizalina Alliance was supposed to be nearby. It was a land border, so its defenses wouldn’t be too strict. They had no choice but to attempt to get through. They would use the national border to avoid Academy City’s pursuit and then reenter Russia to search for something to negotiate with.

Now that they had a plan, they couldn’t just wait around.

Carrying Takitsubo because she could not walk very well on her own, Hamazura headed back out along the snow. It was probably a few kilometers...no, a few dozen kilometers to the border.

That was when a short old man from the village tossed something silver and shining toward Hamazura.

He hurriedly caught it and realized it was a car key.

The old man said something in Russian with a smile and Takitsubo translated.

“He says this is the key to a blue four wheel drive car parked outside the village.”

“No, I can’t do that,” Hamazura said hesitantly. “Academy City is probably after us. If I took this, it would mean you all helped us escape. I don’t know if they’ll protect you if they knew that.”

The old man said something else in Russian.

“He says to just start the engine without the key so it looks like we stole it,” Takitsubo said.

“Just so you know, they could be listening to this conversation with a high power microphone or a Telepath.”

But then, he was up against military vehicles and powered suits. He couldn’t exactly escape from them on foot while carrying someone else.

He returned the key to the old man, but he decided to take him up on his offer and steal the car.

Hamazura headed from the forest to the village and many different people watched him leave. A small girl tried to grab at his clothes, but her mother stopped her. It was the mother who had been chased by the anti-aircraft gun.

Adjusting Takitsubo’s position on his back, Hamazura muttered while hurrying forward as if to shake off the gaze of the villagers.

“...I’m pathetic. In the end, my best option is to give up after only half helping them.”

“It’s okay, Hamazura,” Takitsubo responded while bringing her mouth up to his ear. “Even now, you’re fighting to protect me. So you aren’t pathetic.”

Hamazura continued to run as if pushed on by those words.

His current destination was the Elizalina Alliance.

In order to escape the heavily armed pursuers from Academy City, he first needed to get to that escape car.

Part 3

It was a small room made of stone.

It may have originally been a fortress or something along those lines.

The sight of that building that was a few hundred years old still being used without any preservation work may have seemed odd to someone from Japan where buildings were usually made of wood due to the frequent earthquakes.

The fluorescent lights, the air conditioner, and other everyday items that had been installed later created a sense of the present day that oddly stood out.

The Elizalina Alliance was a new nation that had been created only a few years before.

Because World War III suddenly occurred before they could construct modern military bases, it seemed they had brought radars and other military equipment into already existing buildings so they could be used as makeshift military facilities. That old fortress was one of them. Most of the people moving from door to door were men and women wearing dirty camouflage.

Amid all this was Accelerator.

He had lost to a Level 0 boy on the snowy plains of Russia, but he had been brought to the Elizalina Alliance when he lost consciousness after the battle. It seemed that Level 0 boy had arranged to have the Alliance soldiers take care of him.

“My battery is...not bad now,” Accelerator said as he reached up for the electrode at his neck.

The battery had been worn down in his repeated battles, but he had gotten a chance to recharge it in a resting area. The voltage, amperage, and shape of the plug had been different from in Japan, so he hadn’t been able to just use the device he had. He had managed to charge the battery by taking apart a local adapter and modifying the inside.

Now that Accelerator had his usual battery power back, he spread the few dozen pieces of parchment out on a wooden table.

They were the ones that the Russian army had been using that freight train to transport.

The parchment had occult-like patterns, cursive spells, and other things that looked like they were from a horror movie. He could tell each diagram had been handwritten with an ink that was sticky like wax, but it was all amazingly accurate for having been done with such an analog method. The words seemed to essentially be cursive Latin, but small notes in Russian were added in here and there.

He didn’t know what it all meant.

In fact, he wasn’t even sure if it had any meaning at all.

But Accelerator’s impression upon looking more closely at the pieces of parchment was...

(It’s almost like some kind of manual. I can tell it shows sequential images as if illustrating some sort of process, but...)

A white man who seemed to be wearing a pile of camouflage was staring at the parchment with a somehow meek expression. The soldier’s skin looked even whiter under the fluorescent lights that seemed out of place in the few hundred years old stone building that could be referred to as ruins without exaggeration.

“Do you understand this?” Accelerator asked in Russian.

The soldier’s shoulders jumped at being addressed. It was not simple fear. The man seemed surprised that Accelerator was speaking in Russian.

His gaze passed over Accelerator from the top of his head to his feet.

“...You’re Japanese, right?”

The white-haired, red-eyed monster lightly stared back at the soldier and responded to the question with a question of his own.

“What race do I look like to you?”

The soldier must have seen a dangerous irritation in those red eyes because he did not digress any further. To make absolutely sure, Accelerator asked his question again as he carefully pointed towards the parchment.

“Do you understand this?”

“No...” The soldier shook his head. “It looks like a list of magic conversion requirements, though. I think its saying what to replace and with what in order to activate a Roman Catholic spell under Russian Orthodox standards. I don’t know what kind of spell its talking about, though.”

“...”

Accelerator looked puzzled, but the soldier paled and shook his head. He seemed to be saying not to expect anything more from him. A number of male and female soldiers were rushing around. Accelerator and the soldier were the only ones staying put.

The soldier continued speaking.

“Don’t look at me like that. Unlike Lady Elizalina, I don’t know too much about this kind of thing. As her bodyguard, I’ve caught glimpses of it here and there, but I’ve never been taught the basics. If I could chant a spell and have flames shoot from my palm...well, I wouldn’t be carrying around these grenades, would I?”

The man seemed to mistakenly think that Accelerator was upset over not getting a clear answer, but he was frowning for a different reason.

What had that white soldier been saying?

Magic? Spells? A list of conversion requirements? Roman Catholic? Russian Orthodox? Activating spells? This kind of thing? Caught glimpses of it? Taught the basics? Chanting a spell and having flames shoot from his palm?

The soldier had been saying those things as if they were common knowledge, but they were all beyond Accelerator’s scope of understanding. It wasn’t just some lie he was making up. Nor was he talking about something spiritual or religious. That soldier was listing off those strange terms as if they were techniques that could actually be used in reality. That was clear from the way he had said them. There had been nothing different in his manner of speech from someone discussing the timing with which to pour wine into a pot in order to bring out the flavor of a meat.

Accelerator didn’t understand.

But if there existed something that couldn’t even be understood by the #1 monster of Academy City, that crystallization of scientific technology, then it might very well be the key to dealing with Last Order’s seemingly unsolvable problem.

Aiwass had told him to go to Russia.

And that Level 0 boy had left him that memo saying “Index Librorum Prohibitorum”.

Those keys were all connected.

“...Who is this Elizalina?”

“She’s a magician...no, a sorcerer. Apparently, that’s what you call a magic user who focuses more on raising the next generation than on herself. If the Anglican Church knew, it seems they would send some fearsome hunting dogs after her. Lady Elizalina was the driving force behind readjusting the religious base of the Alliance and successfully training and producing magicians who can actually fight. Well, it’s still not enough to directly take on one of the three major denominations like the Russian Orthodox Church, but it’s at least enough to construct a defensive line to reflect distant curses. That’s the bare minimum towards being able to call ourselves a nation that has a mature cultural history from a spiritual standpoint.”

Accelerator was thinking that the man would be easier to understand if he were speaking in a programming language. They had passed the point where a mere difference in culture was enough to explain it.

“Anyway, can this Elizalina decipher these parchments?”

“If she can speak,” the soldier said with a sigh. “But she’s on a bed in a field hospital right now.”

“Tch. I was brought here without my consent and then my last hope of getting an explanation is moaning in pain in a hospital room.”

“Is that girl okay?” asked the soldier talking about Last Order.

The girl who appeared to be around 10 was lying atop a sofa at the wall of the same room. Last Order’s limp body did not stir. She was completely unconscious. Recalling how no “presence” of a human could be felt from her, Accelerator felt a coldness from her stillness.

“Does she look okay? I fled the country holding her in my arms because of this.”

“Then you really shouldn’t move her now,” said the white soldier as he looked between Accelerator and Last Order’s faces. “If you’re going to be moving around from now in, it would be bad to be carrying her around with you, right? It may not be much compared to Academy City technology, but it might be better for her to stay in our hospital. Just having a bed can make a huge difference.”

“...I have no intention of staying for long or getting into a fight. It would be best if this ended up being my ultimate destination and everything could be resolved here so that brat was back to her horribly cheerful self.” Accelerator scratched at his head and then asked a question as if he had just remembered something. “Is there anyone other than Elizalina who can decipher the parchments?”

“...Our magicians were trained on the assumption that they would only be used in battles here, so they don’t have much traditional knowledge. Deciphering something like that would be difficult for anyone other than Lady Elizalina.”

That meant he had no choice but to wait for the injured woman to come to.

He could always leave the Alliance and search for some other lead, but the white soldier was right. Last Order’s condition was unpredictable. She wasn’t in a state where he could be dragging her all over the place with no clear goal.

(...Even if I am gaining something from it, I never thought the day would come when I would be clearing my schedule for someone else.)

“When is this sleeping beauty of yours going to wake up?”

“If things go well, in a few more hours. The general anesthesia should be worn off by then. ...But she just got out of surgery. Just reading the text will be the limit for her. She’s supposed to be getting complete bed rest, so even that would preferably be avoided.”

“I see.”

“What about the girl? If you want a bed for her, you should ask for one sooner rather than later. You headed across Eurasia, so you should know. We’re in a war here. There’s no guarantee that there will always be an open bed.”

“...It’s true that carrying her around while fighting is rather stupid. Given her condition, it may very well be better to throw her in a hospital. But...”

Suddenly, Accelerator pulled a handgun out from his belt and shot out the legs of a different nearby soldier.

The white soldier was unable to react to the sudden action by the person he had just been speaking with.

Meanwhile, Accelerator shot out the legs of two or three more men and women within the room.

“They were spies,” Accelerator said languidly. “If I’m gonna leave that brat somewhere, I need to make sure it’s a nice clean environment.”

Accelerator lightly kicked the first man he had shot who had collapsed unmoving to the floor. A tiny microphone similar to what a performer would use fell from his clothes and it was connected by a cable to a medium for recording and transmitting. The actions of the Elizalina forces were being monitored by the Russians. Or perhaps, they were using advice and false information to lead the Alliance astray.

The white soldier hurriedly checked the pockets of the others Accelerator had injured. Similar devices were found hidden on them.

“The range of those transmitters is low. Most likely another spy has a real transmitter outside.”

“Of course, he’ll be on the run after noticing this commotion. Or perhaps he’ll take suicidal action ‘for Russia’.”

Accelerator used his cane to head for the exit to the room.

“I’ll pay for my stay by making a sweep. I don’t have time to go over the entire 300 km stretch of the Alliance, but I’ll exterminate all of the vermin near this plaza. And I’ll give you all a lecture on finding this kind of vermin. You can do the rest on your own.”

“How did you know? There are two different kinds of spies. The first are the ones using the power of a large organization like the KGB or the CIA. The second are those who have no name for themselves and belong to no organization but end up taking on jobs that cause international problems when left with public records. These are clearly the latter. That’s beyond the level that a Japanese teenager should be able to detect.”

“Not necessarily. If you watch for small characteristics and actions, they stand out from everyone else allowing you to naturally find them,” Accelerator responded off hand.

The white soldier shuddered at how casually the boy spoke about it.

“This place you stand in is not the only hell. If you ask me, this level of darkness is still rather bland.”

It soon became clear whether that was a bluff or not.

That monster who did nothing but exterminate the darkness amid cutting edge technology and great evil was now working to prepare that area for Last Order’s stay.

Part 4

A girl’s voice flowed smoothly within St. George’s Cathedral in London.

“Chapter 8, Verse 25. Beginning elimination of the person obstructing the remote viewing. Analyzing the structure of the enemy’s spell.”

The noise as if from a scratched record was now gone.

And with a great wind, red wings grew from the back of the girl in the white nun’s habit. Their color resembled blood more than fire. As complex magic circles flickered within her pupils, she slowly moved her head around viewing her surroundings.

She was Index.

Seeing that her manner had completely changed, Stiyl Magnus frowned slightly. He would burn enemy magicians to ashes without his expression changing even slightly, but those slight wrinkles appeared on his face because he could not completely suppress the pain within him.

“M T W O T F F T O. (One of the five great elements from which the world is constructed.) I I G O I I O F. (The great flame of the beginning.)”

Even so, Stiyl did not fail to take action.

He had been entrusted with her life.

He pulled out a single rune card.

“I I B O L A I I A O E. (It is a light of blessing that raises life and a light of judgement that punishes evil.) I I M H A I I B O D. (It is overflowing with calm blessings and with freezing misfortune that destroys cold darkness.) I I N F I I M S. (Its name is fire and its role is the sword.) I C R M M B G P!! (Be manifested and become the power that eats into my body!!)”

No, it was not just a single card.

There were cards stuck to seemingly every single spot in the room. It was to such an extent that it seemed odd that no one had noticed them up to that point.

Flames swirled.

A mass of exploding flame exceeding 3 meters in height appeared. It was in the form of a person. The mass of flames that burned at 3000 degrees Celsius was named Innocentius.

Index’s head moved slightly to ascertain her target.

Immediately afterwards, a great noise exploded out and Innocentius had already been blown away.

The girl had swung the red wings growing from her back. With that alone, the giant god of flames was instantaneously ripped apart despite being supported by thousands of cards. It did not even have the chance to carry out its automatic regeneration. The burden received by Innocentius reversed the flow of energy and burned the cards black making them useless.

That was the power of the grimoire library Index Librorum Prohibitorum.

By freely wielding the 103,000 grimoires, she became the strongest defense mechanism for protecting that treasure trove of knowledge from those who would usurp it.

However, Stiyl did not have time to calmly analyze all that.

When Innocentius was blown away, it scattered in all directions and the explosive wind bared its fangs towards Innocentius’s user.

“...!?”

He was knocked straight to the wall.

With that great shock to his back, even his breathing stopped. The girl with magic circles hidden in her eyes calmly watched on.

“Chapter 10, Verse 3. Effects of the current spell confirmed. Extending the power and range in order to end the life functions of the enemy element has been determined to be the most effective method.”

Multiple red wings stretched out all at once.

The wings had grown large enough that they grazed the ceiling of the cathedral as they rushed towards Stiyl like a closing bear trap.

He had no time to think of a spell.

Stiyl forced his body to move despite having been weakened from the previous blow. He rolled along the floor.

The multiple wings soared down.

There was nothing beyond luck to explain how he was not hit.

But the floor of St. George’s Cathedral broke with a loud crumbling noise.

The stone footing, Stiyl Magnus, and everything else there were swallowed up by the earth.

He didn’t have time to think about bracing for his landing.

The taste of blood mixed in with his breaths.

Stiyl had landed face up and it took a few seconds for him to finally realize where he had landed.

He was in the underground spiritual item vault.

Index’s strike had damaged the very foundation at the base of the construction of the cathedral.

(...Ghah. Dammit. There are tons of defensive walls prepared here. She just caused a part of the anti-magician headquarters to collapse!!)

She was the defense mechanism developed to prevent her tremendous techniques and knowledge from entering the hands of global magic cabals.

Thinking you could take her on 10,000 to 1 was still being naïve.

Taking her on 1 to 1 was just plain stupid.

Fighting her when she was in John’s Pen mode was like trying to hold back an entire war.

Before, the Saint known as Kanzaki Kaori and the Imagine Breaker known as Kamijou Touma had been there.

But this time was different.

He could not rely on those kinds of irregulars.

He heard a noise coming from directly above him.

As he stared up from his face-up position, he saw a small girl looking down over the edge of the crumbled hole.

Her lips moved.

“Chapter 11, Verse 2. An effective level of destructive power has been confirmed. A shower of repeated attacks that do not give the enemy time to recover has been determined to be the best strategy.”

The grimoire library jumped down without hesitation from that cliff-like height.

Stiyl rolled to the side with all his strength.

Immediately afterwards, Index’s feet mercilessly crushed the spot he had been in a moment before.

Part 5

He stomped on the accelerator so hard he thought it would break.

Hamazura Shiage desperately made slight adjustments of the wheel of the four wheel drive car to ensure he did not lose control on the snow. The car had studded tires that were not allowed inside Japan, but the snow was piled up so high that the car still skidded to the side.

Why was he continuing to drive despite that danger?

The answer was reflected in the rearview mirror.

“Fuck!! I can’t even get a chance to pull away from them!!” Hamazura yelled while gritting his teeth.

Academy City powered suits were closing in on him from 50 meters behind the car. Those monstrous mechanical suits were approaching at high speed in a team of 5 that looked like the protagonist team to a super sentai show. They slid along as if on skates, jumped in a way that resembled a triple jump, and otherwise accurately pursued Hamazura and Takitsubo. The two of them had not been able to safely escape the surrounding forces. The enemy forces had enough leeway to send five troops after a single car. Hamazura had taken them lightly.

But even so, he hadn’t been foolish enough to just take them on.

He would have been killed in an instant in a fight with even one of those things. Against five of them, he would be killed in a fifth of an instant. Hamazura didn’t know if that was a good way of expressing it, but he couldn’t come up with a better term.

Takitsubo spoke to him from the passenger seat where she had her seatbelt properly buckled. She had a map on her lap.

“Hamazura, they’re getting closer bit by bit.”

“I know that!! Dammit. They’re all chasing after us like they’re ice skating or something!! The exhibition of that kind of unreserved tech didn’t bring about more weird urban legends, did it!?”

“The border of the Elizalina Alliance is about 500 meters away. Can we make it?”

He didn’t have time to respond.

He had barely been keeping the car under control up to that point and it had finally started to skid to the side. Hamazura frantically spun the wheel in an attempt to recover, but the car swerved off the road that had no fence or guardrail and straight into a forest.

He couldn’t hit the brake.

If he didn’t continue to step on the gas, the powered suits would catch up.

As the scenery changed, the speed at which he seemed to experience things suddenly increased.

Trees thicker than telephone poles slipped past both sides of the car at terrifying speeds.

(500 meters...)

The powered suits did not care.

Despite cutting through the forest at about the same speed as Hamazura and Takitsubo, they unhesitatingly approached as if they were running atop a safe roller coaster track. They didn’t just head along the snow-covered ground. They would occasionally take daring shortcuts by kicking off of the branches or trunks of the thick trees. It wasn’t just their strength that was being increased by the machine. The suits’ sensors to take in information and the processors that heightened their thought and decision-making processes were above anything Hamazura had ever seen before. They may have had electrodes attached that directly influenced the workings of their brains.

(500 meters!!)

The car floated up in to the air.

The forest was not flat like the asphalt road.

A slight rise in the ground acted as a jump that sent the four wheel drive car souring into the air.

“Oh, shi—!?”

The tires touched down again before he could finish swearing.

The car skidded much more than it had before. He frantically operated the wheel, but the car turned 90 degrees to the side in no time at all.

But luck was on Hamazura’s side.

At that same time, the car slid out of the forest and back onto a snowy plain.

The border with the Elizalina Alliance was ahead.

A 2 meter chain-link fence with barbed wire was set up between the countries, but Hamazura just ignored it. If he tried to regain control, it would just lead to losing time.

(We just need to slide on through!!)

They plowed through the fence while still facing to the side.

The powered suit’s thick fingertips just barely missed them.

The car was wrapped up in the chain-link fence and the driver side window shattered loudly. The car continued on into the Elizalina Alliance. The remains of the fence must have been chewing at the front wheels because an odd noise reverberated up. Shortly thereafter, Hamazura completely lost control of the car. The car spun around three times and finally came to a stop pointed towards the Russian border.

They had escaped.

They were only about 20 meters into the Elizalina Alliance, but they were inside it nonetheless. The powered suits...or more accurately, Academy City’s forces, were officially at war with Russia so they could not enter the Elizalina Alliance.

But...

“You’re kidding...” Hamazura moaned from the driver seat.

The powered suits that were supposed to be unable to touch them relentlessly walked forward.

He doubted they had not noticed the border.

They knew it was there, but they were ignoring it.

One of the machine’s hands was gripping something.

It was a much too large revolver. A can of coffee could easily fit inside the barrel. It probably fired grenades or something like that. If it was actually a shotgun, Hamazura couldn’t even imagine how much destructive force it would hold. Either way, the car had no bulletproofing, so it would become a ball of fire after a single shot.

The barrel unhesitatingly pointed their way.

No voice called out a threat or a warning.

Hamazura’s gaze moved to the doorknob on the driver side door, but the remains of the fence were wrapped around the door preventing him from opening it even if he tried.

(I forgot.)

Hamazura thought to himself while staring blankly into that barrel that looked like a tunnel to death.

He was not playing a sport.

It was not a card game.

It was a real battle.

If the weak or the loser yelled out about a violation of the rules, no one would come to fix the problem. With all the time he had spent running around in back alleys, he should have known that well.

He didn’t even notice how dry his throat was.

The powered suit’s thick finger that was on the trigger of the giant revolver moved.

And then Hamazura heard what sounded like a firework being fired. It was not the explosive noise of the firework blooming into a large flower. It was the sound made when the firework was fired up into the sky from the ground.

He frowned.

He didn’t have time to figure out which direction the noise had come from.

Immediately afterwards, a line of flames erupted along the border including where the powered suits were.

The scene looked like some kind of joke.

It was not a usual explosion where the flames spread in every direction. The flames spread out unnaturally like a line had been drawn with oil. The flames were 10 meters high and they stretched for four or five hundred meters. The windshield shattered. They were a fair distance away, but the intense light and heat were blown against Hamazura and Takitsubo’s faces. He could feel the car that was stopped atop the snow sliding a few centimeters back due to the shockwave.

“What?” Hamazura made sure his throat still worked and then spoke to Takitsubo who was in the passenger seat. “Napalm...?”

“From the sound just before...it seems it was a rocket with a liquid explosive inside.”

Takitsubo’s breathing sounded faint.

But she was still alive.

Hamazura didn’t know what had happened or who had done it, but he decided they should at least get out of the now-useless car and hide within the Elizalina Alliance.

But then a loud noise exploded out.

It was the sound of metal being crushed.

Someone was standing atop the hood of the car. Hamazura couldn’t believe it, but it was almost like the person had fallen from the sky and landed there.

From the driver seat he could only see slender legs.

As he could see the person’s heels, the person must have been staring at the wall of flames from the liquid explosive.

A number of powered suits squirmed within the flames.

Even in that much fire, the powered suits were still functioning properly. They looked at the person standing on top of the hood...and then took a step back. Hamazura had seen them stop moving for an instant before they took that step. It was as if they had received orders over their radios. The powered suits continued through to the other side of the flames and left.

It seemed the person standing on the hood had saved Hamazura and Takitsubo.

Who was this person?

That question was resolved quickly.

The person whose heels were pointed their way used one of those heels to lightly scrape at the edge of the broken windshield. At least, that was all it looked like the person had done. Immediately afterwards, the car’s roof that the heel had scraped against bent and separated from the rest of the car.

With a tremendous noise, Hamazura’s view greatly opened up all at once.

The person standing before him was a monster with white hair and red eyes.

Hamazura Shiage recognized him.

That monster was...

“Accelerator...!?”

“Tch. Don’t bring in more fucking problems while I’m trying to find spies that are already here,” the monster said sounding irritated to the bottom of his heart. “Tell me absolutely everything.”

Part 6

“Fine then,” a blonde-haired blue-eyed woman said in Japanese within a field hospital that was really just an old stone fortress that medical equipment had been brought into.

The woman sitting up in a bed had bandages wrapped around her. However, her body did not look as if it would be fine even without them. Her skin was more pale than it was white, she had large shadows under her eyes, and she was so slim that the lines of her bones could be seen. She looked like she might turn into quite a beauty if she were fed chankonabe for half a year straight.

She was Elizalina, the women for whom the alliance was named.

With a melancholy attitude, she held her head in her slim hands.

“If I have a chance to use recovery magic, I would really rather use it on myself first, though.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“There is no need to lower your head to me. It’s just that I was forced into emergency surgery by my aide despite having said I did not need to rest.”

It seemed she had taken damage, but that she was going to help Takitsubo. Hamazura was truly thankful, but he was also confused.

What was “recovery magic”?

At first, he thought she must have gotten the Japanese word for what she was trying to say wrong, but she clearly seemed to know more Japanese than an idiot like him. That meant she had said what she meant, but...what did she mean?

He looked over toward Accelerator who only clicked his tongue and averted his gaze.

Hamazura had heard from him that the Elizalina Alliance might have some kind of special medical techniques that did not even exist in Academy City. It wasn’t clear if they would be able to alleviate Takitsubo’s symptoms, but he had decided it was worth looking into and had headed for the field hospital carrying Takitsubo.

(Recovery? She said recovery magic, right? Like in RPGs? Or is it some medical term? Recovery makes sense in that context, but how does magic fit in?)

Hamazura’s head was full of questions, but Elizalina had spoken about it so readily and smoothly that he didn’t voice his questions. It was a method that worked for swindlers, too. Just by rattling off words without giving the other person a word in edgewise could leave them thinking there was some level of sense behind it.

Elizalina ignored Hamazura and turned her head in a different direction.

She was looking at Takitsubo who was just barely managing to sit in a small chair and at a girl who appeared to be around 10 who was lying in a bed. She had been referred to with the extremely odd name of Last Order, and Hamazura wondered if it was some kind of esper name.

“I have come to the following conclusion.” From atop her bed, Elizalina pointed to Takitsubo and then Last Order as she spoke. “I can probably manage with that girl in the track suit, but that smaller girl will be more difficult.”

“...”

Accelerator’s eyebrows twitched slightly as he leaned up against the wall.

It seemed Last Order had been brought there by the #1.

Hearing Elizalina’s calm or perhaps cruel statement, Hamazura’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Ah...eh? What do you mean when you say you can manage?”

“Is the word magic not enough for you to understand?”

“Hah?”

“Is the word magic not enough for you to understand?” Elizalina repeated herself.

It seemed she was not going to let things continue without some kind of reaction from him, so Hamazura just nodded.

What was all this about magic?

“Let’s set aside the issue of whether it actually exists or not,” she said casually avoiding the core of the issue. “I’m sure you know that witches and the like have carried out occult rituals since ancient times. Whether those rituals have any real effects or not, there was a time when that kind of thing was believed in and those rituals were carried out using certain processes.”

“What? You mean those hook-nosed old women stirring giant pots?”

“Those rituals used certain types of medicinal plants that are similar to what are known as narcotics today and toxins taken from certain animals.”

“??? Wait a second. What does this have to do with what’s wrong with Takitsubo?”

Takitsubo\'s illness was caused by the Body Crystal created by Academy City’s scientific technology. Hamazura didn’t think a clue to healing her lay in strange occult curses.

“Leaving aside the issue of whether those things were mere illusions or if they truly had effects that overcame physical phenomena,” Elizalina said, “methods of safely carrying out those rituals using toxins were passed down orally when those rituals were prevalent. For instance, there was a method of training one’s body to resist the toxins by taking in the toxin bit by bit in order to get used to it. And there was also a method to remove the toxin collected within one’s body.”

“What...but, what’re you...?”

Suddenly Hamazura almost stood up from his chair.

“You mean you can heal her!?”

Elizalina held out a hand to try to calm him down.

“Yes. The girl in the track suit and the smaller girl have different illnesses. The smaller girl is having the toxin constantly poured into her body, so it will be replaced even if I were to remove it now. But the girl in the track suit should be okay once I remove the toxin collected in her body. It will not completely heal her, but she should be much better off than she is now.”

Elizalina must have been referring to the Body Crystal.

It was true that removing the Body Crystal from Takitsubo’s body would improve her condition by quite a bit even if it did not completely heal her. Hamazura wasn’t sure how much the hospital could do about Academy City’s Body Crystal, but methods of healing that seemed fake would sometimes actually have a scientific basis behind them that could be used as the basis of a new medical technique.

“...I see.”

Hope seeped into Hamazura bit by bit.

Without thinking, he embraced Takitsubo who was sitting next to him.

“I see!! Isn’t that great, Takitsubo!? It’s not quite what we planned, but coming to Russia really was the right decision!”

“Hamazura, I can’t breathe.”

“Sorry! But I...I...!!”

Takitsubo kept saying she was having trouble breathing from his tight embrace, but she brushed her cheek on his back when she saw the tears welling up in his eyes.

“...”

Meanwhile, Academy City’s strongest Level 5 silently folded his arms as he leaned against the wall.

He hadn’t found a way to save Last Order there.

If the same thing had happened just a few hours before, he would likely have felt an intense impatience and fear burning inside him. He might have settled for hopeless struggling in an attempt to remove Last Order’s pain even an instant sooner.

Something seemed to be changing within him bit by bit.

It was like iron changing to steel by being intensely heated and then rapidly cooled.

(...Yelling out and stomping around isn’t going to help the situation. At any rate, I know I don’t have much time. I can’t waste time on a dead end. If I use more time than I gain from this stopgap measure, I’ll be cornered in the end.)

Having made that quick decision, Accelerator pulled the pieces of parchment from his pocket.

“You can go with that plan for healing them, but answer my question first. Can you read this?”

“If I spent time on it, I might be able to.” Elizalina nodded slightly. “The strings of characters on the surface are nothing more than a help for deciphering it. From what I can see, it looks to be in a Russian Orthodox format, so I could likely solve it. However, it would take time. Do you still wish to leave this with me?”

“No.” Accelerator lightly lifted his hand with the parchments in it as if taking them back. “I just needed to know that it could be ‘solved’. You focus on healing those two.”

“Ah...”

Hamazura opened his mouth to speak after listening to all that, but he couldn’t come up with anything to say.

Accelerator gave a scornful laugh. Hamazura felt that the other boy might have felt as if Hamazura’s own joy at Takitsubo being able to be saved was like rubbing salt in the wound because the girl with him could not.

“I don’t have much time. I’ll be going.”

Accelerator headed for the door with his cane and Elizalina asked him a question while Hamazura was still at a loss for words.

“Do you think you’ve found a lead?”

“If I haven’t, I’ll go look for one.”

Accelerator left the hospital room and called over a soldier who was walking down the hall. That hospital was not a peaceful medical facility. It was just a fortress being used for military purposes that had medical equipment brought in. It was more of a military facility than a medical one.

“Where are the spies I caught?”

“Th-they’re being interrogated, but it isn’t going well. We aren’t experts at getting people to talk and the Russian spies were divided into small cells for each job, so they may not know any more information than they needed to.”

“I see,” Accelerator replied bluntly to the withering soldier.

“Where are you headed? If you want to watch on, I can show you the way.”

“No.” Accelerator waved the man away with a hand. “I’m going to follow up on a better source of information.”

The soldier frowned, but Accelerator had no reason to explain further.

Leaving the soldier behind, he walked along the long hallway to a different hospital room from the one Elizalina was in. He opened the door without knocking.

Inside was someone who it was surprising was not restrained.

He might really have been influenced by that Level 0.

“...Misaka Worst,” Accelerator muttered and the high school-aged girl sitting on the bed glared back at him with contempt.

She was a special clone created in the project known as the Third Season based on the cells from the #3 Level 5.

The girl was wearing a white battle outfit, but her right arm was wrapped in a cast and hanging from a strap. In their battle, Accelerator had broken that arm after he had snapped. She also had a large amount of gauze stuck from behind her ears to the back of her neck.

They were enemies.

It would not be surprising if either of them stabbed a blade into the other’s heart without a word of warning.

“What do you want?”

Misaka Worst moved her skin just a few millimeters and created an expression that would make anyone uncomfortable.

She seemed to be prepared anew.

“Even if you saved Misaka back then, her only value is for information. But unfortunately for you, Misaka does not have the ability to just tell you everything. It should be clear what would happen if she did. Although, Misaka supposes you have pretty good taste if you’re going to destroy her anew right after healing her.”

“Work together with me.”

“For what? Why? How?”

“I found a few Russian listening devices. The spies will be giving all sorts of information and I want you to sort through that information. With your knowledge, you might be able to find a clue.”

“What’s your basis for thinking this?”

“The timing of your attack.” Accelerator lightly waved the rolled up parchments. “It was right when I was about to ask that Vodyanoy person about the details of these parchments. The timing of your arrival seemed intentional. You may not know the details yourself, but you were probably used in order to prevent me from finding some clue. If we compare the information you have and the information from the Russian spies, we might find something.”

“No, not that. What’s your basis for thinking Misaka will work with you?”

Misaka Worst grinned.

Her words intentionally brought the possibility of danger on herself. Perhaps someone who viewed the world through spiteful eyes did not hesitate even when it meant bringing injury to herself.

But Accelerator responded without any change in expression.

“The Third Season is not going to be the winner in this. I’m sure you aren’t stupid enough to think it is.”

“...”

“It seems Academy City wants to use the Misaka Network to do something. A problem occurred with that network, so they needed to set up a new network. That is why you were sent to kill that brat and me. ...But guess what. I don’t know if tens of thousands of clones are supposed to be created for the Third Season, but the fate of you and the new network will be the same. You’ll either be used up for someone’s profit or you won’t be able to carry out your purpose and another network will be set up in your place. Either way, it’s a dead end. This is about the values of people who applaud the deaths of 20,000 people as a success. I’m sure you know that you won’t be used in any good way.”

“And you’re saying Misaka should work with you because of that?” Misaka Worst laughed scornfully. “Are you going to join hands with someone who is in the middle of all that evil?”

“You were made to pick up the negative emotions such as spite and hatred from the network, right?”

“And?”

“Does that fucking dark brain of yours really possess anything as admirable as devotion until death to your masters who see you as expendable? I’ve heard that brat saying she wasn’t going to let even one more clone die.”

“Even if that’s so, Misaka doesn’t think that obeying you will resolve that issue. In fact, joining with you would only shorten her lifespan.”

“I see. Then it’s time to make a deal.”

“Hah?”

“The Dark May Project.”

“You don’t mean...?”

“That project attempted to use my method of controlling my power to strengthen other espers’ personal realities. It seems they had a certain level of success, but it didn’t lead them to a Level 5. The only way to make you irreplaceable is for you to gain an ability that the other Sisters do not have. What’ll you do? If you analyze how I fight, you might be able to find a way out.”

“...”

There were a few seconds of silence.

That time was not taken up by her thinking.

She did not mind losing her life.

The way she had spoken before made that clear.

What would make up her mind was whether it sounded fun or not. Was doing it really worth turning her back on the large organization of Academy City?

In other words, she was testing the flavor.

She rolled a mass of spite around in her mouth seeing if the taste of it was appropriate for her or not.

And then she smiled.

Misaka Worst once again began acting out of spite as she had been created to do.

“Ah, ha. ...That is very much like this Misaka. That may be more effective than bringing out an expression of suffering on that lovely command tower’s face and appealing to your good will and philanthropy.”

“I will find a clue to getting rid of that brat’s illness. I will find a route for you other than to just be used up. That is why I will fight Academy City. I will outsmart them. Our interests are aligned, so quit complaining and get to work.”

“But y’know...” Misaka Worst stood up from the bed and lightly waved her right arm from the elbow because it was in a cast. “Misaka was modified solely to kill Academy City’s #1, so she never thought the day would come when she would be forcing a smile after having all that done to her.”

That kind of spiteful comment was a special characteristic of hers because she was made to easily display the negative emotions from the network. Even if it wasn’t intentional, it still rubbed Accelerator the wrong way. It especially affected him because it had likely been designed to do just that.

Accelerator stared at Misaka Worst’s cast and muttered a few words while barely moving his mouth.

“...Sorry. That was my mistake because I went along with their manipulation.”

For an instant, Misaka Worst’s spite-covered face turned to a blank expression. It was the expression of someone whose thoughts had ground to a halt.

“Bah hyah.”

And then Misaka Worst rolled back onto the bed she had just stood up from.

“Ah hya hya hya hya!! What was that!? What was thaaaat!? Misaka’s body was prepared and especially tuned to be sent to the battlefield!! You need to at least be a target of hate standing at the very peak of evil! If you show her that meek expression, her whole reason for existing starts to slip away!! Hya hya hya hya hya!!”

“...Fuck being a villain,” Accelerator spat out as Misaka Worst held her stomach and kicked her legs around. “I wasn’t able to ensure the safety of a single kid while being a master villain. I no longer have any reason to stay fixated on that.”

Neither that Level 0 nor the monster known as Aiwass had been fixated on being either good or evil. When fighting against an opponent like that, simply choosing a side was not enough.

Misaka Worst had tears in her eyes and she asked a question in an oddly satisfied voice.

“Where is a monster that was so utterly stained supposed to go after leaving the field of darkness?”

“Don’t ask me. That’s what I’m going to look for now,” Accelerator responded sounding annoyed. “Both you and I are monsters purposefully set to be filled with evil by Academy City. I don’t think that is enough to just abdicate all responsibility for what I’ve done and nor do I want it to be. They made the preparations and we went along with it. By heading along the path of evil, we can’t oppose them. That’s just continuing right along the track they’ve laid out for us.”

“...”

“So let’s make them cry this time. Let’s truly fight back. I’ve had enough of being manipulated by them. I don’t care if I end up doing things that aren’t like me for this.”

Accelerator then gently stretched out the hand that was not holding his cane.

It was like he was asking for a handshake from a war buddy who had watched his back.

“Please.”

In that instant, Misaka Worst sank into silence as if time had stopped.

But it only lasted a few seconds.

As if she couldn’t hold back her true self, Misaka Worst once again began holding her stomach and kicking her legs around atop the bed with tears in her eyes.

“Hya hya hya hya hya hya hya hya hya hya hya hya hya!! Are you an idiot? Are you an iiiidiot!? Oh, wow! Look at that stupid serious look!! Ah hya hya hya hya hya hya hya hya hya!!”

As Misaka Worst rolled around on the bed, she laughed so hard that she seriously thought her diaphragm was going to break.

But she finally rolled up in a ball and then sat up all at once.

She tightly gripped the outstretched hand.

A nice sentimental-feeling sound like a glove catching a baseball rang throughout the hospital room.

For someone as filled with spite as her, grasping someone’s hand like that must have taken quite a bit of resolution. But Misaka Worst had overcome it. That handshake between enemies who had once tried to take each other’s life was proof of that.

Misaka Worst stood up with their hands still clasped like a lady being escorted. She grinned with a mischievous smile and spoke to the person who had once been her archenemy.

“This is the first time for Misaka to grasp someone’s hand like this, but it is for you too, isn’t it?”

“...No,” Accelerator muttered quietly averting his gaze a bit. “I’ve done it quite a few times with a horrible brat who looks an awful lot like you.”

Reminded of the touch of a certain girl from the feel of that hand, he once again set his resolve.

That was not the end.

He would hold that girl’s hand once more.

He would make sure of it.