Big…Sis…ter…!!
Even through all that, she put the last of her strength into her weakened body. She knew all that would change was how far open her wounds tore needlessly—but she absolutely couldn’t allow herself to let go of her energy. And at the same time, she prayed: that some moronic miracle happened and that one single girl, strong but still just a girl, saved her.
Boom!!
Then, as if in answer to her prayers, an orange line stabbed through from the floor to the ceiling.
It was a piece of metal, fired at three times the speed of sound.
The slender heat ray, plunging diagonally through the room like a needle, was going far too fast for the naked eye to observe. It was like a laser, its beginning and end hidden from view. Just a single straight line, burning the air in its wake from its extreme speed.
Shirai, for a moment, looked at it, befuddled.
Then, there was a
thump
as the entire building shook. A storm of destruction sprang forth as though using the orange line as a fuse. An air hole two meters across opened up in the floor, knocking over all the objects right above it, blowing them aside, destroying everything. She felt the floor tilt slightly as she heard the sounds of rubble crashing down to the floors beneath.
Railgun.
The ability and the name of the one who possessed it came to mind, and Shirai, still collapsed in a heap, worked her brain.
“With this much ventilation, there will still be time, right?”
A girl’s voice—an all-too-familiar one.
There was no panic, no fear, no doubt in it at all.
It was relaxed, saying the current situation was not even close to a problem.
“I hate to say it, but this is as much as I can do. Now you go and use your fist to bring her back!!”
Shirai was taken aback at the words.
She craned her head, and then she saw.
She saw a person running through the windhole tunnel opened by the Railgun that was stabbing through the concrete floor. She saw a boy running up a staircase of ceiling rubble and furniture from the floor below that had piled up in the diagonally opened windhole leading up to her floor.
He could have never made it with the normal stairs.
So he hadn’t used them at all.
There were no weapons in the hands of the boy using such an absurd shortcut. From the looks of it, he didn’t have some incredible ability, either. But he still ran. Ran up to this floor, to where there was clearly some abnormal phenomenon occurring. Simply running and clenching his right fist tight as a boulder.
Within a second, the distortion in space would hit its limit and burst from within.
But at that moment, the boy thrust out his fist, without even paying attention to what was flying at him.
Toward the strange thing in front of him—Musujime’s attack, so fantastic, so strong, and so unrealistic.
4,520 kilograms of mass.
He swung his fist like a wrecking ball, aiming to crush that enormous weight all at once.
Ker-thump!!
The boy’s fist collided with the space.
He gritted his teeth, and his fist somehow plunged straight through that space to the other side.
A strange thing happened.
There was suddenly the roar of steel being struck. It was like he was using his fist to flatten out the very distortion in space itself. He was punching away whatever invisible “thing” was disrupting the course of light.
Forced,
direct
interference from a three-dimensional vector into a special eleven-dimensional point. Shirai was always aware of such calculations, so she knew—it was like forcing a one-way road to go in the opposite direction.
As Kuroko Shirai lay there, dazed at the irrationality of it all, the boy said, “Uhh, sorry I’m late. Well, I mean, I sort of ran off without really understanding what was going on. If I hadn’t run into Mikoto on the way here, I wouldn’t have known what to do—Hey, wait a second! Why are you all busted up like that?!”
The boy ran over in a fluster as though he’d only just noticed the state Shirai was in.
“You…Why…Y-you risked your life for me?” stammered Shirai despite herself. This certainly didn’t seem like a person who had successfully pulled off the ridiculous feat of pounding warped space back into its normal shape. So she asked, just to make sure. “I’m a complete stranger, aren’t I? You have that kind of power…You may possess such great strength…but how can you be so earnest? How did you get into all this with no hesitation?”
For just a moment, the boy looked taken aback at what she’d said. Then he replied, “I mean, you can ask me why or how, but…to be frank, it’s quicker and easier to stand up to things instead of running away, right? Well, I mean, if running away would have saved you, I would have chosen that in a heartbeat.”
“It’s not…that easy, though! Didn’t you feel at all scared or anything?”
The boy didn’t seem affected by her words. His response came without a second’s hesitation. “Well, I guess I was kinda scared. But hey, I made a promise, right?”
Promise?
repeated Shirai in her head as the boy gave a good look around. She wondered what he was doing before realizing an instant later he was checking to see that nobody was around.
Finally, he spoke again in a low, secretive voice. “…Yeah, a promise. To protect Mikoto Misaka and the world around her. With some smug, shy guy whose name I don’t even know.” He grinned a little. “I was a little late to the party, but I’ll ask anyway. Am I holding up my part of that promise right now?”
Shirai gave him a confused look, but finally she got her brain working again and looked around—then stopped on one thing.
Mikoto Misaka, the Railgun, the ace of Tokiwadai Middle School, was running over to them. Running through the giant windhole she’d opened herself. Running to her wound-covered underclassman. Running with a face that looked about ready to cry.
In Kuroko Shirai’s eyes was the girl she wanted to protect the most, entirely unharmed.
And thus, she answered, “…Yes, you are doing a fine job of it. Half of it, in any case.”
The remaining half was currently fleeing with the luggage using Move Point.
“I see.” He must have known something. The boy didn’t make any mention of what she’d just said—he simply nodded unflinchingly.
And then he spoke again.
“Then I’ll go take care of the other half now.”
Awaki Musujime had made it to the edge of Academy City using a safe route.
She had penetration wounds all over her, and she had put on her winter blazer without the sleeve on her naked upper body, but its buttons were a total mess, and she didn’t even notice the fact. Her arteries and veins had risen to the surface of her skin from her forced usage of her power, and she was continually spitting out balls of hot breath. She hectically moved her gaze about, without a clue as to what to do or where to begin, muttering to herself under her breath in the meantime. Her face was covered with sweat—nervous sweat, probably. Maybe it was because she’d lost her flashlight, but her power over her ability seemed to be looser now. Her bloody fingers from which her customary flashlight had left were touching the handleless luggage.
An unwanted memory came to mind.
It was essentially an aftereffect of using her ability on her own body. The accident during the curriculum two years ago when it had gone out of control. It had been a simple task—teleport herself into a locked room—but she had made a mistake in the coordinate calculations. When she came out of the teleportation, her foot was inside a wall.
It didn’t hurt.
And that’s why she didn’t particularly hesitate to try and pull her foot inside the wall out of it in one breath. She shouldn’t have. For a moment later…
There was a tearing noise.
The sensation of the skin on her foot being shaved away by the jagged cross section of the building material in the wall.
The pain was intense.
Her foot came out of the wall—without its skin attached.
It was like…
It was like a peeled orange…Her soft, elastic, moist flesh and slender blood vessels running atop it like netting…
Guh…grrrghh…!!
She bent over. She was overcome with the urge to vomit from deep in her gut, but she barely managed to hold it back. She could feel her back twitching and trembling. Her feet, moving unsteadily, took the nausea as the signal to stop moving completely.
The nausea had been quelled.
What am…?
Now that her feet had stopped, she didn’t try to take another step.
What am I…supposed to do…now…?
Her shattered heart had lost its objective. Her lost mind tried to put it back together—she needed a goal, even if it was temporary. The first thing she saw, of course, was the luggage. She couldn’t remember what she wanted to do with it. The only thing racing around in her mind was the means to whatever it was—she had to give this to the outside organization.
I need…
She took out a small wireless radio.
I need to contact them. Contact…contact. I need to…so I will. Ah-ha-ha…see?…I’m doing what you…you all think is necessary…even now…
She heard the voice of a familiar client from the other end of the radio. Musujime smiled like a child and started communicating. “This is A001 to M000. After confirming your signal, I will report on the…”
Musujime delivered the instructions that had been given to her in the manual beforehand. But just then, there was a loud burst of static, and she got it away from her body reflexively. After putting it back to her ear, all she could hear were gunshots, bellows, and screams. Growing irritated at the lack of a response, she demanded, “This is A001 to M000. A001 to M000. This is…You can hear me, can’t you?! Why won’t you answer me?!”
The wireless radio started to creak as she screamed—she’d nearly crushed the thing. There was a man’s shriek from the other end. That would have been the voice of the organization’s leader.
The gunshots over the radio ceased.
This time, instead of the pathetic man, a woman with a lower voice began to speak.
“Watching from a comfortable seat as you deceive children into working for your own ends, eh? Must be nice. I hold myself to never pointing a weapon at a child, but I won’t hesitate to point a weapon at someone
for
a child.”
There was a human squeal as a gunshot rang out.
Then the other end of the radio went silent.
“You think I’d just kill you, idiot? Those kids won’t be saved until you’ve coughed up every last bit of information about how many of them you tempted and how you did it.”
A moment later, only rough static was coming over the radio. She pushed the button a few times and fiddled with the dial-controlled tuner, but she no longer got any voices. Nobody needed her to contact them.
Ah, ah…I need…I need to contact them…I need to! Why? What do I do? I need a goal, a plan, an objective, or else I’ll…!!
Shaking and hitting the radio didn’t make it answer, either. Musujime let out a shout, unable to endure the silence, and hurled it to the ground. The delicate parts crashed and scattered across the ground, ending the static. This time, she would really never get an answer, and her face twisted, about to cry.
Musujime didn’t have the option available to her of returning to Academy City. For the Academy City General Board chairman, the Tree Diagram wasn’t all that important. In fact, if the experiment were restarted, it would cause cracks to appear in the “project” utilizing the ten thousand Sisters. Apparently, that could cause an effect in the power level of the entire
world
, not just within Academy City or in the scientific faction. Musujime, however, didn’t understand what such a “world” would mean.
What do I do, what do I do…? For now I should go back to the organization’s base…Or maybe I could get in contact with another place instead. Plenty of organizations want what’s inside this. Yes, that’s right. There’re so many things, so many things to do! An objective! As long as I have a goal, I’ll be fine!
A twisted smile crossing her face, Musujime, inattentive to the fact that her clothing had been reduced to rags, placed her hands on the luggage. She started walking, pushing it in front of her.
But there was somebody there to stop her from walking.
The
crunch
of a footstep.
There was a single road where she was going. A wide one, surrounded by buildings. Nobody in Academy City was on this path on the outskirts at night—not even a car. The road was like a runway, and somebody was crossing it in front of her.
She didn’t think,
Who is it?
She thought,
They’re in the way.
Whoever they were, she’d kill them if they got in her way. Without caution, Musujime marched straight ahead.
Whoever it was, they stopped in the very middle of the six-lane road and blocked her passage.
The shadow of a person…
“The hell?”
…was white with madness, white with crookedness, white with stagnation…
“That dumb brat got some info over the fucking clone network and told me this stuff was related to all those stupid brats. So here I am now, wandering around the city. Seriously, what the hell? They wired up my brain with electricity and even got me a fucking cane to walk with. It’s all I had just to get to this dumb place! Choker-shaped electrodes? The only one of its kind in the world? What’s
up
with that? That shitty doctor just tossed me some makeshift prototype.”
…had electrodes artificially attached to his forehead, temples, and neck, had a tonfa-shaped walking stick with a modern design and handle on his right hand…
“So here I am. And to think I was wondering what kind of delightful
idiot
was responsible for causing me all this pain…So who the
fuck
is this underling?! Are you making fun of me or somethin’?! I didn’t need to come all the way out here for this pile of dog shit! At least tell me beforehand it would be some dumb underling! Do you have any idea how much trouble you caused me?!”
Standing in the darkness was Academy City’s strongest Level Five.
The pale, pure white Accelerator standing against the blackness, true name unknown.
“Hee…hah…!!”
Just seeing him stopped her breathing and heartbeat for a moment.
H-he’s…
A strange burst of air stirred in Awaki Musujime’s lungs. She couldn’t tell if she was inhaling or exhaling. Her mind was too much of a mess to figure it out.
…It’s him!! Why, but, no! Not even Railgun could stand up to him, so there’s no way I could…?!
Her mind, spinning its wheels in a fruitless effort to acquire an objective, suddenly found a much clearer goal even than the luggage—one that could spell her doom.