Toaru Majutsu no Index:Railgun

Novel Illustrations

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  Cover

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  Prologue

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  Chapter 1

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  Chapter 2

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  Chapter 3

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  Chapter 4

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  Epilogue

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Prologue: Four Girls

“Hey, Misaka-san! Over here!”

The uniformed girl who stood from her seat and waved was Saten Ruiko. In the shopping district after school, it was so easy to lose sight of someone if you didn’t do that. They had to resort to this even while speaking to each other over the phone. How had people met up in the city before everyone carried phones?

“Whew, the place sure gets crowded with 2.3 million people in the city.”

“And 1.8 million of those are students, so we all end up gathering at the same places.”

Misaka Mikoto and Shirai Kuroko chatted as they joined two other girls.

They were at a table in front of a chain café that could be found not just in District 7 but pretty much anywhere.

Uiharu Kazari, a girl with lots of flower decorations in her hair, decided to ask something she had been wondering for a while.

“You’re from the fancy Tokiwadai Middle School, so should you really be visiting such a cheap café?"

“Eh? Why wouldn’t we?” asked Misaka Mikoto, feeling like she had been transported to another spacetime as she cut a bite from a baked cheesecake with her fork. The tea and cheesecake set was only 580 yen, but its aroma was like something from the far-distant Palace of Versailles.

Fancy tea leaves were not infused with classy particles.

The drink shined so bright because it was chosen as the favorite of a classy person.

“(That’s Tokiwadai’s Ace for you. She’s rarer than the heart or star shaped cookies secretly included in some packages.)”

“(Wow, she’s the real deal. And on top of that, she’s also #3 of Academy City’s seven Level 5s.)”

Oblivious to the conversation held by the two ordinary girls, Mikoto lovingly folded up and retrieved the flier for a stuffed animal event placed on her tray. She was wholly focused on the frog mascot shown in the ad.

“Hm, the event is at that Ariake exhibition center. There’s no way I can sneak out all the way there.”

“Onee-sama, that is an ultra concerning comment coming from you. Please do not try it.”

“Ugh, it can be hard to believe we technically live in Tokyo sometimes.”

This was Academy City, located on the western side of Tokyo. The technology there was 20 or 30 years ahead of the outside world and esper power development was a normal part of the school curriculum there. Thanks to that, the entire city was surrounded by thick walls.

“Just don’t do anything that will get you arrested by Anti-Skill.”

“Yeah, I’d prefer to be arrested by the student-run Judgment than the teacher-run Anti-Skill.”

“Onee-sama.” Shirai’s tone dropped.

It was written plain on the justice girl’s face that she would make full use of her Level 4 Teleportation power to stop Mikoto if it came to that.

Academy City’s uniqueness went all the way down to its law enforcement. It was a strange place where the ordinary Japanese police and JSDF were nowhere to be found. Truly countless schools were contained in an area that covered 1/3 of Tokyo, but all of those students were classified into one of six Levels, from 0 to 5.

The strongest electrical power was Railgun, which could launch a flicked coin at three times the speed of sound.

The strongest psychological power was Mental Out, which some said could do anything in the field of the human mind.

Those two were known as the Ace and the Queen.

Misaka Mikoto was the former.

Her legends were widely known, but very few knew her for who she really was.

“Nooo! Gekota, Gekota, Gekota!”

“Please calm down, Onee-sama.”

“Gasp!? That’s it! If I can’t leave to visit Ariake, I just have to bring the event to Academy City. All it takes is going through the internet and modifying a few digital documents. This must be what they call a divine revelation!!”

“Don’t even think about it, Onee-sama!!”

This is a story of Academy City.

More specifically, it is a story about the girls who pour all their efforts into living there.

Chapter 1: Shirai Kuroko Does Not Hesitate

Part 1

The School Garden was a no-boys-allowed area of fancy girls’ schools located in Academy City District 7.

It was a strange place best described by the quote “above average is average here”. The European-style scenery had its safety and style boosted in every single detail and it was full of brand-name bag and accessory shops despite only a limited number of people being allowed in. That meant the entire corporate group had decided being a single rich girl’s favorite shop was more profitable than catering to the high foot traffic in the prime commercial real estate near a train station. How removed from ordinary time and space was the School Garden, you ask? It wasn’t unusual to find a middle school girl walking along the sidewalk while pulling on the reins of a white horse, its hooves clip-clopping along behind her.

The best of the schools there was Tokiwadai Middle School.

But even the upper classes spread rumors during their break time. Or maybe people like that were even more worried about titles and reputations than anyone else. Whispered voices rippled through the hallway of the Western-style school building.

“Oh, my, my, my☆ Is that Shirai Kuroko? She has made a name for herself in Judgment.”

“White Spring Holdings is a nationwide monster in convenience stores, drug stores, shopping centers, and casual stores.”

“Doesn’t she work as a herald for the #3 Level 5, Misaka Mikoto? Impressive work for a 1st year.”

She could only be described as strutting down the hallway.

But for the girl with chestnut twintails, this was normal.

(Hmph. It’s not like worrying about rumors is going to help you improve your skills.)

So Shirai paid no heed to the voices around her.

Even in the crowd filling the hallway between classes, she could easily make out that one back in the same uniform as anyone else.

That was Misaka Mikoto.

“Onee-sama?”

She called quietly from a distance.

No response. Mikoto didn’t notice her. That meant this was her chance. Hidden in the crowd, Shirai Kuroko licked her lips and silently activated her Level 4 Teleportation.

“Onee-sam-gwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!?”

Her cry rocketed up in pitch when a high-voltage current pierced her body. Her body drew an unnatural curve through the air like she had performed a double jump.

Misaka Mikoto did not even look back.

“I knew you were there.”

“Heh heh heh. Should I take that as an admission that we are connected on a deeper level and any feelings we hold are mutual?”

“How can you say that while convulsing on the floor? And sprawled out to boot.”

Mikoto’s cold voice was the usual as well.

But that wasn’t enough to get Shirai Kuroko down.

(Today is the Friday of my dreams.)

Yes.

Today was special.

(Onee-sama will spend all 48 hours of this weekend with me, her roommate! For two precious days, we will truly live together!! Eh heh heh. My preparations are flawless. I have everything from an enjoyable board game to an aphrodisi- ahem, I mean a strange foreign supplement drink to carry out my perfect love plan that is guaranteed to let me score!)

“Hey, Kuroko.”

“Um, yes!? Wh-what is it, Onee-sama?”

“Why are you acting so weird?”

Mikoto tilted her head with obliviousness on her face.

She must not have discovered the secret death game modifications Shirai Kuroko had made so their dorm room’s door could not be opened from the inside or outside without her permission.

“Have you heard of those Forest Light coolers? Instead of cooling things with ice, they use a chemical coolant and a big motor, so it’s more like a handheld fridge.”

“No, but that’s a camping company, isn’t it? Were you planning on becoming a camping girl in this high-tech city?”

“Ah ha ha. I was just thinking owning one would make it a lot easier to stay up all night. The dorm’s food is good, but they only serve it at set times, so I was hoping for a fridge and a microwave. But there isn’t room to hide a big appliance, so the dorm manager would discover them right away.”

“Staying up all night, you say?”

“But with something the size of a cooler, I could pull out a nice cold can of tea whenever I wanted. Oh, or I could keep a shortcake around. The options are endless! We could say goodbye to this restrictive lifestyle where we can only drink water and go to bed after light’s out. This is our way to rebel against the dorm manager!! Ooh, I bet I wouldn’t sleep at all during the weekends.”

(Th-there isn’t a hint of indecent thought when she talks about what she wants to do while staying up all night. Is that a halo I see behind her? I feel like such a weak person for coming up with this plan. Gasp!?)

Shirai shook her head.

Don’t let the heartwarming mood get to you!! How long are you going to let “being a decent person” get in your way, Shirai Kuroko!?

“Oh, I almost forgot.”

“Forgot what, Onee-sama?”

“You said your phone’s account was broken, right? But you hadn’t gotten around to resetting your profile?”

“Y-yes. You apparently have to visit the carrier’s service counter to do that, but I can still send messages with a social media app, so I’ve been putting it off. What about it?”

“Since she couldn’t reach you the usual way, Konori-senpai of Judgment told me to pass on a message. If you’re on social media, you should just friend her so she can contact you there.”

There was a reason Shirai used an invite-only social media site. If she was friends with Konori, Uiharu, and other people she worked with in real life, she couldn’t relax and talk freely on there. But her Onee-sama did not understand this because she was a loner with no interest at all in joining an online community (even though she could freely hack into whatever community she wanted).

But she had a bigger issue to worry about.

She knew this wasn’t a message she wanted to hear, so she needed to prevent Mikoto from speaking another word. And with that making the perfect justification, it was time to seal those lips with a kiss.

But Shirai couldn’t quite muster the courage, so Mikoto continued with a smile.

“She says your martial arts proficiency is dropping. You should really thank her because she’s offering to sacrifice her entire weekend to help you retrain.”

All sound vanished.

Light spread out before her eyes, erasing the scene around her.

After passing on the message, Misaka Mikoto left. Shirai hadn’t even heard her beloved Onee-sama’s parting words.

“…”

Shirai Kuroko was left all alone in the world.

She slowly collapsed in the middle of the hallway, hung her head, and bit her lip. The stream of students parted around her and some gave her worried comments from afar. Those polite and kind girls failed to consider that being treated with such care could be the most painful thing of all at times.

Was she going to give up? Today was the Friday of her dreams. She had waited so long for this weekend. She had modified the dorm room’s door and window, checked and rechecked the flowchart she had written up to cover every possible eventuality over the coming 48 hours, and even set up a pink gas. But now it was game over before GM Shirai Kuroko could even attempt at reaching paradise? Really? Misaka Mikoto was the Railgun and she had a physical sixth sense using microwaves, so do you have any idea how difficult it was to set all that up without her noticing!?

She already knew the answer.

The words spilled from her slanted lips.

“…You’re dead.”

Konori Mii.

I must murder that ultimate busty glasses girl to reach my goal!!

Part 2

School was out for the week.

Shirai Kuroko left the School Garden and walked through the evening city. With the weekend coming up, the boys and girls headed for the shopping district had a spring in their steps.

Shirai wished she could join them. Oh how badly she wished it.

(If I skip out on it, she would only contact the dorm manager. Then my sealed room of love and desire would be completely wasted. I just know that terrifying dorm manager would kick down the door in her anger. Kh, I shouldn’t have done it at home!!)

Preventing Konori Mii from calling would mean fighting that busty glasses girl anyway. And trying to physically stop the non-busty glasses dorm manager was a fool’s errand. Strategize all she liked, she would never find a solution to that one. Why did her daily school life have to include impossible problems like that?

That meant the best case scenario was defeating Konori Mii in a single blow today and gaining her freedom right away. If absolutely necessary, she could treat Saturday as a spare day and use that to finish the battle. Then she could finally begin her death game of love with her beloved Onee-sama on Sunday!!

“Sigh.”

(Really, a Tokiwadai student shouldn’t be walking along the streets like this at all. It’s just so easy to forget that when Onee-sama, Shokuhou Misaki, and others at the top ignore the school buses and move around however they like.)

Konori was apparently waiting at a Judgment training facility in District 7. Shirai just knew the blazer glasses girl was standing tall at the center of the dojo with her arms crossed. With a snort of excitement about the coming fight, of course. Even Shirai Kuroko was a little scared of thoughtlessly challenging her to a fair fight. So what else could she do? She had time before she arrived, so she wanted to work out a strategy now.

She started with the basic information.

(Konori-senpai. The problem is she really is skilled enough to warrant that honorific from me.)

Konori Mii was a high school girl who also worked for Judgment.

They went to different schools, but they still saw each other often enough since they both worked in District 7. She had a slim build and big boobs that seemed to show how much more mature she was, but her glossy, shoulder-length black hair and intellectual glasses gave her the appearance of the diligent honor student. She did just as good at school as that impression would suggest, so the teachers had to like her.

But Shirai Kuroko was most interested in her esper power.

Level 3 Clairvoyance.

That was lower level than Shirai’s Level 4 Teleportation, but the numerical value didn’t mean much with such different genres of power. Academy City preferred not to lump all esper powers into the two general categories of ESP and PK, but such a plain example of ESP could be a pain to deal with.

Her power let her see through objects. A very simple description.

But what did that really mean?

How exactly did she see through things? Did the material or thickness matter? Was a liquid or solid easier to see through than the other? Did she have an easier time seeing through a concrete wall a meter in front of her or a single piece of paper 100 meters away? When she saw through something, did the thing completely vanish from her view, or did she still see it as translucent? What happened if something else moved in front of something she was looking through? Etc., etc.

Shirai didn’t know any of those specific conditions. She worked with Konori on a regular basis, where they watched each other’s backs as they captured and arrested criminals. Konori had directly told her a fair amount about her power. But was that really everything? Couldn’t she have forgotten to mention something because she knew it all so well herself?

The rules were easy to grasp and share with something physical like the Railgun. You could see it happen, you could measure its effects with precision equipment, and you could analyze the footage in super slow motion to determine its range, its power, and how far you needed to escape to be safe. But with precognition, telepathy, and other ESP powers that only activated in the esper’s head, it was really hard to tell how incredible the power was at a glance. But it was definitely there.

Think of it like chess.

When lining up all the pieces and staring at the board, you would want to analyze the situation 100 moves in advance and choose the best possible piece, but what if your opponent placed a piece you had never seen before on the board? What if they explained how that Sentai-style rubber monster moved, but you didn’t understand what that meant? Could you really come up with a winning strategy? What if you thought you had the perfect defense in place and then one piece suddenly warped to the other side of the board? That one unexpected move would cause your entire strategy to fall apart.

“Yes.”

After some thought, Shirai Kuroko nodded all on her own.

She had arrived at the Judgment training facility, a boxy building that looked like a somewhat fancier city gym. She was pretty sure it was also used for naginata and aikido tournaments. She showed her armband to the adult gate guard, walked in, and saw a sign saying to take a left and walk 150m to reach Martial Arts Dojo 1.

(Since the presence of an uncertain piece prevents me from using the standard moves, the margin of error will grow the longer the battle lasts and that will ultimately lead to disaster.)

In that case…

She slowly breathed in, out, stopped, and focused her mind.

She Teleported into thin air.

She was limited to distances within 81.5m and weights less than 130.7kg.

So 50m was already within her movement range.

“Sharahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!”

She moved to the very center of the tatami-covered Martial Arts Dojo 1 where Konori Mii awaited. The black-haired glasses girl really was standing tall in her uniform with her arms crossed. Shirai Kuroko appeared 4m above and behind her and sent a dropkick toward the back of her head.

If she feared the unpredictable margin of error, then her best bet was to end this before it went on too long.

She needed to launch a speedy strike.

“How dare you interrupt my weekend death game of love with Onee-samaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!”

Dffdfaiuerbwlkgvbah!?

The resultant impact was so loud the young woman with a crew cut and a model’s figure doing indoor weight training and the Yamato Nadeshikos engaged in a fierce aikido battle with their hakamas rubbing together gasped and looked to the center of the martial arts dojo.

The girl there had shoulder-length black hair and intellectual glasses.

Without a single wrinkle or stain on her blazer uniform, Konori Mii smiled and pushed down with her heel. That was of course a lovely gift for the back of defeated Shirai Kuroko’s head.

Thus spoke the smiling busty glasses girl: “I could see you☆”

“U-ugh? O-of course you could.”

To turn the uncertain into the certain, Shirai made a mental note of what she had learned.

Konori Mii’s Clairvoyance could accurately see through reinforced concrete walls to detect an assassin silently approaching from 50m away.

Part 3

After her surprise attack ended in failure, Shirai Kuroko had the rules explained to her (while she was forced to sit in the middle of the dojo and reflect on what she had done).

• The battle will take place on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. In other words, the time limit was midnight on Monday morning. During that time, Shirai Kuroko could attack Konori Mii at any time, both public or private. Konori would not make any preemptive strikes on Shirai.

• If Shirai managed to restrain Konori even once, she would win. Her goal was to get the provided handcuffs on both of Konori’s wrists. She was permitted to knock her unconscious, put her in a joint lock, or attack her weak points to accomplish this.

• Konori would win if she avoided capture until the time limit. No matter how many times she fought off Shirai, the combat training could not end from her side until the time limit.

• Shirai had to fight on her own.

• There were no restrictions on using her powers or a weapon, but she could not harm other people, property, buildings, etc. As a Judgment member, she had to fight while obeying all ordinary rules and regulations such as traffic laws.

“Any questions?” asked the busty black-haired glasses girl after explaining it all.

“If a complete surprise attack couldn’t overturn the great skill difference, do I have any chance of winning this?”

“Of course you do. Isn’t middle school a little young to be so jaded you give up before you even try?”

Shirai groaned like a dog forced to wait for food and the glasses upperclassman smiled.

“Shirai-san. Your Teleportation is very useful, but that’s why you have a tendency to rely on it too much. When you fight, you plan things out based on your power, don’t you? But there are so many things that can keep you from performing the necessary calculations in your head: injury, illness, a flash of light, and gas to name a few. If you want to survive on the job, you need to fix that bad habit.”

With that said, Konori Mii gallantly departed the dojo.

Still seated on the floor with her head drooping, Shirai watched her go. The instant she disappeared through the door, Shirai teleported a few metal darts, but it didn’t seem to work.

“Drat. And she had to have had her back turned then.”

She doubted Konori had a constant 360-degree view from using her power. She always turned her head and expanded or contracted her pupils, so her power had to be linked to her ordinary vision.

So she had the ability to see her target through any walls, doors, or whatever else were in the way, but also…

(She’s clever. She knows how to search out what she needs to see.)

Shirai couldn’t deny that.

Seeing more than most people meant having more junk data that got in the way of what you wanted. It was like using a search engine that didn’t match your search terms very well. Yet Konori never seemed overwhelmed by the glut of information she provided herself.

She had the perception to accurately detect someone showing signs of planning a pickpocketing within the large crowd flooding the train station during the morning rush hour. Her experience in Judgment had built up an ability to focus on what she needed to see which allowed her to utilize her simple power. It was that ability that told her Shirai Kuroko would immediately make another attack, so she didn’t even need to look back and check.

Anyway.

“Grrr. This could not be more annoying, but I’ll do it!!”

Shirai Kuroko vanished into thin air in her seated position.

The very next moment, she had finished teleporting to the roof of the large training facility. Konori Mii was someone she absolutely did not want as an enemy, but she couldn’t wait around when she had a time limit to beat. And the more formidable this opponent, the less she could afford to waste time.

(With every tick of the clock, my lovely weekend with Onee-sama is slipping away! I need to finish this now!!)

The basic strategy for fighting an Academy City esper was as follows:

1. Confirm what you need to stay alive.

2. Keep in a safe position or keep whatever other conditions keep you safe while you observe and analyze your opponent’s power and the results of that power.

3. Use that information to come up with a way to defeat your opponent using your own power.

Of course, in a real battle, both sides would be working to ensure the other side couldn’t achieve those conditions so easily, but when you knew the path you had to take, it was easier to recover after being derailed. The fundamentals were still important.

(In that sense…)

Down on the surface, the glasses girl walked out the building’s front entrance. Konori had left the dojo first, but Shirai’s Teleportation meant she could still get ahead of her and set up an ambush. Shirai crouched silently at the edge of the tall roof, looked down at her upperclassman’s head, and sighed.

(She’s waiting for me to make my move. That means she’s given up on step 1 and is welcoming me to do step 2. She might as well be mocking me. Does she really think she can hand me that kind of advantage and stop me on step 3 alone?)

When Shirai reached for the thigh belt carrying several metal darts, Konori stopped, turned around, and smiled up at her.

“Kh.”

Simply ducking down wasn’t enough. After hiding like that out of habit, she realized the building didn’t provide cover against someone with Clairvoyance. She clicked her tongue and moved from building to building a few times, but Konori’s gaze tracked her throughout.

(She can see through more than just a wall. She must be able to accurately see through an entire building!)

This went well beyond seeing a photo contained within a thin envelope. Based on this, it was possible Konori could read the text on the 100th page of an encyclopedia without even opening it.

“On the other hand…”

Something about Konori’s Clairvoyance had already caught Shirai’s attention.

She didn’t need an answer right away. Revealing someone’s power was a lot like that game where you planted flags in a grid to locate the mines. You started by risking your life with some clicks, viewed the numbers you had revealed, confirmed where some mines had to be from that, and worked your way from there. In that sense, making a grand declaration of the answer right off the bat was much more likely to get you blown to kingdom come.

“Oh, it’s the Judgment lady. Are you heading home?”

“It’s the Musashino Milk person!”

“Wow, you all are friends with a high schooler?”

Neighborhood children greeted Konori Mii when she walked through the shopping district. Any Judgment member became known to small children just from telling them to head back to their dorms. Shirai Kuroko got the same treatment when she walked by the park.

(It looks harmless enough, but it’s actually a real danger when you’re tailing someone or doing a stakeout.)

The adult teachers would say the students of Judgment weren’t supposed to be tailing people through the city in the first place.

It looked like Konori really wasn’t going to launch a surprise attack. The twintails girl knew she had been spotted, but she still moved between rooftops to follow Konori through the evening shopping district. She zigzagged between buildings on either side of the road, but Konori still looked up, smiled, and waved.

“Damn, she’s just making fun of me now! …Oh?”

Then Konori looked away.

She looked kind of awkward about it.

She may have seen Shirai’s underwear since the girl was so far above her.

Clairvoyance seemed like a poor match for such a decent person. Impure and indecent Shirai (who somehow carried a heart of justice at the same time) could not have been more jealous.

A drop hit her on the nose.

She looked up and noticed a menacing look to the sky. She teleported down to the arcade below to get out of the rain and saw Konori jogging away beyond the crowd. Konori looked tempted by the nearby bathhouse, but she decided to head home instead, suggesting she didn’t have an umbrella.

To avoid getting caught in the rain, the upperclassman girl was returning to her dorm without taking any detours. (Shirai wished she could do the same.) She entered what looked like a fashionable new apartment building. Shirai approached the entrance anyone was allowed in.

“Hm.”

She had visited here once before, but half-remembered memories could be more dangerous than no memories at all. Standing around wasn’t going to locate Konori’s room, but searching through the manager’s room would be wrong. A thought occurred to her, so she walked down to the large bicycle parking area in the basement.

Parking spots in places like this tended to be tied to the rooms. And a bicycle would have a purchase record at the store. But the clincher was how Judgment equipment could convert those numbers into a name. This was technically an official job, so she looked own at her phone.

(Here we go. Konori Mii’s registration number is 38A5172. Oh?)

She walked through the underground bicycle parking and found an unexpectedly large motorcycle parked in Konori’s space. It wasn’t a standard model. A large model had its engine swapped out for one with less displacement so it was legal for under-18s to drive.

At any rate, this told Shirai which room was Konori’s, which meant she could observe her through the window. The electric bicycle parked next to the motorcycle meant Konori had a roommate.

(Could I take a hostage? No, that’s a bad idea. It would be completely over the line with a civilian, but maybe just barely acceptable with a Judgment member. Still, it would be too risky when I don’t know who they are or what they can do.)

Whoever they were, this roommate had to be on par with Konori Mii. Shirai sensed something frighteningly unfathomable about this mystery figure. Focusing on Konori alone sounded like a good idea when the alternative could mean getting caught in a crossfire.

Once aboveground again, she found the sun was already setting.

This battle was allowed to be a long-term thing instead of a short-term showdown where a split-second decision determined everything. Shirai bought a sweet bread and some milk at a nearby convenience store (that belonged to her family’s holdings) and teleported up to the emergency stairs on the building across from the student dorms.

“Munch.”

(I’d say this new product is a keeper. The light green veggie paste doesn’t get in the way of the sweet of the bean paste and it still gives you a day’s worth of nutrients, so it’s the perfect sweet bread for a stakeout.)

Although the limited number of jobs allowing for legal stakeouts might be a problem in it finding success. She had heard anti-stalker laws sometimes affected private investigators whose jobs weren’t authorized by the authorities. Calling themselves journalists was a handy loophole there, so it wasn’t uncommon for PIs in Academy City to officially call themselves freelance reporters or cameramen. There was always a technicality to be found.

“Musashino Milk. Konori-senpai seems obsessed with the stuff.”

She wished she had some binoculars, but they didn’t sell those at a convenience store. Instead, she aimed her phone’s camera and zoomed it in as far as it would go.

Her eyes suddenly met Konori Mii’s.

“…”

That clinched it.

The other building was 300m away. Plus, it was sunset with night falling over the city. During an idol concert on an outdoor stage, you would need binoculars to even see the idol’s expression from this distance, but Glasses Girl Konori stared right at Shirai while holding a carton of that Musashino Milk and enjoying some balcony camping with her roommate. The two girls had pulled some beach chairs and an electric barbecue set onto their balcony.

(I was wondering how she managed to avoid my darts so easily.)

In that case…

Shirai looked away from her high-tech screen in exasperation and took sip of her milk carton through the straw.

(By seeing through the dust and dirt or the air itself, she can eliminate any margin of error introduced by light refraction and attenuation. This gives her truly perfect vision. She can see the space around her without any distortion, so she can dodge without any margin of error.)

When you took a casual picture with your phone, did you ever find the color looked wrong? That wasn’t necessarily a problem with your settings or the specs of the phone camera. The scenery humans saw was actually fairly distorted. The moisture and temperature differences in the air would weaken or bend light. When light passed through a small gap, it would diffract. When it hit a wall, it would reflect. So even with the sun as the only light source, the light could be coming in from multiple directions at once. Why did the morning and evening sky look so different? No one was checking the clock and repainting the sky. It was a natural phenomenon caused by the bending and absorption of different wavelengths of light.

But those distortions meant nothing to Konori. Her Clairvoyance let her ignore any and all obstacles keeping her from seeing her target. She could see the world as it really was, with no margin of error, so she would never make any mistakes.

She had truly perfect vision.

A millimeter as seen by Shirai was not as accurate or valuable as one as seen by Konori.

(She wears glasses, so it would be wonderful if her poor eyesight drags down her power as well.)

That was only a prediction – or a hope really – on Shirai’s part. She could not objectively prove it. In fact, didn’t Konori point at distant things and shout instructions when she was using her Clairvoyance? Did she not use her power at all times because she would bump into the nearer obstacles?

This was even more trouble than Shirai had thought. Ordinary human eyesight had certain limits. The air itself would gradually attenuate light, so you could not see clearly past a certain distance. But Konori could ignore the air in between, so that attenuation by distance didn’t apply to her. Konori probably wouldn’t lose sight of Shirai even if she tailed her from more than a kilometer away. And going indoors or underground to hide herself wouldn’t work when Konori could see through those obstacles, at least to an extent.

“I really hope she wouldn’t be able to see through a 5km wall…or through the horizon.”

Konori’s inability to see through the earth was only wishful thinking on Shirai’s part and not actually proven. She couldn’t rely on that yet. And if Konori climbed up onto a broadcast tower or something, the distance to the horizon changed, allowing her to easily break through that wall.

This was only training, but in a real battle, there was no rule preventing Konori from using a weapon. What if she used a projectile weapon – such as a bow and arrow that used both an arrowhead and an acoustic weapon, or an anti-materiel rifle with a ridiculously long range – and lay in wait to launch a surprise attack?

“The more I learn, the more that power feels perfect for a delinquent who specializes in sneak attacks.”

That comment earned her a glare from the glasses girl 300m away. Apparently she knew how to read lips. She could see everything at this distance, even with a wall or door in the way. Trying to find a blind spot to sneak up on her was never going to work. There was no point in challenging her on her turf like that.

Had Shirai been wrong to even try using sneak attacks against Konori in the first place?

But the attack in the dojo had proven well enough that directly challenging her wouldn’t work either. Konori had more than just her Clairvoyance. Her old-fashioned fighting skills were top notch as well.

Shirai had to keep her from using her Clairvoyance and from using her more ordinary skills.

She still didn’t have enough information. The special circumstances and conditions created by challenging Konori Mii still gave that upperclassman girl the advantage.

Shirai had to tear that down. She couldn’t win with the standard anti-esper combat rules. She had to set things up so the circumstances and conditions worked against Konori.

Dressing in layers to withstand the snowy mountain’s chill wasn’t enough.

She needed to be willing to trigger an avalanche that swallowed them both.

“…”

Shirai Kuroko leaned on the emergency stairs railing and sipped more milk through the straw while she considered the problem.

What if?

Part 4

Shirai Kuroko continued monitoring Konori Mii’s dorm room while changing position a few times.

Eventually, dawn arrived.

She had been tempted to attack at a late-night hour such as 2 or 3 in the morning, but she had resisted. Attacking a foe in their sleep was a standard tactic, but Konori would definitely be expecting it. The presence of that roommate was bothersome as well. She could slip past any security on the doors or windows by teleporting in, but a late-night attack lost its advantage if Konori and her roommate were taking turns keeping watch throughout the night. And that was exactly what happened.

(In that case…)

The dawn began to color the sky and some moped newspaper deliverers and jogging girls were out and about.

Shirai Kuroko let out a white breath, held her can of tea between her hands, and thought. The can touted its “new and improved flavor!”, but she found it to be one of the worst downgrades she had ever had the displeasure of tasting. Still, it warmed her fingers from the morning chill.

(Could I manage if I aimed for a moment when her roommate can’t be with her?)

It was precisely 6 AM.

Konori got up bright and early even on the weekend. Shirai could barely stand it after having her highly impure plans for the weekend ruined.

Regardless, she chose this as her moment to attack.

The bespectacled honor student was completing the first step of her morning routine.

In other words, Shirai teleported into the bathroom while Konori was taking her morning bath.

She probably hadn’t seen it coming.

In fact, she must not have expected Shirai to try anything now. For once, (naked and showering) Konori Mii raised a flustered voice.

“Geh! You’re attacking now, Shirai-san!? Have you no tact at all!?”

“Hwa ha ha!! So you’re the type to keep your glasses on in the bath, sexy glasses Konori-senpai? As for tact, you should thank me for not attacking you on the toilet!!”

Girls could say some awful things to each other when backed into a corner.

Something heavy snapped loudly at the air.

Konori Mii proved herself a fearsome combat freak by immediately grabbing a wet towel from the towel rack and using a snap of the wrist to send it out like a whip. Even an ordinary towel got pretty heavy after absorbing water. If it had hit Shirai in the face, it could have broken her nose or even her neck.

But she dropped her hips down to dodge the attack to her face.

However, this spectacular dodge wasn’t fueled by the extreme sexual frustration of losing her weekend of intimacy with her captivating Onee-sama. Konori must have figured it out herself since she groaned in frustration.

“Kh!!”

“What’s wrong? Is that snap of your wrist all you can use? Looks to me like you can’t put your full weight behind your attacks!!”

“This is why I don’t like this cramped bathroom!! I wish I could build a full bathhouse here!!”

After lowering her hips, Shirai aimed a tackle for the busty upperclassman’s navel. The condition of the floor affected Shirai too, but wearing shoes gave her the edge. Konori sent a knee toward Shirai’s face to prevent the tackle, but Shirai didn’t let that stop her. She took the knee to the forehead, sent her wet hand out, and snatched up the shower hose spraying hot water all over the steamy bathroom.

As expected, Konori had to pull her hips back because her feet slipped.

If that knee had had her usual force behind it, it would have ended the fight right then and there.

No one could defeat Konori Mii if she went all out? Fair enough. Then what if you set things up so going all out would cause her to self-destruct?

The bathroom was small, so she had trouble finding the space to use her arms and legs like she wanted.

And the tile floor had a polyurethane mat on it, so her wet, bare feet slipped easily.

She wanted to fall back, but that would mean placing her feet on the edge of the tub.

“Trying to sneak around against your Clairvoyance was the wrong way to go about this.”

Whoever had more data had an advantage. Whoever made the surprise attack had an advantage. People didn’t question such obvious facts, but that prevented them from ever breaking free of those assumptions.

So you had to look at it with fresh eyes. If you didn’t change your way of thinking, you could never defeat Konori Mii.

In other words…

“I needed a situation where you seeing me doesn’t change anything!!”

Shirai Kuroko smiled with her uniform drenched.

With the shower hose still in hand, she kicked the faucet, cranking up the temperature setting. Konori could use her Clairvoyance to stage the perfect evasions, but she had no way of avoiding the arc of hot water sprayed across the entire cramped space.

“Tch!! In that case!!”

“You didn’t think that was all I had planned, did you?”

The hot water was a threat, but it wasn’t a solid wall. Konori could break through it. Once she realized her disadvantage, she would tackle right through even if it meant taking some damage. It was indeed the most correct choice.

Which was why this wasn’t Shirai’s real attack.

She had something else up her sleeve.

“For example, I could step forward and show you something you actually don’t want to see!!”

Shirai used her other hand to trigger a camera flash with her phone.

Thick, white steam filled the bathroom like cotton candy, but it wasn’t enough of an obstacle to block the bright flash. And if Konori was using her Clairvoyance to see through all such obstacles, the flash would have hit her unobstructed.

“Kyahhh!!”

“When I was moving between the shopping district’s roofs below the thick clouds, you unnaturally looked away a few times when you seemed to be tracking me perfectly well from the ground.”

The blinding effect would only last an instant.

So Shirai used that instant to swing the shower hose and wrap it around Konori’s neck.

She created another situation where the girl couldn’t dodge even if she saw the attack coming.

“That was due to the lightning in the clouds. The thick rainclouds and the air do nothing to attenuate the light for you, so looking up at the lightning with your Clairvoyance active would be suicidal!!”

Her next attack proved to be the finishing blow.

She yanked on the thick hose like it was a dog’s leash, pulling Konori’s head toward her. When the upperclassman girl staggered forward with her full weight behind it, Shirai slammed her elbow into the girl’s face.

Part 5

Soon thereafter, Shirai Kuroko was forced to take a seat on the living room floor.

Her twintails and uniform were wet, her risqué underwear showing through the latter.

“Um, Konori-senpai?”

“Yes?”

The other girl did not look pleased as she put on her spare glasses.

The underclassman hesitantly spoke up after committing the unthinkable act of hitting a glasses girl in the center of the face.

“I believe the deal was that, if I won, I was rewarded with the freedom to enjoy my weekend as I liked – which, I might add, is how weekends are supposed to work regardless – so what am I doing here?”

“Didn’t I say up front you had to obey all of Academy City’s rules and regulations during this training? This is trespassing!!”

The glasses girl blushed red as she shouted, but her roommate only laughed in carefree amusement.

However it had happened, a win was a win.

Konori looked upset, but she knew it would be petty to overturn Shirai’s win and declare it a forfeited game. Nor did she go beyond verbal complaints and make it physical.

Shirai had won.

The wild animal named Shirai Kuroko had won her freedom!

Now no one could stop her!!

(No one stands in my way any longer. Wait for me, Onee-sama. Dwa ha ha ha!! My DIY locked room survival game full of 108 delightful traps awaits us both!!)

Something dripped onto her lap.

Something red.

“O-oh? Shirai-san, you have a nosebleed. A really bad one!!”

“Oh, don’t mind this. I simply got a little carried away with the unrealized fantasies in my head.”

The long-haired roommate gave the glasses girl a skeptical look.

“Mii, what did you do to this girl?”

“Hm, maybe kneeing her in the face wasn’t the best idea.”

“No, I would think not. You need to remember your knee is the ultimate weapon that can one-hit KO a macho man three times your weight. Remember that guy who turned himself into a deadly street fighting machine with his personal style of MMA? Or that sumo wrestler who was banned from the ring after it came out he was using steroids?”

What had this strait-laced busty upperclassman been up to in the past? Shirai Kuroko was growing more and more worried, but then the upperclassman turned her attention Shirai’s way again.

And with a weirdly panicked smile.

“Sh-Shirai-san? How about we get you checked out at the hospital? I know it’s Saturday, but they still do exams during the mornings.”

“No, wait, I said not to worry about it, remember!? I promise you I’m not injured! This is only the result of some wholesomely lewd fantasies!!”

“Mii… Should I call an ambulance? She’s completely incoherent now. I’m afraid you might have given her brain damage.”

“How rude can you be, mystery roommate!?”

Part 6

She disappeared.

She ran away.

With her task complete, she had no obligation to stick around. She couldn’t have them underestimating her Teleportation. As long as nothing interfered with her mental calculations, it was impossible to keep Shirai Kuroko restrained.

She knew exactly where to go.

No one could deny that she had defeated Konori Mii. She had used up Friday night doing it, but Saturday and Sunday were hers for the taking.

“Heh. Heh heh heh.”

No one could stop her now.

Everything was fine.

She was in luck. She had the wind at her back. Destiny was calling her. The power of love was infinite. A tanker truck full of jet fuel could drive straight at her right now and she felt confident she could stop it with her bare hands!! This was a holy revelation. She had something divine within her. She knew she was going to score today. She had never been surer of anything in her life. And that gave her a great power. The bright and colorful power of looooove!!!!!!

“Eh heh heh. Wait for me, Onee-sama! No one stands between us nowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!”

“Shirai? Awfully bold of you to walk right in the front door after staying out all night.”

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“Um?”

“Any last words?”

“Madam Dorm Manager, may I ask what possible reason you have to treat me like this?”

“Those are some unique last words. Don’t worry. I will make sure to carve them into her headstone.”

Wait.

Please wait!!

I haven’t gotten any sleep and I was out doing Judgment work I didn’t even want to do, so why am I returning from defeating the final boss to find the dorm manager standing in front of me as the secret ultra-hard DLC boss designed for only the most masochistic players!? What was my horoscope today? Am I cursed to find stupid-strong people in glasses standing in my way wherever I go!?

Shirai Kuroko’s mind turned to her pocket.

Or rather, the phone inside it.

“O-oh, no!? I never fixed my broken account. Are you saying you sent me a final warning email that I never even saw!?”

“Enough nonsense. Face reality, Shirai.”

The dorm manager’s glasses flashed.

It was no use. Not even her Teleportation was enough to escape.

This woman had no esper power, but Shirai could have sworn she saw the growing silhouette of the ultimate monster who every single Tokiwadai student feared.

“Your life ends here.”

“Is that anything for a teacher to tell her student!?”

Chapter 2: Saten Ruiko’s Messy Bloodbath Paradise☆

Part 1

Saten Ruiko was a first year in middle school.

Her hobby was keeping up with the latest trends. That included gathering rumors, especially the creepy urban legends. She didn’t delight in learning about other people’s misfortune and not all urban legends were of the bloody horror variety. For example, there was the story of the Kesaran Pasaran, a white fluffball creature that brought happiness to whoever found it. So all she did was gather every rumor she could find, whether it was good or bad, but she was aware that her methods of gathering information could be a bit lacking in morals.

As an esper, she was officially designated a Level 0.

She felt like she had gotten over her issues with that, but she also had to wonder if fully eliminating that complex would also eliminate any future chance of growth.

The bell signaling afterschool freedom rang.

The black-haired girl with all the latest rumors could look cheerful, but she still carried a lot of baggage inside. But she didn’t let that get her down as she threw open the door where her friend awaited her.

She had arrived at Judgment Branch 177.

“Uiharuuun☆ You in herrre?”

No response.

The lights were on and the A/C was running, so her friend had probably only stepped out for a moment. There were important case files in here, so the door wasn’t meant to be opened by outsiders without a key.

Saten scanned the room from right to left.

“Hmm. If she’s not here, maybe this is my chance to use this.”

She pulled a small plastic bag from her skirt pocket. It contained a powder even redder than lipstick.

A video teaching how to make professional grade fake blood used for filming movies had gone viral. This recipe was notable for being made from black bean cider, ketchup, and other ordinary items found at any discount store, so it was being used in a lot of prank videos. As a modern girl, Saten was more interested in making a viral video than in the cruel fake blood itself, but it was human nature to want to try it out.

Anyone could make it, it could be stored long term when powdered, and you only had to add it to water and microwave it when you wanted to use it.

She wasn’t sure what she wanted to use it for, but it did sound convenient.

“Let’s see. Measure out the right amount of water in the cup, stir the red powder in, and stick it in the microwave. Wow, they’ve got an industrial 1500 watt one. I only need to heat it for 40 seconds in this.”

Never mind that people often talked to themselves and hummed when preparing to prank someone because that emphasized that it was only a joke and helped reduce the guilt they felt on a subconscious level.

“Done!”

The mug was now filled with a warm and thick dark red liquid.

The color, texture, and even rusty smell were incredible. She even felt faint when she thoughtlessly took a deep breath. It contained black bean cider, starch, strawberry oden, ketchup, paint, and more. According to the VR instruction video that worked by using her sideways phone as simple goggles, it dried in around 15 minutes after touching air just like real blood and, even after being wiped up with a rag, it would produce the same bluish-white light after being sprayed with a luminol reagent. It was so realistic and hard to distinguish from real blood that it had a substance clearly not found in real blood intentionally mixed in to avoid misunderstandings if Anti-Skill or Judgment were called in after a prank gone wrong.

Still, it was a thick, dark red liquid.

Leaving the mug sitting out made for a nice psychological horror image. Add a few hairs to the rim of the red mug and Uiharu would probably fall on her rear in fright when she returned, but that wasn’t enough. Saten pulled out a few plastic bags about the size of the soy sauce packets taped to convenience store bentos, poured some of the fake blood into each one, and stuck her hand inside her uniform. The packets were made to be sealed with the heat of your mouth after you filled them with soy sauce or whatever other condiment you wanted. Discount stores had pretty much anything you could want these days.

“Hot, hot, hot. One here, one here, and maybe one in my hair.”

She couldn’t have the red mug and spoon giving away the prank, so she brought them to the water heater area and stuck them inside the AI robot dishwasher. Then she took a look around. Blades like a kitchen knife or fruit knife would be too dangerous for a prank, so she was hoping for a blunt object.

She saw a black plastic object leaning against the wall nearby.

“Huh, what’s this?”

She reached out toward the long, heavy rod. It was as long as or a bit longer than a bamboo sword and seemed sturdier than the brooms or mops that students uninterested in cleaning the classroom would use more as toys. Was it something like a pestle stretched out nice and long? It said “police staff” on the side, but she wasn’t sure how to read the kanji since she relied on her phone so much for that kind of thing.

She did a quick search on her phone.

“Police staff. So it’s like a bigger version of a police baton?”

It looked like it was used to hit and arrest people. Unlike a special police baton, it wasn’t collapsible. Someone could maybe hold it to look threatening as a guard at the entrance of the branch office, but it looked unwieldy to walk around with. She wasn’t sure if it was really used when out on patrols, or if it was only meant for training.

Her eyes widened when she saw the label near the grip: polyhydroxybutyrate plastic. That meant it was the same biodegradable plastic used in eco-friendly mineral water bottles. She recalled seeing an ad between online videos talking about that.

“Neat, so they even make these things so they’ll return to nature. I guess that’s just the age we live in.”

Anyway, it was just what she wanted.

It felt nice and solid when she picked it up. A long blunt weapon was the perfect option here.

The desktop computer beeped. A look at the flatscreen LCD monitor showed it was synced with Uiharu’s phone location. The victim would be here soon.

Saten Ruiko placed a hand on the center of her chest and took a deep breath.

Then the branch office door opened.

“Gwa ha ha ha ha! Uiharu, I hope you’re ready for the ‘mysterious young inn owner in a bloody suspense drama’ experience!!”

“Gyahh! What in the world!? Is it the apocalypse!?”

After an especially loud and dull “whack!!” followed by a “thud!!”, the branch office’s atmosphere froze over.

That was hardly surprising when Saten Ruiko had raised her hands and attacked Uiharu out of nowhere, intentionally gotten them tangled up together, hit herself on the head with the police staff, and collapsed. She fell flat on the floor.

Uiharu Kazari, the girl with lots of flowers on her head, was left alone to catch her breath.

“Pant, pant!! Gasp!!”

Saten wanted to celebrate her successful plan, but she ignored that desire.

Trembling hands pressed something against her forehead and neck. They appeared to be a combined temperature and blood pressure sensor. It was part of a personal medical kit that checked your condition like a smartwatch and then acted as an AED or adrenaline injector if necessary.

Saten lay on her side, convulsing with her eyes rolled back in her head. All the face acting videos she had watched were paying off. She also used the convulsions to hide how she twisted her body to press the packets in her hair against the floor, popping them below her head. She didn’t want to give away that she was alive, so she also surreptitiously switched off the medical device the size of a bento box.

A dark red liquid oozed out onto the floor.

(Hmm, would it have been more shocking if I was foaming at the mouth too? But soda water wouldn’t look real enough for that.)

She considered that while letting the “convulsions” fade.

She didn’t want her rolled-back eyes to dry out, so she also chose a random moment to shut her eyes. That kept her from seeing Uiharu’s panicked face, but some sacrifices had to be made. She didn’t want to give away the game.

Saten Ruiko had died.

“S-Saten-san? Wait a second, Saten-san! What is the meaning of this!?”

(How was that for a death scene? Heh heh heh. I can get back up when she pulls out her phone to call an ambulance. I’ll spring up and scare her! This isn’t over yet! Uiharu’s about to be attacked by Zombie Saten!!)

But despite her plans, she couldn’t see what was happening with her eyes shut.

So the only data she had to go on was the voice she heard.

“Sigh.” Uiharu Kazari spoke from very close by. “Well, if she’s dead, I can’t just leave her here. There’s no room to bury or submerge a body in Academy City’s limited space, so I’ll have to rely on my usual method for quickly disposing of 49 kilos of human flesh.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Hwuh?

Saten Ruiko froze in place on the floor.

(Wh-wh-wh-wh-why does she sound so calm?)

Her usual method? Quickly disposing of?

The collapsed girl received some unasked-for assistance in lying completely motionless.

(Oh, right. Thermal Hand. Her power lets her keep anything she touches at its current temperature. Is she keeping her air-conditioned body temperature in place to keep herself calm!?)

Extreme excitement increased your body temperature. A small child would be familiar with the phenomenon even if they didn’t know the exact numbers or research results.

So what if someone had the power to forcibly keep their temperature low?

(Um, but why is she so accustomed to using it like this?)

“…”

Trying to understand this baffling situation seemed to have caused a bug in the signals sent through Saten’s body. She couldn’t seem to move her sprawled out limbs or even her eyelids or lips.

“If I’d known I would need it again so soon, I wouldn’t have thrown out the equipment I used last time. Disposing of two bodies isn’t much more difficult than one, so it would have saved me a lot of time to crush up this one along with that one.”

What?

What was going on here!? What “last time”!?

“I still have some of the cleaners from last time, don’t I? Yes, here we go. This is the stuff you need to get out the blood, sweat, saliva, and tears, even when they’re stained deep into the carpet. A quick carbo clean and – tah dah! – not even Konori-senpai’s Clairvoyance will notice anything went down!! Sigh, if only my power controlled water or buoyancy. That would make this all so much easier.”

Was that really Uiharu Kazari looking down at her? Surely this had to be someone else entirely using special makeup, right!? Or maybe her mind had been hijacked by someone!?

(U-Uiharu Kazari. Does that mean something else when you read it backwards? Like with Uoydeloof or Redrum?)

This was only going to get worse.

She needed to get up and apologize before it left the realm of jokes.

Saten Ruiko made up her mind. She arrived at the decision all on her own.

And three seconds before she was going to open her eyes…

“This is really turning into a problem☆”

Saten was afraid her shoulders had noticeably jumped.

Uiharu was speaking to herself in a frighteningly cheerful voice.

Didn’t people often talk to themselves and hum when pranking someone because it emphasized that it was only a joke and helped reduce the guilt they felt on a subconscious level?

“If anyone found out I kept doing this, I would end up with another body I had to deal with. I mean, if Saten-san got up and said ‘just kidding’ now, I would have to make sure she stayed dead to keep my secret.”

Saten’s lips formed the first syllable of “just kidding”, but no voice emerged.

(This isn’t one of the urban legends where you can just say their name backwards or repeat their name to make them go away. If it’s name related, is it more like Hisaruki!?)

Her eyes wouldn’t open.

Something like powerful sleep paralysis had taken hold twice over.

(I…)

She had to work at keeping her breathing calm. What about her sweat? Her heart was pounding, so could Uiharu hear that?

(I don’t actually weigh 49 kilos, but I get the feeling I won’t be getting a smiling correction out of her right now!)

She couldn’t let the truth be known.

She could not let this monster know she was alive.

But if she stayed on the floor, she would be “disposed of”.

Before that happened, she had to sneak out of the branch office or her full body weight would be taken away from her using some kind of well-practiced method!!

Part 2

Uiharu paced the room, occasionally stepping over Saten Ruiko’s body. Saten could hear the footsteps and feel their weight as the floor creaked.

With her eyes still shut, her imagination worked overtime.

The movement in the air as Uiharu Kazari walked around was enough to nearly bring tears to Saten’s eyes. But if she let that happen and Uiharu noticed the evidence of her survival, she was dead meat.

She couldn’t escape the room. This was more like trying to fool the axe murderer under the bed than it was like the Sukima Onna.

Fortunately, Uiharu never checked her breathing or pulse.

She hadn’t bothered with any of that after the perfunctory check with the personal medical kit. Nor did she make any desperate attempts at first aid or resuscitation.

She just assumed the other girl was dead and focused on swiftly disposing of the body.

The weight of the footsteps moved away from Saten, but Uiharu’s presence remained in the room. It was frightening with her eyes closed, but she was terrified of Uiharu noticing if she cracked her eyes open. That walking away sound may have been a test. What if she opened her eyes a crack only to find Uiharu lying next to her staring her right in the face? Unpleasant sweat poured down her back.

An encyclopedic knowledge of urban legends wasn’t too helpful when it really mattered. Doing an original wiggling dance was unlikely to shatter Uiharu Kazari’s mind.

Should she make a move or stay where she was?

There probably wasn’t a correct answer to that question. She just had to make her own decision.

And as someone who loved chasing down the latest trends and rumors, she chose to calm herself by gathering as much information as possible.

She made a single crucial decision.

“Kh.”

She gathered all her strength to slowly pry open her eyes.

She only opened them maybe a millimeter, but it took as much willpower as tearing her own muscles apart.

Her vision was tilted 90 degrees.

She noticed the floor pressed against her cheek first and foremost. She also saw a steel desk, a few shelves, and the room’s wall. Unfortunately, she couldn’t see the exit door from here. She would have to twist herself around to see that, but…

(Uh, oh. That would be suicidal.)

She could feel a wet stickiness on the side of her head.

She had crushed the fake blood packs herself. If she moved around, she would leave a smear of red on the floor like someone had lazily mopped with the liquid. That would leave evidence that she had moved while Uiharu wasn’t looking.

But when people were ruled by anxiety, they had trouble trusting in even the most common things. They even ended up questioning their own memories.

Saten fell for that same trap.

(Wait, how does this room’s door work again? How does it lock?)

Her stomach ached, but she couldn’t hold her stomach right now.

Was there a panel on the wall you had to press your palm against? Was there a number lock attached after the fact, like at the entrance to a train station office or an office building? Oh, god! The more she tried to remember, the less she could remember!?

In fact…

(If the door is locked, it’ll take me longer to get out! Even if the lock is easy to undo from the inside, I don’t even want to spend three seconds on rushing to the door and turning the bolt to unlock it. Wait, wait, wait. I jumped at Uiharu the instant she opened the door, so it should still be unlocked. At least I think so. But wait. She has that police staff the size of a bamboo sword. What if she throws that at me while I’m trying to figure out the lock? What if it hits me in the back of the head!?)

Uiharu had her back turned so she could face the steel desk. She was operating the computer on her feet instead of taking a seat. That meant Saten could view the monitor from her position if she tried. She was afraid it would show a list of future victims, though. But surely Uiharu wasn’t doing paperwork or sending messages for Judgment, right? On the other hand, maybe she was doing business as usual to give herself an alibi? Saten couldn’t decide on anything. Everything swirled around in her head until she wasn’t sure what was what. No matter what Uiharu was doing, Saten was pretty sure it would feel like one of those “what mental health problem do you have” quizzes that had been popular a while back.

It turned out Saten Ruiko’s guesses had all been too naïve.

“Stuffing a body into the inner unit of a wind turbine undergoing maintenance was such a convenient method. If no one discovered it, the rotation would continue crushing it for 18 hours straight, reducing the hair, bones, flesh, and organs to no more than a paste.”

“…”

“If only I hadn’t gotten careless and made so many bodies Anti-Skill caught on and started watching for that. Well, it was about time I came up with a new method anyway.”

Uiharu sounded cheerful as she spoke to herself.

This went well beyond a list of future victims.

In fact, that wasn’t Judgment work on the screen after all. Saten was pretty sure it was a special online store often recommended during workshop videos.

“A few quick modifications and an Academy City cleaning robot should be enough for the mass of a 13-year-old girl. Crush them up and smush them into a small tube and you can fit people into a surprisingly small space☆”

Saten’s idea of inappropriate trivia was how a somewhat naughty video would play after the TV broadcast ended for the day, not this!

Uiharu seemed to be enjoying herself as she worked at the computer.

“I can buy a used cleaning robot online, so should I go that route?”

“…”

“No one can tell there’s a whole person stuffed inside the robot if they’ve been crushed up enough, so then I can just dump it in the furnace at the waste treatment facility. Good thing Academy City is so passionate about recycling☆”

“!!!???”

Hearing bits and pieces of your coming demise was not a fun experience. Saten got the feeling she was about to die even more gruesomely than the victims of the Kuchisake Onna or Hikiko-san.

She couldn’t afford to waste any time in her escape.

Before she made her move, she wanted to know how far away the door was and what kind of lock it used.

But to repeat, she could not twist around and leave a red stain on the floor.

Which left only one option.

(M-my phone.)

She grew painfully aware of the slight weight in her skirt pocket.

(Yes, I have my phone! I don’t have to twist my entire body if I reach back with an arm and snap a photo of-)

Vrrr!! Vrrrrrrr!!

Her heart stopped.

Her heart completely stopped and half her soul emerged from her mouth.

It was such a standard fact she grew worried that it might not actually be true. So she repeated it to herself over and over. Silent mode was used to inform the owner of a call or message without making any noise. That’s why it was called silent mode.

(So why is it so darn loud!? No. Oh, no. She’s going to notice. She’s turning this way! Yikes, and she’s walking this way!?)

What could she do? Was there even a right answer here!? Had the supposedly all-knowing Kokkuri-san and Satoru-kun gotten scared and gone into hiding!?

It bothered her that urban legends were the only things that came to mind here, so she made a mental note to study some other things in the future. Not that she would have much of a future if Uiharu discovered she was alive.

Uiharu did not speak a word.

She walked back over from the desktop computer and tilted her head, but Saten didn’t know any more than that since she shut her eyes. She was so terrified she wished she could pull on one of those white strings the urban legend said could hang from an ear piercing. She heard some rustling cloth, so had Uiharu crouched down?

A hand or something lightly slapped the side of her hip.

She was dead if she reacted, so she kept her eyes shut and poured all her willpower into suppressing any trembling. Fortunately, Uiharu’s voice remained carefree.

“Oh, whoops. I touched her with my bare hand. That will leave fingerprints.”

“…”

Fingerprints.

That dangerous word succinctly reconfirmed the situation Saten found herself in.

“Meh, that will be destroyed along with her, so it doesn’t matter. I can even render the residual thoughts unreadable by running her through the robot’s carbo clean cycle several times over. Just like wiping a hard drive by repeatedly writing junk data to it.”

She made it sound so simple.

It was scary how normal it was for her.

She felt along Saten’s outer thigh until she managed to extract the hard object from the skirt pocket. A period of silence followed. Saten was so scared she feared her heartbeat would give her away. She was thankful Uiharu wasn’t a telepath or another mind-related esper. Thank god they were both low-Level idiots!! Uiharu had to be staring at the phone she had taken. But what if she was actually observing Saten’s face for any signs of life?

After what felt like an eternity, Uiharu spoke again.

In a terrifyingly icy voice.

“What to do about the GPS data?”

Saten hadn’t considered that.

A bit of hope grew inside her.

“If I erased the last few hours from the log, it might look like she switched it off during class and never turned it back on.”

But that hope was snuffed out a moment later.

Maybe it was hopeless to try and outdo Uiharu in this field.

(They should add a big yellow exclamation point outside of Branch 177!!)

Uiharu continued to mutter to herself and Saten heard a solid thunk and a slight vibration from the floor nearby. Instead of confiscating the phone, Uiharu must have decided to keep every piece of evidence next to the corpse. She wouldn’t want to put it down somewhere, forget about it, and have that incriminating evidence lying around.

Saten still had hope.

It wasn’t over yet.

That modern marvel was still within arm’s reach.

The light footsteps once more moved away from Saten. When she heard the clicking of a mouse within her self-imposed blindness, Saten slowly opened her eyes a crack.

“There, one used cleaning robot. I can spoof the school code and have it delivered here in the name of cleaning an unused classroom. A bike delivery…wouldn’t work. It’s too big. I’ll have to have a truck or something bring it.”

Uiharu was facing the computer.

The phone was on the floor right in front of Saten’s nose.

Most importantly, Uiharu’s back was to Saten. Even on her side, Saten could tell Uiharu was checking over an online shopping order on the large desktop computer monitor. She was safe. She could act without being seen right now. So Saten Ruiko moved her free arm. The phone was right in front of her, but moving her hand that 10cm felt like it took more than a year off her life.

She was scared.

Downright terrified.

The monitor didn’t reflect the room behind Uiharu like a mirror, did it? What if Uiharu turned around for no reason at all? There were no guarantees, but Saten knew she was currently on the railroad track. Careless action would put her at risk, but doing nothing would get her run over once the train arrived on schedule. She had to take action if she wanted to avoid becoming a legend of the frozen railroad crossing who crawled around with only the top half of her body.

Move.

Work toward your escape, step by step.

Each millimeter you move is another millimeter closer to survival.

(Got…it!)

She snagged the rectangular phone with her hooked index finger. She pulled it toward her and used her thumb to pick it up.

There was no feigning death this time.

Speed was critical now. She checked the phone to see the lock screen displaying a missed call from Shirai Kuroko. Now she knew who to blame for the heart-stopping vibration noise earlier. She nearly clicked her tongue on reflex, but stopped herself and focused on operating the phone.

Calling an emergency number and using the camera did not require unlocking the phone.

“…”

An emergency number.

The temptation to dial one of those pierced her chest, but wait.

Hold on.

Anti-Skill, Academy City’s law enforcement, would not show up the instant she made the call. And the room was so quiet. The place was so still that voices, movements, and even the air blowing from the air conditioner sounded loud. Uiharu Kazari had complete control over this crime scene. Was it a crime scene? Or was it an accident site? Regardless, Uiharu would definitely notice the cheerful voice coming from the speaker. And even if an investigation request were sent to the nearest station, wouldn’t they call Branch 177 for assistance? Wouldn’t they pass on all the relevant information to Uiharu Kazari? Like that the caller’s name was Saten Ruiko, age 13, height less than 150cm, long black hair, greenish-black eyes, beauty the likes of which are only seen once every 3.5 billion years? Wouldn’t they send over her photograph from the Bank and ask Uiharu to confirm the situation and provide assistance?

(God, really!? Why do they still need us to report an emergency vocally!? Why can’t they use your GPS information to set it up so a fully-equipped Anti-Skill team bursts through the door the instant you press the report button!? Even modern taxi apps and bicycle delivery services let you do it all with a single tap, so you don’t have to input all the numbers and stuff!!)

It was tempting, but not a real option.

Calling an emergency number and relying on the grownups was a trap. That option led to a dead end no matter how she played it.

Carelessly straying from her plan would only cause it all to fall apart. She used all of her willpower to shake free of that temptation and tapped the camera icon as initially planned. She nearly cried when she saw the familiar camera screen. Normal was such a wonderful thing. She had the shutter sound turned off using a special setting, so she didn’t have to worry about that.

She bent her arm at an unnatural angle.

She couldn’t see what she was doing, but she tried to aim the phone in the door’s general direction.

Then she only needed to press the photo button with her thumb. She had pressed that button thousands if not tens of thousands of times before. She didn’t need to twist around to view the screen. Her instincts were enough.

(I just need to know how far to the door and whether it’s locked.)

She held her breath and steeled herself.

(That will tell me how long an escape will take. Then I can decide how much of an opening Uiharu needs to give before I make my attempt!!)

Press it.

Pressing her thumb down would open the way to survival.

She forced herself to think luck was finally on her side while she focused on her thumb.

The result?

A camera flash flooded the entire room with bright light.

Part 3

That was it.

Saten Ruiko’s soul was now fully out of her mouth.

(Stupid.)

She wasn’t faking it this time.

Saten’s eyes really had rolled back in her head while she howled on the inside.

(Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!! I-it’s true I couldn’t see the screen to check. And it’s true I generally don’t check every time to see if the flash is on! Did the auto setting decide the room was dark enough to need the extra bright LED strobe light!?)

Unfortunately, her silent laments would not turn back time.

“…”

Needless to say, Uiharu Kazari would have noticed the flash. Even if she was wearing a thick eye mask and napping in her seat, missing that would have been scary in a brand new way. Saten quickly let go of the phone and returned her arm to its original position. But that wasn’t going to convince Uiharu nothing was amiss. In fact, she couldn’t imagine what kind of miracle would lead Uiharu to not link that flash to her.

She had no choice but to shut her eyes and see what happened.

The footsteps approached. Slowly. The sound like straining leather may have been her squeezing the police staff painfully tight. Actually, would Thermal Hand let her release the limits on her muscles by forcibly keeping her body temperature at a level that provided miraculous strength in an emergency? Was she really only Level 1!? The darkness made it all scarier, but as much as Saten loved information, she knew opening her eyes now would be the last mistake she ever made.

(Ah, abh, abwababrabh.)

There was nothing she could do.

At this point, opening her eyes wide and attacking Uiharu in a last-ditch effort might be an option, but she lacked the courage to attempt it.

She tried to recall some more enjoyable memories to gather up as much courage as she could find.

Emotional control was crucial.

(It was always so easy to trick Uiharu with her skirt and underwear. She was wearing cute polka dotted ones just yesterday. Ah ha ha. Eh heh heh.)

“…”

She only managed to depress herself by discovering a possible motive for Uiharu to kill her.

She couldn’t imagine how she could escape this one.

There was an unseen power, a thick wall of pressure, and a violent aura that told her she didn’t stand a chance. Why did Uiharu seem so untouchable today?

She was normally so unobservant Saten had no trouble sneaking up behind her and flipping up her skirt.

Saten’s heart pounded loud in her chest.

It wasn’t even a physical threat anymore. Some invisible weight seemed to have taken Uiharu’s side. She was sure of it. That girl was a ruler. As long as she remained in this room, she was a little god who could shut down any puny human resistance in a single blow. But this wasn’t the kind of god found at a Shinto shrine like the one whose power resided in Saten’s good luck charm (which she still treasured despite always insisting on the latest and greatest of everything else). This could only be described as an evil good.

She could only endure it with her eyes shut.

“Saten-san.”

There was no warmth in Uiharu Kazari’s voice.

This was one of those deals where responding to the voice calling for you was the wrong move. In urban legend terms, it was like the Aka Manto or Hasshaku-sama, where responding would get your soul stolen away. Something had gone seriously wrong when her strategy was based on something as poorly defined as a soul.

(O-oh, no. Do I feel like the blood is rushing to my head because she’s using Thermal Hand on me? Can’t she kill me from the inside if she forces my temperature to stay at nearly 42 degrees? No, I’m imagining this. She wouldn’t attack me when she thinks I’m already dead. Or wait. Which is it? I can’t tell!)

She couldn’t control her racing heart anymore. She understood that, but had the extreme tension caused some kind of thread to snap and now she was having a slight out-of-body experience?

“Saten-saaan. I know you’re watching.”

Uiharu called again.

(No, she’s bluffing. Don’t play along! She isn’t using Thermal Hand!!)

Uiharu may not have been expecting a response. She may have been watching closely for any movement of the eyelids or shoulders. Saten couldn’t tell what Uiharu was thinking anymore. It was even possible she was staring into space and speaking with some high priest or something. Oh, but an entirely illogical explanation was even scarier somehow.

Uiharu didn’t call her a third time.

Because another bright flash erupted from the phone.

After a short pause, another one.

They continued like that. Uiharu finally caught on and spoke her thought out loud.

“It’s on a timer?”

“…”

She’d bought it.

Saten heard rustling cloth. She couldn’t be certain with her eyes closed, but Uiharu had probably crouched down and picked up the phone again.

Saten had activated the timer just before letting go of the phone. If there was a reason for the camera to go off on its own, there was an explanation for the flash other than Saten’s survival.

“Hm,” said Uiharu after a long while. She didn’t trust it right away. “And I thought for sure I’d caught her in my trap by gradually dimming the room’s smart lighting.”

(Wow, so that wasn’t just an accident? When did we wander into a world of deception and superpowered battles, Uiharu!?)

Of course Uiharu would be careful. She was risking everything here as well.

Uiharu seemed to be teetering on the edge of believing it, but if those scales tilted in the wrong direction, she might just strike Saten’s head with that heavy police staff or the corner of the phone.

Eventually, Uiharu’s voice arrived from beyond the darkness.

“Could I check the photos?”

“?”

“If that initial flash took a picture of the ceiling, there’s nothing to worry about. But if it took a photo at any other angle, the timer alone can’t explain it.”

“!!!???”

Oh, no.

Oh, no, no, no!!

Saten couldn’t shut her eyes and suppress the shaking much longer. She felt more tension than any other time that day.

Uiharu grabbed her hand.

“Is it a fingerprint lock? No. It doesn’t use her eyes or face either. Hm. Saten-san must have known that an old-fashioned password is still the safest option when it comes to face-to-face trouble.”

“…”

Saten didn’t feel like she had escaped disaster yet.

Uiharu sounded awfully unconcerned for her plan failing.

The phone’s lock screen was fairly trustworthy against an ordinary person, but Uiharu Kazari was far from ordinary. She was probably Judgment’s top cyber crime specialist. In other words, she was a skilled hacker. She could easily break through a commercial phone’s password lock.

And needless to say, the angle of that initial photo wouldn’t check out because Saten had been holding the phone toward the door. Once Uiharu found that photo, she would know for sure that Saten was still alive and had taken the photo herself.

Simply put, Saten was screwed once her phone was analyzed.

Then Uiharu would finish the job with that extra-large blunt weapon. A lot of brain training apps promised to make your brain more flexible, but Uiharu was going to take a much more literal approach to that.

Saten wondered why her mind tried to make weird jokes in extreme situations like this. Maybe the terror was so great she would scream if she faced it directly.

(Wh-wh-wh-wh-what do I do!?)

She forced her eyes open a crack to see what she could see.

Uiharu appeared to be hooking Saten’s phone up to her computer with a cable. So what if she destroyed the computer? She didn’t dare move her head, so she used just her eyes to look around. There were thick cables tangled up on the floor. The power cables for the microwave, coffee maker, and so on were plugged into a power strip. One of course connected to the computer.

This would work.

But could she do it?

The cables were pulled pretty taut. If she reached out her leg and caught it with her foot, she might be able to pull the entire power strip’s plug out of the wall. What part of the computer was working when that LED was flashing? She didn’t know, but she thought it would damage the computer to lose power in the middle of that work.

But wait.

Would that actually work?

No matter what she chose, the cowardice crept up on her and struck her in the heart.

Knocking out the power wasn’t guaranteed to damage the computer. Maybe it would for an ordinary computer, but what if Judgment ones were made especially tough? Uiharu would know best, but Saten couldn’t exactly ask her and she didn’t have her phone to look it up on either. She was stuck. Her mind spun fruitlessly and she couldn’t reject the worrying possibility.

Besides.

Even if she did yank out the power cable and shut off the computer, wouldn’t Uiharu question why the cable had come unplugged? Saten would only be drawing suspicion back to herself. But if she didn’t do it, it was only a matter of time before Uiharu was through the lock screen. She was doomed if she didn’t escape the immediate threat, so she couldn’t sit around worrying about the threat that came after that. She just had to do it! Even if every option available to her was deeply flawed!!

Abandon your pessimism, Saten Ruiko.

Be reborn.

If you want to escape this and go on living, you need to take action!!

(Kh.)

While doing her best not to disturb the pool of fake blood on the floor, she gradually gathered strength in her leg. She slowly stretched it out, trying her best to not make any noise. She didn’t like that her skirt pulled up as she did so, but she could worry about that later. She focused her mind on her big toe. Could she reach the power cable on the floor? Just barely. It was going to be close. In fact, she was tensing her leg so much it was close to cramping!!

She had to be careful.

A single drop of water would cause it all to blow up in her face.

But she was interrupted by yet another unexpected turn of events. This one came from outside her field of vision. The loud rattling sound did not come from inside the room. It probably came from the hallway outside the door.

“Uiharu? It’s nearly time to leave. You need to get ready for today’s joint training with Anti-Skill. We’re doing a mock crime scene investigation for a convenience store robbery. My family gave us an entire store to work with.”

(Huh!? Sh-Shirai-san!? Why did she have to show up now!?)

Saten’s heart was approaching its limit, but then she remembered Shirai was a member of Judgment and she visited Branch 177 a fair amount. An outsider like Saten was the one who had no business being here.

Also.

She couldn’t let the surprise distract her. Wasn’t this the chance she needed?

Armed with that police staff longer than a bamboo sword, Uiharu was the god of this room, but that localized divinity would mean nothing against a Level 4 Teleporter or the Level 5 Railgun. It was only valid against an ordinary person like Saten. Uiharu might be able to break the conservation of mass to cover up all the evidence of her crime, but she wouldn’t be able to defeat Shirai Kuroko in a direct conflict.

(Yes!! My savior has finally arrived!! That’s right. There’s more to this world than terror. Has Shirai-san always been like Temple Born T-san!?)

Then she could wait.

She could shut her eyes, lie flat on the floor, and let this play out.

Without making a single rustle of cloth.

Screwing up now and getting the police staff to the head 3 seconds before help arrived would be too tragic to consider. It was best to not even try it.

And Uiharu did seem flustered all of a sudden.

“Eh? Ehhh? Sh-Shirai-san!?”

In fact, her voice shot up in pitch. Her voice was trembling and tearful.

The god of destruction had rapidly deflated.

She was the usual mouselike Uiharu again.

Shirai Kuroko was oblivious to all of this, so the door clicked open without so much as a knock.

“What are you doing in here, Uiharu? You need to get ready for-”

Whack!! Thud!!!!

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

(Eh?)

This time, time really did stop for Saten Ruiko.

Her eyes were still shut, so she started to wonder if the entire world had vanished around her.

It was just that quiet.

What had those sounds been? What was this painful silence!? Had her savior, Saint Shirai Kuroko, been knocked out with the police staff!? Surely not, right!?

Then she heard the straining of a solid object under stress. Most likely, that was the ecofriendly plastic police staff being squeezed in someone’s tight grip.

Uiharu’s Thermal Hand was only Level 1, but what if she could alter her body temperature with hot water or the air conditioning and then lock it there in order to freely switch on or off the limiters for her muscles?

(Eh? Huh?)

Saten may have made a grave error.

Even a Level 4 was still human. An unexpected blow to the head would kill them the same as anyone else. It was possible she could have prevented this. Maybe she should have risked it all and gotten up to tell Shirai to watch out.

But it was too late now.

That ship had sailed. There was no going back to that crossroads.

“Hah. Ha ha.”

She heard dry laughter.

Uiharu Kazari’s voice sounded unstable as she talked to no one in particular.

“You can’t just barge in without knocking, Shirai-san. Fortunately, disposing of two bodies isn’t that much more difficult than just the one.”

(O-oh, no. Say it isn’t so, Shirai-san.)

Saten couldn’t suppress the shaking anymore.

(If she can knock out a Level 4 like Shirai that easily, what chance does a Level 0 like me stand!? Wh-wh-wh-what do I do!? Please, tell this isn’t really happening!! I can’t rely on the power level rankings and seek out Konori-senpai or Misaka-san’s help! But who does that leave? Haruue-san? Edasaki-san? I’d even take Janie or Febrie’s help right now! Oh, I never should have let them go! Is this my punishment for completely forgetting they existed recently!? Anyway, I need some goodhearted person from a more honest world or this is only going to get worse!!)

Actually, wasn’t Uiharu Kazari supposed to be one of those comfortingly good people? When the party’s soother had gone completely off the rails, sticky darkness rapidly filled the entire world. It was like sinking into a bog.

The darkness of her shut eyes was scaring her too badly now. She couldn’t stay like this forever, so she slowly opened them a crack while still lying on her side.

Mere centimeters away, the twintails girl lay entirely motionless with blood dripping down into her opened eyes.

Her face wasn’t even symmetrical anymore.

The one side looked weirdly shaded because it was dented in on the side.

Something pink and thicker than blood was oozing out from behind the eye on that side.

There was no doubting it. Shirai Kuroko had to be dead!!

“Bh-”

That was her limit.

Babbling nonsense left her mouth before her mind could keep up.

“Bwbhbjhahaerh!! Bhjfhwieurhbng!?”

Shirai was dead.

Did that mean she was breathing the same air that surrounded an actual corpse!?

And didn’t the rules of this small holy ground prevent her from ever overthrowing its master? She had already seen what happened to any who defied her.

She couldn’t let this room’s master know she was still alive.

Realizing she had just shouted out loud, she stiffened and trembled violently.

What could she do now? What options were left!?

“Ha ha. Saten-san.”

She was afraid.

Afraid to turn around.

But she was still the same urban legend lover who was never satisfied until she had gathered all the information. She chose to check behind her instead of meeting her end not knowing.

She turned silently.

A girl splattered with her victim’s blood had an incongruously sweet smile on her face.

Saten heard a dull straining sound.

The smiling girl was squeezing a red-soaked police staff in her hand. Level 1 Thermal Hand proved to be far from harmless and anything but ordinary as it bared its fangs here.

“I knew you had to be still alive. And it’s too late to escape now☆”

Part 4

When Misaka Mikoto arrived a bit later, she viewed Branch 177’s disastrous state in disgust.

“You say you need help carrying Saten-san out of here, but what in the world happened? Wow, she is out cold, isn’t she?”

There was blood everywhere.

Saten Ruiko was in the center of the room, lying on her back and twitching. She must have had a talent for looking somewhat sexy even when receiving karmic retribution. In a suspense drama, she would be the victim found in the inn’s open-air bath without providing any clue toward solving the mystery.

“This place is a mess.”

“All of this uses black bean cider and strawberry oden as an ingredient. She really needs to learn not to waste food.”

Uiharu Kazari managed to look cute even while upset.

She was puffing out her cheeks.

She was a mouselike girl with a grip strength of only 13kg.

Of course she was. Mikoto refused to believe Judgment had a hellish destroyer like that.

So what had happened?

“I could see everything Saten-san was doing while I was away from my desk,” explained Uiharu, wiping up the splattered blood with a wet towel. She was an ordinary girl once more. “I used the computer’s webcam. Those aren’t just special office devices anymore. You can see it attached to the top of the monitor there, right? I honestly hate them because they’re nothing but a nuisance from an information security perspective.”

Branch 177 contained lots of important documents and data, so she wouldn’t have left it unlocked and unmonitored. The usual automatic lock had been deactivated while they carried out the equipment needed for the largescale training today, but even when away from her desk for a short time, Uiharu had made sure she could monitor the inside of the office – with a particular focus on the presence any unauthorized intruders.

Shirai Kuroko shrugged.

“Then she used the webcam to keep an eye on Saten-san while she had her back turned. She pretended to shop on an industrial online store while actually contacting my phone with the computer.”

“I had Shirai-san make some of that fake blood using a VR instruction video.”

“And I took the liberty of putting on some special makeup while I was at it.”

They had been preparing for joint training with Anti-Skill.

And a mock crime scene investigation at that.

They had already had the necessary makeup and props to dress someone up as the victim’s corpse.

“I pretended to stop by Branch 177 by random chance and then get clobbered by Uiharu.” The twintails girl sighed and gave Uiharu a puzzled look. “But, Uiharu, how did you manage that with the police staff’s grip? It seems to have been an adlib.”

“Ah ha ha. I’m only a Level 1, remember? I can’t use Thermal Hand to release the limiter on my muscles or anything like that. But this is made of polyhydroxybutyrate plastic, a biodegradable plastic, which makes it a lot like wood. By getting it decently damp and then keeping the temperature steady, I can use the power of microbes to cause rapid rotting and fermentation.”

“(Hold on. That’s scary enough on its own.)”

“?”

That 1st year middle schooler was generally a good girl, so she must not have considered the esper combat applications of that ability.

Hopefully, she couldn’t put on a gasmask to protect her from the rotting gases and spend 10 hours erasing an entire bullfighting bull from the face of the planet. Mikoto had always suspected Thermal Hand had a disturbing number of possible applications.

“Hmm,” groaned Mikoto.

She looked down at Saten who was lying on the ground convulsing with her eyes rolled back in her head, which robbed her of all dignity as a teenage girl.

“I get pranking her back for trying to prank you, but I think you overdid it.”

“Tell that to her. I didn’t want to take the joke this far.”

Chapter 3: Uiharu Kazari Can Do Real Work Too

Part 1

Academy City was an artificially created city.

Some people might find that phrasing unusual. Isn’t every city in the world an artificial creation?

But anyone who set foot in that city would know exactly what it meant.

Academy City had a different vibe from every other city in the world.

It was not a place that had naturally developed over time. Tall walls had been erected around a vast area of land and everything necessary for the city’s functioning had been stuffed inside, creating exactly the metropolis the adults wanted. On a deeper level, Academy City was a giant collection of institutions given shape according to a certain ideal. If a problem cropped up within it and that ideal began to unravel, there was always someone to take the blame.

Thus, in that city of 2.3 million, with 80% of its population being students, there were statistics that were officially gathered but never made public. Because everyone knew their release would make unwanted waves.

For example, the yearly number of suicides in that city of mostly children was never officially released.

Part 2

“It is a lab, but I don’t think it’s the one we wanted.”

Misaka Mikoto, a middle school girl with short chestnut hair, sounded bored as she leaned against a metal door.

The space through that door wasn’t much larger than a studio apartment. The oblong room’s walls had as many steel racks bolted to them as would fit and they held computers of all sizes. Something had been partially dismantled using various tools after its cushions had been removed. Was it a massage chair?

“Even cyber attacks are done for profit these days. I guess someone decided to copy that virus everyone is talking about and rewrote it enough to earn them some money. But whether this ransomware targeting public infrastructure is the original or a modification, taking people’s lives is a real crappy thing to do.”

“Onee-sama!!”

A new annoyance had arrived.

The girl with a Judgment armband on her right arm was her underclassman Shirai Kuroko.

“You shouldn’t be doing so much on your own. You aren’t in Judgment, so you need to stay behind me.”

“This isn’t a Judgment job either, is it?”

“Ugh,” groaned the defeated twintailed hero.

Student-run Judgment was only supposed to solve problems occurring within their own school. Criminal investigations out in the city itself were a job for teacher-run Anti-Skill. So as much as Shirai nagged, her pursuit of criminals in the streets was something she had learned from Mikoto.

Still leaning against the door, Mikoto looked back inside the rusty-smelling room.

The lab was actually a smoking room surrounded by frosted glass. Place a “closed for maintenance” sign on the locked door and you had your own private space to use. The cyber attack lab taking people’s lives for profit had been sitting in a corner of District 15, Academy City’s largest shopping district.

A group of small children in yellow hats raised their hands and followed their teacher across a nearby crosswalk. They were probably on a field trip rather than heading home after school. They looked like a bunch of baby ducks following their mama, but it wasn’t a heartwarming sight in this instance. It was awful knowing such a dangerous lab had been so close to them.

“Anyway, now we wait for Uiharu,” said Shirai. “We still haven’t found the original lab, but this place should still be full of valuable information. My guess is we’ll find the original one next time or the time after that.”

“I say this was worthwhile in and of itself.”

Mikoto used her chin to gesture toward the people collapsed next to the lab.

The lab’s technician and a few bodyguards (who were probably mostly meant to keep an eye on the technician and make sure he did his job) were twitching on the ground with a scorched smell coming from their clothing.

“These people were making money using a modified version of that dangerous virus, after all.”

It was said Academy City’s scientific technology was 20 or 30 years ahead of the outside world and illegal programs and tools were a serious problem there. Unfortunately, they were not all key picking software that neutralized an electronic lock’s security, invisibility tools that altered the records of security cameras, or anything else an SF action movie’s protagonist might use. In fact, someone using those tools would still leave microscopic skin fragments and clothing threads behind, so they would only be putting themselves at greater risk. Having your hair or saliva on the floor when the cameras never showed you there would raise some serious red flags.

The students familiar with Academy City science knew real life wasn’t like the movies.

The cyber rumors in this city were of a different variety:

There were rumors of a neutron cyber attack tool that could rewrite the electrical signals in someone’s nerves.

There were rumors of self-teaching VR that could increase your Level but had serious side effects.

There were rumors of a fashion server that could perfectly predict the next big thing.

And there were rumors of the ultimate underground security software that let you download as many sketchy tools and programs as you liked without ever falling victim to any cruel traps.

“The majority are phony. They take their advance payment and then run off with the money. But sometimes a truly dangerous app appears out there.”

This may have been the worst case of that yet.

The initial product description was incomprehensible, but it wasn’t just an online scam. The actual distributed product was having a real effect.

Mikoto looked up into the blue sky.

“ExitApp. The perfect suicide tool that lets you die without feeling any fear.”

Part 3

14 cases were currently known.

The actual number was unknown since anyone who tried it inside their locked room or in a car parked deep in the mountains might not have been discovered yet.

The number of attempted suicides was impossible to know. Especially because ExitApp did things differently from traditional suicide methods.

“ExitApp calls itself ‘the perfect suicide tool’. We still don’t know where it came from, but it seems to have been created based on an existing health management app.”

Mikoto and Shirai had returned to Judgment Branch Office 177 and Uiharu Kazari, a Judgment IT expert, reviewed the information they had.

But part of that was new to Mikoto.

“A health management app?”

“Specifically, the management program included in an IoT massage chair.”

These days, even microwaves and washing machines had USB ports and short-range wireless connectivity to access a computer or the network. And the host that managed all of the devices in a home didn’t have to be a traditional computer. The main health management program could be in a massage chair that connected to the scale, phone, smartwatch, etc.

“There is nothing at all wrong with the massage chair with its normal settings, but if a bit of hacking is done to remove the limits on its movements, it can be transformed into an execution machine that folds people up, snapping all their bones in the process.”

“Ew,” groaned Saten.

She was probably viewing this as a gruesome urban legend instead of a criminal investigation.

It might sound surprising, but there are very few examples of people truly setting out to create something dangerous and succeeding.

Think of kitchen knives.

Think of cars.

Think of cellphones.

In most cases, the dangers were discovered after the thing was created.

Situations would arise that the creator had never even considered.

People would use them in bizarre, unintended ways.

That had happened countless times.

Danger could be found anywhere, like in playground equipment or the lid to a can.

Even with tools meant to keep people alive, like fire extinguishers and life jackets, people had to learn the proper way to use them.

Because they could be dangerous otherwise.

Academy City’s esper powers may have been the same.

Anyway.

For better or for worse, Saten was knowledgeable about rumors, so she crossed her arms and tilted her head in thought.

“Hmm. I have heard a lot of urban legends saying a massage chair could kill you if it malfunctioned, but I thought everyone had concluded it wasn’t actually possible. I heard they could maybe break a bone, but it couldn’t kill you because you would just get out of the chair before it got that far.”

“Yes, the ExitApp and a massage chair on their own wouldn’t be a real problem,” said Uiharu. “The app gives the chair a ‘kill’ setting, but like Saten-san said, people would normally escape the chair once it started hurting them.”

“On their own? I take it there is another piece to the puzzle,” said Shirai with a frustrated sigh.

Uiharu responded with a serious nod.

“The success rate rises dramatically when combined with the consumption of strong alcohol. Obviously people’s tolerance there differs, but there appear to be some videos going around explaining how to efficiently get to sleep by manipulating your circulation through the combination of alcohol and a massage chair.”

“Oh, you mean like how they say drinking after a bath is a bad idea?”

Mikoto sounded skeptical because she was of course not a drinker.

Uiharu sighed softly.

“This is that but with the efficiency boosted by science. Basically, if people would leave the chair because of the pain, you instead get them to pass out drunk inside the execution machine first.”

“So you’re saying an ordinary massage chair really can kill someone?”

“And there is no resisting it. So the app lives up to its claims of being the perfect suicide tool that lets you die in your own home without chickening out at the last second.”

In other words, these weren’t accidental deaths from the machine developing a short and electrocuting its occupant.

This was a hit product designed to kill and only kill and it was still out there being distributed.

“To start with, it has you enjoy a massage every day as just part of your routine. Once you’re used to using it, you activate the ExitApp, drink some alcohol, and continue with your usual routine one final time.”

The massage chair let people do practice runs of their death any number of times.

And once they decided to go through with it, they had a special tool that would automatically finish the job after they got themselves drunk enough.

Mikoto sighed while considering that setup.

“Could you get the massage chairs removed from store shelves until all this dies down? It’s not fair to the people who worked so hard making them, but what are you gonna do?”

“The entire point is to push the chair past its limits, so it doesn’t actually matter if the software doesn’t match the hardware’s standards. That would work if it was taking advantage of a vulnerability specific to one product, but we don’t have a good enough justification to remove every brand of massage chair from sale, so an industry group would fight back and claim they were being unfairly targeted.”

“An industry group?” asked Saten, blinking in confusion.

Shirai shrugged.

“Massage devices might seem like a niche market, but a lot of major electronics companies are shifting their focus to health devices like scales and air purifiers to make up for the losses caused by the shift away from domestic manufacturing of TVs and LCD monitors. Doing anything that earned their ire would mean picking a fight with a power greater than you can possibly imagine.”

Besides, the very idea of fighting them was taking this in the wrong direction. The companies hadn’t done anything wrong in this case. This perfect suicide tool betrayed the vision of the people who had created the massage chairs. The same was true of alcoholic beverages, even if that was a world middle schoolers like them had no part in.

This tool would appeal to people who really wanted to die, as well as people who simply wanted a thrill. And even if someone only downloaded it as a test of courage, the fear of death would fade as they repeated the initial harmless process, so they might activate the kill mode on a whim at some point.

It was impossible to know just how many people in Academy City truly felt their life had hit rock bottom and wanted to die right away.

But with all the worries over stagnant power development and the stresses of studying for exams, it wasn’t uncommon for people to start saying they wanted to die or they wanted to be reborn and get a fresh start in a new life. Those might be idle complaints at first, but this ruinous tool provided a realistic way of accomplishing it and invited them to do something they could never undo.

In that sense, the number of “attempted suicides” using the app may have been in the thousands or even tens of thousands. Because anyone who wanted to die would use the massage chair on a daily basis, gradually wearing down the fear of death while they continued to live their ordinary lives.

And once they had become numb to the fear, they would activate the kill mode and die without any hesitation.

The deadly trigger in this case was drinking alcohol.

That was readily available on any convenience store’s shelves.

“Oh, here we go. I found the story. But it says that trigger has actually kept the harm from spreading too far,” said Saten.

She was getting this information from the internet on her phone, so its accuracy couldn’t be entirely trusted.

“Alcohol is a hard thing for middle schoolers like us to get our hands on, right? If I brought one of those colorful cans or bottles up to the register, the cashier would definitely stop me. So even if someone has started using a massage chair before bed each day, acquiring the alcohol would be enough of a challenge that they might suddenly realize what they were really doing and stop themselves.”

If the hurdle was a lot lower, the number of deaths may have been a lot higher. Like if the trigger was eating chocolate to relax and that led people to submerge their hairdryer in the water to electrocute themselves.

Drinking alcohol before the age of 20 was considered wrong.

In a city where 80% of the population was students, people were carded much more strictly than in an ordinary city.

So people who were considered ordinary by the city’s standards would be hesitant to cross that line.

It might seem strange that someone planning to kill themselves would care, but different suicidal people viewed things differently. If they wanted to end their life before they fell even further, it wasn’t unusual for them to avoid any criminal activity and seek out a “clean” death. According to Uiharu’s analysis, the people who didn’t care about anything else as long as they died might opt for a murder suicide of a loved one or random strangers instead of killing themselves all alone. If that was true, then positive thinking wasn’t necessarily enough to help people recover and return to being a healthy member of society. People were complicated.

However…

“But some students really are completing the process.”

“Alcohol is not sold in vending machines, but there are more ways of buying it without directly meeting an adult clerk nowadays. Like online shopping or self-checkout. They may be choosing places like that to reduce the mental barrier.”

“Ugh,” groaned Shirai Kuroko.

She didn’t need to feel any responsibility just because her family ran a nationwide convenience store chain, but the responsible types tended to be hard on themselves.

“Anyway, removing every form of alcohol, including mirin and ethanol disinfectant, from store shelves isn’t realistic. The only way to prevent any further suicides is to track down the developer of ExitApp,” concluded Uiharu.

The perfect suicide tool that used precise equations to fold up its drunk victims had already been distributed to a large number of people, so it was only the purchasers’ relative purity(?) that kept the number of suicides from exploding. They continued to incorporate the app into their everyday routine, but they weren’t willing to go so far outside their idea of ordinary.

If the mysterious developer was captured and made to explain just how dangerous the app was, those users would start to question their use of ExitApp. Because even if they were suicidal, these were still ordinary people who were hesitant to use a fake ID to buy alcohol at their local convenience store.

And once they started questioning it, the thousands or even tens of thousands of suicidal students across Academy City would stop using ExitApp. And they wouldn’t try to use a new perfect suicide tool either.

Uiharu sighed before continuing.

“The key to this case is following the distribution route back to the developer. Since you two took care of all the people selling modified versions, there should just be the one route left. We will reach our target next time. So let’s eradicate ExitApp before it creates any more victims.”

Part 4

The tracing investigation had begun.

Out on the main street, Mikoto and Shirai surreptitiously glanced over at the narrow, dimly-lit zone around the corner of a building.

“Why are we waiting here as backup?” complained Academy City’s #3 Level 5.

“I-it’s your own fault,” said Uiharu over the radio. “The underground message boards I follow are on the lookout for you and Shirai-san after you made such a scene destroying those other sellers. I mean, Shirai-san has such a hero complex she walked into the back alleys with her armband still on!”

“A sting operation!?” said Saten, also over the radio. “W-wow, why didn’t you tell me you were doing something so cool, Uiharu! You don’t have the disposition for undercover work, so let this rumor-loving, sexy, and risqué adult take over! Then we’re sure to save the world and the human ra-”

“You stay where you are, you hopeless troublemaker!” shouted the other three in perfect unison.

They must have all imagined the unpleasant future that was liable to lead to. They had needed someone there in order to cover all the exits, but they were worried sick having that girl acting alone after the grief she caused them during the Level Upper and Liberal Arts City incidents.

The adults of Anti-Skill were not just ignoring this problem. They were pursuing the criminal in their own way. It was more accurate to say Mikoto’s group was working on the case without permission.

The hope was they wouldn’t need to send in a Level 4 or a Level 5. That would be as overkill as firing a warship’s guns on the criminal hideout while the criminals were simply worried about a police raid.

Shirai sighed in frustration.

“So what’s this about message boards?”

“The criminal underworld prefers well-established services with simple functionality. Those are a lot safer than a social media group that uses a constantly evolving AI to detect dangerous posts.”

These things could get extremely complicated, but it sounded like the definitions of “safe” and “dangerous” were entirely reversed for ordinary people and criminals.

But whatever the reason, Mikoto and Shirai were currently watching Uiharu Kazari wandering in a dimly-lit part of District 15, Academy City’s largest shopping district. The timid girl looked out of her element in the back alley, but delinquents weren’t the only suckers who fell for criminal scams. Entertainers and athletes were arrested on drug charges all the time, so it obviously wasn’t just the outcasts who broke the law.

“Uiharu, why do they do this face to face instead of online?” asked Saten.

“Because online interactions will leave some kind of record. On the other hand, the buyer will be afraid to meet the mysterious seller in person. Phone cameras are so ubiquitous these days that you never know when someone might snap a photo of you.”

Something flew by over Uiharu’s head.

It was a multicopter drone, which were common enough now that they could easily be bought online.

“So the safest method is to put ExitApp on a thumb drive and piggyback that on the ordinary delivery network. The information I’ve gathered on the dark web says drone deliveries for online shops are constantly flying through District 15. That creates an invisible traffic network. From what I can tell, the seller wears large goggles to hide their face, intercepts the signal providing real-time tracking information for a package, covers the small thumb drive with rubber adhesive, and slingshots it up so it attaches to the bottom of the package.”

“These criminals are clever,” said Mikoto, looking exasperated.

“If only they could put this resourcefulness to better use,” said Shirai, looking the same.

With so many delivery drones flying around, Mikoto could borrow their cameras to keep an eye on things and Shirai could teleport in the instant Uiharu was in danger. The Level 5 and Level 4 were two of the highest ranked students at Tokiwadai Middle School. They never would have placed Uiharu at the vanguard without that kind of backup.

“Anyway, I know the seller with the ExitApp and a slingshot is going to appear here,” said Uiharu. “We can pursue them from here. And by tracing the path back from there, we should eventually – ksh – reach the person who actually created ExitApp – ksh.”

“Hm? Hold on, Uiharu-san. There’s some noise in the signal.”

“I-I’ve found – ksh – them! It has to be – ksh – that person. Wait – kssshhh – Misaka-san, can you – ksh – me? Um – ksshh – see – ksssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

“Damn. Kuroko!!”

Mikoto quickly slapped her partner’s shoulder, but the girl wobbled weakly. Mikoto looked over in shock to find Shirai wasn’t even looking her way. Her eyes were opened as wide as they would go while she stared into the dark alley. She was frozen in place.

“Sh-she…disappeared.”

“…”

“Uiharu suddenly vanished!! Wait just a second! I can’t teleport after her if I don’t know where she went!”

Part 5

The secret behind magic tricks was always quite simple.

And unlike a mystery novel, there was no rule in reality saying all the necessary information to reach the answer had to be provided in advance.

“This way.”

“…”

Uiharu Kazari gulped when an alto girl’s voice called out to her.

The mystery girl gesturing for her to follow turned back to look at her.

“This is something of a main road for the delivery drones because the signal is best here. They check the massive amount of map data in the rooftop relay antenna and learn how to fly to the next base antenna on their own.”

Antennas needed more than just an elevated location. They were only one part of the wired network linked to the thick communication cables, so they required some way of attaching an industrial cable.

In other words, the two girls were underground.

They were in a conduit used by all the thick cables.

Several cables thicker than Uiharu’s arm ran through a concrete space so cramped even someone as short as her had to duck to avoid scraping her flowery head. The conduit may have also been used for the power lines connected to the wind turbines. It felt exceedingly long, but that may have been due to the lack of any light other than the other girl’s phone. She could not see very far down the conduit.

“Are you the seller?”

“What if I am?”

The alto-voiced girl was probably a high schooler.

She had the bleached blonde hair and brown-tanned skin often seen in District 15.

The adults might not see much difference between middle and high schoolers, but that framework created an absolute barrier for Uiharu. If she wasn’t careful, she would forget about the situation she found herself in and let the older girl take command just because she was older.

“You shouldn’t have to meet me directly since the deal is made by piggybacking on the network of drones flying overhead. So why did you come to me?”

“To warn you,” replied Uiharu.

“…”

“If I could reach you, then anyone else could using the same methods. It’s a clever system, but there is no such thing as absolute safety. I recommend you do something about this security hole as soon as possible.”

“Hoping I’ll be grateful enough to reward you in some way?”

“No, hoping you will be impressed enough to pay for my services.”

It all came down to this.

She didn’t need to act tough. She could be her usual earnest self.

“With my help, you can develop a much safer method. I don’t know why you’re selling this perfect suicide tool, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t a nonprofit act of charity. So how about you pay for the extra safety I can provide you?”

“Hm,” groaned the girl as if appraising her.

No.

The high school girl really was eyeing Uiharu from head to toe.

She had taken aim at Uiharu and dragged her down below the surface.

She must have noticed Mikoto and Shirai keeping an eye on things. If not, she could have just spoken to Uiharu in the alley without going to all this trouble.

That meant it was working.

The mystery high school girl was elated over outsmarting Mikoto and Shirai, which loosened her lips. It was more of a physical reflex than a psychological thing, similar to the reaction after leaving a dark and spooky tunnel or a haunted house. If Uiharu claimed to have intentionally escaped their surveillance, it would sound a lot more realistic to the seller than if she tried to act like a villain.

Ultimately, the girl started talking on her own.

“So you don’t want to use it?”

“…”

“You aren’t asking for some kind of special deal either. You want to join our group and make a profit off of our perfect suicide tool?”

“I’m not interested in the suicide itself. I wouldn’t have a use for the tool even if I had a copy.”

“How rational of you.” Her alto voice lowered further in tone. “Keep in mind that this isn’t a fraction of users dying after an accident or after overusing the app. We created a tool people buy for no other reason than to die and we sell it, converting lives into money.”

“I am also not interested in ExitApp itself. I will earn my share while handling the security countermeasures one step removed from all of that. You don’t strike me as the kind of person who optimistically believes in heaven. Well, neither am I. I can rationally work the numbers and they tell me I’m better off helping sell this app than using it. You arrived at the same conclusion, didn’t you?”

“Hm,” she said for the second time.

But the nuance was different this time. The scales within her were tilting. Uiharu was not so oblivious that she failed to notice that. And even if Uiharu’s people-reading skills had only been trained in an ordinary classroom, she could tell where this was headed.

In other words…

(I’m in troub-)

“Hm.”

A loud thud rang out.

The tanned high school girl had repeated that same sound again.

Uiharu’s vision flashed in and out. It took her a few seconds to realize she had been grabbed by the collar and slammed back first into the wall. Her feet were only still on the ground because the ceiling was so low.

The difference in strength between them was too great.

“Kah, ah!!”

(Oh, no! I failed to earn her trust!)

Uiharu had discovered this security hole before anyone else, so had the girl decided to it would be safer to silence her than hire her?

(Wh-what do I do?)

She had her phone in her skirt pocket. And she had used her handiness to modify the strobe flash into a handmade stun gun. But releasing that high voltage current while this close to the target could end up shocking her as well. It was especially dangerous with the other girl’s arm against her neck and chest. Incapacitating her opponent was meaningless if she stopped her own heart in the process.

But she couldn’t let this girl get away either.

If she allowed her to escape, she would go into hiding and start another job somewhere else.

Then ExitApp would take even more people’s lives. The repeated practice runs would lower the hurdle of suicide and even give that final push to people who hadn’t really intended to die.

(What can I do!?)

But then the girl said something unexpected.

She whispered in her alto voice from directly in front of Uiharu.

“It’s true I developed the health management software known as ExitApp.”

“?”

(She isn’t just a seller? I found the developer already!?)

That was enough of a surprise.

Uiharu had trouble imagining someone who looked like that wearing a lab coat, but there were science-loving gyarus with bleached hair, tanned skin, gawdy nails, and beads. If first impressions were enough to know who someone truly was, no one would bother developing the AI-linked security camera networks meant for use in airports.

This unnecessary revelation only made Uiharu more of a threat. And with a real criminal, this could be enough of a reason to kill her.

But the girl didn’t stop.

“I came here because I hate that people are making money off of this. I wanted to take out the people selling it.”

“?”

Uiharu gasped for a reason separate from the hand on her collar or her back against the wall.

She wasn’t sure what to make of this.

But the high school gyaru looked to the side while keeping Uiharu pressed against the wall. She stared into the deep darkness of the long conduit and spoke in her alto voice.

“They’re here.”

“Wh-who is?”

Uiharu realized what was happening as soon as she asked. She heard footsteps from the darkness. And not just one set. There were several people approaching.

“The customers.” The blonde, tanned high school girl spat the words with her eyes still on the shadows. “I’ve already taken down a few of their sales routes, but they saw me in the area a couple of times. They already know I’m the developer. If they can’t nab me at the storefront, they’ll aim for my workshop.”

“…”

“Come with me.” She let go of Uiharu’s collar. “I’ll show you some mercy. If I left you here, they might rip you to shreds.”

Uiharu choked while she finally searched through her skirt pocket for her modified phone. Whether she was aware of the stun gun feature or not, the high school girl scoffed at Uiharu’s action.

She whispered with the face of a fearless teenager.

“Most of the people who try out ExitApp are suicidal kids who don’t want to break the law. They keep using it as a part of their daily routine, but they abandon it before crossing that line. But that doesn’t apply to this group.”

“(Is she really aware I can do this? Let’s see, I need to start up the default camera mode, wait for the strobe flash’s high-capacity capacitors to fully charge, and then I can switch it on and off with the extra physical switch I added to the side.)”

“They’re willing to attack someone to get their hands on the perfect suicide tool, so these people won’t stop when they have to break the law. …Hm? What are you muttering abou-”

“Yah!”

“Gyahhhh!!!!!!”

When Uiharu squeezed her eyes shut and thrust out the object she held in both hands, the mysterious high school girl was easily brought to the ground. She had set the stun gun to a maximum voltage of nearly 200 thousand volts. Contrary to what dramas and movies would have you believe, stun guns did not usually fully knock people out. The high school girl was lying on her back with her limbs twitching, but she appeared to still be conscious. As a District 15 gyaru in a short skirt, the (surprisingly plain and white) underwear situation made her look especially pitiful. She was unfortunately unable to consciously shut her legs or fix her skirt at the moment.

Mysterious or not, she was still human.

Uiharu wiped the sweat from her brow while looking down at the mystery girl trembling in silence, but she had another issue to focus on.

Several sets of footsteps were still approaching.

She got the impression they would find her and easily capture her if she stayed here.

These people wanted ExitApp even if it meant assaulting someone, so she couldn’t expect much in the way of morality from them. Leaving the developer collapsed on the ground here would end badly and Uiharu was the one who had put her in that position, so she had no choice but to carry the older girl with her.

That meant it was time for a benevolent kidnapping.

The older girl’s curviness against her back irritated Uiharu. Simply put, the high school girl had bigger boobs than a middle schooler like Uiharu.

“Okay, she was putting on this invincible aura that practically dared you to try something and it’s only human nature to want to accept that challenge, right? Still, what was I thinking?”

“Yeah, that’s a really good question!! Pant, gasp. I was holding a peaceful, civilized conversation and then you tased me out of nowhere, you maniac!!”

“Ugh, ugh. Shut up. Why are you so heavy? I should just leave you here.”

“Please, don’t! I’ll tell you everything, so at least take responsibility by carrying me until I can move on my own!!”

Part 6

“Judgment? You’re kidding. Then I had this entirely wrong!”

“Who are you?”

“Amahebi Saeka. With my name and appearance, you can look up the rest in the Bank, right?”

“I don’t have a signal underground here.”

The conduit was part of a spiderweb-like network of underground pathways centered on a single main line, but it turned out they couldn’t return to the surface just anywhere.

With so many unexpected turns of event, Uiharu knew she needed to meet up with the more powerful Mikoto and Shirai as soon as she could, but she couldn’t seem to find an exit hatch.

The high school girl slumped limply over her back was heavy.

After the one path branched off into several and the branch they took branched off two or three times further, Uiharu came to a stop and lowered the heavy sack of flesh to the floor.

She looked back but saw no lights violently shining around. The footsteps didn’t seem to be directly pursuing them either.

“It wasn’t a suicide tool,” confessed Amahebi, her butt directly on the floor and her back against the wall. “The software known as ExitApp wasn’t developed as an efficient form of suicide.”

“Then what was it?”

“Using that health management tool causes the massage chair to move beyond its design limits and smash up the victim on the skeletal level.”

Uiharu wanted to say “and?”, but couldn’t get the word out.

The tanned high school girl continued on her own.

“That result itself was a failure.”

“Eh?”

“It was supposed to be a type of Testament using the chair’s electrode sleep assistance. But if you think of the Testaments as affecting the ‘software’ that are our memories, ExitApp was supposed to affect the ‘hardware’.”

“You mean the brain itself?”

“The idea was to choose which parts of the brain’s synapse wiring to cut off. Moving more than just the chair’s head was a bug and it was never designed to be used along with strong alcohol.”

“Choosing which parts of the brain’s synapse wiring to cut off? Now I’m even more confused. Why would you want a tool that did that?”

Making an ordinary health management app sounded more profitable than that.

Or an illegal suicide tool for that matter.

But Amahebi Saeka gave a self-deprecating laugh.

“It was supposed to solve a problem any Academy City kid should understand.”

“…”

The blonde, tanned girl could finally move her arm, so she tapped at her temple with a trembling finger.

“Academy City’s esper powers are created in here.”

“You don’t mean…”

“The wiring in your head is highly dependent on inborn talent and the esper development really only expands the traits that are already there. You might be able to remake a fire esper into a smoke esper, but you can’t fundamentally change a fire esper into a water esper. Just like a sunflower seed can’t bloom into a rose. It doesn’t matter how green your thumb is and it doesn’t matter if a selective breeding expert works at it, it isn’t going to happen.”

That was why some Academy City esper powers were rarer than others.

Everyone knew the #3 Level 5 controlled electricity, but that didn’t let you apply that to your own power. There were only 7 Level 5s in the entire city and no amount of hard work was going to make those powers easily mass produced.

It required innate genius.

There was an insurmountable wall in the way.

That “survival of the fittest” hierarchy plainly revealed something as poorly defined as the specs of people’s brains. No one had to explain it because everyone who experienced it instinctually understood how that food chain of predator and prey worked.

“However.” Amahebi went on to throw out all those assumptions. “What if you had the ability to freely close off your brain’s synapses wherever you wanted? What if you could alter the color of the synapse lines, including the nerve fibers, to change the conductivity of the electrical signals and redesign the basic structure of your brain’s wiring? Think of it like how a tree frog or chameleon uses its cell coloration to camouflage itself.”

“You could…change your power after the fact?”

“My short term research goal was to change the basic type of power, like from fire to water. Once I had done that, my long term research goal was to allow adaptable changes so you could switch between powers on the fly like you were using a multitool. A version of Dual Skill, basically. It really would be like a chameleon’s skin. Unfortunately, it all went wrong on the very first step.”

The experiment in cutting off synapse signals had failed.

An uncontrollable bug had transformed the chair into an execution machine that folded the user up. And when combined with strong alcohol, some people were unable to resist and ended up losing their lives.

“Then why is that failure being distributed? Didn’t you know you had failed!?”

“Because so many people wanted the failure I had created.”

Uiharu thought she must have misheard.

If that was true, then the developer herself may have found it even harder to believe than Uiharu.

“I shut down the project as a failure, but the program still leaked out. The people who wanted to die didn’t care if it was a failure. In fact, they were glad it hadn’t succeeded. There is no fully erasing something from the internet, so I uploaded tens of thousands of tools and codes with a similar structure but no actual effect. I also spread lots of false information about needing to consume caffeine or catechin instead of alcohol. But they still searched out the deadly combination from the ocean of misinformation.”

“…”

“Why are they so intent on finding it? That’s obvious. They only want one thing, so the numerical pros and cons are meaningless to them. They want to die. They just want to die. There is no reasoning them out of it when they are so focused on that one thing.”

That was frightening.

Real crimes didn’t always have an answer.

And even if you did track down the right answer, it didn’t guarantee a happy ending. There was nothing to be done if it turned out there was no way to stop the mass suicides.

Uiharu’s lips trembled, but she gathered all of her strength and managed to get her voice out.

“Was the completed tool leaked, or just a portion of the code?”

“?”

“If anyone could create it, no one person could monopolize the production and distribution route the way we’re seeing. The suicidal people are not creating the tool themselves, so does it require some special equipment or development software?”

“I’m not sure why that matters.”

“Amahebi-san! It might seem like second nature to you since you’re the developer, but not everyone can copy your talent. At the very least, I couldn’t create something like ExitApp. Don’t give up yet!! There’s something you know and I don’t. If we can eliminate that intermediary step, then no one can make ExitApp ever again!!”

The tanned high school girl thought for a moment and then groaned.

“The alcohol.”

“You mean how people need to knock themselves out with strong alcohol or they would leave the massage chair before ExitApp’s kill mode could do its job?” Uiharu frowned. “But I thought that used a video on how to efficiently knock yourself out.”

“It isn’t just a video,” spat the science gyaru. “It uses one, but it’s actually a program installed in the chair itself. It ensures the suicidal people don’t make any mistakes.”

“You mean…?”

“That is part of the current ExitApp. A special program is installed on the chair to manipulate the victim’s circulation and create a rapid intoxication like drinking in the bath. That way the size of your body and your alcohol tolerance don’t matter.”

There might be no eliminating the kill mode from ExitApp.

But what if they removed the part that knocked the victim out with alcohol?

Then everyone would leave the chair due to the pain and it wouldn’t function as a suicide tool.

“But that part will have already been copied countless times online. How could we erase that without a trace?” asked Amahebi.

“That part is distributed online using a video site, isn’t it? It isn’t handed over physically to make it harder to track?”

“Yes, but what does that-”

“That puts it in my territory.”

Uiharu didn’t let her finish.

The perfect suicide tool would lose its power if it lost its kill mode or the intoxication function. If the latter only existed online, then Uiharu could hunt it down. Once she was back on the surface and had a signal, she could end it all with her PDA.

And this was the perfect chance since the distributor would have their guard down.

If they switched to an offline exchange where both sides were cautiously hiding their identity, this wouldn’t work anymore.

So she had to delete every single copy before they could attempt a counterattack.

“C-can you really do that?”

“I can. I could explain how, but it would be faster to get to the surface and show you.”

Uiharu Kazari took a breath and switched mental modes.

“And just to be safe, let’s make doubly sure. There is one way of ensuring no massage chair can ever kill anyone again, even if they start using offline distribution of the video.”

“How?”

“I take control of the data region used to install ExitApp. If I infect every massage chair in the world with a harmless virus, then there isn’t room for ExitApp anymore. I can do that with your help.”

It was like a bandage. If you covered the wound, the germs couldn’t get into your body. Since it was perfectly harmless, it might be more accurate to call it a security patch, but since she was taking over that memory without permission, it still technically counted as a virus.

“To make sure this works, I would like sample data for the kill mode and the intoxication function. You can get me that, can’t you? Give me that and get me aboveground and I can take care of the rest.”

“B-but the security differs between the manufacturer and model of the massage chairs. How can you possibly infect all of them!?”

“I will find a way. Lives are on the line. If I say I will do it, I swear to you I will do it. So we need to get aboveground!!”

Someone suddenly emerged from the shadows.

And they spoke with a somehow absentminded tone.

“I won’t let you do that.”

The footstep seemed to only come later.

It was like spacetime was being distorted.

This conduit for network cables wasn’t known to the general public, so no one would show up there for no reason.

This only seemed to come out of nowhere to Uiharu because she couldn’t see every part of the incident.

This was probably someone who had been involved with ExitApp longer than her.

The newcomer looked to be college aged.

Her appearance wouldn’t normally have been alarming. Her hair was braided and she wore plain glasses. She wore an ankle-length skirt and a blouse with a cardigan worn over the shoulders, making her look quite guarded. She wore very little makeup for her age and had the looks of the knitter that every class seemed to have. She shouldn’t have made anyone fear for their life. Running into them out on the streets late at night, this braid woman would have seemed more comforting than the blonde, tanned gyaru.

Yet she terrified Uiharu.

It was impossible to predict what she would do next.

There were no hints to be found.

She had the air of unpredictable unexploded ordnance, like she would say hello with a smile and then say good day while stabbing you repeatedly. So Uiharu did not dare take a single step. She couldn’t do anything without thinking it through. The all-purpose spice of a polite smile wasn’t going to work here. One careless move would tread on one of the many landmines and instantly reveal who that woman really was. So Uiharu was trapped. There was nothing she could do.

Why was someone so clearly dangerous free to walk around unmonitored?

How far gone was Academy City if they couldn’t separate out someone like this who radiated thick, invisible walls in all 360 degrees around her!?

The woman smiled while standing off kilter.

“I ordered a guaranteed death with no pain or fear. Everything else is in place, so why has my ExitApp still not arrived!? …Because someone is screwing me over, like usual. All I want is happiness. And this is the only way. The perfect suicide tool is the only way to get Ta-kun to love me again. I don’t care what they say, it isn’t a lost cause.”

A guaranteed death, everything else, ExitApp, screwing me over, love me again.

The tanned high school girl had said there was no reasoning them out of it, but Uiharu made some guesses base on the bits and pieces of information and tried her best to put a stop to it.

She took a step through the minefield.

(Does she want to die to make her ex regret breaking up with her?)

“W-wait! You aren’t going to find happiness that way!”

“Oh, yes I will. I will claim happiness with Ta-kun for myself. As long as I get that woman to use the suicide tool, everyone will conclude she killed herself no matter how unnatural it might look, right?”

“Sh-she’s completely insane…”

The gentle smile split wide across her face.

Her eyes shined bright.

“Insane? You’re offering a tool that makes it look like someone killed themselves. How is that not the perfect murder weapon?”

The woman’s voice seemed to melt from her tongue.

Uiharu had trouble breathing.

She had completely misread the worst possible use of a perfect suicide tool.

With this woman, it was beginning to evolve into something more than just a way to kill yourself!

“Ah, ahh, ah.”

Amahebi Saeka’s eyes widened past the limit and her mouth flapped wordlessly.

She must have thought the suicides were as bad as it could get.

She would have convinced herself it couldn’t get any worse.

But there was no bottom to the depths of human desire.

Humans would learn, adapt, and evolve.

The college woman’s voice wavered as she smiled faintly and listed as if drunk. She gave off the bewitching aura of a crazed woman. She possessed an intimidating air that existed beyond science – the same one that ancient artists had carved into their hannya masks.

It existed in a dimension separate from esper powers or talent.

Something unseen bound Uiharu and the high school girl’s souls.

The college woman did not move particularly quickly.

In fact, she moved slowly while lovingly rubbing her hand against her lower stomach.

That seemed to explain everything.

But Uiharu didn’t want accept it.

She didn’t want the venomous jellyfish’s bloody stingers to ensnare her soul any more than they already had.

This explained why she wore such a loose long skirt, it explained why she wore the cardigan for extra protection against the cold, it explained what had happened between her and Ta-kun, and it explained how someone who looked so gentle and harmless had become so thoroughly broken. Instead of a single point to avoid stepping on, this was a network of countless points, too many to keep hidden, and it ran through Uiharu’s mind against her will. It was like the work of malevolent stars – pulsars and quasars that used their unfathomably powerful flashes of electromagnetic waves to send out cosmic signals that destroyed people’s minds.

This destruction had to be something a middle or high school mind was not yet equipped to understand.

“Hee hee hee. So there’s nothing to worry about. Ah ha ha. Eh heh heh. Make sure to wish me happiness.”

Uiharu heard a series of quiet sounds like metal gears turning.

It made her think of a large utility knife used to cut thick cardboard.

But that wasn’t it.

The woman actually pulled out a metal measuring tape. She extended it from her hip like she was slowly drawing a sword from its scabbard.

It was such an unexpected choice, nothing she said seemed to fit together even as this developed into a real crisis, and the metal measuring tape’s edge provided the same fear as an actual blade. Everything about this situation was much too dangerous.

There was a complete lack of mutual understanding, like the crazy woman had forced Uiharu to play a deadly game of rock-paper-scissors where the loser was killed, but revealed three seconds before the game began that there was no such thing as rock, paper, or scissors in the game.

Was this really how it was going to start?

Was there any way to win or lose this!?

“Everything will be fine. Yes, just fine. Ta-kun and I are going to be so happy together. It doesn’t matter what I say here or who hears it because nothing can change how it all ends. Once I have the ExitApp – once I have that tool, I can rid both our lives of that filthy whore and give us a happy ending with smiles all around. So hand over the perfect suicide tool. Hand over my key to happinesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss!!”

Uiharu was overwhelmed.

Her physical abilities didn’t even come into it. She ended up standing perfectly still while she heard something slicing through the air.

Part 7

Uiharu couldn’t move in that moment, so it was someone else who pushed her aside and stepped forward.

“Gahh!!”

It was the blonde, tanned high school girl.

She must have recovered from the stun gun, but she couldn’t deflect a blade even in top form.

“!!”

The measuring tape bent like a whip and sliced through the air.

It left a gash on Amahebi Saeka’s cheek, and not a shallow one either.

But Uiharu Kazari’s gasp wasn’t in response to the injury itself.

The liquid dripping from it was colored bright green.

“My power is called Scorpion Tail.”

Maybe this had been the original cause.

She hadn’t been trying to create a perfect suicide tool. She had wanted a device that let her change her power to whatever she wanted.

ExitApp had been her way of physically removing the source of her complex and flying free.

“Yeah, I loathe this power!! A power that makes my blood weird colors is just creepy!! But there’s nothing I can do about it because this is the power I’m stuck with!!”

The drops of blood changed color more vividly than liquid crystals.

From green to blue, from blue to red, and through several other colors before settling on black.

Amahebi herself had already hinted at the true nature of this power with its name: Scorpion Tail.

“Gahh!?”

It only took one drop.

When a single drop of blood took flight and was absorbed by the chest of the woman’s blouse, not even her bare skin, she jumped straight up. She tried to fall back, but her legs got tangled up, and she ended up leaning against the wall to her side.

The drop had landed on her chest, but her lips and eyelids were already swollen.

“Agh, what, huff, iz thad phower!?”

“My power seals my deadly will inside my own blood and transports it to a target. It’s technically classified as reverse psychometry because it forcibly sends the image in my head to the minds of whoever touches the object, but in my case, it only really works with creating poisons out of deadly images. But thanks to that, I can create any existing chemical poison like aconitine, ricin, and maitotoxin, as well as legendary poisons that probably aren’t actually true like the idea that mole, newt, and snake blood can put people to sleep.”

“!!!???”

“But don’t worry. I can recreate the effects of any poison in my rainbow blood. And I can control the toxins I create as easily as my own arms and legs.”

Eliminating the source of a complex was not the only way to overcome it.

She could also change how she used her power to change its definition in her mind.

When a poison was used to protect, it was known as medicine.

“I won’t let this affect anything in your belly. No matter what. The suffering will be entirely contained within your head.”

“Gbhgdhfalkubhbwerbnmnafahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

She wiped the blood from her cheek with her thumb.

The crimson drop shimmered like the surface of a CD and it finally stabilized as a golden liquid.

Launching that through the air with a flicking motion ended the battle.

The drop splashed onto the center of the woman’s forehead.

Her eyes rolled back in her head and she passed out. Amahebi gently caught her as she collapsed forward.

Only after flipping the woman onto her back did she notice someone else had collapsed too.

The woman wasn’t the only one with a non-red drop on her skin. Uiharu Kazari was also sprawled out on the hard floor.

Amahebi had poured all of her efforts into saving someone but she had only brought harm to the world.

“Ah, ahh…”

In the end, poison was no more than poison.

Try as she might, Amahebi Saeka could not become a medicine.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

She clawed at her hair and wept.

But she wasn’t even able to approach the person she had harmed.

A single drop of her flowing blood would kill the person she had wanted to protect.

Yet again, her hideous power stood in her way.

“I’ll be…fine.”

Nevertheless, she heard a voice.

“I’ll…be fine.”

“How!? What was I thinking!? I can control the toxins I create as easily as my own arms and legs!? Yeah, right! I haven’t changed at all!! It keeps happening over and over and over! Everything I create only makes the world worse!!”

“That isn’t…true.”

Uiharu was too weak to even get up, but she still smiled.

“Because…you can heal me.”

She took Amahebi’s hand.

She touched the body that could only produce poison.

“Ah.”

“If you can create the effects of any poison, then you can also create any medicine. So I know you can do it. You can overcome this. You’ve suffered enough already, haven’t you? Then you deserve something good for once.”

Amahebi could not shake off that hand.

It was so very weak, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

She could fill the space a poison needed with a harmless poison. That would prevent the harmful poison from getting in, which meant it acted as a medicine. It was the same method Uiharu had hoped to use on the massage chairs.

Amahebi pressed her knees against the floor.

She directly faced the other girl once more.

She told herself now was the time to overcome this by saving the girl.

She held Uiharu’s other hand in her own and pressed her forehead against her as if praying.

A single drop fell from her.

It was colored ruby red.

She chose to believe that any poison could become a medicine if used right.

Chapter 4: Misaka Mikoto and the Death of Class

Part 1

This was supposed to be Tokiwadai Middle School.

It was the most prestigious of the five fancy schools in the School Garden.

But Misaka Mikoto looked grim as she spied on the schoolyard from behind cover.

She had lost track of how many times she had repeated the same phrase today.

“Well, this sucks.”

“How about we take a vote? Who thinks Akazame-sensei is guilty?”

“Guilty!!” “Guilty!!” “Guilty!!” “Guilty!!” “Guilty!!” “Guilty!!”

The stadium-level roar was horrifying.

Those were cheers. All those voices were joined in anticipation and celebration.

The person using the megaphone used an old-fashioned dialect, but she was in fact a young girl. And the person about to be physically yanked from the ground by the neck was a female teacher.

No men were allowed in the School Garden, so the angry mob surrounding them was also entirely female.

“Do they really expect us to accept these new school rule proposals!? What right do they have to ban us from wearing silk or synthetic underwear!? What right do they have to demand we only wear cotton underwearrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!?”

Shouts of support.

“What right do they have to ban the use of deodorant spray!? What right do they have to insist we only use certain brands of soap or shampoo!? There’s no rhyme or reason to it, so I can only imagine it’s based on some sick desires held by one of the grownups!! Find the sicko dictating our private lives while hiding behind the rest of the faculty!! Drag them out here so we can string them uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup!!”

More shouts of support.

“They claim to have created the perfect environment to prepare us for life, but that was nothing but a lie! They don’t even see us as human! This place is a love doll factory where they transform us to cater to all their perverted ideals!! Death to all the teachers using the rules as an excuse to sexually harass us alllllllllllllllllllllllllllll!!”

Thunderous shouts of support.

The shouting group was not some mob that had broken in. It was made of all the same girls who normally lived such pleasant lives in the School Garden.

Mikoto couldn’t bear to watch.

She agreed the new school rule proposals were awful, but they were just that: proposals. They would probably be rejected even if the students didn’t lift a finger.

“Yet they’re doing all this.”

Mikoto’s gaze focused on something that was perfectly innocent. You could find one at most any school. She didn’t know the technical term for it, but it was the metal pole used when raising a flag. It even had a device at the bottom that let you turn a crank to raise the flag.

But no one gathered around it had a flag with them.

The end of the thick wire was tied into a loop.

It went without saying that was meant to go around someone’s neck.

The meaning was clear. That shape itself was a well-known symbol.

(We haven’t even had dinner since that happened, and they’re already doing this? A sanitized upbringing is a scary thing.)

It was absurd to think the upper classes never caused trouble. Did they never explode no matter what happened to them? Quite the opposite. Just look at all the wars and revolutions that had been fought around the world. No matter how graceful, refined, and ladylike the girl, she would still shout “kill” if the conditions were right.

This kind of thing was common in the west and these girls did love copying western culture.

(It doesn’t help they never learned how to vent their anger.)

Maybe some blame lay with the teachers for raising them that way. The students at a school like this probably questioned things less often than average. They weren’t used to feeling malice and they were easily influenced, so when it started to set in, it spread shockingly fast.

The girls raised here according to the adults’ wishes had completely derailed from those wishes and started rioting. It was like a failed attempt at winemaking that left the barrel full of mold.

People who tried to live pure lives without ever considering what that meant were easily shaken when the rules themselves came into question.

Pure crystals were fragile to external shocks.

Maybe Mikoto hadn’t been affected because she had exposed herself to enough impurities while wandering the streets on a daily basis.

(Even Shokuhou’s brainwashed world is better than this. In fact, where is that she-fox right now? That schemer must have taken in far more impurities than me.)

The megaphone voice continued to agitate the mob of girls.

If Mikoto didn’t intervene soon, the teacher standing up on the “gallows” would end up dangling from her neck like a mascot phone strap, but if she rushed in without a plan, she would end up like that as well. She was at the top of the ranks when it came to her power as an individual, but a battle against hundreds of high-level espers at once was something else entirely. Plus, even Academy City’s #3 had to worry about compatibility issues with a potential opponent.

Not to mention that she had to worry about keeping her friends Shirai, Uiharu, and Saten safe.

But more than any of that, no one won if a deadly fight broke out within Tokiwadai or the School Garden. They would only be pitting allies against each other.

Mikoto’s only enemy here was the agitator using the abnormal situation to transform the crowd of girls into an angry mob.

(On the other hand…)

She looked to the side.

When things got this bad, it was probably best to call in Anti-Skill from outside the School Garden, but that wasn’t an option this time and the reason why was right in front of her.

It was only three steps away.

The megafloat lightweight aluminum alloy used to build floating airports had been used to swiftly and secretly fortify the ground, but it hadn’t been perfect. Some squares of ground several meters long were just missing.

Yes.

The blue of the open sky spread out before her.

The School Garden was currently floating at an altitude of 5000m.

She heard a deep thrumming.

The sound was even heavier than a chainsaw’s roar. It reminded her of a military transport plane’s engine, but the principle behind it probably wasn’t related to aircraft.

It was more like a flying car.

Or the coaxial rotors used for aerial photography drones.

(Geez. If all these cubes of earth crumbled, how many rotors the size of circular fields would we find inside? I’m sure they’re linked in parallel using a grid pattern, so shutting down individual ones would only imbalance the entire structure and send us crashing to the surface.)

That was why the ordinary laws and Academy City’s unique rules did not apply here.

She had a very physical reason she could not expect support from the adults. The entire area had been cut away before declaring its independence. No one could escape the aerial cage. Anyone who carelessly let it slip that they disagreed with the central agitator would be snitched on and end up like that.

Misaka Mikoto’s exhalations were white.

How had this even happened?

She once repeated the same phrase she had used so many times today she had lost count.

“Well, this sucks.”

Part 2

The School Garden had not, of course, always been airborne.

It had been attached to the ground like normal until earlier that day.

Part 3

“Oh, wow. We’re actually inside the School Garden,” said Saten Ruiko.

She looked around the Western-style street, spread her arms horizontally like airplane wings, and flapped them up and own.

“Is it true Tokiwadai sometimes has real princesses come for the entrance exam? And they ignore all the diplomatic pressure, so they fail the princess if she isn’t up to snuff? Coming here just for fun makes me feel like a socialite☆”

She was even more excited than if she were going on a European vacation. Her step was so light it felt like someone needed to grab a hold of her before she floated away like a balloon.

Mikoto, who had come to meet her, smiled bitterly.

“You’ve been here before, remember? And there really isn’t anything here worth all the fuss. Right, Uiharu-sa-”

“Dwo ho ho ho!! Since they’re banning all photography to help protect their secrets, we have only once choice here: deep breaths! Take deep breaths, Saten-san! Inhale as many high society particles as you can so we can smuggle them home with us in our lungs and upgrade the rank of our souls!! Ohhhh ho ho ho ho! I-it actually came out right? The legendary ‘oh ho ho’ laugh comes so naturally to me here, Saten-san! I feel just like Cinderella. My soul has shed the dried husk of its skin to reveal its shining true form!! Now I can boldly use the all-purpose incantation that works for everything from ‘good morning’ to ‘goodbye’: good day to you alllll!!!! Yahoo!!”

(O-oh, no. Her dopamine levels are higher than Kuroko’s right now.)

Mikoto gulped and took a step back.

She always forgot how Uiharu Kazari was normally shy and sensible but had a weird obsession with high society girls. Make the wrong move with her and you could find yourself faced with a worldview disturbing for reasons entirely different from Shirai Kuroko’s. It was like seeing someone in a cult.

But Uiharu’s ‘oh ho ho’ laughter was not cult brainwashing. It was the same principle as the Osaka dialect imprinting on the language center of the brain after only about three days in Kansai.

In fact…

“Ohhhh ho ho ho!! Once I start assisting father in managing Kongou Airlines, we will build up a global flight network and even expand into the civilian spaceflight industry!!”

“My, that sounds wonderful, Kongou-san. It is always good to have realistic dreams.”

“The final frontiers are space, the deep sea, and I suppose the human mind. With your spirit, Kongou-sama, I imagine you will conquer all three. Hee hee.”

Yeah, most of the girls walking around here talked like they were at an opera or a masquerade, so it wasn’t surprising people who hadn’t built up a tolerance would be influenced. Just like people taking a Kansai vacation, they would probably go back to their usual way of talking after returning to their normal Academy City lives.

Anyway.

“This place isn’t as great as you think it is.” Mikoto had to smile bitterly since she knew the truth. “The teachers are always busy tacking on more incomprehensible rules. That hasn’t developed into a major issue yet since the student councils of the five schools always reject them, but it sounds like the teachers are even trying to determine what material of underwear we can wear.”

“But we’re barely ever allowed in here. What was it Tokiwadai is doing again? An interview entrance exam for recommended applicants? Whatever it was, I love that they’ve opened the place up for it.”

“It isn’t that simple,” sighed Shirai Kuroko who was feeling blue.

Since she had her armband on her right shoulder, her Judgment side was showing more than her Tokiwadai student side.

“When they open up the School Garden, people who normally can’t get in will sneak inside. We have to be ready for problems. Agh, needing to suspect anyone and everyone you see is so stressful. Just let me trust in the goodness of humanity!”

“Why would anyone cause trouble? The people coming in from outside are taking their entrance exam. And these are the ones who have a recommendation vouching for them, so I can’t imagine why they would cause trouble at the school they’re trying to get into.”

Saten wasn’t convinced, but Shirai shrugged.

“If any of them compare their academic abilities, academic record, and esper level to their rivals and conclude they can’t win, they might skip out on the interview and try to memorize as much as they can about Tokiwadai’s secret esper development tech. The past records show several cases of weirdly pessimistic yet optimistic people who are so convinced they’re going to fail they focus on gathering up as many ‘souvenirs’ as they can find.”

“Eh? But Tokiwadai is a middle school, so aren’t we talking about elementary schoolers? A-are there really people so jaded at that age that they’ll give up on getting into their dream school and work as an industrial spy for some bad grownups?”

“Sateeen. When you see those child actors turning on the waterworks in front of the camera, it isn’t because something sad happened to them. And I’m sorry to say there will always be a segment of the population who are talented but refuse to use that talent responsibly.”

Saten Ruiko herself had been in elementary school less than a year ago. And her skill at deception and cunning hadn’t popped into her head the instant she moved up to middle school.

The belief that all children were pure and innocent never survived long while working in law enforcement.

If it was true that no one could change who they were deep down, then the villains were already villains as children.

A thought that did the opposite of relieve the stress of Shirai’s job here.

“Fortunately, the struggle for one of the recommended spots has nothing at all to do with extreme commoners like us. Being heiress to a giant IT company or princess to an entire country isn’t enough to get through those super strict interviews, right? I’m never going to be a part of that world, so let’s go make the most of this School Garden visit in our own commoner way!!”

“(My point was to watch out for people resorting to crime because their ‘super strict interview; didn’t go so hot.)”

Mikoto and Shirai were out and about on a weekday morning because their classes were canceled for the day thanks to the entrance exam interviews. It seemed unlikely Uiharu and Saten’s school would be out too, so Mikoto was honestly worried they were skipping class for this.

“Please follow me, everyone. My name is Akazame-sensei. Now, when we turn this corner here, you will see the next landmark: Tokiwadai Middle School’s School Garden Dorm.”

“It’s called a crepe. You can eat one for a snack or as a meal. For a meal, you can put tuna, lettuce, and crushed-up potatoes inside. I personally recommend adding some homemade mayonnaise to make it extra delicious.”

“Onee-chaaan, where are youuu?”

There was a lot of chatter.

Supposedly, the crowds during this event were large enough to cause nearby seismographs to malfunction. That apparently caused disaster warning apps to send unnecessary alerts.

Maybe it was practice for the open campus being held later on or maybe it was meant to help the applicants judge what life here would be like, but a teacher was waving a small flag like a tour guide. A lot of food trucks were parked alongside the sidewalks and streets. And on closer inspection, there were a lot of small children not wearing uniforms. There was even a sparkly new flying car being shown off as a demonstration for something or other. It was basically just a bigger version of an aerial photography drone.

Mikoto stared off into the distance.

It wasn’t often you got to see Tokiwadai’s Ace indulge in schadenfreude.

“Poor Shokuhou. People come gawk at her dorm as a landmark now. Heh heh heh.”

“Misaka-san, your dorm has it way worse since it isn’t even inside the off-limits School Garden. People can stop by to take a look or even stake out the place any time of the year. Ah ha ha. Check the map on any urban legend site and your dorm’s location always has a pin in it. If anything, yours is the bigger landmark.”

Saten’s tone was light, but Mikoto was thoroughly petrified.

Meanwhile, Shirai’s focus was somewhere else entirely. She lightly tapped on Uiharu’s shoulder to gather the attention of the other girl wearing the same armband.

“That girl has called for her sister three times now. Outsiders aren’t allowed to take videos inside the School Garden, so I doubt this is a prank video meant to see how ordinary people react. It’s safe to assume she’s lost and I would put the risk level at low. Let’s go help her.”

“Fine, but…wait. Am I even allowed to do Judgment work in the School Garden?”

Technically speaking, all law enforcement work outdoors was Anti-Skill work.

But once those two switched to work mode, they were Judgment through and through. They eliminated their own inexperienced and unreliable side as soon as they spotted a small child crying on the side of the road. They were aware the best way to make someone feel safe was to avoid showing them the ordinary weakness everyone had.

The girl had shoulder length flaxen hair. Her bangs were cut along a perfect horizontal line, which added a touch of Japanese aesthetic. She was even shorter than relatively small Shirai, but she was wearing a suit. She may have been one of the applicants here for the entrance exam interview, but she looked more like she was dressed up for Shichi-Go-San.

“We are with Judgment. I am Shirai and this is Uiharu. Is something wrong, young lady?”

“Wow, look at Shirai-san. I never imagined that pervert could sound like the host of an educational program.”

Shirai felt like murdering Saten for that, but she did her best not to let it show on her face. They taught you how to speak to small children in Judgment, but of course an outsider wouldn’t know that.

“Be nice, Saten-san. She might be a pervert, but she’s the kind of pervert who can set her perversions aside when there’s work to be done.”

“Uiharu!? You’re not even an outsider, so maybe I really should murder you!”

She heard some quiet laughter.

It came from the girl. She had been tearfully calling for her sister before, but now she was laughing. Talk about a stroke of good luck. Shirai suddenly recalled a busty track suit teacher from some joint training they did with Anti-Skill saying you could help bridge the emotional gap between yourself and someone in need of help by acting silly and pretending to make harmless mistakes.

Whatever the case, the girl was willing to open up to them now.

“My sister isn’t here.”

“Oh, so you really are lost. What’s her name? Do you have a photo? In your phone’s photo album, maybe?”

“I don’t mean it like that.”

Uiharu was better at dealing with lost children than Shirai. She crouched down to the girl’s eye level and tried to get the information they needed to search out her sister, but the girl stopped her.

The record needle hit a small scratch and popped out of the expected groove.

It flew far off course.

“My sister has gone missing.”

Part 4

“Sigh. I haven’t been at this branch in forever.”

“But Branch 003 is the Tokiwadai branch, Shirai-san. It’s the one you actually belong to, for crying out loud. You shouldn’t spend so much time at Branch 177.”

“Come to think of it, doesn’t Shirai-san’s favorite teacup live over at Branch 177 nowadays?”

They complained while Shirai unlocked the door and they all walked in. The lost girl was among them.

The small girl’s name was Yugure Tsumebakei.

She wasn’t wearing a uniform and she was only 12. That meant she was in the 6th grade, which made it obvious what she was doing at the School Garden today. She was here for an exam interview at Tokiwadai.

Even though the School Garden was about the safest place someone could be, the children showing up for their crucial exam would normally be accompanied by a female family member like a mother or sister or some private bodyguards hired by their family. Bringing family was apparently popular because they were so rarely allowed inside Academy City. Tsumebakei was supposed to have had her sister Yugure Kanaria looking after her since she was a 2nd year at Tokiwadai.

“Oh, hey. So you’re Canary-chan’s sister, Yugure-san?”

Mikoto realized she recognized those flaxen bangs cut straight across like that. But Kanaria had long hair that fell to her hips.

“You are in the second year too, aren’t you, Misaka-san?” said Uiharu. “So is that sister a friend of yours?”

“A classmate. You do not want to mess with her.”

Her stupid mouth let that slip with a smile.

Just as the younger girl’s face had lit up at finding a friend of her lost family member – and one who knew her well enough to call her by a nickname – she was hit by that harsh comment. Clear drops were growing in the 12-year-old’s eyes.

Shirai Kuroko was in justice mode right now, so she shouted in a way that made one imagine a pair of horns growing from her forehead.

“Ugh, Onee-sama!!”

“Eh? Oh, I didn’t mean it like that! I meant you wouldn’t want to fight her because of her power, but she’s a nice person so it’s not like that would ever happen!!”

Mikoto quickly retracted her statement while pulling out her phone and trying to contact the girl in question. But she didn’t receive a response. Saying things looked bad would only have made the younger sister cry, so Mikoto made eye contact with Saten instead.

She couldn’t reach her classmate’s phone.

That meant it was either turned off or deep underground. But in Academy City, it was actually hard to find places that didn’t get a signal.

Saten took the hint and casually changed the subject.

“But you’re #3 in the entire city, Misaka-san. What kind of power makes you not want to fight her? Tokiwadai is crawling with monsters, isn’t it?”

“Micro Dying,” said Mikoto with a fair amount of exasperation in her voice. “Basically, Canary-chan’s power lets her kill all microscopic microbes with a touch. She’s ranked at Level 3, but she’s definitely stronger than that. You realllly don’t want to fight her.”

Yugure Tsumebakei fidgeted on the sofa, unsure how to react to this. She could tell this was meant as a compliment of her beloved big sister, but she clearly didn’t like how Mikoto’s compliments were so focused on fighting.

“Huh? But, Misaka-san, how is that any different from medicinal soap?”

Saten sounded confused by the explanation, so Mikoto smiled and clarified.

“Because she can rub her palm against your belly and wipe out all of your intestinal bacteria, both the good and the bad. We can only stay healthy because of the barrier of microbes protecting us. What do you think would happen to us if all of those microbes were suddenly taken from us? To be blunt, we would start growing mold inside our bodies and then it’s game over. We’d even have mold all over our skin and in our mouths.”

“Ew,” groaned Saten.

That girl could eliminate microbes at a touch, so she wouldn’t need a hazmat suit or a mask to protect against germs. She could even suicidally scatter all kinds of killer viruses around while remaining entirely unharmed herself. If she put her mind to it, she could become an assassin or cause devastation on an international scale. Mikoto honestly thought that power was more dangerous than her own Railgun if you looked just at how deadly it was.

Yugure Kanaria’s power could be unimaginably dangerous when combined with the right kind of cunning, but the girl herself was peaceful and afflicted with a super slow-motion curse, so none of those possibilities had ever occurred to her.

Saten tilted her head.

“So, um, Tsumebakei-san was it?” asked Shirai. “Do you have a similar power?”

“No.”

Yugure Tsumebakei wasn’t obligated to answer since it wouldn’t help find her sister, but she must have been the trusting type. She answered the casual question with a shake of her head and went on to explain.

“My power is Macro Dying. It’s very different from my sister’s.”

“Macro?”

“I can pull the data from the Bank.” Uiharu looked like she was unsure if she should, but she had already completed the search. “Macro Dying. Level 4. She can increase the size of and control the red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets, plasma, macrophages, cholesterol, amino acids, and other components in her blood. For example, she can cause a white blood cell to grow to 2m across and have it swallow and digest an attacker nearly instantly. Huh, that is an extremely rare type of power. Even more so than Shirai-san’s Teleportation.”

Even Mikoto couldn’t believe her ears.

How many of those components were in a single drop of blood? She was pretty sure there were 5 to 10 thousand of the white blood cells that fought foreign invaders. If that explanation was accurate, then she was the type of high-level esper who could basically command an army. That contrasted Mikoto or Shirai whose strengths were as an individual. It was certainly a different category from her sister Kanaria, but it was similarly difficult to rank on the Level scale. Mikoto could think of a number of clever ways to make use of that power. One idea even made her hold a hand to her forehead. If that power still applied with transfusions and dialysis, couldn’t that girl basically bring about the end of the world?

Saten, being Saten, was focused squarely on the Level system.

“So this cute little thing is secretly a monster on the inside? Ugh, and she’s a Level 4 at her age? It feels like I’m in a bicycle race and someone just passed me using a rocket engine. But I guess she is the kind of genius girl who gets recommended to apply to Tokiwadai.”

“I really don’t like my power.”

“Why not? It’s Level 4!”

“I don’t like needles, but I have to extract some of my blood every time I use my power.”

Come to think of it, she would need to do that, wouldn’t she?

In that sense, her power required a lot of setup in a way Mikoto’s didn’t.

Shirai Kuroko started to recommend the girl converted to the Church of Onee-sama so she could trigger a nosebleed at will using her fantasies, but Mikoto smiled and shut her up with a solid punch.

“So what makes you say Canary-chan has gone missing?”

It was finally time to get down to business.

When they had first approached Yugure Tsumebakei, she had said her sister had “gone missing”. It didn’t sound like she had just been waiting at the wrong time or location or they had gotten separated in a crowd.

“My sister is missing,” said Yugure Tsumebakei with her small fists clenched in her lap. “We were supposed to meet up right away, but she called to say she was searching for something. She said she couldn’t let someone find out she was searching for whatever it was, but she promised to come meet me as soon as she was done. I waited and waited, but she never showed up.”

That meant the girl was up to something during the entrance exams.

Mikoto and Shirai exchanged a glance and Shirai formed an X with her index fingers in front of her lips. The look in her eyes said, “I know, but don’t you dare say anything that would worry her.” Very forcefully said it, at that.

There were three general possibilities here.

1. Kanaria’s disappearance had nothing to do with the suspicious circumstances. For example, she had made a quick detour for a snack and forgotten all about her promise to meet with her sister, or she couldn’t answer her phone or meet her sister because a teacher was getting after her over some minor infraction. There were any number of peaceful possibilities like that.

2. Kanaria’s disappearance had everything to do with the suspicious circumstances. For example, she had tried to reveal some of the data theft common during entrance exam season and got herself into trouble.

3. Yugure Kanaria herself was stealing secret information.

Mikoto sighed.

“It doesn’t prove much of anything, but Canary-chan is in the newspaper club. And for how easygoing she is, she’s a stickler for keeping promises and has a strong sense of justice.”

“Oh? If she has an overabundance of justice, she should come join us in Judgment.”

“She’s afflicted with a super slow-motion curse, so apparently she failed the physical exam when she tried to join.”

“She fai- she couldn’t get past that? I-I thought it was just for show. I mean, it’s so insultingly easy even Uiharu passed.”

“Shirai-san…” groaned Uiharu, but everyone ignored her.

Shirai had avoided using the word “fail” after remembering Yugure Tsumebakei was here for an exam.

Mikoto sighed.

“She apparently joined the newspaper club to help create a civilian group that could increase transparency by keeping an eye on both Anti-Skill and Judgement. So I’m guessing this is option number 2.”

But that wasn’t enough to put her sister at ease. Even if Kanaria was innocent of all wrongdoing, they still couldn’t get in touch with her. The presence of a separate villain removed all suspicion from her, but it did nothing to guarantee her safety.

What had she found and who had she been pursuing?

If she had been so busy she had left her little sister all alone, she must have been approaching the climax of whatever story she was pursuing for the newspaper. But then someone had gotten in her way and now she had gone missing.

Mikoto concluded that learning what story she was working on would be the fastest way to figure out how to help her.

“But, Misaka-san.”

They weren’t in the familiar Branch 177, but Saten had already figured out how to use the kitchenette and had made herself some cocoa with warm milk. But after some thought, she passed it to young Tsumebakei instead of drinking it herself.

“This is the School Garden. It’s the ultimate educational environment funded by Tokiwadai and four other fancy schools. Is there even crime here? And we’re talking about an entire person disappearing without a trace.”

Saten would be aware that, if you wanted to keep a worried witness’s trust, you could never bluntly reject what they told you, no matter how absurd it might sound.

So her question was meant to lead into a response from an expert.

She had stepped on the landmine herself by immediately rejecting the idea and saying it wasn’t possible because she hoped to ease some of lonely Yugure Tsumebakei’s worries.

So she started sweating when Mikoto didn’t immediately respond.

The look on her face said she really wanted someone to follow up on her question.

“Um, uh, Misaka-san? Shirai-san? Hello?”

She tried to get an answer out of them again, but both the Tokiwadai students were reluctant to speak.

Mikoto looked to Shirai.

“What do you think, Kuroko?”

“I have my doubts about those stories, but I suppose it is a possibility.”

Part 5

To start with, they made sure 12-year-old Yugure Tsumebakei could focus on her exam interview. Having a recommendation gave her better odds than if not, but it was still crucial she performed well. Even if she was trying to find her sister, screwing this up really could influence the rest of her life.

“Don’t worry.”

When they parted ways, Mikoto exchanged numbers with her, held out her little finger, and made a promise.

“Canary-chan is my classmate. I promise you I’ll find her, so you relax and go to your exam.”

“Okay…”

“I promise you there’s nothing to worry about. Now, get going. Akazame-sensei is calling.”

Mikoto kept a smile until the small girl had disappeared around the hallway corner.

And then…

“If a serious crime has occurred in the School Garden, it must be in one of the Lost Pieces.”

Whether or not they were familiar with that term was plain to see on their faces.

There was suspicion of industrial spies trying to use the entrance exam season to sneak in and steal data, but this was still the untouchable School Garden. The security there wasn’t so lax that an entire person could just disappear. All the likely places were patrolled by Judgment or security robots and none of the security cameras at the limited gates out had shown Yugure Kanaria.

That meant she was inside the School Garden but in some unique cranny none of the five schools could touch. There was no way for her to disappear otherwise.

Mikoto and Shirai were familiar with the term. Uiharu and Saten were not.

Uiharu hesitantly asked about it.

“What are the Lost Pieces?”

“Do you remember what Saten-san said about the School Garden being the ultimate educational environment funded by the five schools here? She wasn’t wrong about that.” Mikoto pointed her thumb toward the entrance. “But to put it another way, the School Garden looks peaceful at first glance, but it’s actually locked in a constant struggle for power between the five schools. There are invisible lines dividing the ‘turfs’ of each school’s students. They’re like national borders. But there are some dangerous disputed zones that every school claims are theirs, causing tensions to grow.”

“Those are called the Lost Pieces,” said Kuroko. “Because they’re like missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle forming the School Garden. Since everyone claims them, no one can manage them properly. So those are the only areas not patrolled by security robots or monitored by security cameras. Not even the teachers can agree on which school is in charge of security there.”

And a lack of surveillance created a blind spot where unspeakable desires could be released. They might only look like an abandoned construction site or an artificial forest, but they meant so much more to the right people.

Humans were human. Mikoto knew better than anyone that the pure girls here were not saints. In fact, all the studying and perfect etiquette the adults forced onto them at all times could cause stress to build up until it exploded out in one of those unmonitored areas.

Bluish-white sparks crackled from Mikoto’s bangs.

“Honestly, finding this is the work of a secret delinquent from one of the schools is probably the best case scenario.”

“Yes, this is such an irritating time what with the industrial spies trying to sneak in during the entrance exams. Combine that with a justice-minded girl afflicted with a super slow-motion curse and I have a very bad feeling about this.”

The four of them rushed out of the school building.

The inorganic stone buildings along the European-style streets felt so much different now that they knew someone had gone missing here. And none of the people living in that peaceful world were aware of it. It felt like the part of a dystopian SF movie where the big corporation insists their new technology is perfectly safe. With the streets without a speck of litter and the smiling employees at the polished cafés, there was no darker side to be found, which only made the girls more suspicious of everything.

“What standards should we really be striving toward!? Is unquestioningly obeying the adults really the key to improving ourselves!?”

“Wow.”

But Saten reacted a little too sensitively to what she heard coming from the LCD ads on the decorative pillars.

“We have no intention of stopping with Tokiwadai! We intend to provide greater autonomy to every student in the School Garden and through that ensure we can all take responsibility in our own actions!! None of us should simply follow the rules the adults have set for us! Only by thinking through the reasons behind the rules we should follow can we find true consideration for each other!”

Did it really matter if they were testing replacing the wind turbines with solar panels? But Saten tapped Mikoto on the shoulder.

“Misaka-san, what is that?”

“A debate being held between the schools, I think. Like I said, as peaceful as things look here, the five schools are having constant turf wars. The adults think healthy competition provides fuel to increase our powers, so the adults never intervene to stop it.”

“Um, but that person is acting like a representative of Tokiwadai on TV,” said Uiharu.

“She can claim whatever she wants,” bluntly stated Mikoto. “I don’t know who that redhead is, but she’s not even part of the student council. Besides, Tokiwadai is focused more on individual esper powers and the conflicts between our cliques, so I don’t see what a debate like this can really accomplish. I can’t speak for the other four schools, but for us, this at most lets you advertise your club or clique. It isn’t popular enough for anyone to compete for the spot and no one will feel jealous seeing someone else calling themselves our representative.”

An eloquent speech with no group backing it wasn’t enough to solve anything in the real world. When there were problems between the students, it was simpler to either fight it out with their esper powers or have their cliques apply pressure to each other. And that didn’t just apply to Tokiwadai. The girls here still clung to the outdated traditions of the nobility, so they seemed to like the sound of the word “duel”. Otherwise, they wouldn’t praise Mikoto as the Ace for being the strongest individual or Shokuhou as the Queen for leading the strongest group.

Mikoto understood finding everything suspicious right now, but there was no point in wasting their time with the debate playing on TV. They had a much more real problem to face.

What had Tokiwadai 2nd Year Yugure Kanaria seen in a Lost Piece, who had made her vanish, and where had she ended up?

“Is that all?” complained Saten Ruko after taking a peek past the tall metal wall and into the abandoned construction site that was one of the Lost Pieces. “But it’s so normal. You described this as a lawless zone, so I was expecting to find every wall to be covered in post-apocalyptic graffiti.”

“Keep in mind this is still inside the School Garden.” Mikoto shrugged. “The official story is that construction of the building was protested in the name of scenery preservation, but I have my doubts. I think the real reason is an 8-story building here would have obstructed the phone signal at Shidarezakura. Does that sound like too modern a reason for a traditional girl’s school? No matter how much history or tradition a school has, all the students and teachers are constantly on their phones.”

While it was a construction site, there weren’t rough piles of pipes stacked up on the bare dirt. A building that looked an awful lot like a Greek temple had been abandoned half built. The plan had been for it to be a recreation facility including a gym and a bath, but those plans had been canceled and now it sat here unfinished.

There weren’t any signs as obvious as cigarette butts on the ground, but there were a few footprints. That meant there were some girls who found this place comfortable enough to visit.

“Uiharu,” said Shirai.

“Yes, yes. According to her Bank data, Yugure Kanaria’s shoe size is 22cm. Let’s see…I can use my PDA’s camera as an electronic ruler, but it looks like none of these were her.”

Photography was banned all across the School Garden and not just in Tokiwadai. Any function that used the camera would be deactivated without a Judgment device.

If Kanaria had come here and seen something she shouldn’t have, her footprints would be here. Since the whole point was for her to have been disappeared in one of the Lost Pieces, she wouldn’t have been knocked out elsewhere and carried here. Then the crime would have been noticed.

They concluded this Lost Piece wasn’t the one they wanted and moved to the next one.

Saten spoke up on the way there.

“Hey, wait. Judgment can access data on all our measurements?”

“Sex, age, height, and weight are the basic pieces of data needed to identify a suspicious figure seen on a security camera. And the more data we have, the better.”

“Weight too!? Please don’t tell me you have our body fat ratio!”

Saten felt like this should be a crisis for any girl, but Uiharu didn’t seem to care. Was it like how doctors were professionals and thus didn’t get flustered about seeing a patient naked?

All the LCD ads around were playing that debate from earlier. But Mikoto had missed the topic of debate, so she wasn’t entirely sure what the 5 schools were trying to say.

“Clean energy is not enough for us. I demand safe energy as well. We must do more than enjoy ourselves in the present. This is the first step toward being adults aware of our responsibility to the future. The wind turbines used across Academy City have received some criticism over the low frequency waves produced by the friction as they turn, so I suggest replacing them with silent solar energy.”

“Flying cars have already reached the practical stage of development. But can we really allow them to be managed by the existing driver’s license system? Should they require a pilot’s license, which is even more difficult to obtain? I say no. Why not create a new system that instead lowers the barrier to entry? As long as we can learn how to operate them safely, why can’t middle school students like ourselves use these flying cars?”

“Independence! We demand independence!! Leaving your parents and setting out on your own is a crucial step toward obtaining your own identity.”

Saten looked bored. A lot of people disliked that any voices at all were coming from the streetside LCD ads, so what they were saying didn’t matter.

“What the heck are they talking about?”

“They’re taking it in some confusing directions, but I think they might be debating on the general category of what it means to be an adult.”

At any rate, Mikoto guided them to some woods that seemed out of place among the stone buildings.

An unnatural thicket of conifer trees grew in between the buildings. It didn’t look like a well-maintained park.

“This artificial forest is next. The only other ones I’m familiar with are the subway station remains, the abandoned bell tower, and the server center that has never been run despite its ridiculous communications capacity.”

“Why would prestigious schools be fighting over those places? No, wait, forget I asked. I don’t want to get roped into any trouble for knowing the truth of this fancy place.”

Rumor-loving Saten actually opted out of learning some new rumors.

However…

“Onee-sama, I can’t help but wonder why you are familiar with so many different Lost Pieces. I am especially curious why you seemed to be checking a map on your phone while leading us here.”

Mikoto coughed and refused to look Shirai in the eye.

The position of Academy City’s #3 came with its own pressures, so sometimes she wanted to step away from all of that. She didn’t know for sure, but she guessed the #5 was also familiar with the Lost Pieces.

Uiharu viewed the area through her PDA and then shouted excitedly.

“Oh, a match! Official Tokiwadai loafers, 22cm. Of course, that isn’t enough to guarantee it’s her.”

“It’s still better than what we found at the constructions site. Let’s take a closer look.”

Mikoto’s group stepped into the artificial forest growing in a gap within the city.

However, the forest didn’t have anything going for it aside from the lack of surveillance. The conifer trees didn’t grow any fruit like apples or peaches and there weren’t any rhino beetles around during this season, so there was nothing exciting to find. They couldn’t even sit down on the ground without getting the dark soil on their uniforms. The artificial conifer forest was nothing more than a pollen factory.

Saten lost interest really fast.

“Huh. So when the girls here know no one is watching, the best they can come up with is go forest bathing? High society delinquents are lame.”

“Saten.”

“Shirai-san, I can understand getting together with your friends at that construction site,” said Uiharu. “But wouldn’t you just get swarmed by mosquitos if you came here during the summer?”

That was when Mikoto tilted her head with electricity crackling from her bangs.

“There’s something further in.”

“What is it, Onee-sama?”

“The microwaves I’m sending out are getting a weird reaction from the ground. This isn’t anything natural, like a rock or a fallen tree. It’s more artificial…square shaped even. Could it be a metal cover on the ground? But it doesn’t seem like a manhole cover. It’s too big. The reaction I’m getting is 2m across.”

“Wait, Misaka-san! There is no such thing as a square manhole. As a square, you could tilt it along the diagonal like this and the heavy lid would fall right in the hole, so they’re specifically designed to prevent that! All the manholes covers you see on the road are circles so they won’t fall through no matter how they’re situated on top!!”

All four of them exchanged a glance.

If Saten was right, then this metal cover wasn’t to a manhole. Then what was it? What other metal covers did you find on the ground?

Yugure Kanaria had gone missing after discovering something.

They may have been approaching whatever it was. Uiharu walked further into the woods with Mikoto and Shirai.

“Why is your head so full of useless trivia, Saten-san?”

“Because, Uiharu, manholes are a treasure trove of urban legends. Some say they’re holes meant to drop bodies in and others say there are bizarre monsters living below. The sewers they connect to are even said to be home to white alligators.”

Uiharu wasn’t sure what to say when Saten looked so proud of herself for this. Had her friend failed to notice the “useless” qualifier she had used?

Mikoto came to a stop after reaching the point indicated by her microwaves.

“It’s here.”

“It looks like ordinary soil to me.”

“But look at my PDA, Shirai-san. Those 22cm footprints walk right up to this spot and then vanish.”

“What does that mean?” asked Saten.

Mikoto answered her by casually raising her right hand.

She was using her magnetic control.

The dark soil on top was blown away and a metal cover 2m long, 2m wide, and more than 3cm thick rose into Mikoto’s palm.

The square hole below revealed sturdy-looking stainless steel stairs leading down. Mikoto tossed the metal cover aside and aimed her phone’s LED light inside, but she still couldn’t see the bottom.

“I’ve heard they sell simple tornado shelters in America for people to bury in their yard, but I don’t think that’s what this is. I’m pretty sure those are more like burying a small storage shed, but this just keeps going deeper.”

“Wow! It’s like an evil secret base, Uiharu.”

“It couldn’t possibly be evil. This is the School Garden funded by those five super classy schools, remember?”

Uiharu’s comment put some very uncomfortable looks on Mikoto and Shirai’s faces.

This was far too largescale to be the work of an individual. It was probably one of those five schools that had built this underground facility.

And those same schools were fighting over who owned this artificial forest.

“What did you see, Canary-chan? This is starting to look really dangerous.”

“The footprints end here, so we have to go down these stairs to figure out what that person saw, don’t we? Don’t we!?”

Saten’s love of urban legends had her giddy with excitement at the prospect of pursuing this new mystery.

But had she really thought this through?

It was true Yugure Kanaria had probably descended these stairs since her footprints ended here, but the entrance had been sealed by that heavy metal cover and soil had been placed on top to hide it.

Kanaria couldn’t have done that from the inside. Not physically and not with her esper power, Micro Dying. They also hadn’t seen any of her footprints leading back out of the woods. Didn’t that mean something had had happened to her down those stairs and then someone else had shut the heavy metal cover from the outside and covered it with soil to delay anyone from discovering her?

Part 6

Without anyone to stop her, Saten Ruiko likely would have rushed into the mysterious underground space to solve the mystery on her own. As can be seen from her stance on pursuing urban legends, she preferred to solve mysteries herself when she encountered them. And while this may be a rude and baseless prediction, it seemed likely she would have ended up in serious trouble and gotten beaten up.

But Shirai Kuroko and Uiharu Kazari were different.

Even without directly finding an assailant or victim, the evidence and situation they found told them a survivor had likely been sealed in by a third party. A 2m square of metal more than 3cm thick was too heavy for a 2nd year in middle school to lift, so closing that cover from outside was enough to charge the third party with at least abduction or confinement. In the worst case, their intent may have been to let her starve to death down there. It could be hard to tell without a single drop of blood to be found, but this was a legitimate(?) crime that could have taken a life.

And when faced with something like that, the correct course of action was to call Anti-Skill and get the adults’ help. There was no reason to rush in and act like this was a single player game. If Mikoto’s group got wiped out without letting anyone know, then no one would be able to rescue Yugure Kanaria from that underground space.

Saten complained, but then something occurred to her.

“Hold on, Shirai-san. Didn’t you say these Lost Pieces are unmonitored areas that none of the schools can touch? Will Anti-Skill even show up?”

“Even if no one is monitoring the area, a report of a kidnapping or murder is enough justification to raid the place. We’re not talking about a foreign embassy here.”

Shirai was exactly right.

A total of 20 or 30 people were sent in as reinforcements. That seemed like a lot. If you reported a purse snatching or an attempted convenience store robbery, there was no way that many would show up. So that number meant Anti-Skill was already considering the possibility this was a murder case. The normal crime scene preservation measures would require placing blue tarps over any doors and windows, stringing police tape around the area, and keeping away the press showing up with large cameras, so 20 or 30 was probably about right. Which made their presence all the more disturbing.

The ones carrying bulky silver cases around were probably the crime scene investigators. They didn’t only work murder cases, but knowing they had been called in for a case relating to a classmate was still worrying.

The adults in Anti-Skill allowed the children from Judgment join the investigation, which may have shown they understood the complicated status of the Lost Pieces.

Anti-Skill and Judgment ended up speaking at the same time.

“Understood. We will let Anti-Skill handle the rest.”

“No, hold on. We want all of you Judgment girls to help us search inside.”

Did they have to argue like that? Hadn’t they ever heard of teamwork? Mikoto’s group only wanted to find out if Yugure Kanaria was safe.

And whichever side of the argument they were on, Mikoto’s group only had one real option here. If they were going to confirm Kanaria was safe, everyone needed to pool their information and they needed as many people searching as they could get. Plus, none of them were the type who could sit around waiting for the result. They preferred to take action and actually do something.

Since the people in charge apparently saw them as a group working for Shirai Kuroko, Mikoto placed a hand on the center of her chest and spoke up.

“Very well. I am more than willing to help, Miss Judgment. Show us how the experts do it.”

“Okay, just follow me. You aren’t going to find unexplored underground spaces on your map app, so we need to be thorough. First of all, this is a special pen that shines in response to UV light. The UV light itself is built into the back end. I will teach you a few signs, so make sure to mark off all the rooms and pathways we have already checked. Since we don’t have a map, we’ll have to make one ourselves. If we run into something and have to run away, make sure to follow the path we took coming in. Ready, everyone? Here we go☆”

They descended the stainless steel stairs as a group.

But they ran into something unexpected almost immediately. It was deep. They had known their phone lights weren’t enough to see all the way down, but the stairs still seemed to continue on and on forever.

They had to have descended at least 100 steps. And without any landings or reversals along the way. They had to have already left the Lost Piece artificial forest.

They heard a deep groaning sound.

It was much too loud to be caused by their feet on the metal stairs.

Saten pointed her phone around nervously.

“Wh-what is this sound?”

“Is it an earthquake?”

Saten normally ran headlong into danger, so it was strange to see her clinging to Uiharu’s arm here.

Mikoto placed her hand on the smooth wall.

“For that matter…”

Where were they underground right now?

Was anyone really allowed to dig so much beneath the School Garden where the five schools competed so fiercely over their turf?

The shiny silver walls and floor looked even cheaper than the stairs. They may have been a lightweight aluminum alloy.

“Cool. This is practically a dungeon now,” said Saten Ruiko, sounding carefree.

There was an intersection up ahead and another a bit past that one, so this may have been a vast web of underground pathways.

There was no point in sticking together as a single group, so despite their disagreements, the Anti-Skill and Judgment members exchanged a nod and spread out across different pathways.

Mikoto’s group decided to stick together.

“So what is this place anyway?”

“Uuuiiihaaaruuu.”

“N-not now, Saten-san! Why would you even think of flipping my skirt with all this going on?”

“Oh, I already did it before we went down here. It just isn’t a proper Uiharu panty viewing if isn’t out in the sunlight.”

Uiharu Kazari shrieked and held down her skirt with both hands.

Meanwhile, Mikoto let some bluish-white sparks crackle from her bangs and rapped the back of her hand against the aluminum wall.

“That’s pretty thick, but it’s hollow inside. And based on the evenly spaced lines on the passageway’s walls, floor, and ceiling, could this be made from the metal cubes used for the foundation of a megafloat?”

“That’s ridiculous. Creating an underground wall out of those would requires so much extra digging,” said Shirai. “Burying a hollow cube is so much more work than just a flat wall.”

And the more digging required, the more money required. That was why the tunnels built through mountains generally took the shortest possible route and some would reduce the number of lanes or lower the ceiling to cut costs. Keeping the width and height the same from beginning to end for no real reason could lead to unbelievable costs in the end.

In the same way, a thick cube would cost so much more than a flat wall. When a width of 2m was enough for people to pass through, no one would dig a tunnel 6m wide for three times the cost and then fill in either side with cubes, leaving only the original 2m width.

However…

(Costly cubic walls, a megafloat foundation, and a network of underground passageways. And all of it was built in secret so no one in the School Garden would notice?)

Mikoto’s thoughts were cut off by an ear-splitting noise.

Saten shouted in surprise and pulled out her phone.

Uiharu snapped at her for once.

“What are you doing, Saten-san!?”

“It’s not my fault. The alarm won’t stop! I didn’t think we even got a signal down here!”

It wasn’t just Saten.

More of those loud electronic tones sounded from other passageways and around other corners. They reverberated and mixed together into a mass of noise that seemed to spread endlessly.

A deep groaning came from the lightweight aluminum alloy walls.

Shirai looked around.

“This isn’t a normal signal. Is it a more powerful disaster warning app alert?”

(No.)

Mikoto gulped.

(This isn’t an earthquake. When a fault in the crust grinds together, the friction produces static electricity, but I don’t sense anything like that.)

It was easy enough to say what this wasn’t, but then what was it? The low rumbling was so unusually regular it seemed more like some kind of machine.

Something felt extremely off to Mikoto.

She felt the frustration of seeing something dangerous approaching her but being unable to find the words to describe what exactly it was. Or maybe it was the groundless fear of a jinx where naming the thing would give it more power.

But her thoughts were cut off there.

Her phone’s light had found something in the vast underground space. Something on the floor there did not fit the smooth, metallic aesthetic. The dark, lumpy object was…

“A…person? Damn, it’s Canary-chan!!”

“Ah, Misaka-san!?”

“Uiharu, mark the wall with that special pen!!” said Shirai. “Forgetting to mark it could lead to trouble later!!

They were all in a hurry now.

A girl with long flaxen hair wore a Tokiwadai uniform. With Tokiwadai’s strict rules only the bangs and socks left room for individuality and Kanaria was wearing triple roll socks.

Yugure Kanaria lay face down on the floor. Mikoto had a bad feeling about this. If she hadn’t laid down on her own, she could have had trouble breathing. Either her mouth could have been covered or her weight could have applied pressure to her lungs.

Mikoto just about grabbed her shoulders and turned her on to her back, but then she stopped. Why was Kanaria collapsed down here and why couldn’t she get back up under her own power? It would be best to check her for injury before moving her.

But her classmate’s dry lips moved before she was done checking.

“Ah…kh…”

“Canary-chan, do you recognize me? Everything will be okay. There’s a bunch of Judgment and Anti-Skill here too!!”

“…was a…ctory.”

(…?)

Mikoto frowned.

What was that? Would she really suddenly use that word even if she was woozy?

It was possible Mikoto had misheard.

But it had sounded an awful lot like Yugure Kanaria had said something about a factory?

“It was a factory, Osprey-chan. This place was a factory.”

“What are you talking about, Canary-chan?”

“But I don’t think this is anywhere near enough. My, my. They know it too, which is why they wanted to keep their secret. It was all just a childish dream.”

“Start from the beginning please. What was a childish dream!?”

More deep rumbling.

Still kneeling next to her classmate, Mikoto looked up on reflex because she thought this was an earthquake.

But it wasn’t.

Yugure Kanaria knew more about what was going on, so she seemed to know what this was.

“It’s started. I couldn’t stop it. Oh, no. And now Hoatzin is going to be caught in the middle of it all.”

“What’s started!?”

“Independence Day,” said Kanaria, still lying face down and having trouble breathing. She was just like the bird chirping in the mines to warn of impending doom. “The School Garden is declaring independence, Osprey-chan.”

Part 7

Shortly before that, 12-year-old Yugure Tsumebakei couldn’t focus on what she was saying.

The teachers across from her looked uncertain.

But not because she was saying anything weird.

Her responses to the interview had been perfect. They had been so painfully perfect they almost seemed robotic.

Mikoto’s group had contacted the adults, so the teachers would know about her situation. That meant they would be aware the young hopeful student was preoccupied. The School Garden was supposed to be unquestionably safe yet her sister had gone missing there. Anyone would have difficulty focusing on their entrance exam in those circumstances, so the Tokiwadai teachers’ opinions were split.

Some wanted to make an exception and push back her interview to a later date.

Some thought it would be unfair to the other hopeful students to allow any kind of exception.

Although none of them considered that their thoughtfulness actually put more pressure on her young heart. The interviewers, who were meant to place pressure on her, were all being unusually nice, which made her think something really bad had happened to her sister.

“Yugure-san, why don’t you take a break?” suggested the woman directly across from her. Akazame-sensei, was it? “Don’t worry. It will not affect the evaluation of your exam.”

The two factions of teachers had settled on that as a compromise.

All entrance exams were a coldhearted system used to select some people over others, but some kindness was allowed as well. The decisions made on those exams could literally influence the rest of someone’s life, after all. And the interviewers did not do this because they wanted to fail people. They wanted to find the most qualified people in the group.

Don’t worry.

That phrase made Tsumebakei look down at her right pinky finger.

An apparent friend of her sister had said the same thing while making a promise. She had nothing to prove that friend could make good on the promise, but she had to believe in it.

She thanked the teachers and left the exam room on unsteady legs, but what was she supposed to do now? If running around outside would find her sister, she was willing to run all the way around the planet, but she knew it wasn’t that simple.

After leaving the building, her own weight got the better of her and she collapsed onto the ground.

She was smart enough to know there was nothing she could do.

She understood that all too well in her own young way.

“Uhh.”

Why did this have to happen?

She had said all sorts of nice-sounding things to the teachers during the interview, but she didn’t actually have any grand dreams for her future. She only wanted to go to the same school as her sister. She only wanted to walk to school with her beloved sister every day. Had that been wrong of her? She didn’t know what had actually happened, but would her sister not have gotten into trouble today if she hadn’t tried to go to Tokiwadai?

Maybe she had been wrong to want that.

What if it was her fault her sister was in trouble?

But then why was it her sister who had to suffer and not her?

“No. I don’t care about Tokiwadai anymore. I don’t care about my future, so I’ll give up on all my dreams. Just give Onee-chan back…”

What was done was done, so this bargaining was meaningless.

She wasn’t even sure who or what she was bargaining with. Was she asking an invisible demon to alter fate to bring her sister back to her?

But she wasn’t even allowed that self-destructive wish. She was no more than a powerless observer.

And while she sat on the ground feeling so pitiful, things took a turn for her.

Yes…

“Oh? What are you doing out here?”

She heard a voice.

When she raised her lowered head, she saw a girl with long blonde hair.

“Who are you?”

“Hee hee. You must be Hoatzin-san☆ I’m Canary-san’s friend.”

Her heart leapt in her chest.

And the older blonde girl had more to say.

“Did Misaka-san’s group not contact you because they wanted you to focus on your interviewing ability? Fortunately, I heard allll about what happened from them☆”

“…?”

“You have nothing to worry about.”

The sweet-smelling girl bent her knees to bring herself to Tsumebakei’s eye level.

“Misaka-san found Canary-chan just like she promised.”

“Ah.”

“The school is looking after her, so there really, truly is nothing to worry about. She’s receiving medical care now, but it’s nothing serious. You should be able to see her soon.”

“Ahh, wahhhhhhh!!”

Tsumebakei leaped into the older girl’s arms and bawled.

“I was scared!! So scared!!”

“Anyone would be.”

“Onee-chan, sob, Onee-chan. I thought this was my fault. I thought none of it would have happened if I hadn’t tried to go to Tokiwadai!!”

“You were overthinking it. That would never happen.”

The confidence in the blonde girl’s voice soaked into lonely Tsumebakei’s heart like nothing else.

“Now listen, Hoatzin-san. Your dreams aren’t going to hurt anyone. There’s no reason at all to stop yourself from wanting to walk to school with and go to school with your sister. So throw out all that worrying ability. Turn around, march back into that building, and do your very best at that interview. I’m sure Canary-san wants to go to school with you too☆”

“Okay!!” she cheerfully replied, still clinging to the older girl.

All the dark feelings had vanished from her heart.

“Huh? But wait a second.”

“Yes?”

“How did you know my dream was to go to school with my sister? I never even told her about-”

Shokuhou Misaki pressed the button on the TV remote pressed against the girl’s back.

Yugure Tsumebakei fainted like her power switch had been flipped.

This was Academy City’s #5 Level 5, Mental Out, the strongest of the psychological powers.

She gently patted the back of the girl who had fallen into sweet dreams, but the blonde queen also clicked her tongue at her own mistake.

“Well, I sure screwed that one up!! I went as far as digging up their pet names for each other and then ruin it all with a stupid mistake!? Knowing someone too well has its own problems. I really do mess up the details when I try to work my adlib ability. I was supposed to put her at ease even if it meant lying to her and then I end up knocking her out about as forcibly as possible.”

Yes.

Young Tsumebakei normally wouldn’t open up so much to a middle schooler she had never met. Even if that middle schooler had been wearing a Judgment armband and had mentioned someone she knew like Misaka, she would have been on her guard.

But none of that mattered to Mental Out.

Shokuhou Misaki had not in fact been in contact with Misaka Mikoto since the two of them did not get along at all.

She had been smiling with Yugure Tsumebakei and mechanically constructing a conversation by assessing the situation and choosing the best phrase to use next like she was choosing a chess move. Whenever she pulled one statement from Tsumebakei’s mouth, she obtained all the surrounding terms as well. Once she had drawn out the terms “Misaka-san”, “searching for” and “Yugure Kanaria”, it wasn’t hard to find the right things to say to soothe the crying child. But this time, Shokuhou had delved too deep into the target’s mind and it had all backfired.

(No one tells the people they truly love about their plans for the future. How could I forget something so basic? When did my sensibilities get so distorted?)

“Queen.”

“Hokaze, I order you to treat this girl like she is me and protect her life, her assets, and everything else she holds dear. Protect her with your life☆”

That ringlets girl was Shokuhou’s most trusted aide and bodyguard and she always faithfully carried out her queen’s commands. Thus, when she asked a question, it was only to confirm some information she felt was necessary to carry out that command.

Hokaze Junko expressed her concern.

“Is something about to happen that will require me to protect her with my life? But Tokiwadai is so peaceful.”

“The usual state of affairs isn’t going to apply much longer. We’re about to see a major panic brought on by some extreme Peter Pan Syndromes.”

Then Shokuhou Misaki looked away and grumbled under her breath.

Disaster warning app alerts were going off all around. The chain reaction was like ripples spreading throughout the School Garden and it would reach Shokuhou and Hokaze’s phones eventually.

The low rumbling below their feet was growing.

That rumbling came from a large number of enormous motors.

“What are you even doing, Misaka-san?”

Part 8

The School Garden, which contained five girls’ schools including Tokiwadai Middle School, flew high into the sky.

The ground had been secretly reinforced with a megafloat foundation and the near endless solar energy collected while above the clouds was used to pour an overwhelming amount of power into a vertical takeoff system that was essentially a much larger version of a flying car.

Yugure Kanaria had called this Independence Day.

Mikoto’s group had failed to stop it.

Part 9

That brings us back to where we started.

Misaka Mikoto clicked her tongue at the changed world she saw while spying on the schoolyard.

(We’re 5000m up and the entire ground below the School Garden was remade in secret? What kind of tech did they even use?)

There was a strong tone of exasperation in Mikoto’s thoughts.

To be fair, the Eurotunnel linking the UK and France was nearly 40km long and the total length of a major city’s subway had to be hundreds if not thousands of kilometers. As a collection of 5 schools, the School Garden was only a few kilometers across. Digging below it, reinforcing it, creating an artificial space there, and using cubes of lightweight aluminum alloy to transform the ground into a giant aerial float wasn’t impossible.

(But just like with the Eurotunnel or a major city’s subway, actually doing it would require amounts of money discussed in national budgets. Some of the girls here are absurdly rich, but this goes beyond what even they could do as a prank.)

Only a few hours had passed since it had all started. It wasn’t even dinnertime yet.

Barely any time had passed since inviting Uiharu and Saten into the School Garden. The sun hadn’t set and the sky was still blue.

Nevertheless.

A redhead with shoulder length hair held a megaphone at the center of it all. Based on her figure, she had to be a year older than Mikoto, making her a third year. Unfortunately, her uniform was a Tokiwadai one.

The agitator spoke with a tiara sparkling on her head.

“How about we take a vote? Who thinks Akazame-sensei is guilty?”

“Guilty!!” “Guilty!!” “Guilty!!” “Guilty!!” “Guilty!!” “Guilty!!”

Could they run away? Even if it meant jumping from an altitude of 5000m?

No one made those reckless but understandable suggestions.

In fact, they all agreed.

Did they not care who was in charge as long as they personally were safe? Or had they taken a liking to this newfound freedom even if it was self-destructive?

A teacher had been forced up onto the “gallows”, which was actually the metal flagpole. The thick metal wire hanging from the pole looked sinister with its end tied into a loop.

The usual safe and comfortable School Garden was nowhere to be found. Academy City’s rules no longer applied and Japan’s constitution probably didn’t either.

This was an airborne jail with no escape in any direction.

Mikoto glanced down at her phone. It did have a signal, but the connection timed out when she tried to access any sites outside of the School Garden. Cell phone signals couldn’t reach 5000m into the air, so she couldn’t access the surface.

(Did whoever did this set up a huge base antenna of their own? Or is this a satellite connection?)

Whatever the case, she couldn’t call for help.

She could only trust that Academy City’s adults were working toward a solution without needing anyone to point out to them that a chunk of the city had taken flight.

If this was a scaled-up version of a flying car, then it would use electric motors. But to keep something the size of the School Garden airborne would require high-level synchronization from a large number of large motors. If Mikoto stopped them one by one with her power, the large flat structure could easily tilt and then crash down into the surface.

This could have led to a panic, but the scales had tilted in the culprit’s favor. Once it was made clear they could live here and resume their ordinary life indefinitely here, most of the students would decide it was a problem but not one they needed to risk their safety to solve right away.

How did the water supply work after leaving the ground? Maybe they could move around at will and they would resupply by passing below rainclouds.

Imagine a long line in front of a sweets shop. What if a lost child were crying right next to that line? Any one person from the line only needed to leave the line, kneel down, and help the child with a smile, but would anyone choose to be that one person? If they left the line, they lost their chance to buy the sweets they wanted.

This was known as passive acceptance.

And the culprit had provided another factor here as well: active acceptance.

“All of Academy City’s social problems were created by the adults!”

The agitator used her megaphone to speak to the crowd around her.

This was the real reason everyone was so incensed.

“Why did they need to separate us out by Level if all they want to do is mess with our brains to develop esper powers!? Why do the researchers get to cover up all the horrific things they do in the name of ‘protecting city secrets’!? Because this city is designed to benefit the adults! The growth of your students shouldn’t be something you budget out!! If they let us choose how far we take our own development, so much tragedy and frustration could be avoided. At the very least, we could accept whatever happened as the result of our own actions!! So I say to you Academy City needs no teachers. If this is truly meant to be a city of academia, it should be a city designed to promote learning. This small area – not even a full district – can act as a test case. Once we prove the effectiveness of this method, the rest of the city will follow! Our actions here will truly liberate Academy City!!”

(The agitator is the redhead from that debate. Canary-chan made it sound like a group was behind it, so I bet the other schools’ debaters were in on it too.)

Solar power and flying cars.

The ideas presented by the other debaters had been used in this as well, so it was best to assume the debaters from each of the 5 schools were the ones behind this.

Independence.

That bizarre suggestion may have been slipped into people’s minds ahead of time through the debate being played all across the School Garden. If the supposed opponents were actually in cahoots, they could use their debate to guide the listeners’ thoughts toward whatever conclusion they wanted.

Unlike a speech where one person spoke to the audience, a debate between two people did not let the audience construct their own ideas. The audience was only meant to decide which of the two viewpoints they agreed with. Even if both sides’ ideas were crazy, the audience was forced to choose one or the other. And if both sides were supporting independence with different wordings, what would the audience end up choosing?

(I can’t believe they’re actually trying to hang someone over all those stupid school rules about underwear and deodorant. Too many people here don’t know how to blow off steam, so their frustrations just build up until something lets it explode out like this!!)

“But it’s more than that.”

Yes, they may have contained a bomb ready to blow.

But most any ordinary person was the same. If anyone really was living a truly stress-free life, they were probably unintentionally causing untold amounts of stress for everyone around them.

The current state of affairs required a spark to cause that powder keg to explode.

What had done it?

(I doubt they would explode this readily even with all the small daily frustrations building up. Was it the pressure of suddenly finding themselves trapped up here? Was it the mental backlash of finding themselves freed of the city’s rules? Or is the lower air pressure up here affecting their blood flow?)

No, it wasn’t any of those.

Misaka Mikoto was focused on a specific person. And the technology she held.

“That megaphone is producing more than just sound.”

It depended on the wavelength, but electromagnetic waves were reflected by a lot of things.

That included moisture. Even an invisible mist could have its location and thickness accurately measured from how it reflected those waves. A weather radar used that principle on a larger scale.

(Even simple moisture can make people feel sweaty and subconsciously make them irritable. Add specific chemicals into the mix and it would be even more effective. For example, an itching compound like a polypeptide or urushiol.)

If something physical had triggered this explosion, it was unlikely words alone could dissuade them now. But grabbing Shokuhou by the collar and forcing her to use Mental Out was a fundamentally flawed idea.

For example, what if Shokuhou used her psychological power on someone under purely chemical general anesthesia? Would they break free of the effects of the halothane or nitrous oxide to get up and walk around on her command? It might be possible to let that arrogant queen smugly push out her oversized chest and solve this, but there was no guarantee. The sample size was too small.

“Well, this sucks.”

Mikoto hated that she still hadn’t gotten the full story out of Yugure Kanaria since she was too weak.

What was the factory she had mentioned?

“Of course, running the School Garden costs money. A very large sum of money. However!! Do we really need the teachers for that!? In case you hadn’t noticed, we have a fair amount of wealth ourselves. Some of us have started our own businesses instead of just using our parents’ money! So again I ask you: do we really need the headmaster and director ordering us around to keep the School Garden running? We do not!! We already have enough money to look after ourselves!! And we know how to make more money! So why compromise and bring the teachers’ dirty money into the mix!? That brings only corruption!!”

Mikoto looked away for a moment and then sighed.

(Yeah, I don’t think Shokuhou can help here.)

Mikoto had been less interested in the #5 herself and more in the Tokiwadai’s largest clique using its superior numbers to solve this, but it didn’t look like they would be able to act right away. For one, Shokuhou would have to protect everyone who idolized her and, even if she did have superior numbers, she would have a hard time protecting all of her people if it came to all-out war. So she wouldn’t make that choice until she saw a real chance at victory.

And even if her clique was the largest in Tokiwadai, that proportion changed when looking at all 5 schools. In a conflict with everyone involved, the Shokuhou Clique would be the hunted minority.

Would Shokuhou and her clique choose to feign agreement with the agitator regardless of what they actually thought? She could even use Mental Out to guide her people’s actions so they didn’t let the truth slip.

Playing the long game like that wasn’t Mikoto’s style, which may have been why she and Shokuhou didn’t get along. Which in turn meant it wasn’t Shokuhou’s style to make the childish choice to immediately battle the harm before her eyes like Mikoto did.

Of course they got irritated whenever they saw each other.

“Anyway.”

Mikoto looked back to the schoolyard.

At this rate, that teacher was going to be execution #1. The students would place the wire around her neck, turn the crank, and hoist her corpse high like a flag to flap in the breeze.

And most likely, once they actually executed someone, something deep inside the School Garden would break and there would be no stopping them. Whether they woke from this dream or not, the students gathered here wouldn’t be able to trust they were doing the right thing.

And while having trouble breathing, Yugure Kanaria had said she hadn’t been able to stop it. She didn’t need to feel responsible, but if anyone died from this, it would apply even more pressure to the already weakened girl. And to the little sister who had to see her older sister like that.

Mikoto couldn’t just sit idly by and watch.

Shokuhou had her way of doing things, but so did Mikoto.

A strong crackle of electricity burst from her bangs as she made a decision only Tokiwadai’s Ace could make.

“It’s time to jump into the thick of things!! Because preserving life matters more than anything else!!”

Part 10

“Phew.”

The dorm manager who ruled Tokiwadai’s outside dorm with an iron fist removed the binoculars from her eyes.

She sighed.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been gladder I wasn’t on campus for work.”

If she had been, the angry girls would have captured her and given her the honor of being execution #1. It was necessary for her job, but she knew she had made herself a hated figure among the students.

Your daily actions could come back to bite you.

(Well, I’m sure the director will take care of it. The biggest problem is probably Watanabe-sensei. She holds something of a damsel in distress position despite her age, so I hope she hadn’t been captured.)

Part 11

It all happened at once.

Partially because waiting for the count of three would have been too slow to save Akazame-sensei.

“Hm!!”

Misaka Mikoto took control of a metal construction panel a few centimeters thick and bigger than a tatami mat. She magnetically threw it, caught the teacher standing on the gallows 70m ahead, and launched her past the gathered crowd and outside Tokiwadai’s grounds.

Of course…

“We have a traitor!” The agitator’s voice exploded from the megaphone. “We have a traitor among us!! That traitor’s name is Misaka Mikoto!! That Level 5 is here to rescue the filthy teachers so she doesn’t have to give up all the perks those problematic adults granted herrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!”

The girls all turned toward her with fully bloodshot eyes.

(Don’t look at me like you’re diehard fans and I interrupted your concert, dammit!!)

Ironically another trait of these high society girls was a reluctance to be the odd one out no matter the situation.

Mikoto wanted to ask them how they hoped to live a comfortable life when people were shouting “guilty” and pulling out the hanging wire.

As soon as she ran out of the thicket, the artificial woods were blown away. She didn’t have time to determine if it was fire, ice, wind, or rock that had done it. Hundreds of different powers flew her way and destroyed the very scenery

Fortunately, Mikoto didn’t need to defeat everyone gathered around the makeshift gallows.

In fact, everyone other than the agitator were merely schoolmates. Fighting her own side would be a waste of time.

(That means running away is my best bet, but will a magnetically-powered dash really be enough to escape them!?)

Bluish-white sparks scattered from her bangs before the many beams of light could reach her.

Then she jumped 5m straight up, planted her feet on the school wall, and leaped up to the roof.

The attacks immediately ceased.

(They don’t see a need to fix this right away because they can still live their ordinary lives. That’s how the passive acceptance works, so they won’t want to destroy the school that plays a crucial role in those ordinary lives!!)

“Bingo!!”

“Are you sure about that.”

She didn’t even have time to gasp.

Her consciousness was rattled by a blow to the side of her head. A heavy weapon had hit her. If she had lost her magnetic control, it would have knocked her clean off the roof.

There was someone up here with her!

“Tch!!”

“Why the surprise? The walls here aren’t perfectly smooth. The contestants at the Climbing World Cup can scale a 15m wall in just a bit over 5s. Plus, we can cheat with our powers.”

Mikoto chose to ignore what this girl said for now. The information might be useful, but she hadn’t searched it out and verified it herself. Anything the enemy said without prompting was too risky to take at face value.

She heard a heavy swishing sound.

They were several meters apart, but that was no reason to relax. The enemy held the megaphone in one hand while her other hand held a rod longer than a mop and twirled it like a baton.

The end of that rod carried the deadly combination of an axe and a spear.

“A halberd?”

“That attack should have taken off your head, but your last-second step forward meant the shaft hit you instead of the blade. Well done, little girl.”

The agitator grinned and slammed the butt of the shaft against the roof.

She looked to be the same age as Mikoto or a year older.

Her shoulder-length red hair was decorated by a tiara inlaid with jewels. A large chest pushed out her blazer uniform.

Her face showed beautiful white skin, but the legs emerging from her short skirt were covered in thick leather. Rather than stockings or tights, these were probably riding breeches.

“Resanerié Sadis Dialine, 3rd year. Tokiwadai Middle School Debate Representative and Equestrian Combat Club Captain. I have more titles, but I needn’t bore you with them, I hope?”

Mikoto decided the debate representative part could be safely ignored.

Another part sounded much more important.

“Equestrian combat club?”

“It’s a minor club, so I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of it.”

Was that why she wielded the halberd in one hand despite its great size? This wasn’t ordinary spear technique. It was a martial art designed to provide as much power as possible while staying balanced and keeping one hand on the reins at all times.

She held the megaphone in one hand and the halberd in the other.

Resanerié smiled boldly while wielding both the pen and the sword.

“Why the caution? I am no threat to the great Level 5 said to be Tokiwadai’s Ace despite not joining any of our many clubs.”

“You’re awfully self-deprecating for how haughty you look. Don’t you have any confidence in yourself?”

“Shut up, flat chest. You know those probably aren’t growing any more, don’t you?”

“…”

“…”

Misaka Mikoto and Resanerié Sadis Dialine clashed head on.

The agitator wasn’t like the rest of the angry mob.

If Mikoto defeated her, this would end. It might not end as soon as Resanerié was defeated since all 5 debate participants were probably working together, but it would still have a major impact on bringing Tokiwadai back to normal.

Thus, she didn’t hesitate to produce an iron sand sword in her hand.

That sword used its rapid vibration to slice through any substance like a chainsaw and it could also change form at will. Its default form resembled a one-handed sword, but it could also stretch out more like a whip.

However.

“My, my.” The voice that reached Mikoto’s eardrums carried pity. “Is that blatantly self-taught style really enough to handle me?”

“!?”

Orange sparks exploded out.

But Resanerié’s halberd remained intact.

That weapon had a spear, an axe, and a sharp hook on the back of the axe. The iron sand sword caught the thick axe…or it sure looked like it had to Mikoto. But after the burst of sparks, it was Mikoto who staggered back.

Her attack had been deflected.

“Wha-!?”

“You rapidly vibrate the iron sand, so, much like a chainsaw, that sword gains its superb cutting edge by repeatedly cutting at the same spot with miniscule blades.” The redhead smirked. “That cutting edge can never reach my halberd if I deflect it in the instant of a single vibration, before the vibration wave can repeat. What’s wrong, Academy City’s #3? Did you think your weapon was so formidable it couldn’t be countered?”

(Yeah, right. That’s like saying a running chainsaw won’t hurt you if you poke your fingertip against it for just an instant. It’s ridiculous!!)

But the fact remained that her halberd had survived contact with the iron sand sword.

In fact, Resanerié was swinging it toward Mikoto now.

Now that Mikoto had failed to end the battle on her first move, it was Resanerié’s turn.

(What kind of monster is she? How is my power as the #3 not working against her!?)

Just as Mikoto tried to fall back, she felt a tug at her leg.

Resanerié had lowered the halberd’s tip, moved it past Mikoto’s leg, caught the heel side of Mikoto’s ankle with the hook, and yanked hard.

Her weight seemed to vanish as she toppled backwards.

She gave up on preparing for impact with the rooftop. Instead, she magnetically suspended herself in midair for a single second while she curled up, made a full vertical rotation, and pressed her feet against the roof again.

She heard three swooshing sounds in that time.

The halberd tore into the rooftop.

If she had landed safely or hit the roof hard, the sharp tip would have destroyed her vitals. The weapon moved so smoothly, it reminded her more of a chameleon’s tongue than a metal spear.

The redhead girl looked annoyed.

“That’s cheating.”

“How are esper powers cheating in a city of espers!?”

The axe dropped straight down like a lightning bolt.

Mikoto quickly swung her body to the side, but the halberd swooped diagonally back up to pursue her. If she hadn’t doubled over and held down her fluttering skirt, the hook would have caught the cloth.

“So close. I was hoping to strip you naked.”

Of course, it wouldn’t have been anything as harmless as that.

Once you kept your target from moving, they might as well be asking to be killed. Mikoto was done for if she was dragged to the roof by her clothes. Resanerié could jab with her spear or swing down her axe to kill her instantly.

Resanerié easily twirled her halberd.

“Dragging your opponent from their horse and killing them on the ground is the standard tactic for a horseback knight, but with a soldier not wearing full armor, you can instead catch them by their collar and strangle them to death with their own clothing.”

(So you’re going to hook my clothes? How stupid are you!? I’m not going to let you carry out your plan after you explain it to me!!)

A high-pitched whistle left the gap between Resanerié’s alluring lips.

At the same time, Mikoto sent her EM radar from her entire body at full power.

Resanerié made a jab from head on instead of swinging the hook from the side. The sharp spear tip sliced off a few strands of Mikoto’s hair, but that was all. The deadly jab was sharp and heavy, but it failed to find its target and swished through empty air.

Mikoto had finally managed to dodge.

Such a heavy halberd would create a larger opening when it missed, so Mikoto focused on her brow, sent electricity scattering from her bangs, and prepared to launch a counterattack. However…

“Now the return trip.”

“Really!?”

The weapon tore through the air again. If Mikoto hadn’t immediately aborted her attack and swung her head in the opposite direction, the axe blade would have caught her on the side of the face as Resanerié pulled it back, tearing off her ear and cheek and leaving nothing to cover half her teeth. Just like pressing a saw against a piece of lumber and pulling it with all your might.

They reassessed the distance between them.

“There is no good translation of halberd in Japanese. Some have tried by inventing compound words like ‘axe-spear’, but I say that fails to adequately describe this weapon.”

All this was done with just the one hand.

Her other hand still held the megaphone she hadn’t even needed to use.

“There are many uniquely Western weapons – the rapier, the dagger, the bastard sword, the pike, the francisca, the morning star, the arbalest, etc. – but the halberd is the most difficult one to learn. Since it can be used as a spear, an axe, and a hook, it can cut, stab, and catch depending on how it is used. It can also be used in a wide variety of contexts: slashing from the ground, stabbing from horseback, or reaching out from a boat and catching the enemy. Even the professional mercenaries gave up trying to master it and invented the inferior battle hook by stripping away everything but the one aspect.”

“…”

“However.”

Mikoto continued watching carefully while Resanerié grinned and twirled the long, heavy halberd like a baton. She did so as casually as a bored student spinning a pen during class.

That showed just how much she had mastered the weapon.

“Any knight who sticks with it and masters its use will become the greatest warrior. I possess an endless number of options, so you can never perfectly predict my actions and I am not so poorly trained that you can dodge when you have to react after the fact.”

(So does her power directly boost her physical strength, or does it control steel or metal?)

Mikoto took a few steps back while carefully judging the distance between them and also making full us use of her mind without letting her thoughts show.

She wiped the sweat from her brow and wanted to believe it wasn’t a cold sweat.

“Are you really planning to keep the School Garden in the sky indefinitely? As some independent state of students beyond the reach of the adults?”

“Heh heh. A wonderful new life well worth writing in your diary, don’t you think?”

“You can’t be serious. You’ve trapped us in this small world where no one and nothing can get in or out. We might as well all have washed ashore on a desert island. Everyone might be excited now like they just ran away from home, but they will feel the pressure soon enough. I won’t say it’s impossible for people to live without any connection to others, but an isolated life has far more inconveniences than the other way around.”

“I have no interest in a life of riches and plenty. For that matter, is a single student at any of the 5 schools fixated on money? Why would we be when we were all privileged enough to have never experienced poverty?”

“…”

(Or does she have a precog power letting her predict my actions?)

“This will not change the minds of the elites of the School Garden. Especially when I give them a push in the right direction with this.” Resanerié winked and waved the megaphone she held on her other hand. “And it is that lack of interest in direct earnings that prevents the students here from understanding the lengths the adults are willing to go for money. Why rank our powers? Why create an official school caste system that covers the entire city? Because it is a twisted measuring stick the adults use to compare us and determine what research they should fund for the most efficient profit. Isn’t that right, #3?”

“I see. You do have a way with words. Maybe that makes the immediate future look bright, but you aren’t considering what happens a week from now.”

An iron sand sword wasn’t enough.

So should she go with a lightning spear next or skip straight to a Railgun?

To reiterate, Resanerié was still only using one hand.

Mikoto didn’t know how far that girl’s skill went, but she at least had enough skill to concern Academy City’s #3.

(Did she climb the wall without any kind of assistance from her power? Can that even be explained with ordinary physics? Could she have messed with my memory or perception? In fact, could that weird megaphone and how she so easily manipulated everyone in Tokiwadai be related to her power?)

“Oh? Why the wide-eyed look? Are you trying to figure out my power while keeping the damage to a minimum and engaging me in conversation? A valiant attempt, but I’m sorry to say I have yet to use my power.”

“…”

Goose bumps formed all across Mikoto’s skin.

Was Resanerié really twirling that heavy halberd around with just one hand using simple martial arts and no support from her esper power? Even though Mikoto was just barely keeping up while relying heavily on her Level 5 power?

That did not bode well.

The rules would change once Resanerié Sadis Dialine started fighting as an esper. Mikoto had no way of preventing it.

“Now, that should be enough of a warmup.”

Resanerié licked her lips and squeezed her halberd tight.

“It’s time to take this seriously.”

Misaka Mikoto was a Level 5 known as the Railgun for her ability to launch an arcade coin at three times the speed of sound.

That meant she could function at those speeds if she focused her mind.

She was also sending weak microwaves from her upper body as a type of radar, so she would never overlook an incoming object. She had honed that skill to the point that she could accurately detect and shoot down each and every nonmetallic shard sent flying when a bomb exploded.

And yet.

Nevertheless.

“Gahhhhhh ahhhhhhhhhhhhh ahhhhhhh ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh ahhhh ah ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

She had no idea how long she had been screaming.

The fury of the blade was so intense she felt like the flow of time had stopped.

She wasn’t sure if it was the halberd’s spear, axe, hook, thick shaft, or butt end that directly struck her.

With a sound like a manual transmission car’s shift lever operating, the redhead in a tiara came to a stop. Her right arm dangled limply at her side.

“Oops. I overdid it and dislocated my shoulder again. That’s what I get for not loosening up the joint with some stretches first.”

But Mikoto could not strike back. She had failed to block the fierce attack, so she had been bloodily pushed over the edge of the roof. She now scattered red as she fell toward the courtyard rather than the schoolyard.

“You’ve taken this prank too far, rich girl.”

“Rich girl? I am not like the rest of you,” calmly replied Resanerié, roughly forcing her shoulder back into the socket with her other hand. “I am Resanerié Sadis Dialine, empress of the Dialine Empire in Eastern Europe. I wield a different sort of power than you children who hide behind your parents’ backs and show off the silly allowances they give you.”

Tokiwadai’s students came from all sorts of backgrounds. Some came from well-established families with a long history and others were set to take over as president of their parent’s massive corporation. There had even been rumors of an actual princess transferring in.

So was that tiara not something she had donned after the completion of her twisted coup? Maybe it was a national treasure and maybe it was a royal tradition, but she had a reason worth earning an exception to Tokiwadai’s dress code.

The setup for this plan had required the kind of money discussed in national budgets.

The identity of the enemy had been staring Mikoto in the face all along. She had been wrong to dismiss the possibility over a simple “surely not”.

(I can’t believe this girl!)

But that was as far as Mikoto got.

Gravity grabbed at her body and she started plummeting straight down.

She really might have died there if she hadn’t just barely managed to hang onto consciousness and magnetically pulled herself toward the school’s wall as she fell.

“Gahh!!”

The difficulty breathing and the dizziness were worse than the pain.

She checked her injuries and tied a handkerchief around her leg.

(Gh. I don’t need to settle this right away. I achieved my goal when I rescued Akazame-sensei from being hanged! I need to make myself scarce.)

“She’s over here, over here, over herrrrrre!”

The agitator’s amplified voice shouted from the rooftop overhead. Resanerié didn’t seem interested in jumping down and pursuing Mikoto herself.

The halberd was not her only weapon.

The megaphone in her other hand said more.

“The traitor Misaka Mikoto has fallen into the courtyard!! If you believe in independence, then lend us a hand by killing herrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!”

Unnatural stars twinkled in the blue sky.

No, those were esper powers dropping back down after being launched up like arrows from the schoolyard. This threat was one of pure numbers.

Mikoto had no choice but to turn tail and run.

“Damn!!”

“Did you think the threat had passed because you rescued one measly teacher.”

The dirt was torn up and launched higher than Mikoto’s head.

A mocking voice called out from the roof behind her.

“All I need to do is catch someone else and place them on the gallows!! It does not matter to me who we kill first. Ah ha ha. Do you have any idea how many teachers there are in the School Garden as a whole? And at 5000m up, they can only run so far. We have you outnumbered, so we will hunt them down eventually. With no avenue of escape, we will seek out every last teacher, so do you really think you can save them all, Misaka Mikoto!?”

(This sucks!! She really understands how to lay on the pressure and tighten the screws!!)

Part 12

Atop Tokiwadai Middle School’s roof, the empress with shoulder-length red hair, white skin, riding breeches below her uniform skirt, and a tiara on her head looked upon the world below her.

Misaka Mikoto was gone, but it seemed unlikely the girl would attempt a freefall from an altitude of 5000m without any kind of preparation.

“Hm.”

“Empress.”

Resanerié had not called for them, but four people had appeared on the roof with her. They stayed close enough to protect her from anything without ever obstructing her view.

Her attorney, Tougyo Kea.

Her maid, Renka Ephilty.

Her accountant, Sanki Ai.

Her chef, Shitatsuzumi Yoshiko.

Including Empress Resanerié herself, they were the debate representatives from the five schools. They had originally been ordinary(?) girls from the School Garden. Maybe she had wanted to fight back against her retainers back in the empire, but she had ended up with her own servants here.

Tougyo Kea, the attorney in a fancy suit, respectfully bowed her head and asked a question.

As a defense attorney, she used debate as a weapon just as well as the empress.

“What should we do now?”

“Let’s see.”

Tougyo may have hoped Resanerié would order them to chase after Mikoto.

But now was not the time to release the hounds.

“Spending too much on this problem would only weigh us down.”

Resanerié held something about the size of a grape between her fingers. It was probably a jelly bean.

“These are good. How do you make them?”

“They are nothing special. By instantly injecting the gum syrup while pressurized to around 100 thousand atmospheres, the flavor can permeate it while ignoring the osmotic pressure.”

The chef’s murmured response made the maid, Renka Ephilty, sigh.

She didn’t like how Shitatsuzumi Yoshiko’s artisanal spirit meant she had to verbally explain each dish after it was eaten. Even though they were technically from their schools’ respective debate teams.

But their individual tastes were irrelevant as long as they could put a smile on their empress’s face.

“If she insists on running, we can use that to our advantage. Identify any students in your schools that look obedient but you doubt really are. Ask them to pursue Misaka Mikoto and if they show any reluctance, send them to be executed as traitors. That should make a decent loyalty test.”

“Do you have anyone in mind within Tokiwadai?” asked Attorney Tougyo Kea.

Resanerié did not hesitate to respond.

“I think I will start with Shokuhou Misaki and her clique and then add a few more after them.”

“What a shame. They would make powerful allies,” said Accountant Sanki Ai who only ever viewed things numerically.

“Fool. You mustn’t hesitate if you want to avoid being killed in your sleep.”

Just as Resanerié Sadis Dialine responded, something sprinkled from her hand. That was all that remained of her seemingly indestructible halberd. Its powerful silhouette was nowhere to be found. Only the red rust powder scattering in the wind.

“What a pain. I thought stainless steel wasn’t supposed to rust. It’s the same story with steel, aluminum, and bronze. I really wish I had a more permanent partner by now.”

“It is resistant to rust, not immune to it. And that is how your power works, so you just need to accept it.”

“True,” sighed Resanerié, scratching her head with one hand, realizing she still had rust powder in that hand, and drooping her shoulders.

Maid Renka Ephilty quickly pulled out a towel.

“E-Empress, if you want a metal that won’t rust, why not create a pure gold halberd next?”

“Why would I create a weapon out of such a soft metal? Besides, it would be meaningless that way.”

Resanerié rejected the idea and then looked to the courtyard again.

She had lost her halberd, but she was not emptyhanded. Her other hand held the megaphone with a trigger power switch. That device was designed to secretly send out a fine mist containing an itching component along with its highly directional noise.

She was not above using tricks.

Charisma was just one weapon in a true monarch’s arsenal. No one could run an entire nation with nothing but talent and luck.

“The halberd is not my only weapon, Misaka Mikoto. You might be in a more difficult situation than me.”

Part 13

Mikoto had escaped Tokiwadai’s grounds, but she couldn’t relax yet.

“Damn. I really wish I had some of that Judgment hemostatic cream.”

She viewed her various injuries and clicked her tongue. Tying cloths around the wounds to stanch the bleeding wouldn’t be enough.

But she couldn’t rely on the others either. She wasn’t acting alone this time. She had to think about Shirai, Uiharu, Saten, and Yugure Kanaria, who they had only just rescued from deep underground. If she fled straight back to them, someone could tail her back to the hideout.

The School Garden was functioning surprisingly well. The buildings hadn’t collapsed and the windows hadn’t shattered. The underground infrastructure for electricity, gas, and water had to have been cut off, but the modifications to the ground must have accounted for that.

Mikoto glanced up at the solar panels on top of a nearby traffic light and building roof.

(I see. So they’re using solar for electricity. They might move below rainclouds for water, but what about gas? We might last a while with the big propane tanks found out behind restaurants.)

But one thing was hopelessly insufficient: people.

The Western-style stone-paved streets were empty.

Assuming Resanerié hadn’t been bluffing, then it was primarily the teachers being rounded up for execution. But with a mob of high-level espers roaming in search of victims, the other adults weren’t going to be manning the registers right now.

Besides, Resanerié’s group had no real reason to faithfully stay true to their word. It could all fall apart on a whim at any time.

(But where did the adults disappear to? And what about the kids here for entrance exams? Well, they might not be willing to tell me since I would look like any other student to them.)

Since the School Garden only accepted high-level Espers, it was possible the teachers had secret shelters built into the schools. There had to still be a fair number of Anti-Skill officers here too, but they had to worry about ammunition and fuel in a way espers didn’t. Without backup, it was unlikely they could suppress an angry mob of more than 1000 high-level espers from the 5 schools.

“?”

Mikoto’s shoulders shook.

Footsteps sounded awfully loud with the streets so empty. She used magnetism to jump up to the roof of a stone building.

Someone was running along the road below.

“Nwohhhhh!! Where are you, Misaka-san!? Where are you Misaka-san!? Where are you, Misaka-saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!”

(Yikes, it’s Kongou-san. I have nothing against her and I know she’s not a bad person, but she really needs to be less impressionable! She has a real knack for tearing down all the goodwill she’s spent so much time and energy building up!)

Mikoto facepalmed at the Japanese-style black-haired girl’s behavior.

Kongou Mitsuko’s Aero Hand let her create air ejection points on any object she touched, so she could be a lot of trouble if she played her cards right. She could apparently launch a broadcast tower into the stratosphere, so she had Mikoto’s Railgun beat when it came to simple attack range. Since the School Garden was currently an isolated space located high in the sky, Kongou could start wearing her down with projectile attacks and finally knock her over the edge into the 5000m abyss of the sky.

On the other hand, Kongou’s power was limited to that side of things.

She could not cheat and locate her target using precognition or clairvoyance, so she wasn’t a threat as long as Mikoto hid from her.

The bigger problem was…

(An esper who can cheat like that.)

“Hee hee. I heard that, Misaka-sama.”

“Damn!”

Hearing a voice in her head, Mikoto spun around and saw a bob cut girl smiling and waving from the building across the road Kongou had run down.

That was Kobayashi Satori of the Shokuhou Clique.

Wasn’t she a telepath who gained a general sense of where someone she was “connected” to was located!?

(But I’m pretty sure Kobayashi-san’s power has a range limit. And she can’t move very fast. I can lose her if I move to a building two or three streets down!!)

“Perhaps, but I can hear every word you think while connected to you. It is possible to divide your thoughts into ones I can hear and ones I cannot, so how about we hold a study group later on? Also, I may not be much of a fighter myself, but that is why I generally provide communications support for our vanguard.”

Crash!!!

The entire stone building shook below Mikoto.

Wait a second.

The wireless fire alarm should have warned Mikoto if the only door onto the roof had opened, but she hadn’t sensed anything. Then how had that “crash” come from the very center of the roof? The building was surrounded by wide roads and the rooftop itself was a 40m square. So where had that “crash” jumped from and how had it landed there!?

“Uh, oh.”

Mikoto hesitantly turned around again.

In the center of the square roof, a girl with gorgeous ringlets was crouched on one knee, presumably the pose she had landed in. Electricity crackled through her hair, but it was being used in a very different way from Mikoto’s.

She was the second in command of the Shokuhou Clique, the largest clique in Tokiwadai.

She fully specialized in physical combat, she acted as her Queen’s bodyguard, and she probably worked to defeat that Queen’s enemies as well.

(This is really bad!!)

“Hokaze…-san!?”

“I do apologize, Misaka-sama.”

She wasn’t even smiling.

She was unarmed, but that was no reason to let your guard down. Her Rampage Dress used weak electrical signals to push her muscles past their limits, so that extreme grappler could fold up a black bulletproof car with her bare hands. And she had to be well aware of how destructive she could be.

Kobayashi Satori had already completed her job.

She had only needed to accurately guide Hokaze Junko to Misaka Mikoto’s coordinates.

“But the Queen’s ‘optimization’ is absolute☆”

The wind roared and the concrete cracked when the girl simply stepped forward.

Mikoto scattered some bright electricity to dazzle Hokaze, but she also jumped from the edge of the roof. She gained nothing by getting into an extended battle with that monster. And her recent experience with that halberd had taught her she had trouble with martial artists.

If Hokaze caught her, it was all over.

That monster left even the #3 Railgun thinking that.

At least I can move through the air more freely than her! I just have to move to another building’s wall or rooftop to put some distance between-)

“Hee hee hee.”

“…”

That laughter was close.

How was it so close!?

Mikoto was using magnetism to leap to the building across the street 30m below, but the laughter sounded an awful lot like it came from right by her ear!?

“Are you serious? You can do that with leg strength alone!?”

“Yes, I am very serious☆”

With a loud crash, Hokaze’s fist dropped straight down, altering Mikoto’s trajectory and sending her hurtling toward the temporary ground like an artillery shell. And that was after Mikoto magnetically tore a sign from a building wall and used it as a shield. A direct hit may have literally caused her body to explode.

Magnetism was a wonderful thing. She could still move thanks to decelerating herself with that.

“E-eek!! What is with this post-apocalyptic genocide dimension? I’m never making myself visible again!! I’m staying in the safety of my own personal flower garden!!”

Mikoto heard a voice coming from seemingly empty air.

The Shokuhou Clique seemed to have its own issues, but Mikoto couldn’t focus on that at the moment.

“Don’t worry. If you want to run away, then get to it. I won’t attack unless you attack me first.”

“Bff!? Turning invisible is the only thing I have going for me and your microwave radar can see right through it!?”

Mikoto heard the dull sound of scraping concrete from up above.

Electricity crackled from her bangs. She maybe could have intercepted Hokaze with a lightning spear if the girl had dropped straight down, but Hokaze instead kicked off multiple walls to bounce around like a pinball and take an unpredictable route down. Rolling out of the way was the most Mikoto could manage.

(Damn. She uses hers different, but she is an electric esper, so can she predict my actions by sensing the faint magnetic and EM fluctuations!?)

Mikoto could not sense when Hokaze switched her power on and off. Maybe it was a natural talent on Hokaze’s part, or maybe Shokuhou had demanded she develop a few trump cards for use in a fight against Mikoto. Knowing Shokuhou Misaki, probably the latter.

Where was the scheming she-fox anyway!?

“H-Hokaze-san? Um, is it all possible we could have a civil discussion over tea instead?”

“I am sorry. It pains me to say this, but the Queen has decided to see how this plays out and has ordered us to play along with the bizarre things going on, so the clique has been tasked with capturing you to earn the trust of the independents led by Resanerié-sama.”

“If you feel bad, could you maybe not attack quite so fiercely? If those had hit me, I would have died.”

“My lack of hesitation likely comes from the ‘optimization’ the Queen provided to lessen the psychological burden from the fear of death and the pressure brought on by the current situation. …Oh?”

“?”

“How strange. I have this unusual fluttering in my chest and it seems I am dying to fight you. Wh-what has come over me? Oh, dear. Oh, my. Pant, pant. Ahh, I so want to surpass my limits as a person by dancing the dance of death with you! I can’t seem to help myself!!”

“Why would you do this to me now, Shokuhou you she-fooooooooooooooooooooooox!?”

Part 14

That extreme battle was shaking the ground and blasting the air.

While everyone was focused on that and directing their main fighting force there, Shokuhou Misaki walked down the European street unharassed. She was still leading the 12-year-old girl by the hand, but the girl had a blank look in her eyes and her mind had been altered so she did nothing more than obediently walk in the direction she was led by the hand.

“Everyone seems to be overlooking it because of how chilly it is, but the UV rays are strong up here. Far worse even than on Mount Fuji, so I’m glad I secured some suntan lotion as my top priority☆”

Her Mental Out was practically a cheat code when it came to other people, but it left her extremely vulnerable to nonhuman enemies like machines and military dogs.

In that sense…

(It was lucky the School Garden’s security cameras were vulnerable to the changing temperature and pressure at an altitude of 5000m.)

However, she hadn’t confirmed that every single security camera on the streets had malfunctioned. Whenever she spotted a camera, she had to observe it from a distance and confirm its lens wasn’t adjusting its focus before she could keep going.

And while traveling carefully through the School Garden like that…

“I see. So this is where you were hiding☆”

The food trucks that were everywhere on event days would function as sheltered hideouts without including any of the security cameras linked to the School Garden’s security servers. They would normally have a drive recorder in the front and back, but those would have been removed to meet the School Garden’s demands for any vehicle entering from outside.

In other words, Resanerié’s group could not see inside.

Shirai Kuroko pulled a metal dart from her thigh belt while holding her breath inside, but she poked her head above the counter on the side when she realized who it was.

“Geh. Shokuhou Misaki.”

“Does this mean they’ve found us. Umm, Shirai-san!?”

“Hey, there isn’t much room, Saten-san, so quit moving around. Hot, hot! The hot water for the cup yakisoba is spilling on me!?”

They appeared to be enjoying a sad meal chock full of preservatives and artificial flavors. Shokuhou refused to eat anything but natural ingredients, so those complex chemical equations looked like long-term suicide to her. And how were they making cup noodles when the reduced pressure of their high altitude would have shifted the boiling point of water?

“No need to freak out. First, I wanted to return this girl to you.”

Shokuhou aimed her remote and then the girl gasped.

And…

“Onee-chan!!”

Tsumebakei’s face lit up when she saw Kanaria weakly emerge from the food truck. Shokuhou narrowed her eyes when she saw the small girl spread her arms and run right into her sister.

She showed her face as a girl rather than as the Queen.

“Onee-chan, Onee-chan!!”

“Now, now. Don’t cry, Hoatzin. I’m not going anywhere.”

“Sniff, sniff. That’s Onee-chan’s scent. You’re so warm and soft! You really are the best. Hee hee. No one is as huggable as you!!”

Gradually growing more and more worried, Saten decided to interject.

“W-wait. I thought this was an emotional reunion, so why is it starting to feel uncomfortably Shirai-y?”

But Kanaria herself only seemed to be the doting big sister type.

Shirai brushed her twintail back from her shoulder.

“Heh. People are born with a love of their Onee-sama, search long and hard throughout life for something better, and always return to their Onee-sama in the end. That girl appears to have already arrived at the truth of her soul. She shows real promise for such a young girl.”

“Riiiiight. Can we get down to business please?”

Noticing the conversation derailing to the ends of the universe, Tokiwadai’s Queen cut in.

Shirai frowned.

“Business? What are you even doing here? And without your bodyguard Hokaze-san, I notice.”

“Oh, Hokaze is over thataway, working hard to keep me and this girl safe. Otherwise I never could have made it all this way without Resanerié’s group noticing, even if I was dodging all the security cameras. And since it wouldn’t count as a crime when done in self-defense during an emergency, she earns a perfect score if she happens to accidentally kill Misaka-san while she’s at it☆” It was unclear how serious Shokuhou was as she (seriously) said that, but then she shrugged. “At first glance, it looks like everything is going according to plan for Resanerié Sadis Dialine, but that isn’t actually true, is it? She loses points for having to rush in and silence someone who stumbled onto her secret, she loses further points for allowing anyone to notice that took place, and she loses major points for failing to silence that person and allowing her to be rescued. Do you see where I am going with this?”

Uiharu gulped.

“Y-you mean the Achilles heel of her plan was out where someone could see it? So we just need to know what Kanaria-san saw underground and why she was attacked!!”

Everyone turned toward the Tokiwadai 2nd year who was Mikoto’s classmate and belonged to the newspaper club.

Mikoto had said she would be extremely powerful if she used her power right. And that she had a very strong sense of justice and was afflicted with a super slow-motion curse.

“My, my. It was a factory,” began Yugure Kanaria while letting her huggy sister hug away. “If all they wanted to do was artificially reinforce the School Garden’s ground so it would survive floating in the sky, they would only need to fill it with the cubes of lightweight aluminum alloy used for megafloats, right? My, my. But the space down there was filled with passageways and rooms. That means it was more than just a foundation. That space was added for some kind of purpose. Namely, as a factory.”

She had mentioned this factory back when she was first rescued.

The question was what that factory was meant to do.

“Resanerié’s independents are using two different ideas to bind the thoughts of the School Garden’s students. The first is active acceptance. By painting the teachers and researchers as evil, they have created a fictional enemy to bring the students together. Even though it, well, isn’t clear if the adults really are doing all those bad things.”

Kanaria hugged Tsumebakei like a stuffed animal.

“The other is passive acceptance. The students can continue their usual lives even after the School Garden has declared independence and the adults have been removed. That makes it look like accepting the status quo is the smarter decision compared to resisting and possibly coming to harm. Even if people see a lost child crying next to a long line, will they want to waste all the time they have spent in line to help? My, my. Deep down, they know it is wrong, but as long as enough people are convinced that not protesting is the smart thing to do, Resanerié can keep the crowds quiet. That is the basic principle behind a dictatorship where a minority ruling class controls the majority.”

Some might wonder why a middle schooler could discuss the “basic principle” behind such a dangerous world, but there was a simple answer: Tokiwadai also taught about dictatorships and how to psychologically control people.

Anyone who opposed the executions would be treated like they were wicked people agreeing with the many incidents where the scientists had caused so much harm and had it all covered up by the city’s leaders, so the majority would decide it was smarter to keep any more extreme opinions to themselves.

They would show neither agreement nor disagreement with what was happening, but in the end, that was the same as letting it happen.

“Quite the dictatorship we’ve got here,” said Shokuhou. “It sounds silly, but it’s effective. She has done her homework on human psychology.”

“A-are you kidding me? How is this living their usual lives? If they really do execute someone as a group, then they will all be guilty of murder!”

“Which is exactly why the people who provided support at any stage along the way need to protect the dictatorship that protects them from any law or international treaty they might have broken☆ They won’t be able to take a step outside of these narrow borders without getting arrested. If she successfully sets up a situation where the students have to insist what other countries consider to be evil is considered patriotism in their own country, then those students will be forced to keep up the farce forever.”

“But that isn’t possible,” said Yugure Kanaria.

Everyone turned toward the girl who had witnessed something definitive.

“I don’t see how that factory can possibly be enough. I don’t know if the design was flawed to begin with or if there was some trouble and they couldn’t acquire the necessary machinery in time, but they can’t do it. Based on what I saw down there – my, my – they cannot keep the promises they have made everyone.”

“S-so what exactly is this factory?” hesitantly asked Uiharu. “I don’t see how a factory fits into any of this.”

“Do you remember how the passive acceptance works? My, my. Resanerié’s group says they can preserve everyone’s usual lives without the adults, so the students decide it is best to stay silent for now.”

“What about it?”

“My, my. There are certain necessities for people to live their lives.” Yugure Kanaria approached the crux of the issue. “That vast underground space contains a combination of an artificial vegetable factory and a clone meat factory like the ones found in Academy City’s agricultural buildings. But its specs are not nearly enough to support everyone in the School Garden. That is why they need these executions. I think they hope to solve the problem by reducing the number of mouths to feed.”

Reducing the number of mouths.

That phrase made it hard to believe they were talking about the present day.

What year was it?

Shokuhou Misaki didn’t shy away from harsher thoughts, so she decided to get the ball rolling again.

“Do you have actual data supporting this?”

“R-right here.”

Even with her super slow motion curse, Kanaria seemed intimidated into action by a direct question from the #5.

She hesitantly reached into the chest of her uniform and pulled out a long piece of plastic a bit bigger than a pencil lead case.

It was a digital voice recorder used when doing journalism work for the newspaper club.

Her phone would be able to record voices as well, but everyone would be on the lookout for something everyone carried. The separate device was useful for making a show of switching off her phone while using the voice recorder in secret.

But that wasn’t what mattered this time.

“I found a console in the factory and copied the facility’s specs onto the recorder’s flash memory. My, my. All the detailed numbers might seem confusing, but if you convert it into a graph, it shouldn’t take long to notice the production and consumption rates are out of balance.”

“Let me see that,” said Uiharu Kazari, pulling out her PDA. “I can reveal this to everyone no matter what security they have in place. It looks like the School Garden’s intranet is functioning, so let’s use this to open everyone’s eyes to the truth.”

Part 15

“…No.”

The case didn’t directly affect her.

But it still led her to realize the truth.

“No.”

He couldn’t speak for himself.

He couldn’t even form facial expressions.

But everyone knew he was a living being with a mind of his own.

And yet….

“I’ll take care of him. I’ll take care of everything! So please don’t pull the plug! He didn’t do anything wrong! So please wait! Please!!”

It was over before she knew it.

It only happened because he showed no sign of recovery and caring for him indefinitely was considered a waste of money and personnel. Well, that and his genes weren’t considered valuable enough. That was all it took for a life to be lost.

That was when she realized the truth.

She realized it all had to do with what the doctors found most convenient.

Yes. And if that was how the adults did things, wouldn’t they also throw out her and her fellow students in the end?

“Hm?”

Hearing a splashing sound, the redheaded empress blinked drowsily and pulled her face back out of the bathwater.

“Oops. I feel asleep in the bath.”

She must have been even more exhausted than she had thought. Or maybe the thinner oxygen and stronger UV rays of the 5000m altitude were getting to her. Maybe she should have expected this exhaustion when the plan had run into a series of snags before it even got off the ground.

She had taken a bath to help refresh herself, but it had only sapped her of more strength. She languidly pulled herself out of the tub and walked to the dressing room where she lazily dried off and dressed in a new set of clothes.

(You fools. The blouse still smells of starch.)

She wore a Tokiwadai winter uniform with riding breeches below the skirt.

She already had a new halberd ready. Based on the feel and the heft, it appeared to be a titanium alloy, but not even that would last 10 minutes if she went all out.

That weapon symbolized her position in the equestrian combat club.

She twirled it like a baton and rested it on her shoulder before placing the tiara on her wet hair, leaving the shower room’s dressing room, and walking down the school hallway.

She spotted her attorney in a fancy suit.

“Where is Misaka Mikoto? I heard she was battling the Shokuhou Clique after we sent them after her as a loyalty test, but what became of that?”

“Th-that’s the thing…”

“If that hasn’t flushed her out like we wanted, then use a hostage. Capture some teacher or another and prepare her for execution. Announce the time of the execution over the speakers and Misaka Mikoto is sure to show up to stop it.”

“It isn’t that.” The attorney sounded unusually flustered. “She appears to be headed this way.”

“?”

“Misaka Mikoto and the Shokuhou Clique are still fighting while constantly on the move. B-but they appear to be charging toward Tokiwadai to drag us into their fight as well!!”

Part 16

Mikoto needed to settle things with Resanerié no matter what.

Unfortunately, that agitator was an empress who controlled the elites from all five School Garden schools. With that much security, sneaking in and catching her unawares would be nigh impossible.

At the same time, the Shokuhou Clique needed to attack Mikoto and send her to be executed in order to escape suspicion.

If that fight continued much longer, Mikoto felt like she would have exhausted herself before even reaching Resanerié.

But there was a loophole there.

None of it was a problem if she could constantly move through the School Garden while engaged in a serious battle with the Shokuhou Clique. That let Hokaze and the others preserve their position while the explosions and whatnot produced by their flashy attacks created a smokescreen for Mikoto to move ever closer to Resanerié.

Berserker Hokaze appeared to be assisting with that act. …Although it didn’t seem to be entirely an act with her.

Hokaze whispered so only Mikoto would hear while she threw punches and kicks at extreme close range. The explosions produced by the other clique members’ stray shots were much too loud for her lowered voice to travel far.

“(That sums up what the Queen told us regarding the problems facing Resanerié-sama’s independence and what she did on the roof after you left. Hopefully that will help you analyze her power!)”

“(Thanks, Hokaze-san.)”

“(Also, the assignment to search for you was apparently a loyalty test for anyone she suspected might consider siding with you. Most likely, um, Kongou-sama and the pair from the swim team have not lost their heads and are only pretending to search for you in order to protect you.)”

“(Eh? O-oh, no!! Kongou-san does get fired up easily, but she never crosses that line, does she? I thought she was acting weird! I need to apologize for ever suspecting her later on!!)”

“(Also, she said her Aero Hand has no cap on how many ejection points it can produce, so if she can move to the underside of the School Garden and place a thousand or ten thousand points there, you can electrically destroy the synchronized grid of coaxial rotors while she uses Aero Hand to slow the School Garden’s descent enough for a safe landing.)”

“(The daughter of Kongou Airlines used her expertise in all things aerial to come up with a better plan than anyone else!? I really need to apologize!!)”

It was becoming pretty obvious they were only making bright flashes of light and loud booms while moving as a group, so the elites who really did agree with Resanerié’s group were starting to notice and take action.

But once they got close, it wasn’t hard to deal with them.

Mikoto would zap them with a high-voltage current or Hokaze and the rest of the Shokuhou Clique would hit them with a “stray” fireball, ultrasonic wave, or whatever else. This was of course a major gamble for the Shokuhou Clique. If this ended quickly, everything would work out, but if not and they could no longer explain their actions, they would find themselves cornered.

But they had chosen to trust in Mikoto’s ability as an individual fighter.

Resanerié used a halberd and a megaphone.

If Mikoto could prevent her from using the weapon that gave her control over the group, the tides would turn.

“(Now, hurry!! I believe Resanerié-sama is using Tokiwadai as her base!!)”

“(Thanks, Hokaze-san. And the rest of you too. I’ll treat all of you but Shokuhou to something later!!)”

Mikoto entered the Tokiwadai campus with those parting words, but the ringlets girl looked displeased. She looked like someone had seriously suggested they order their katsu curry without the cutlet, the sauce, the vegetables, or the rice.

Mikoto heard a dull swishing sound from the center of the schoolyard expertly tended by the school gardener.

That was the sound of a halberd slicing through the air.

“So you came.”

“It turns out Canary-chan tracked down the truth. You really screwed up not killing her. The School Garden doesn’t have enough food to be self-sufficient, does it? I only heard a bit about it when I rescued her, but this little world of yours is about to learn all about the truth she discovered underground. Since we have a hacker even more skilled than me on our side.”

“So what?”

“?”

Resanerié didn’t even hesitate.

Mikoto frowned for a moment. This didn’t seem to be an act. Was she planning to establish a reign of terror to rule over the people by force if necessary?

“What choice did I have? Her Micro Dying can kill all the microbes living in symbiosis with us, so it is the deadliest single attack to use against us humans. You can’t even approach her safely without a full body hazmat suit on. She couldn’t actually reach the factory’s products from that section, so the cleverest plan should have been to weaken her from a distance and then shut the exit so she starved down there.”

“Thanks. If you had said you couldn’t bring yourself to kill her, I would have lost the will to go all out against you. Now I won’t have any qualms about finishing this.”

“Keep in mind I am the tyrant who tried to slaughter all of the teachers to achieve my goals. Even the ones I have never met.”

Misaka Mikoto and Resanerié Sadis Dialine clashed without a second’s hesitation.

Part 17

Tokiwadai Middle School’s schoolyard was not the only battlefield.

Nowhere was safe across the School Garden isolated at an altitude of 5000m.

For example, the main road lined with so many food trucks.

“Tch! Why are there so many of them?”

Shokuhou Misaki clicked her tongue while twirling a TV remote in her hand.

The dull metallic clangs came from the people surrounding the food truck she was hiding in.

An attorney.

A maid.

An accountant.

A chef.

Did they not bring a crowd because the Shokuhou Clique was keeping everyone else busy despite being outnumbered? Or had they not wanted to bring the ordinary students until the secret data had been thoroughly erased?

“Boy, do I hope Misaka-san reveal the plan early because she let that battle dimension she lives in get to her head. Like telling Resanerié that Kanaria-san has solid evidence or that we have a hacker.”

“Personally, I think the problem is how you led these dangerous people straight to us!!” protested Shirai.

There was no time to determine the truth of the matter.

Their top priority was to defend Uiharu Kazari during the countdown until the factory’s contradiction was publicly revealed.

They also wanted to prevent any harm coming to Yugure Kanari and Tsumebakei.

Shokuhou kissed the tip of her remote and winked at the twintails girl standing alongside her.

“Care to name our targets?”

“You will only complicate matters, so stay put until I am done!!”

Shirai Kuroko silently vanished.

Based on her movements, she seemed to have her sights on the maid or the chef.

Tokiwadai’s Queen sighed.

(Oh? She doesn’t even consider relying on the #5’s power here? Does that come from her pride as a Judgment member? She really is wasted on Misaka-san.)

That said, she didn’t want to sit idly by while that girl got beaten up for that.

She was through watching on as justice lovers came to harm.

“I-I-I-I can f-f-fight too!! I mean it!! Just, uh, hand me a bat and I’m unstoppable!”

“You can be the hacker’s last line of defense, so you’re staying here☆”

Shokuhou used Mental Out to silence the girl who nearly charged right at the enemy before anyone had even seen their powers. …Shokuhou would never again let an overzealous Level 0 come to harm on her watch.

“Now, then,” muttered Shokuhou Misaki as she turned back around.

She heard the scrape of a shoe sole against the pavement. It came from the attorney.

“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, #5.”

“Yeah, yeah. Cut the pre-battle formalities.”

Sensing a lengthy introduction coming, Shokuhou Misaki cut her off with an annoyed wave of her hand.

That girl shamelessly thought she could outdo Academy City’s #5 with words.

Only someone whose actions were unswayed by words and numbers could manage that.

“You were careless to face me directly.”

She removed the kissed remote from her lips.

And she aimed it.

“For better or for worse, you have a human mind.”

Aimed it dead ahead.

“And that’s all I need for checkmate☆”

She was #5 of Academy City’s seven Level 5s.

Do not underestimate Mental Out.

Part 18

This time, Resanerié was not messing around.

Misaka Mikoto was nothing but trouble for her. Her top priority was Yugure Kanaria who knew the truth, so she wanted to deal with Mikoto as quickly as possible and hunt down Kanaria along with the outsider Uiharu.

Even if Resanerié’s side had control of the School Garden’s data network, Mikoto’s power could likely break through all the security and transmit the necessary data. If the fatal flaw in their independence was revealed, no one could predict which side the students of the five schools would take.

So she came in fast and hard.

It was like a silver gale.

The halberd technique was already enough to overwhelm Mikoto, but now its destructive power was boosted by her esper power to the point that she could easily dislocate her shoulder if she didn’t stretch in advance.

However.

“Now that I know how it works…”

“?”

“Your power doesn’t scare me!!!”

An explosion erupted directly below them.

Mikoto had magnetically pulled on a water pipe until it broke and the fountaining water formed a wall between them.

Resanerié’s power forcibly increased the speed of her weapon, so Mikoto only had to slow it back down to negate that boost. At normal speed, Mikoto could just barely dodge the halberd using her full-body microwave radar.

The axe split the air, but Mikoto had swung her head aside to dodge it while also taking a large jump back.

“You sounded awfully confident when you said the start of our first battle was only a warmup, but if that’s all it was, you wouldn’t have risked it when facing an enemy. You didn’t start using your power right away because you were nervous. You wanted to learn as many of my attacks and idiosyncrasies as you could so you knew when to activate your power to win with ease.”

“…”

“Your power is strong, but it has a time limit,” plainly stated Mikoto. “Someone told me your precious halberd crumbled into rust after our battle on the roof. Your power is a telekinetic control of rust, isn’t it? Once you activate it, you can break all of your limits and fight with such speed you can dislocate your shoulder, but it also causes your weapon to rapidly rust and break apart. How long does it last? 5 minutes? 10? If you run into any surprises and the battle goes on long, your weapon crumbles before you’re done.”

“It’s called Crimson Manager.”

“From what I’ve seen, I doubt it’s only Level 3. If you can pull out rebar and steel beams with that same speed and force, then I bet you could break any bank vault or warship you wanted. That means you’re probably Level 4 like Kuroko. But,” added Misaka Mikoto. “You haven’t reached Level 5.”

A beam of light shined bright.

She had pulled an arcade coin from her pocket and tried to launch it, but the metal coin rusted away before she could accelerate it. The orange beam failed to form a stable line and fanned out toward Resanerié’s right side before vanishing.

Resanerié made her next attack just as the attempt failed.

Mikoto tried to respond with an iron sand sword, but…

(Tch. She can rust my coins and the iron sand!! I’m not sure what her effective range is!!)

But that didn’t matter.

The oxidation of rapid rusting produced heat. A hand warmer was a good example of that.

So Mikoto increased the friction even further to set the collection of iron sand on fire.

Then she sent the wall of flames directly toward Resanerié.

Several dull crashes followed.

Resanerié was launched backwards, where she rolled a few times along the ground while the shoulder of Mikoto’s uniform was torn away by the halberd’s hook. A few centimeters higher and it would have torn off her ear.

Resanerié still hadn’t let go of the halberd.

That insistence must have left her with a few shallow cuts from her own blade as she rolled. She slowly got back up with some red spilling from her cheek.

“I am empress of the Dialine Empire.”

“Why should I care?”

“You don’t know? Because, unlike the rest of you, I must eventually return to my home country. And what happens to the Academy City esper power developed inside my brain then?”

“…”

Did it all stem from this?

After spending years developing that power, Academy City would not want her to bring it back to her country. So once her schooling here was complete, the adults would insist on removing her power. Something would happen to preserve the secrets of esper development. So was she trying to eliminate the adult teachers and researchers who would attempt to steal her power from her?

Mikoto considered it, but she shook her head.

She wielded a halberd.

She wore riding breeches under her skirt.

She had been showing off hints at a deeper personal problem this entire time.

“You’re the captain of the equestrian combat club.”

“?”

“You learned to wield that giant halberd with one hand so you could fight while holding the reins and you still prefer to wear riding breeches below your uniform. But there is one thing you’re missing.”

Namely…

“What happened to your horse?”

“Bistorio was forced to retire after breaking a leg during a training accident. And his genes weren’t considered valuable enough to let him live on as a stud.”

Part 19

She kept vanishing into thin air.

When repeatedly teleporting around, Shirai Kuroko could make use of most anything. For example, a leaf floating in the air or a slight bump on a building wall could make a reliable foothold for her.

Nevertheless, she was forced to fight a defensive battle.

Yes. Teleportation did not provide a direct defense. When worried about an enemy attack, she had to focus on hopping every which way to dodge that attack.

And in this case…

“Explosions!?”

“F-feel free to interpret it that way.”

A gloomy girl in a chef’s uniform accurately targeted her from a distance. She muttered quietly while throwing invisible shockwaves Shirai’s way. The instant after Shirai vanished, one tore into the very space she had vacated, leaving a crater in the building wall behind.

Invisible attacks were a pain to deal with.

If the first one hadn’t crushed a leaf in the wind on its way to her, it might have killed her.

There were plenty of wind espers like Kongou Mitsuko, but this one seemed different. She made some casual movements meant to hide how she was rubbing something in her hand.

That would produce friction, so her power likely started with heating something.

“So it is just explosions.”

“I-it is not!! There are plenty of other possibilities!”

She must have wanted to keep her power a secret, but attempting to camouflage after your opponent had already grown suspicious was a waste of time.

Shirai Kuroko didn’t quite understand since the identity of her power was plainly obvious whenever she used it, but there were people who preferred to keep the identity of their power a secret.

“Do you control flammable gasses or aerosols? No, any material produces some traces of flammable gas when burned, so do you amplify that? I’m guessing this is a highly convenient and dangerous explosion power that lets you trigger a large explosion from the burning of any object you want.”

“N-no, no, definitely not!!”

An explosion was technically an expansion of gas using the process of combustion. The substances commonly known as explosives simply accelerated that process so much that objects were pushed away quickly enough to cause damage.

Burning anything, even paper or wood, would produce some trace amounts of flammable gas.

What if someone could accelerate that speed 100 times, 1000 times, or even more?

“How are you so perceptive!? You aren’t cheating and looking me up in the Bank, are you!?”

“Oh, that’s a great idea. You aren’t even wearing a mask, so I can use my Judgment authority to look you up.”

“Oh, god!! No, no, noooooo!!!” she screamed, tearfully.

That move was apparently considered taboo in these supernatural battles of mutual deception. Shirai doubted any investigative agency or law enforcement organization would waste its time playing along with the criminals’ riddles, though.

But no matter how stupid this girl was, her power was very real.

“Gah!?”

“F-feeling faint?”

The attacks were invisible.

But that wasn’t what mattered.

An attack had definitely hit Shirai Kuroko.

“Using a pressure cooker affects the flavor of the food. A high enough pressure allows the seasonings to permeate the meat while ignoring the osmotic pressure. Heh…heh. If I use an explosive blast providing pressure of about 1000 atmospheres to launch a mist of vinegar in a fan shape, I can ignore your skin’s defenses and directly inject it into your bloodstream.”

“Vin-?”

“Vinegar. In other words CH₃COOH at a concentration of 3%. Oh, and your entire body is going to experience hellish pain in a few more seconds. But I was actually showing you some mercy by not using alcohol.”

She must have been confident Shirai could not move any more.

The chef swung her hand horizontally. The scenery grew distorted there. It was invisible, but she had likely concentrated a shockwave into a 2m kitchen knife.

She had the power to slice an elephant in two if she wanted.

“To be honest, I never cared about any of this good or evil nonsense. But the freedom to ignore all the rules did appeal to me. I never did manage to track down one legend spoken of in this city.”

“…?”

“I know shouldn’t be saying this. I know it’s wrong.”

The chef girl grinned while holding a giant knife formed by sharpening a shockwave created from an explosion’s flammable gas.

“Just once, I wanted to try cooking up a human.”

Attorney Tougyo Kea and #5 Shokuhou Misaki calmly confronted each other.

Neither of them moved.

A stillness surrounded them.

But that didn’t mean nothing was happening.

“Sense Striker,” whispered Tougyo Kea, smiling thinly. “This power is meant to give my empress a relaxing time with no trivialities to distract her, but it can also be used to attack.”

“…”

“I do not need bright lights or loud noises to take out people’s senses. Just like you can sense the pressure of a stranger standing directly behind you on the elevator late at night, people’s senses are surprisingly vague. At times, they can shove aside the commonly defined five senses to influence the mind. Like how a hand held in the snow for too long will feel warm or how the larger of two objects of the same weight will feel lighter. Anything like that will work. I can create the physical illusions that lead people to reject their ordinary senses of sight and hearing.”

Shokuhou Misaki did not respond.

She remained entirely motionless.

“Your power controls the mind.”

It was clear she was not responding.

“But you must indicate a target with a remote each time you use it. Your power is reliant on your ordinary five senses, so you aren’t a threat if I keep your body from moving.”

“…”

“And once your power is taken from you, you are well below average. I can kill you at my leisure.”

Just as she said that, a small flame appeared on the back of her hand.

“?”

She reflexively shook her hand to the side before it hit her.

What was that?

Could Shokuhou Misaki’s power light a physical flame?

When she took a look around, she realized her surroundings were engulfed in flames. The two of them were surrounded.

That was enough to clue her in.

In front of her, the girl who supposedly had her senses fooled was smiling thinly.

“It’s an illusion.”

She felt pain like being pricked by countless needles.

The burning sensation on her skin was so realistic.

“Whatever you might do to me, it’s no more than an illusion!! Your phantasms don’t scare me!!!”

I am fine, Tougyo Kea told herself.

She only had to avoid shock brought on by fear.

Whatever harm she might come to in this illusion could not affect the physical world.

“True,” readily admitted her opponent. “This is simply an illusion☆ None of it is actually happening.”

Shokuhou Misaki’s bottom half turned into a snake.

No, it was covered by scales, but they were fish scales.

The attorney’s eyes widened as Shokuhou’s scaley legs split into 12 and flames wrapped around each one. The collision of fine soot sent thick jolts of electricity through the flames.

The beautiful monster grew to overwhelming size and looked down upon her.

She put her hands behind her head to show off her body, stuck out her tongue a little, and winked.

The attorney could only look up and sweat.

“But can you ever escape this imaginary labyrinth?”

Another of the four servants, the maid named Renka Ephilty, took aim at Shokuhou Misaki.

That was Academy City’s #5, so defeating her in a direct confrontation would be difficult.

But who said anything about fighting 1-on-1?

The maid didn’t know how much longer the attorney would last, but she had done enough by getting Mental Out to focus on her alone. After all, this was the #5. Her psychological power was most effective in group battles, so having that power used for a 1-on-1 battle was the perfect opportunity. Now all the maid had to do was blow a hole in the side of Shokuhou Misaki’s head while she stood there locked in an imaginary battle with the attorney.

Renka Ephilty could do that.

She crouched down and took another step.

That was enough to tear apart the air and launch the maid forward like an arrow. She glided less than a meter off the ground. The researchers had described her power as ground effect wings, but she imagined herself as a flying fish.

Her power was called Fly Racing.

That Level 3 power let her create giant wings by controlling hard plastics like the extensions in her hair and the wires keeping the shape of her maid uniform.

She knew a Level 3 was no match for a Level 5, but her lack of skill didn’t matter to her in the slightest.

It was that very lack that had taught her to be straightforward to a fault.

She never tried to accomplish three steps at once. She would complete one step at a time.

It was extremely inefficient and caused her lots of problems, but if she could pull it off faster than anyone else, then it was her greatest shortcut. Even if she made mistakes due to her lack of skill, they didn’t truly count as mistakes if she could make up for them before anyone else could take advantage of them.

(My max gliding speed is 1100km/h. My weight is 52kg, so if I sacrifice one of my arms, I can do more than blast a hole in the #5’s head; I can tear it clean off!!)

“My, my. It isn’t that you move in slow motion – you just live an awkward life, don’t you?”

“!?”

Out of nowhere, a voice whispered from the side.

In fact, a girl was keeping up with her. The Tokiwadai student with the face of a super slow motion curse was moving at the same speed as her!?

“My power is Micro Dying. My, my. All it can do is kill mold, germs, bacteria, and any other microbe at a touch.”

Renka didn’t see how that power would let her move at subsonic speed.

But it did.

“Did you know? Some molds, spores, and other microbes that dislike drying out and exposure to oxygen will create a slime to protect themselves. My, my. I only need to choose which microbes to leave alive and I can slide along the ground or the wall like I am skating. I just apply my power to the soles of my shoes or to the surface below me.”

“…”

Renka was soaked with sweat.

This girl’s power didn’t just slaughter all microbes. She could pick and choose which ones to kill.

If she wanted to, she could create a biological weapon or a vaccine against it.

She was unbeatable.

Battling that monster of a girl was the beginning of a devastating defeat.

But Shokuhou Misaki was right there. So even if Renka couldn’t win as an individual, she could still send herself slamming into that defenseless girl at top speed.

“Reach her.”

She could do this for her empress. She could still use her unskilled life to kill that genius leader.

That would be enough.

“I don’t care!! Because I still win. I just have to reach herrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!”

“No, I don’t think so.”

The other girl gently reached out.

It didn’t matter if the distance was a kilometer, a meter, a centimeter, or a millimeter.

If Renka didn’t reach Shokuhou, then her attempt was over.

“You set foot within my arm’s reach. My, my. And in that range, I control all living things protected by microbes.”

“…!!”

Didn’t you know?

Yugure Kanaria’s power had scary potential, she was afflicted with a super slow motion curse, she was a stickler for keeping promises, and she had approached the truth of this incident as part of the newspaper club.

But in addition to all of that, Misaka Mikoto of all people had said she had a strong sense of justice.

“And I will not let a life under my control be wasted.”

The maid spun out and crashed into the hedge shrubbery dividing the street from the sidewalk. But that wasn’t all. She was tangled up in something like a spiderweb. It was probably a harmless form of slime mold. Because without that, her speed would have shredded her flesh and shattered her bones.

Shokuhou Misaki remained unharmed.

But the accountant named Sanki Ai’s calculations said that was acceptable.

(Pretend you have been defeated. No, you don’t have to pretend. Actually being close to death works as well.)

She must not fear the possibility of loss.

Loss was not a problem if it led to even greater profit.

What mattered was whether the final account came out in the black or in the red.

(Plus Equipment.)

Sanki Ai’s power was a telekinesis that formed a fine fabric that fit so perfectly skintight it reached every pore. It was stronger than velcro. It attached the skin more easily and it took in more air than tying on a normal cloth, so it was far more effective at stopping bleeding than a bandage. She could also switch off her power at will, so removing it was no trouble.

It didn’t help with broken bones, but even if she didn’t, strictly speaking, heal them, she could still get someone fighting again as long as they had a way of forcing their body to move again.

That let her disguise how many on her side were still capable of fighting. That was her most effective strategy.

(The people the enemy thinks are already defeated are my greatest trump card. If I hide and secretly bring our side back into the fight, we can attack from the enemy’s blind spot just when they think they have won and let their guard down. That makes a counterattack perfectly possible!!)

Just then, she found something standing in her way. It was a small girl of only 12 glaring at the accountant. Maybe it was the extreme tension or excitement brought on by her anger, but her little nose was dripping blood even though no one had hit her.

She spoke in an oddly low voice for her small shape.

“Why does everyone keep doing this?”

She wiped up some of the red with her thumb.

A change came over it.

The world quickly filled with grotesqueries.

A single drop of blood was said to contain between five and ten thousand white blood cells. All of those now grew to a size of 2m.

And white blood cells were an extremely ferocious component of blood that consumed and eliminated any foreign bodies in the blood.

Macro Dying revealed its true power here.

“Stop being mean to my sisterrrrrrrrrr!!!”

The sea of white blood cells attacked Shirai Kuroko and the chef as well.

The chef still held the 2m knife created by concentrating the invisible shockwave formed from the flammable gas she amplified with Material Flare.

“What the-!?”

“Do you really have time for distractions?”

With that icy question, several metal darts stabbed into the chef’s body.

Red blood splattered from her.

True disbelief filled her eyes this time. Her expression said she was viewing something even more revolting than the giant white blood cells.

Shirai Kuroko had completed her calculations without delay.

But how?

Vinegar had been injected into her bloodstream. She should have been suffering from enough pain to kill her from shock unless she underwent dialysis!!

“My power is Teleportation,” murmured Shirai. “I can transport myself or anything I touch while ignoring the restrictions of three-dimensional space.”

“Gah…you mean you teleported the vinegar from your blood?” The chef immediately rejected the idea. “You couldn’t have. You aren’t powerful enough to be immune to all biological and chemical weapons!! If you could do that, not even nuclear fallout could kill you!!”

“Very true.”

Shirai Kuroko tapped the back of her head and sighed.

No, wait.

What was that?

Did she have a metal dart stabbed into the back of her own head?

“But by applying pressure to the outside of my skull and triggering an evenly distributed headache, I can cut off all other pain. Of course, if my aim was off by just a few millimeters, I would end up with total paralysis instead.”

Was she crazy?

A headache from external skull pressure was the absolute worst kind of headache, rivaling a subarachnoid hemorrhage. That was not a normal way of pushing yourself. How could she go that far to keep herself focused on this battle!?

But that was where it ended.

With a pleasant “thud!!”, the chef dropped straight to the ground.

A dart had stabbed into the center of her forehead, but it was not meant to destroy her brain. By stabbing the dart almost but not quite to her skull, the vibration had knocked her unconscious.

That was just how accurately Shirai Kuroko could control her Teleportation.

With the four assassins defeated, no one remained to stop them.

Uiharu poked her head out of the food truck with her PDA in both hands.

“Everything’s set. I can release the data whenever you’re ready!!”

It all came down to that.

That was their one and only win condition.

Part 20

She lurched.

Resanerié Sadis Dialine had prided herself in being untouchable, but this was all it took.

That horse was no longer with her.

Her Bistorio.

That was the true motivation behind the fearsome empress’s self-destructive actions that had captured the entire School Garden.

“They removed the medical equipment, turned away the vet, and refused to even euthanize him, letting him die in pain.”

In Tokiwadai’s schoolyard, a certain girl’s smile was torn apart by emotion as she roared.

These were the feelings of someone who had their greatest treasure, whatever that might be, cruelly taken from them.

“When I saw that, I realized they didn’t treat humans any better. If the adults decide your treatment costs and genetic value aren’t worth it, the same could happen to any of us. Which is why having everyone declare independence is the only way to protect ourselves!!”

“…”

Misaka Mikoto did not nod or shake her head.

But she did think this girl was a fool.

The teachers had not protected the partner she cared about more than her own life. Providing medical treatment and rehabilitation was not worth the costs since he could no longer be used in matches, so the club supervisor and the other teachers had ended the horse’s life without Resanerié’s permission. Her hatred and sorrow had been too great for her to contain.

Had she decided that wasn’t a good enough reason to fight?

Had she given up on the idea of anyone helping her without actually asking anyone first and decided to blot out her righteous motivations with lies?

The debate representatives had convinced so many people to go along with the absurd idea of declaring independence and sending the School Garden into the sky, so if she had been honest about her reasons, Mikoto would have helped with her fight.

She would have gladly fought with all her might then.

“I…”

“What?”

“I think taking revenge on the teachers because you couldn’t accept that a single precious life was taken is a lot cooler and a lot more becoming of you than some nonsense about declaring independence and launching the School Garden into the sky.”

“!?”

Resanerié said nothing more.

Mikoto could actually hear her biting her lip.

The halberd tore through the air as it approached too fast to be seen. It flew in a fierce jab as straight as straight could be. Mikoto spun around, stripped off her blazer, and let the attack catch it.

In fact, she wrapped the garment around the halberd’s complex blade to give her a grip on it.

“What!?”

“The halberd’s complex design allows it to jab, cut, or catch as a spear, an axe, or a hook.”

Mikoto pulled hard on the wrapped cloth.

With them playing tug-of-war, Resanerié could not properly wield the halberd. And heavy weapons needed enough movement range for a large swing to gain sufficient force.

It did have a blade, but it wasn’t a famous katana capable of slicing through a piece of paper that fell upon its blade.

With several layers of the blazer wrapped and tangled around it, it couldn’t slice through the uniform fabric.

Once a blade couldn’t cut you, it was no longer a threat.

“But if I let it hit me, it can accidentally hit me with a part you didn’t intend for, can’t it? You’re the one that said the halberd is tricky to use. And the cloth stops you from using the spear, axe, or hook no matter which one it actually catches!!”

Mikoto flicked something up with her right thumb: an arcade coin.

She had dealt with the halberd, but Resanerié hadn’t lost Crimson Manager.

“That won’t work on me!!”

“I know. Which is why I really hope you use your full power on it.”

Mikoto showed no hesitation as a sign of respect. She stretched out her arm alongside the trapped halberd and took aim.

“If I launch a Railgun from point-blank range, you had better make the coin rust away to nothing because I don’t want you dying here so soon after I learn how cool you can be!!!”

An explosive boom and a shockwave shook the entire School Garden as it floated 5000m above the ground.

Epilogue: Four Girls+α

Misaka Mikoto stared out the school’s window.

Tokiwadai Middle School once more took up one corner of the School Garden. That of course meant a section of District 7 and not some newly formed sky city.

That plan had fallen apart after Empress Resanerié’s defeat. The debate representatives who had been assisting her had not known of her true objective, so their motivation hadn’t lasted long once they began to lose.

“I’m amazed it all worked out in the end.”

“Did you say something, Misaka-saaan?”

Sparks crackled between the two of them.

“I didn’t know you could manipulate enough memories to erase an incident of that magnitude. Your Mental Out is starting to look like pure evil to me.”

“I can’t make such a broad command without Exterior’s help.”

“The end result was the same.”

“It’s your obsession with the ends rather than the means that leads you to childishly take the shortest route to your goal, Misaka-san.”

Shokuhou Misaki had not in fact altered the memories of Academy City’s 2.3 million people or the earth’s 7 billion.

She had focused on a few specialists and online influencers.

Everyone thought it had all been a surprise event put on by the five schools meant to show off the School Garden’s technology. That explanation claimed it had been a largescale demonstration meant to overwhelm their rival schools of Nagatenjouki and Kirigaoka.

That was enough to convince most people.

Although Mikoto thought it looked more like the people were so desperate for some kind of simple explanation that they leaped at that one as if grasping at straws.

(Maybe the absurd scale of the entire School Garden taking flight actually helped us out there.)

Shokuhou winked.

“And, Misaka-san, you modified all the electronic records from cameras and sensors, didn’t you? Memory ability is so vague and untrustworthy, so that level of freedom scares me a lot more.”

“I can’t do anything that broad without the Misaka Network. And that’s made up of the Sisters, so it feels wrong for me to connect to it without their permission. For that matter, there are more computers and mobile devices around the world than there are people. I can’t possibly hack them all. There would be a real shortage of semiconductors if I tried.”

“The end result was the same, wasn’t it?”

“The way you pretend to understand and stop thinking tells me you really are a fellow middle schooler. It’s almost cute.”

Mikoto had only hacked a few Tokiwadai servers.

When the adults from outside the School Garden investigated, they would find a plan for the surprise buried deep on the servers and that would make the explanation more convincing.

People were easily tricked.

And the people who were afraid of being tricked tended to check one layer deeper for confirmation.

They never considered the possibility of further layers below that, so they convinced themselves the layer they had searched out themselves was the end of it.

A certain someone had once concluded those two girls could easily commit the perfect crime if they worked together.

(I can’t believe I had to take a lesson from the people running those Sisters experiments.)

Mikoto frowned in utter disgust.

It had also helped them that Resanerié’s megaphone had used an itching chemical to help manipulate the listeners’ emotions.

Afterwards, none of it felt real to the affected people, like they had dreamt it all.

That said, it scared her that Academy City was so flexible everything could go back to normal after such a major incident. She appreciated it at the moment, but it reminded her a little too much of when so many clones were being slaughtered in the streets and no one noticed.

She needed to be careful.

People tended to accept any cruelty or absurdity with little resistance when that was the more convenient option for them. Mikoto and Shokuhou’s Level 5 powers were the ultimate example of that. They barely noticed anymore since it was so normal for them, but nothing could seem more absurd to the ordinary people who couldn’t use those powers.

Needless to say, this was a double edged sword.

If they grew too accustomed to using these absurd powers, they would end up no different from the researchers lurking in the dark side. In fact, they had already seen more than one Level 5 who had fallen to Academy City’s darkness.

(Well, we should consider ourselves lucky there isn’t any friction left between the students and teachers.)

Memories were malleable.

When people were forcibly presented with an objective “fact”, they would cling to it. Just like people would conclude their memory was wrong if the spellchecker didn’t recognize the spelling they remembered.

Shokuhou had focused her efforts on the popular people who set those standards. Mikoto had planted decoy documents to corroborate what they said.

No one wanted to go back to their school life with lingering memories of executions that nearly happened, so the students and teachers would accept the conclusion presented to them.

The School Garden’s flight had been a surprise event.

The students’ calls of guilty had been a group psychology experiment carried out under special circumstances, so it had been no more than a legal game.

Each and every one of them simply thought they hadn’t been informed.

Even the teacher who had nearly been hanged would accept that as the truth because it was a much more comfortable thing to believe.

No one there had known anything about that at the time, but once they were given the explanation after the fact, they would adjust their own memories to match.

Only Shokuhou could rewind a mind after receiving the true spoilers.

“I hear you didn’t alter Resanerié-san’s memories.”

“After all the changes I did make, it probably would have been easiest for her if I had simply erased all memory of her horse.”

Shokuhou sighed before sticking out her tongue like a small child.

“But I didn’t like that idea.”

“An unusually good decision for you. It won’t be easy for Resanerié-san, but I’m sure she thanks you.”

“I notice you’ve changed what you call her. Hee hee. Resanerié-san?”

“Might as well be polite now that I have no reason to fight her. (And now that I know the whole truth, I hate to admit I find her kind of cool.)”

“Sigh. Someone really needs to keep an eye on you, Miss Ace.”

“Learn to hide your hotblooded side better before saying that, Miss Queen.”

Mikoto heard the cheerful high society voices of the afterschool students.

“I can’t believe how little it takes to transform the students here into that. It’s kind of scary.”

“Their lives are scheduled out from good morning to good night, their manners, etiquette, academic performance, and esper power are all criticized, and they’re even forced to conform to a complete stranger’s aesthetic sense. That’s like asking them to become ticking time bombs of stress. The most dangerous part is how most of them aren’t even aware of their own stress, so they don’t do anything to relieve it. That’s why the tiniest pinprick is enough for them to explode.”

“You seem awfully relaxed, Shokuhou.”

“And you seem ultra carefree, Misaka-san.”

Now that they had shared the bare minimum of information, their meeting was at an end.

The two Level 5s turned away from each other and walked toward opposite ends of the hallway. Mikoto and Shokuhou weren’t all that different from the other students, but they hadn’t fallen for Resanerié’s tricks. That was because they were aware of their stress and thus worked to relieve it.

So a pinprick wasn’t going to get much of a reaction out of them.

“Now, then.”

(The real MVP this time was Kongou-san for getting the School Garden back in place. I really can’t thank her enough.)

Despite everything that had happened, Yugure Tsumebakei still wanted to take her entrance exam for Tokiwadai. Mikoto didn’t know what the girl’s dream was, but she apparently had something she really wanted to do at Tokiwadai. There was nothing Mikoto could do for her now. Whatever her circumstances, she would pass if she had what it took.

Mikoto pulled out her phone and arranged to meet with the daughter of Kongou Airlines. The usual swim team duo was apparently with her.

“There’s that done. Now I can invite the others to hang out.”

She met up with Shirai Kuroko.

“Onee-sama.”

Shirai teleported them both out of the school. Once out of the School Garden, they were in District 7.

“Oh, there they are. Misaka-saaan!!”

“Hey, Misaka-san, have you heard the rumor of the Blue Gekota? Oh, who am I kidding? You probably knew about it before I did.”

Uiharu Kazari and Saten Ruiko were waiting for them. Kongou Mitsuko’s group would be at the meetup point they had arranged in this same district.

Mikoto flicked something with her thumb: an arcade coin.

“Honestly. Never a dull moment in this city.”

Afterword

This book is meant to celebrate 15 years of Railgun, so it ended up like this. When we were first deciding what to do, there was apparently a lovely suggestion from Straight Edge to Daioh saying I should write a full novel. And so I finally got to write Railgun for Dengeki Bunko!! Thanks so much to Fuyukawa-san and everyone in the Daioh editorial department!!!

This is Kamachi Kazuma.

To jump straight into some inside information, the plan was originally to have Chapter 4 be the entire novel. Chapters 1 and 2 would have been the search for the missing sister in the supposedly safe School Garden and Chapters 3 and 4 would have been the fight for survival and climax atop the airborne School Garden. But the usual editors instructed me to turn it into a short story collection where each chapter was dedicated to a character from the usual four: Misaka, Shirai, Uiharu, and Saten. F-for real!? That’s why I had to rework the structure from the ground up. I’m kind of amazed it came together as well as it did.

Anyway, while I was rereading the manuscript to rework the story, I realized how convenient Judgment is. Thanks to that, it may look more like the book is following Judgment activities rather than Tokiwadai stories. I had the group of four go through some of the standard ideas, like a detective story. (Honestly, I can’t even remember if I really had Saten written as the victim in the original plot for Level Upper or if that was a position she took on when Fuyukawa-san turned that plot into a manga, so I never really expected the four of them to fit together as a group like this. The credit there goes to Fuyukawa-san for completing the story as a manga and to the anime staff for expanding the world from there.) But from that perspective, wouldn’t Shokuhou be something of a gang leader with her large organization and Hokaze as her bodyguard? It might make a fun mental exercise to compare her to Leivinia Birdway.

Shokuhou Misaki was born(?) in Railgun and Mikoto refers to her as a she-fox a few times in this one. I’m not sure why, but if I have to compare her to an animal, I think of a fox rather than a cat or a dog. Maybe because she’s beautiful, keeps her cards close to her chest, and can disguise herself as anyone, yet is strangely dutiful and always keeps her promises.

But what kind of animal would Mikoto be? A dog? A cat? I get the feeling people’s opinions would be split on that one. I have my own thoughts on the matter, but I think I’ll keep them to myself and let all of you discuss it instead. Maybe she is such an interesting person because she has so many sides to her, including both protagonist and heroine.

Resanerié Sadis Dialine came from the fact that it has been said Tokiwadai would fail a real princess if she took the entrance exam and didn’t have what it took. Railgun has been blessed with more than one spinoff and media mix project showing Tokiwadai from the inside, but I realized we still hadn’t seen a truly royal Tokiwadai student. That made for a convenient way of building up a boss for Mikoto to fight, so I went with it. I couldn’t decide if I wanted her to be from an empire, a principality, or a kingdom, but I finally chose an empire.

I decided on her power pretty quickly, but since she needed to be able to overwhelm Mikoto in a direct fight, I had a hard time deciding what kind of weapon to give her. I was ultimately drawn to the halberd’s dubious legend of being well-known and looking cool, but having so many different functions that it was hard to learn and everyone but the elites gave up trying to use it. I also love the way it looks like a child’s invention where they combined all the weapons they like into one ultimate weapon but gave no thought to how you would actually use it.

I also realized I had never included a girl in horse riding clothes in anything I’ve written, so I ended up with a formidable foe who would sacrifice everything for a more unorthodox, but no less precious, life. I hope you will all accept her.

Oh, right. I’m sure some of you will be appalled that this horse girl doesn’t use a whip as her weapon, but try to forgive her. She sees the riding crop as a precious memento carrying so many happy memories with her partner, not as a weapon meant to inflict pain and subdue an enemy. Also, it wouldn’t be a good fit for her power and even with a metal whip she would have to throw it away every time it rusted over.

I give my thanks to the illustrators Haimura-san, Fuyukawa-san, Itou Tateki-san, Kogino Chuya-san, Yamaji Arata-san, Nogi Yasuhito-san, Tachitsu Teto-san, and Kisaragi Nankyoku-san. I also give my thanks to my editors Miki-san, Anan-san, Nakajima-san, and Hamamura-san and to everyone else involved like the Daioh editorial department. Academy City has many sides, but I think the transformations it underwent this time were especially impressive. I mean, Musashino Milk and an angry mob of girls shouting guilty both exist in the same city! I cannot thank you enough for drawing so many different versions of Mikoto and the others and illustrating this world that shows a different side of itself in each chapter. Thank you so much!!

I also have to give some extra-large thanks to the readers. This novel left me feeling lightheaded at times as I went back and forth between the anime footage and worldbuilding information to write a novel version of a spinoff manga that exists independent from the original novels, so thank you so much if you thought this looked interesting and picked it up.

It is time to close the pages for now while praying (even harder than usual) that the pages of the next book will be opened.

And I lay my pen down for now.

Come to think of it, I haven’t done tea ceremony, flower arrangement, or calligraphy girls yet. Three sisters maybe?

-Kamachi Kazuma

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