A Hectic Regathering

---4th October 11:34a.m.---

It was the 4th of October and it was quite late into the morning as well, but this was not the time that Accelerator woke up. However, it was the time that Accelerator chose violence.

On the 3rd of October, when his powers were confiscated by GROUP for not complying to them, he had realized a weakness. Although it was also his wish to overcome this weakness, it could also lead to his death eventually.

So he decided to do something about it.

He was in A Certain Hospital yet again, but this time he had a gun pointed at the back of the frog-faced doctor's head.

"Give me the blueprints for this electrode."

Accelerator was talking about the choker on his neck. It looked like an accessory, but it actually had an electrode fitted in the back that converted his brainwaves into other electric signals. Those signals gave him restricted access to a special electronic communication network called the Misaka Network.

The doctor was the very man who'd made the electrode and he was just buying a can of black coffee to start off his morning.

He kept his face steady and replied, "Why do you need them? If your choker is on the fritz, I can fix it for you."

"Just give me the blueprints."

The frog-faced doctor reached into his white coat pocket and took out what looked like a mechanical pencil's central casing. It was, in fact, a USB drive. He moved his hand behind him.

"You were prepared."

"As I said, it's my job to prepare whatever my patients need," said the doctor, looking at the vending machine, which was still churning. "But it'll be hard to put what's in there to use. I make everything I need myself, you know? If you wanted a second electrode, you'd have to start by manufacturing the machine tools."

"..."

"Do you need anything else?"

"I'll take that black coffee as well."

"Now that you're fit and healthy, you're sure living your best life, aren't you?"

Accelerator took the items, then quietly stepped away from the doctor's back.

The doctor turned around.

There was no one there; not even a trace. He'd probably used his vector control to jump into the nearby stairwell.

"..."

The doctor stared silently at the empty space.

An electronic beep went off at his side.

----4th October 2:30p.m.----

The moment after he had left the hospital, the coffee that he had extorted from the doctor spilled on his shirt and he had to go back to the hideout that GROUP assigned him.

It was a hotel, and it was located on the quiet parts of Academy City where it overlooked the entire district.

However, what made his luck even more unbelievable was when he tried to get out of the bathtub, he slipped and fell. His head crashing on the porcelain floor.

For a moment, he thought his head injury opened up again.

"Fucking misfortune." Accelerator cursed as he rubbed his head as he got out of the toilet.

With his towel wrapped around his waist, he walked all the way to the bed with his crutch in his hand, but then he heard a ring at his door, and when he opened up the door, he saw a girl wearing the infamous beige-colored Tokiwadai uniform.

The girl in question had long, chocolate-colored, fluffy long hair that almost resembled that of marshmallow, and though her chest was something to be missed, the curves on her thighs and the lines of her legs were extravagantly elegant.

It was the honey ant, Mitsuari Ayu.

"Hellooo☆ Mind if I come in?"

"Who the fuck told you where I was?"

Without even waiting for his approval, she simply walked past him and into the hotel room.

"Sorry for the intrusion~~" She said sarcastically as she plopped herself onto his bed.

"Oi, answer the damn quest-"

Before he could finish, since he had his towel cloth tucked in instead of holding it, it somehow slipped out and exposed his bare flesh to her.

The moment she saw his entirety, her face flushed with redness as she took out her smartphone to cover her eyes while she took a photo with the flash on.

"OI, DON'T JUST COVER YOUR EYES WHILE TAKING A FUCKING PICTURE!! In the first place, why the fuck are you taking a goddamn picture?!"

Accelerator immediately picked up his towel and quickly wrapped himself up as he took his clothes and changed inside the toilet.

"I knew you were daring, but I didn't think you would be this daring..." Mitsuari said as she sat on his bed.

"Why are you even here? And how did you find out about this location?"

"Hehe, I had my sources. Don't forget, I'm a mind reader☆"

"Just not as good as Shokuh--"

Immediately after he said that, she ran over to his door and kicked it. For once, he was lucky to have locked it.

"Don't you dare mention her name again."

"You're still affected by it. Seriously?"

Accelerator opened the door, now fully dressed with his jeans and signature white and grey shirt. Accelerator with his cane, limped towards the bed and laid down to rest his head from the earlier 'concussion' that he suffered.

Soon after, Mitsuari went on top of him with her legs positioned beside his waist while his legs were still dangling on the outskirts of the bed.

"What are you doing?" Accelerator asked with a serious expression on his face.

"Are you okay?"

But Mitsuari was also serious with her question as she stared into his red eyes with her brown colored eyes.

Both of them did not break eye contact until Accelerator responded.

"Did Oriana set you up or something? Is this some sick prank the both of you are pulling on me?"

"Since when has caring for someone become a prank? Don't you think you're overthinking things?"

Mitsuari went closer to him. Their faces were close. Too close for comfort.

In a hotel room with a boy and a girl alone. One can only think of lewd things happening.

But Accelerator tried to prevent it as he tried to push her face away from his, but she kept pouting.

"Hey! If your dirty hands keep touching my face like this, I might get pimples or something. Do you know the effort I use to take care of my precious skin?!"

"I don't fucking care!! Now get the fuck off of me."

But Mitsuari was pushing hard and eventually Accelerator gave up and let her do as she pleased. To him, she was just another brat that had a poor upbringing which could explain her spoilt-brat like behavior in which case, he could still tolerate her, but not as much as the brat.

That's why, there are some lines that she could not cross.

For example...

"...Do you need a replacement?"

When the words hit his brain, he instinctively grabbed her neck without blinking. His lips trembled, but her confidence did not waver. The concern on her face for him still remained intact.

"What the fuck do you mean replacement? Do you think you can be her? Listen here, just because I treat you well doesn't give you any rights to spit that type of shit you hear me? A human life is not replaceable, there's only one life for everyone. So don't go around saying that type of shit, you hear me?"

His grip slowly tightened, but eventually he let her go when he saw her face slowly turning red. The moment she was released, she dropped onto his flat chest panting and gasping for air.

"I'm...sorry." Mitsuari breathlessly said as she continued to catch her breath.

"...I'm going out. Remember to close the door when you leave." Accelerator pushed her off of him as he grabbed his cane and walked out of his hotel room.

The moment the door clicked as it closed itself, Mitsuari laid down on the bed with a different expression. She had the look of a cunning fox as she licked her fingertips.

"Heh heh, the game is only starting, Accelerator-kun☆"

----4th October 3:30p.m.----

Accelerator decided to visit the internet café as it was probably his safest chance at looking through the USB drive that the doctor gave him earlier in the morning.

There were a lot of documents that he saw during the 0930 incident. Angels and future plans for Academy City. Thinking about all that had really gotten him stressed and anxious about when the next attack from the Magic side will be. Since he has to deal with both magic and science side alone, he didn't know how he should react.

His face was stoic with no reaction as he scrolled through the documents of the USB drive, sometimes he even had to scroll back up to reread what he saw as his mind was running rampant with alternatives like...

"What if the magic side attacks or infiltrates now, like what Oriana did. I may not be so lucky again."

"What if both sides start using their trump cards, and I have not enough battery."

"What if an even bigger threat arrives? Will Academy City or the magic side cooperate to stop that threat?"

It was thoughts like those that really got to him because one of the tasks assigned to deal with the magic side was taken on by Ester and Oriana Thomson, and they did not update him about what happened at Italy so he was basically kept in the dark about the current affairs.

The invasion also didn't give him much time to think through the events and get an explanation out of Vento. For all he knows, she could be dead right now, or still alive as her body was never reported.

The USB drive didn't really hold any good information on how he was supposed to build a new battery because he needed a lot of items. He needed item 1 and item 2 to form item 3 and then item 3 with material 1 to form material 2, and the list goes on.

It was a tedious process. However, as tedious as it was, he was going to get it done.

No matter what.

But he also had another idea to counter GROUP from taking control over his electrode as well, but it required much more patience.

Since he was in the internet café, he ordered a cup of black coffee into his cubicle.

Fortunately for him, nothing bad happened when the cup of black coffee came. He was relieved as he slowly took his time to sip his black coffee.

When his time of 1 hour was finally over, he left the place and when he was going back to the hotel, nothing bad should happen. Right?

Right?

----4th October 4:50p.m.----

Accelerator was standing outside of a park, but it wasn't any normal park with trees. He noticed that some of the trees had pink leaves growing out of their branches. More specifically, sakura leaves.

As unimportant as it was, it piqued his interest. However, there was no way he was going to go inside the park as members of Judgement were surrounding the place and checking the ID's of students.

Not only that, it seemed like the fire department of Anti-Skill was there too. Fortunately, he didn't see Yomikawa among the crowd as meeting her would have been awkward for him.

"(Nothing to do with me.)" Accelerator thought as he continued limping away with his cane.

Unfortunately, whether he liked to or not, he was going to get involved somehow thanks to a certain red haired girl.

"Where do you think you're going?!" The moment he heard that, a sudden heavy pressure was applied to his neck before he went down with a loud thud.

"It's definitely you!! You're going to set this park on fire, aren't you?"

Kuroko Shirai.

"Fucking, get off of me!! I don't have anything flammable on me you fucking bitch!!"

"Hmph! As always, your mouth is foul with the stench of gorilla." Kuroko proceeded to go through his pockets by tapping on his pockets and that was when she found a keycard for his hotel and the USB drive from the doctor. "How do you explain this then?"

She then showed him the USB drive with his face still planted on the concrete floor.

"Are you blind, retarded, or both?" Accelerator monotonously responded as he tried to struggle free. "That's just a fucking normal USB drive! There's no fucking way I can stick that shit into the ground and it'll cause a fucking fire. If anything look at the trees. Isn't it way too late for sakura trees to blossom?"

There was a short pause before Kuroko acknowledged his answer. When she understood what he said, she released him from her arm lock.

"Fine, you make a fair point. In this case, what do you think is going to cause a fire in this park?"

Accelerator took his time getting up and retrieving his cane. As Kuroko waited, she felt the urge to strangle him increasing by the second, even as he was patting the dust off his body. He looked up and saw that Kuroko had something which resembled a monocle from the 1900s along with the usual earpiece that Judgement used to communicate with each other.

After he was done, he gave a simple answer.

"Find out for yourself. You're the one on duty."

The moment he said that, he was back on the ground this time. This time, he was literally being strangled by Kuroko as her teeth became that of a shark while rocking him back and forth.

"Vending machines."

The moment he gave that answer, she stopped for a second to think about it.

"The parks always have vending machines right? They are always supplied with electricity so that they can be bought at any time of the day. Now let's say one of the wires had finally worn off and then you have a bare circuit. Electricity can flow out, can't it?"

"Now that you mention it..." Kuroko pressed the earpiece in her ear and it seemed like a map of the park appeared in front of her right eyeball which the monocle was over.

However, it seemed like whatever plan she had ready had to be scrapped as a huge explosion soon occurred and a massive fire was started.

"Damnit!! I'll teleport the people in the park out of there. Get ready to look after them!" Kuroko took out a respirator in a form of a rebreather with the cylindrical tube inside her mouth.

Then she was gone.

"Damnit, I don't really have any reason to help. Guess I'll go home."

------------------------

As Kuroko was teleporting people in and out of the park while reassuring them of their safety, she realized that even though Anti-Skill's fire department were trying their best to put out the fire, their efforts were still not enough.

But one by one, Kuroko was making quick work of evacuating the people in the park who were enjoying a leisure stroll through the park.

However, even she knew something was strange about this situation.

For a small bit of electricity, the fire was spreading too fast. Even a forest fire needed days before it even got to a quarter of a forested area.

"(The fire's spreading too fast...But why?! If only I had the albino here...)" Kuroko thought and when she looked up, she realized only the sakura trees were burning the brightest as well as the fastest compared to the normal trees.

"(He was right, the cherry blossoms were blooming out of season, but why?)"

As she continued to evacuate people from the park while surveying the entire park through her miniscule monocle which had access to Academy City's satellites.

Access to Academy City's satellites weren't supposed to be handled by anyone. Moreover, it wasn't even supposed to be accessed by anyone.

Academy City had a strong cyber security when it came to these types of things and since war was coming, they had amped up their defenses within the city to maximum.

That of course included the satellite. If any hacker from the Roman Catholic Church were to access the satellite system in Academy City, that would no doubt be a show of weakness.

Knowing the locations and the set up of their defenses could prove to be an easy way of finishing off Academy City and the fact that they had 2 billion supporters did not help the situation.

Access to the satellite wasn't even given to any Anti-Skill members or any organization. It was just within the reach of the Board of Directors.

However, the person who proved to be the most skilled hacker in Academy City managed to gain access to it. And you guessed it, she hacked it.

Uiharu Kazari.

The girl with a flowerbed on her head, as innocent as she looks, she is by far the best hacker in Academy City and that title holds a lot of prestige considering almost everything in Academy City is utilized using technology.

A simple peek into any of the Board of Directors home was a cakewalk for her. She was that good of a hacker.

So good that they had her install a security system for their accounts relating to the residents' identities i.e. The Bank, which holds all of Academy City's profile of every esper from Level 0's to the 7 Level 5's.

Of course, no one knew who she really was as they kept her identity a secret to prevent anyone from misusing her but the sheer power she had over Academy City's defenses also allowed her to access anything related to the Board of Directors.

That included the satellite system which she installed into the monocle on Kuroko's eye. Through the monocle, Kuroko could see the whole park and the people inside it.

That was when she realized something stuck inside the ground.

It was a small glass casing which nurses usually use to store medications used for subcutaneous injections or for scientists to keep liquefied samples of their product.

What she saw was an ampoule.

Someone had shoved those ampoules into the dirt, which most likely caused the sakura trees to bloom out of season.

She tapped the side of her ear and came into contact with Uiharu who was surveying the surroundings for people.

"There are ampoules stuck below the cherry trees and it may contain a highly flammable substance, that's why the fire is spreading at a rapid rate!" Kuroko reported.

"Ampoules?"

"Yeah, it probably contained a highly flammable substance which the trees sucked up so that it would create long fuses out of the lines of the cherry trees. Uiharu, can you predict the fire's spread using that info?" Kuroko panted as she continued teleporting people in and out of the park.

"Understood, I'll get right to it."

--------------------------

Meanwhile, a small boy who looked like an elementary schooler with natural blonde hair that reached his tiny shoulders was running towards the park with his right hand on his chest. He looked like a foreigner with his green eyes and it seemed like he had just ran out of a hospital as he was wearing a hospital gown.

He appeared weak as his eyes were sagging down as he limped on his two tiny legs.

"(Pero...)"

That single name in his mind was what was driving him to keep running as fast as he could to the park. He was close, probably 1 kilometer away from the entrance of the park.

"(Please...make it in time.)"

That boy's name was Miyama Shaei.

---4th October 5:15p.m.---

Kuroko laid down the final person as the fire continued spreading across the park. She reached into her pocket and pulled out two of the ampoules which had sunk into the dirt. It was a miracle that the ampoules were still in one piece. However, despite having brought back the evidence, one thing was clear, it was all in vain. The ampoules had nothing left inside of them, not even a droplet left.

"They must've been placed there long before we even started setting up security measures around the park." Kuroko said with a slight disdain in her tone.

"Seems to me like this was a science experiment gone wrong."

Konori Mii stepped forward as she examined the ampoules in Kuroko's hand with her clairvoyance.

"Whatever the case is, Anti-Skill will take care of the rest." She added as she dropped the ampoules into a clear ziplock bag.

But as they were starting to pack up and dismiss, one of the Judgement members started shouting at someone.

"Hey, you need to stay out of here!"

Kuroko turned to see who that could possibly be with an irritated look thinking it was Accelerator coming in to taunt her for not being able to stop the fire or just shoving it into her face that she was useless.

However, the person she was shocked to see was Shaei who was running to her.

The moment Shaei caught sight of her and was right in front of her, he finally stopped to catch his breath with his hands on his knees.

"Miyama?!"

He was the one who set Judgement up to provide security measures in the park. Relatively speaking, no one would ever believe a child like him. However, he had the power of precognition and he could see into the future.

He predicted that a fire would take place at the park through two photos and knew that they would occur around the same time.

------------

Before this incident, a few days back after the Invasion of Academy City, Saten had found an app that could predict when misfortunes would happen and those misfortunes would either harm or kill someone at that exact spot and time.

Kuroko was informed and thus began a moment of time where she would save those people who would be affected by those misfortunes. However, it was not so simple as she could not see who was going to be the victim so she had to be on guard at all times.

Nevertheless, she still saved every single one of them and tracked down the person who had been behind that app.

Which lead her to meet Miyama Shaei who was not a villain but a bystander waiting for someone to come and defy his fate.

---------------

"Please teleport me to the center of the park. That might change something!!!" Shaei said as he continued panting from all the running he did.

The reason he was in the hospital in the first place was because of his power which required him to point a laser into his pupil to produce an image of the misfortunes through a camera. But due to the amount of people that they had saved, he also had to suffer the consequences. In retrospect, he was a hero who was trying to prevent others from being harmed.

He wasn't this hot headed even if he was pointing a laser into his eye. He was a calm and collected person but he recently saw a future.

This future caused him to go into panic mode and started running.

It was the future of his friend, Pero the stray dog burning in a fire.

The special thing about that dog was that whenever he hit the lowest low of his life, that dog would always be there to accompany him and cheer him up. He was basically the only friend he had in his life until he met Kuroko and Uiharu.

So it was shocking to Kuroko that the usually calm and collected Shaei was being hot headed at a time like this.

She placed her hand on his shoulder as he looked him straight in his eyes.

"Can you...calm down and explain the situation to me?"

Shaei explained his backstory on Pero and that was when the other Judgement members found it shocking that he would go that far just for a stray dog.

A stray dog can be found anywhere and everywhere in Academy City. They were not rare. They were not even special.

However, to Kuroko, if a friend is in need of help, she would always help them no matter the circumstances. That was just the type of person she was.

With her comforting hand still on his shoulder, she simply asked him, "What does he look like?"

However, just as soon as he opened his mouth, the fire behind them seemed to grow stronger as a massive gust of wind blew past them, even going as far as almost lifting the skirts of the girls.

It was a strong wind that may have fueled the fire even more as the fire was starting to reach the outskirts of the greenery.

For the Anti-Skill members who were on fire emergency duty, they were blown back along with the water hose and they fell back so hard that they crashed into their fire engine.

"What's going on now?" Kuroko stared back with one hand on the front of her skirt while her other hand covered her eyes partially where she could still see the forest in front of her.

Although the wind had been blown to such a great extent, it managed to put out the fire that was happening in the forest.

It was a common concept that fire can be fueled with oxygen which made barbequing a thing. However, when doing a barbeque, if you have a weak fire and you use a strong wind to blow against the charcoal, the fire simply gets put out or turned into a spark on the charcoal.

Everyone around the forest was confused as they exchanged glances of confusion at each other. Had it just been a miracle that such a strong wind was produced just to put out the fire?

That was what everyone had thought for the next 5 minutes as they talked amongst themselves.

"...I have a bad feeling about this." Kuroko whispered as she looked at the forest in front of her.

"Who could have done that?" Shaei asked as he too looked at the forest.

"Miyama, your predictions are usually never wrong unless someone intervenes, is that correct?"

"That's right..."

"Damn this ape..."

A pair of footsteps could be heard in the forest as a shadow of someone slowly stepped out of the forest.

"Ah ah...this dog is fucking annoying. Can someone take him away from me?"

The figure had white hair and red eyes and his shadow could be seen scratching his head as he said that.

He limped out of the forest with one of his hand sticking through a circular hole to the handle of his cane to ensure he doesn't lose his cane mid combat. He had a black choker around his neck with multiple electrodes linking it to the back of his head.

His grey striped shirt with his jeans came along perfectly as he stepped out into the open and beside him was a shiba happily walking beside him with its tongue out.

"P-Pero..." Shaei said as he rubbed his eyes.

"Ahn? You know this stray dog?" Accelerator asked as he puts his hand down from his head.

"Take him before I kill him."

Soon after he said that, he felt a heavy pressure on his neck as his vision slowly tilted downwards to the floor.

"That's criminal intimidation, I have eye witnesses and I'm taking you in for that!!" Kuroko said as she sat on top of his back again. This time she had a pair of handcuffs ready.

Accelerator was cuffed immediately as his hands were placed side by side with Kuroko teleporting the cuffs on him.

"Oi!! Get the fuck off me, you're assaulting me right now, aren't ya? How is that any better than what I did?" Accelerator shouted at the top of his lungs as he turned his head backwards to look at her. But her reaction was something he did not expect.

Instead of the usual confident and cunning smile she would usually give him, he was instead met with one of appreciation.

"You really are the worst you know that?"

"Tch, well aren't you a goody two shoes."

"Konori-senpai, can you help me escort Miyama back to the hospital? And also bring his dog along, I'm sure he needs him."

"Ha sure thing. Just take your time with your friend." Konori Mii replied.

"H-He's not a friend! He's a gorilla!"

"Whatever you say."

However, before she left with Shaei, the little boy turned around with the dog in his arms and approached Accelerator.

"U-Um...thank you for saving...Pero."

He felt shy saying that as he had made such a huge commotion for nothing when he could've just stayed in the hospital and the dog would have still been rescued.

Accelerator who was still sunbathing under the sun with Kuroko on top of him looked away as he shooed him off with one comment.

"I didn't do that to save your dog. Your dog just happened to find me."

The moment he heard that, Shaei had an innocent smile on his face as he bowed his head and walked back to Konori Mii.

The rest of the Judgement members had left the scene and the Anti-Skill fire department was making their way out through their trucks and fire engines.

Which left Accelerator, Kuroko and Uiharu all alone.

The flowerbed girl was just standing awkwardly waiting for Kuroko to say her goodbyes but when Accelerator looked at Uiharu, he only thought of one thing.

"(I've seen her before. If I'm not wrong it was with that group called...what was it again? Oh yeah...)"

As he was having his arm locked in by the handcuffs, Accelerator recalled the name of that third-rate group.

Scavengers.

Wannabe rebels who didn't have the power to really topple Academy City. He still had the small gekota communicator that Rita gave him but he wasn't planning to actually use them.

He never needed help. He just needed a way to keep them in check and show them their place at the bottom so as to prevent people like Uiharu and Yomikawa from getting hurt.

At that time when SHE was still around.

"Damnit."