7 A Means To An End

Accelerator's eyes slowly opened themselves up, and he sniffed the air that was around him. He thought he would be smelling shit and other garbage all around him but his nose picked up the scent of a sweet aroma like lavender.

And the place he woke up to seemed to be very unfamiliar to him. It was so old fashioned yet so fancy. The ceiling had a plain background but there were drawings of olden days of Japan laid out across the wall and the soft yet stiff queen-sized bed that he was lying on was decorated so beautifully with a ceiling bed with patterns of snakes and mountains.

"What the fuck is this place?"

Immediately, a female voice answered him.

"Oh, you're awake."

When he looked towards the voice, he saw the same annoying girl that had almost harmed him and Misaka a few days ago.

"Tch, it's you again. Am I that detestable that you have to keep finding me just to annoy me?"

The girl, Kongou Mitsuko, pulled her fan out and immediately expanded it outwards as she fanned herself.

"Y-You should be grateful that I gave you the privilege to sleep in my bed!!"

"..."

Accelerator did not have the mood to entertain her and after she had said that, every single bit of motivation to communicate with her was gone.

"W-Why are you so silent?...Oh, I know! My presence scares you, doesn't it? Ohohohoho, don't need to worry! The great Kongou Mitsuko does not bite."

"Yeah, you won't bite, I will."

Accelerator got up as he prepared to leave, but she quickly ran towards him.

"W-Wait!! May I know what your name is?"

"Ha? What would be the point of knowing my name?"

"I-I'm just curious to know what kind of person you are."

That line told him everything he needed to know about her. She was definitely new to Academy City as a whole and she does not know all the Level 5's.

Would it hurt him to tell her who he really was?

Well, it didn't really matter to him. Everyone who he had ever met him feared him and his title. She was going to avoid him the moment she knew who he really was and how dangerous he really was.

"Accelerator. That's what people call me."

"Ac...celerator...What is your real name?"

"...I'm leaving."

Her room was situated so that she could see through to the outside and it seemed like her room was not that high up. It was probably around the third or fourth floor.

The name Accelerator was the name of the strongest esper. If she did not know who he was, then she must have never done her research about the Level 5's before. But to him, it was a good thing.

He placed one foot on her window ledge, but then he felt a force holding him back. His back stood up and he felt the hair on his back stand up.

"P-Please...tell me your name!! I would...like to be your friend..."

Kongou's voice lowered down at the last line and her head lowered as she showed humility for once, to his surprise.

But he didn't care what anyone does. Nice or not, his opinion didn't change.

His opinion of leaving, of course.

"My name is Accelerator. Believe it or not, that's the only name I've given to everyone I've met. I've never given anyone my real name."

Kongou's grip slowly loosened as he rigorously pulled his hand away. Accelerator turned back ahead to see the night. It was pretty late at night but he could still catch the rats lurking. And then, he said his goodbye to her in the nicest way possible.

Well, kind of.

"I'm a loner just like you. If you cut that shitty attitude of yours, I think we might get along just fine."

With that, he hopped out of the building and into the night.

Kongou stared at him blankly, without a single thought in her mind. But then, she looked down at her hands and wrung them back and forth.

"My friend..."

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

Accelerator hopped around the buildings in the School Garden, getting further and further away from Kongou, and as he was doing that, he checked the time on his phone and saw '28 August 3:48a.m.'

"Tch, I didn't think I would be asleep for that long. Rich people's beds really feel different."

His hopping on buildings was all just a facade though, as his real intention was to lead Kongou away as he soon did a U-Turn back around her area.

What for?

Well, there was a certain someone waiting for him under her dorm.

He landed as quietly as he could so that he would not disturb the students who were sleeping in their dorms, because he knew how much trouble it would cause for a single boy to enter the premise of an all-girls area.

"You..." Accelerator said in a cold voice.

"Hello, Accelerator."

The girl who had greeted him was the person who "created" him, and was the person who gave him a reason to kill.

Nunotaba Shinobu.

"I see you've recovered from your long nap."

"Hurry up and get it over with. I don't have time to waste."

"Oh really? I think we could talk for a bit more."

Even though the girl sounded as calm as the night, she was shaking inside. The sheer intensity of standing next to a 'monster' was terrifying.

A monster without a heart.

She knew if the wrong words came out of her mouth, she could die in an instant, and be put out of existence.

Shinobu slowly walked down the pathway in front of them, surrounded by street lamps that lit up the dark area.

"How did it feel?"

"?"

Accelerator raised an eyebrow at her, enquiring her to specify what she meant by that statement as feeling could have meant many things.

In which case...

"The feeling of saving a life."

"..."

There was a small pause between the two of them, but Shinobu kept her eye contact with him.

And after a short while, he replied.

"I saved no one."

"Really? Because it looks like you saved every single esper in Academy City."

"...I was just protecting myself."

"Really? But even if you were to get hit by that blast, there was no guarantee that you would have died. And if you really didn't care, why did you follow Febri's words?"

"..."

Accelerator was speechless.

Maybe he had yearned to be someone he was not, but the reality was setting in that he could not be the person he had envisioned himself to be.

"You and I have a lot in common. We both have the same background."

Suddenly, a white hand reached out to her neck, as her airway got cut off.

And a menacing glare from a pair of red eyes in the darkness took her.

"You can't compare yourself with me."

However, Shinobu did not flinch. Instead, she kept her cool and responded naturally.

"Is that so...? But we have something in common...And that is the Sisters."

The word 'Sisters" shocked him as he slowly loosened the grip on her throat.

His eyes frowned the moment he let her down and he asked her a single question.

"What do you know about the Sisters?"

"...I was the one who gave birth to them. The Level 6 Shift was started because of my research."

"..."

"I gave you a reason to kill, and I regretted that decision. But because of that, it gave me a sort of reputation for researchers. They wanted a disposable body, and thus, I created Chemicaloids that were Febri and her sister."

Accelerator was speechless.

He didn't know whether he should kill the girl in front of her or let her live. In a way, she had ruined his life and his mind.

She had destroyed and reborned him as a whole new person.

"I'm sorry for what I have caused you, but I see that you are slowly regaining yourself as a human."

A loud thud rung through the night and Shinobu's back hit a wall which made another thud.

The pain flowed through her entire body as she arched forward, vomiting blood. The sheer intensity of that attack from the strongest esper nearly made her whole body numb.

"I don't want your apologies, I don't need your pity. And I don't care about what the hell you've been doing your entire life. I'm not a human, and I will never be. That's that. Your fucking ideals does not concern me. I do what I want to do."

Shinobu got up from the ground with one knee almost dropping, and one arm hanging while the other holding onto her chest.

"What I'm telling you is...there's still time for you to redeem yourself."

"I don't have to redeem myself unless I can turn back the time. What's been done is done and that is final."

He walked forward and pulled her collar towards him.

"If you talk about redemption, can you even redeem yourself?!"

Shinobu looked him straight in the eyes as a smirk flashed across her face as if she had predicted him to ask that.

"Hmph, I'll be leaving later in the morning for a trip to Europe. I'll be studying about ways to increase the lifespan of Chemicaloids. That is my redemption."

Upon hearing that, Accelerator dropped her to the ground and she fell on both knees.

"Do you see? I know what I am going to do, but do you know what you yourself is going to do? Surely you're not going to keep wandering around until the chance comes right?"

"..."

Accelerator only spared one last look at her before turning his back and walking away into the darkness.

"The road ahead of you will not be easy...I know because I've been there before. Now it's your turn."