Chapter 2: Radio Noise. Part 1

The next day was tutoring as well.

It seemed sorrowful, watching a student sitting in the middle of the classroom on an evening. At first, Kamijou thought, "Come on, is this an elementary school of a depopulated town?" but as it went on for three to four days and then five to six days, the brightness of his soul had disappeared, and tutoring only left him feeling sick of it.

But that tutoring would be over in two days, today included. Kamijou could have felt hopeless that "Summer break finally starts on August 22!?" but he was happy to be getting out of tutoring at all.

Kamijou stared at the teacher's desk in front of him.

There stood a twelve-year-old-looking female teacher with a height of 135 cm, Tsukuyomi Komoe, showing only her face. She was talking with her paper placed on the desk, but Kamijou wondered why she had put it on the desk. It would have been far easier to read if she had just held the paper in her hands.

"So for the ESP card experiment, the card's material is changing from vinyl resin to ABS resin, a needed condition reinstituted by America in 1992. This is a trick in which the fingerprints on the card make it possible to figure out what the flipped-down card is... Hey, Kamijou-chan, are you listening?"

"...Yes, Komoe-sensei. I am listening, but what does this have to do with powers?"

Kamijou was a Level 0. By the check of a peerless machine, he was told that no matter how much effort he put in, he wouldn't be able to even twist a single spoon, but it didn't make sense that he was getting tutored because he was "weak".

It looked like Komoe-sensei seemed to know about the contradiction, as she said,

"You can't give up just because you don't have any power. If you give up, things you can achieve won't get achieved. So, by learning the basic basics of power, I think that you can find the way of finding your very own skill."

"Sensei."?

"Yes?"

"...Well, you seem to be working very hard, but things that can't get achieved won't be achieved."

"Kamijou-chan! I can't say that effort will always lead to success, but people that never try will never succeed! Even the third place out of 2,300,000 people, Misaka Mikoto from Tokiwadai Middle School, was once a Level 1, but she worked hard and got all the way up to Level 5! So, Kamijou-chan should work hard, too!"

"...Elite? That? She's the kind of girl who kicks vending machines!"

"? Kamijou-chan, you know her?"

"Not really. Well, going back to the topic, seeing some TV show like that and saying 'Look at that high schooler: they have the same age as you, but look how active that person is! Compared to that, look at yourself, don't you think you're worthless?' I'm not the kind of person that gets motivated by those kind of speeches! Arrrggghhh..."

"Don't go 'arrrggghhh' on me! That troubles me!"

"Okay? Then why do you look so happy when you're troubled?"

"Oh, um... Well, that's because... Um... It's because I... like you...?"

"Buowahh!"

"...Teaching you."

"...Oh. Okay, teaching. Ah, that scared me... Oh, wait! Come on! I had just let the conversation go a different way, and then it immediately gets put back on the path again!"

"Ahaha. You are 100 years too early to fight me with words. Now, Kamijou-chan, open up your textbook to page 82 and read about the Psychometer's mind-protection power used in criminal investigation."

Like this, today's tutoring time went by.

And thus, the day's extra lessons ended.

It was 6:40 PM. Kamijou had missed the last train that left at the time all students were supposed to have left school, so he was leisurely walking through a shopping district. In order to prevent students from spending all night out, the last trains and buses in Academy City all left at 6:30 PM. The idea was that people would not go out late at night if the transportation system was stopped.

(I'm not sure if I should be glad it's only one more day or be complaining that there's still another day. At any rate, this has gone on way too long. Dammit. Once it's all over, I'm going to the beach!)

Kamijou thought to himself as he returned home that evening. It didn't look like the wind was blowing, but the blades of the wind turbines were definitely turning.

"Mh?"

Kamijou spotted a familiar-looking back amid the crowd. It belonged to a brown-haired girl wearing a Tokiwadai Middle School summer uniform. It was Misaka Mikoto.

Kamijou had no real reason to avoid her, so he jogged a bit to catch up with her.

"Hey. Are you on the way home from some extra lessons, too?"

"Ahn?" was Mikoto's unfeminine response. "Oh, it's you. I'm pretty tired and I want to preserve the strength I have left, so don't make me biri biri you. So what do you want?"

"Nothing really. We just happened to be on the same road, so I just thought we could walk together."

"Oh?" Mikoto's eyes narrowed a bit. "You 'just thought' you could walk with a Tokiwadai lady? Heh. Do you have any idea how much effort guys put into taking that position?"

"...It's pretty bad to be referring to yourself as a 'Tokiwadai lady'."

"I was joking, you idiot." Mikoto stuck her tongue out a bit. "What you learn at your school is more important than where you go to school, anyway. I'm sure you're old enough to know at least that much."

"Hmm. Well, everyone has their own field they specialize in. By the way, is your little sister not with you? I wanted to thank her for carrying the drinks yesterday."

Mikoto's eyebrows twitched slightly.

It was only a few millimetres, but those few millimetres seemed odd to Kamijou.

"My little sister...? Did you meet her after that?"

"Yeah..."

(Crap.)

Kamijou recalled that Mikoto had grabbed Misaka Imouto's hand and forcibly pulled her away from him. Should he have kept it a secret that they met after that?

Mikoto narrowed her eyes slightly.

"Are you that interested in this little sister?"

"No. I just wanted to thank her for carrying the drinks yester-..."

"So you choose the little sister despite us being visually identical? Or can you not choose and you want both of us together?"

"I said no! Where the hell did you get that kind of knowledge!!"

Kamijou and Mikoto walked along a main street continuing their argument in that vein.

Many different wind turbines stood along the street. Kamijou looked up at the spinning blades and then noticed a blimp floating in the evening sky. The exhibition screen on the side was displaying the day's news. Apparently, three research facilities related to muscular dystrophy had been evacuated over a two week period and there was concern over the intense cold coming to the entire city.

The conversation trailed off because Kamijou's focus turned to the blimp. A blimp may sound old-fashioned, but it used solar power to heat carbon dioxide with a heater for lift and to spin a large motor for thrust, so it was an ecological craft that did not need fuel.

Because of the effort that must have gone into developing the thing, Kamijou wondered if the world's supply of oil was about to run out. The concept didn't particularly bother him.

"I hate those blimps," Mikoto muttered.

"Ahn? Why?" Kamijou asked as he looked back up toward the blimp. He was pretty sure he had heard that the blimps had been sent out because Academy City's board of directors had said the students needed to be more aware of current events.

"...Because people follow the policies decided on by a machine," said Mikoto quietly in response as if she were spitting out something that annoyed her greatly.

Kamijou turned his gaze back to Mikoto in surprise. There was nothing odd about her face. There was nothing odd at all. It was as if a crumbling clay mask had been remade while he wasn't looking.

"What's with you? What's that thing called? Um...Tree Diagram, was it? Hah, are you the kind of person that can't stand it when a machine beats a human at chess?"

Simply put, Tree Diagram was the world's smartest super computer. It was the ultimate simulator created under the pretext of being a perfect weather forecaster.

Weather forecasting may sound familiar, but that was a field where things could only be forecasted. They could not be declared as fact. Because the movements of each of the air particles that created "weather" were incredibly complex and intertwined with the butterfly effect and chaos theory, one could say that there was an 80% chance of rain the next day, but one could not say that it would definitely rain at 9:10:00 AM. That started to enter into the realm of quantum mechanics.

However, Tree Diagram had moved weather forecasting to weather predicting.

It did not do anything complicated. Basically, if it could perfectly predict the movements of every particle in the air around the world, there was only one answer it could come up with.

Tree Diagram had ridiculous enough specs to do that, but some people theorized that its use for weather forecasting was just a front and it actually had some other true use.

Incidentally, there was one irregular aspect of Tree Diagram's weather forecasts.

It calculated the weather forecast for an entire month all at once.

There was no real problem with that because it was still accurate, but it still seemed like unnecessary effort. After all, next month's weather was much, much more likely to be off than tomorrow's weather. If the goal was accurate weather forecasts, it would be better to redo the calculations each day.

Yet the Tree Diagram used the more difficult method.

It was rumored that the leftover time was used for research simulations.

Drug reactions, physiological reactions, electrical reactions, and all sorts of other things could be calculated by Tree Diagram and a couple of tests could confirm the answer given. Being able to create a new drug like that almost sounded crazy. According to the rumor, there were researchers that did not know how to use a test tube and who did not like touching lab rats.

A super computer with that much power had plenty of enemies. Human supremacists who hated machines could try to blow it up in a terrorist attack at any time and AI supremacists who hated people might try to sneak into the storage area for Tree Diagram to steal the technology.

In order to protect it from external enemies, Tree Diagram was currently kept in a place where human hands could not reach it.

Basically, the satellite launched by Academy City was Tree Diagram.

The fact that Academy City could privately use the kind of rocket technology that was usually only allowed by national agencies showed just how much influence Academy City had in the world.

(Well, the fact they allowed it also shows how valuable it was.)

Kamijou stared blankly up at the evening sky. Tree Diagram was orbiting outside the atmosphere even then and it was possible it would continue calculating even if the world ended.

"It's a steel brain watching down on mankind from above, but it can't turn on us or anything. This isn't some cheap SF movie. It's just like a bank ATM. It operates according to the buttons you press."

No matter how powerful a supercomputer it was, Tree Diagram could only operate based on the commands people gave it. It was the same as how ATMs did not ruin people's lives because machines were revolting. They did it because they were not being used properly.

"..."

Mikoto did not respond and looked up into the evening sky again. Kamijou couldn't tell if she was looking at the blimp or if her gaze went even further into the distance than that.

"Tree Diagram...The world's most powerful super computer that was launched aboard Academy City's satellite, Orihime I, in order to analyze weather data. It has been determined that no one else will catch up to its level in another 25 years," Mikoto muttered almost under her breath as if she were reading from an Academy City pamphlet. "They say that, but does such a ridiculous absolute simulator really exist?"

"Hah?"

Kamijou looked back toward Mikoto's face, but...

"Just kidding! Ah, I think I started to become a poet or something. Ah ha ha ha ha!!"

Mikoto suddenly chopped Kamijou for no reason.

Standing before him was indeed the lively, smart-assed, and selfish Misaka Mikoto.

"Ow! What the hell was that for!?"

"You really don't have any dreams, do you? Doesn't a friendship drama between a human and a high-level SF computer with a human heart sound like it would have some romance to it!?"

"Listen, dammit..."

"Or what about a maid battle robot?"

"I said listen! And there's no romance or any kind of friendship drama-like stuff to that thing! And are you really a 'lady'!? I thought a lady read romance novels with a cup of tea in hand!?"

"Hahn? Stop that, please. What age is that idol of an image from? I'm human too, so I read manga at the convenience store every Monday and Wednesday."

"Buy it! That's just being a nuisance!"

"Well, I have to go this way," Mikoto said ignoring Kamijou's yell.

Mikoto's spirits had been changing from instant to instant, but she then left. Kamijou blankly watched her leave with a puzzled look on his face.

"...I don't understand her. Is this what you call the characteristics of puberty? Or does she just hate me?"

But in that case, he couldn't make sense of the scene before him.

(...That's Mikoto, isn't it? What's she doing?)

After heading down the road a bit after Mikoto left, he saw Mikoto crouching by the side of the road. She was next to a cardboard box sitting at the base of a wind turbine. Just as Kamijou's brain sent out warning signals because the scene was familiar, he saw a black cat sticking up from the cardboard box.

Mikoto was trying to feed the cat by bringing a sweet bun close to it, but the frightened cat pressed its ears back on its head and balled up as if someone were swinging his fist down toward it.

(??? Does she hate me so much that she purposefully went down that other road to get away from me? But then why is she ahead of me now? Why would she circle around ahead of me?)

Kamijou's head was full of questions, but then he noticed something. At Mikoto's feet as she crouched was a pair of NV goggles.

That wasn't Mikoto. That was Misaka Imouto who looked just like her.

"...Without the goggles, you really can't tell them apart," Kamijou muttered.

Misaka Imouto suddenly stopped moving while staring emotionlessly at the black cat. Without saying a word, she turned just her head like a lighthouse to look at Kamijou.

"Hey. Thanks for carrying those drinks and taking care of those fleas yesterday."

"...Misaka did not do that in order to be thanked, replies Misaka."

A slight bit of annoyance was mixed in with her expressionlessness as Misaka Imouto took the goggles from the ground and put them on her forehead. She also drew in the hand holding the sweet bun.

"Misaka only removed her goggles because she had heard that cats hated shining things like lenses, explains Misaka. Should she apologize for making you mistake her for onee-sama?"

As she spoke, Misaka Imouto for some reason expressionlessly hid the sweet bun behind her back.

Despite having been frightened before, the black cat was mewing in dissatisfaction.

Kamijou looked puzzled.

"If I needed an apology for something like that, I think I'd end up asking everyone in the world for an apology." Kamijou sighed. "But if the cat hates lenses, why did you put the goggles back on? Did you want to maintain a sense of individuality?"

It was hard to tell because of her lack of any expression and the calm with which she acted, but for some Kamijou felt like she had frantically put the goggles back on once she knew someone was looking.

"...No, not really, replies Misaka."

She replied immediately, but her words were somehow vague.

Kamijou looked puzzled once more. It was true that taking off her goggles to not scare a cat on the road side and crouching down while holding out a sweet bun for it seemed out of character for the expressionless and emotionless Misaka Imouto, but there was no real reason to hide it.

"Then you can just give the sweet bun to the cat. It likes it, right?"

"No...That is not it." Misaka Imouto froze. "Either way, it is impossible for Misaka to feed this cat, concludes Misaka. Misaka has a fatal defect, says Misaka in an additional explanation."

"A defect? Don't say it like that."

"No, it is the appropriate term. Misaka's body is constantly forming a weak magnetic field, explains Misaka. The human body cannot detect it, but it seems other animals can."

"???"

"It is said that the strange movements of animals that act as an omen of an earthquake are the animals' reactions to changes in the earth's magnetic field caused by changes in the earth's crust, says Misaka giving an easy-to-understand example."

"...Hm. The animals don't like it and run away, right? So does your magnetic field make animals hate you, Misaka Imouto?"

Misaka Imouto looked ever so slightly annoyed.

"They do not hate Misaka. They merely have a slight dislike of her, says Misaka correcting you."

"..."

Kamijou felt a little sorry for her, so he decided against joking around anymore. Animals didn't like Misaka Imouto just because of the magnetic field emitted from her body and she stared at the frightened cat with expressionless eyes. Kamijou felt bad for interrupting her, so he decided to leave.

"Wait, says Misaka requesting that you stop."

"Oh! You sensed that just from my presence!"

"Listen. There is a black cat here, says Misaka as she points toward the cardboard box. How can you leave without giving anything to this hungry cat? asks Misaka?"

"...Why do I have to give the cat some food just because you've grown fond of it!? And you're the one with a sweet bun in your hand!"

"No, not that. There is an abandoned cat here, so why did you not think of taking it in? asks Misaka a second time. Do you know how animals are treated when they are taken in by the health centres? asks Misaka as an example. First they put the animal within a clear polycarbonate case and inject 20 milliliters of a nerve gas called ASD10 inside..."

"Wahh!" Kamijou yelled cutting off Misaka Imouto's words.

Hearing that while the frightened black cat looked him in the eye was incredibly awkward.

"You take it in! You found it and you're the one that was feeding it!"

"...It is impossible for Misaka to raise this cat, honestly replies Misaka. Misaka lives in an environment that is slightly different from yours, says Misaka giving a reason."

Kamijou guessed that her dorm's rules must be pretty strict, but then he recalled that his own dorm's rules did not allow pets. Kamijou was the type who had no intention of following rules he couldn't see the reason behind, so it seemed odd to him that Misaka Imouto would give up on the cat for a reason like that.

Misaka Imouto crouched down and simply stared the black cat in the eye.

Her expressionless eyes followed the black cat despite knowing that it would never take a liking to her.

"...Ahh."

Kamijou stood still.

He had been worried about this when he had taken in the first cat. He had been worried that one cat would lead to taking in a second and the second would lead to third and a fourth. Of course, Kamijou's finances were not well off enough to create an animal kingdom.

Kamijou wanted to refuse the black cat, but he had a feeling Misaka Imouto would stay there all night staring at the cat and then get into a fight with the people from the health centre if he left the cat there.

"D-dammit! This is just like with that three-colored cat!!"

"Misaka does not understand what you are saying, but are you intending to take in this black cat? asks Misaka. If you do not take it in, the health centre workers will-..."

"Yes, I get it, I get. Quit staring up at me with those expressionless eyes and talking about the health centre!"

(You and I certainly do live lives of misfortune, don't we?)

As Kamijou addressed the frightened cat in his mind, he picked it up from the cardboard box.

"That's right! A name! This is your cat, so take responsibility and give it a name!"

"...It is Misaka's?"

"Yeah, it's yours."

Kamijou looked down at the cat in his arms and the cat timidly returned his gaze. Misaka Imouto looked up at the evening sky for a bit with her usual expressionless face.

"Dog."

"Hah?"

"Misaka is naming this black cat Dog. ...Dog even though it is a cat. Heh heh."

Misaka Imouto's expression was that of someone remembering a funny joke, but it looked a bit scary.

"...No, um...Please give it a more serious and dignified name that fits the type of animal it is."

"Then Tokugawa Ieyasu, says Misaka after reconsidering."

"That's too dignified! Wait, are you the kind of character that pretends to think about things but doesn't think at all!"

"Then what about Schrödinger?"

"Hell no! Even if it was just an example, some professor who would happily come up with a story about sticking a cat in a box and spraying poison gas inside couldn't have liked cats!"

In the end, they decided to name the cat later. However, Kamijou had a bad feeling that they would be unable to agree on a name later either and she would end up literally nicknaming the cat "Later".

The orange sky had turned to purple.

Kamijou walked along a main road while looking down at the black cat in his arms.

If they were really going to raise an animal, they needed to know how.

(Well, I know how to well enough. Index on the other hand...)

Kamijou sighed as he walked along the street as it started to look more like night. If it was just a cruel prank, you just had to get rid of that cruelty, but Index was acting completely out of the goodness of her heart, so doing that would have the reverse effect. As she was doing it out of the goodness of her heart, she would feel it was the right thing to do and would not hesitate to continue. If he didn't hurry to a bookstore and buy a book on raising cats, that smiling pure-white nun might end up with the nickname Death End.

"This is a different route from yesterday, points out Misaka," Misaka Imouto said while walking next to him.

Every time she glanced over at the black cat in Kamijou's arms, she looked like she was barely holding herself back. It seemed she really, really wanted to pet the cat, but she was giving its feelings of dislike toward her magnetic field priority and holding back.

"Oh, I'm just dropping by somewhere on the way home. There's a book I kind of want."

"Are you headed for a bookstore? asks Misaka. Geographically, taking a right at that last intersection would have been the shortest route, says Misaka as she turns around."

"No, I don't want a new book. I'm headed to that used bookstore up ahead. How you raise a cat doesn't change. Only 100 yen a book is ideal."

Kamijou had no way of knowing, but knowledge and information related to living beings would change from time to time. Let's use baseball training as an example. A ten year old book would tell someone to throw and throw and just use some guts to bear with the pain in order to pitch faster. However, that person would actually destroy their shoulder if they did that.

"Do you want a book on raising a cat? asks Misaka to make sure."

"It's not so much the book but the knowledge within. You saw those girls in the nun's habit and the shrine maiden outfit, right?"

"..." Misaka Imouto looked at Kamijou's face with her emotionless eyes. "To repeat, carelessly handling a cat's life falls under the crime of property damage, warns Misaka."

"Ah...Eh? What, are you mad?"

"Misaka is not angry. This is not a situation where everything is fine as long as you are not directly involved, cautions Misaka. If you leave those two alone knowing what they will do, you are responsible as well, says Misaka giving her objective opinion."

"...Sorry. Are you mad, Misaka Imouto?"

"Misaka is not angry. And not everything is okay just because it is not legally restricted, says Misaka as she admonishes you. Just think using common sense and..."

"Ah, I've had enough of this." Kamijou said as if it were a type of magic spell. "But don't worry. Index and Himegami were only doing that because they thought it would be good for the cat. They won't do anything clearly bad for the cat like beating or abusing it."

"From what Misaka saw yesterday, that statement has close to zero credibility, responds Misaka. And how do you plan to deal with the situation if the book has incorrect information in it? Misaka knows how to deal with cats, so you should get her advice on how to-..."

"Ahhh!" Kamijou didn't let her finish. "I said not to worry! Index and Himegami were only doing what they thought was good for the cat! They won't do anything clearly bad for the cat! Like beating it! Or abusing it!"

"...Misaka thinks you are just saying the same thing again verbatim just with more energy behind it, says Misaka expressing her thoughts. That is not Misaka's main point. She is saying that you should get her to-..."

"Abhah!" Kamijou became completely nonsensical. "Bi said bot to borry! Bindex and Bimegami were bonly doing what they bhought was bood bor the bat! Bey won't bo anything blearly bad bor the bat! Bike beating bit! Bor abusing bit!"

"...(anger)"

"Pant pant...! Ah, here's the bookstore."

They were standing in front of a large used bookstore that belonged to a chain. Kamijou looked down at the black cat in his arms and thought for a bit.

"Mh. Come to think of it, I'm probably not supposed to enter the store holding a cat."

"...That was an extremely expository statement, but please do not leave it with Misaka, says Misaka in a preemptive denial."

"...Because your magnetic field will make the cat dislike you? Well, if you can overcome that obstacle, true friendship will blossom. Take this! Ultimate Cat Bomb!"

Kamijou lightly tossed the cat toward Misaka Imouto who was standing next him (on the assumption she would catch it). Of course, it was clear the cat's reflexes would allow it to land nicely even if no one caught it. However, Misaka Imouto reflexively reached out for it (just as Kamijou had predicted). It was the sad habit of one who loved animals.

Misaka Imouto was about to complain, but Kamijou had already entered the used bookstore.

"...Really. What is wrong with him to think it is okay to throw a kitten? asks Misaka as she mutters to herself."

Misaka Imouto was now alone on a twilight-colored street of Academy City.

The black cat reacted to the electromagnetic waves emitted by her body and looked up to her with trembling eyes. She thought of lowering the cat to the ground, but it had not yet recognized Kamijou or her as its owner. If she let go of it there, she had a feeling it would simply run away.

Even if it was only a kitten, there was no way for a human to catch up on foot to a cat that was truly trying to flee. The first thing an owner had to do was to feed the cat and give it a place to sleep, so the cat would feel secure and not feel the need to run away.

"...And yet he threw it, says Misaka with a sigh."

She spoke with a completely expressionless face. Luckily, the cat she was holding did not stick out its claws or struggle. This was more due to cowardice than obedience. It was true that she had wanted to touch the cat, but she sighed again at the fact that resisting was better than seeing it so frightened.

And then she noticed something.

It was summer break, so on that evening in Academy City, the street was filled with boys and girls wearing casual clothes. As Misaka Imouto was wearing a school uniform, she stood out quite a bit.

However, she did not stand out nearly as much as the boy she had spotted.

The boy's hair and skin were dreadfully white. They were white, but they were the opposite of the image of purity white often gave. This white was a very dirty white. That rotten white was accentuated by the fact that his clothes were all black.

And there were his eyes.

Those eyes were red like fresh blood, crimson like burning flames, and scarlet like the depths of hell.

He was amid a distant crowd, but the boy's presence was simply too vivid. The special boy was not doing anything in particular. The exceptional boy really was not doing much of anything.

Yet the mere fact that hellish boy was standing on that peaceful street was abnormal.

He was Accelerator.

He was the strongest Level 5 in Academy City...no, probably in the entire world.

He stared at Misaka Imouto and silently smiled.

"..."

Misaka Imouto silently lowered the black cat to the ground.

It would be killed. If it stayed with her, that black cat would get caught up in the conflict and would be killed. She knew that, but the cat refused to leave her side. As it trembled, it merely looked up at her face mewing.

Accelerator continued to look at Misaka Imouto and smile. That distant white smile was warped, twisted, and perverted. The white was incandescent, dirtied, and insane.

A single image passed through Misaka Imouto's mind.

It was the image of a girl's right arm being torn off late at night due to her Metal Eater exploding.

In that instant, Misaka Imouto's everyday life ended.

In that instant, her hell began.

A great number of boys and girls flooded into the air conditioned store.

The chain of used bookstores it belonged to advertised the fact that its prices were cheap and that reading things in the store was okay. Most of the people in the store were there because they wanted to read a certain manga but not enough to buy it.

"..."

Kamijou stood blankly amid it all.

There was indeed a book called "How to Raise Cats" on the bookshelf in front of him. The spine of the book was faded and it was cheaper because of it, so he had no complaints there.

But Kamijou couldn't get over the fact that a book titled "How to Cook Delicious Beef" was in the shelf right next to "How to Raise Cats".

"...Well, it is true that both books are about animals I guess."

When he moved his gaze even further to the side he spotted a book called "New! The Scientific Cows of the Farm Buildings".

There were a few buildings in Academy City that had no windows. They were referred to as agriculture buildings and were used to grow hydroponic vegetables and raise animals for meat.

Inside the buildings were vegetables that were bathed in ultraviolet light, breathed carbon dioxide that had been through air purifiers, and spread their roots in water that had all sorts of nutrients mixed in. Apparently people from outside of Academy City found all that to be "creepy". They seemed to think eating things that were created scientifically was bad for you.

(...It's the opposite. How can you eat vegetables that were grown in dirt that could have had industrial waste and who knows what else mixed in?)

That difference in values was one of the walls between those within Academy City and those without, but Kamijou simply pulled "How to Raise Cats" from the shelf without thinking on it any further.

A girl ran through an alley that ran behind the used book store.

One of her shoes came off.

The girl felt that running with only one shoe would be difficult, so she pulled off the other one and continued to run.

With her shoulder-length brown hair, short-sleeved white blouse, summer sweater, and pleated skirt, she reminded one of a Tokiwadai Middle School student at first glance. And someone more familiar with a certain Tokiwadai student would be reminded of the name Misaka Mikoto.

However, there were two things that did not match the title of middle school student.

The first was the military goggles on her forehead.

The second was the assault rifle she held in her right hand.

The assault rifle was made of laminated plastic instead of steel. As it was shaped in a functional aesthetic type of way like something one would see on a fighter aircraft, it looked like a toy gun from some kind of SF world. And that appearance was not necessarily wrong.

The rifle, the F2000R Toy Soldier, detected the target with infrared rays and used electronic control to adjust the trajectory in real time to give the bullet the best odds of hitting. The shooter did not have to think about the wind direction or the expected evasion patterns of the target. If one aimed the barrel the way the "thinking machine" told them to, anyone could become an expert marksman. On top of that, it had special rubber wrapped around it to absorb shock and used carbon dioxide to reduce the recoil from firing as much as possible. While the Metal Eater antitank rifle was a monster that only a large adult could wield, the F2000R with its low recoil that was said to not even crack an egg was also a monster in that it could easily be wielded by a 2nd grader.

However, the girl had no way of dealing with her current situation even with that monster in hand.

Her raging pulse, exceedingly irregular breathing, and flickering, chaotic thoughts all clearly showed that she was the one being hunted.

A form approached from behind.

A white boy was heading for her from not even 10 metres away.

"Ha ha! What's with those fleeing hips? Why are you shaking your ass like that!? You're just asking for it!!"

That narrow alley was straight and lacking any kind of cover to avoid a bullet with, yet the unarmed "hunter" was overflowing with crazed passion.

Without stopping her flight, the girl twisted her body around to look behind her.

She aimed the barrel of the F2000R at the white boy named Accelerator who seemed to freeze the summer heat.

She did not hesitate to pull the trigger.

The rifle silently absorbed both the shock and the sound of the gunshot, so only the tiniest of an explosive noise left the barrel as if only a cheap firecracker had been set off. Nevertheless, 5.56 mm bullets accurately shot toward the boy's vital points.

Or so she had thought.

"...!?"

The girl's body froze due to shock. The 5.56 mm bullets held the destructive force to fly out the other side if they were shot into the side of a car, but they were repelled in every direction the instant they hit the boy's body. It was as if she had fired a cheap handgun at the front of a tank.

With the sound of flesh being crushed, a red hole had been opened in the girl's right shoulder.

One of the repelled bullet had pierced her shoulder.

"...E...Gh!"

The girl staggered. She immediately reached for the wall, but her legs got tangled together and her head struck the dirty wall. From there, she slid down to the ground.

"C'mon, how about a riddle to kill some time? Here's your question: What is it that the power of Accelerator does!?"

The girl heard a crazed laugh. When she looked up, she saw the boy's leg coming down with all his weight behind it to crush her skull.

"!"

She immediately rolled along the dirty ground and evaded the downward swinging foot. She then held the F2000R up and pulled the trigger.

She fired at what could almost be called pointblank range. The bullet seemed to be absorbed in toward the white boy's eye, but the instant it touched his soft eyeball, it was repelled to the side.

The white boy did not even blink.

His expression changed to a smile that made his dirty-white face look hideously burned.

He swung up his white hand. He swung up that hand that had an unknown effect.

"...!"

The girl immediately threw the F2000R at the boy's face as the rifle was now empty. She did not think that it would act as a fatal blow, but she hoped it would provide an instantaneous opening she could use to escape.

However, the boy did not move even slightly. The instant the rifle struck the boy's face, the F2000R broke to pieces. It was as if the gun had been chomped on by giant invisible fangs.

The girl did not have time to be frozen in shock. She twisted her body and managed to roll a step away from the boy. She swung around her left hand as she could still move that one and gathered power there.

She released a lightning spear from it.

The spear of purple electricity moved forward at the speed of light and held enough destructive force to knock someone unconscious.

She did not think that it would act as a fatal blow.

As long as it distracted him long enough for her to get away, that was enough.

However, the lightning spear she had fired at the boy rebounded and struck her in her own chest.

"Gah...!?"

The girl was knocked back to the ground with a shock that felt like she had been struck in the chest with a hammer. Her breathing stopped and every muscle in her body moved irregularly.

The girl's trembling lips managed to put together a single word.

"Re...flection...!?"

"Sorry, that's not entirely wrong, but it still doesn't get to the essence of what I can do!"

The girl somehow tried to distance herself from the boy, but her body would not do what she told it to due to the electrical attack she herself had fired.

"The answer is vector conversion! Motion, heat, electricity. I can alter any kind of vector that touches my skin. I have it set to reflect by default, though!"

The girl looked up at the boy's face in shock.

The 2.3 million espers in Academy City were indeed special humans, but not many of them could defeat even a handgun with their power. And if they could defeat a handgun, you would use a machine gun. If they could defeat a machine gun, you would use a tank, a fighter aircraft, a battleship with submarines, or as a last resort, even a nuclear missile.

There were no espers who could defeat something like that. In fact, it would just be a lot easier to buy a handgun rather than controlling the brain and altering the arrangement of genes in order to create a power that could fight against a gun. It just seemed absurd to create a huge psychic powers development institution that slipped past international law in order to create something on the level of a cheap weapon that could be bought in American supermarkets for about 30,000 yen.

That was why Academy City's goal was not to create espers. The espers were nothing more than a type of litmus paper. It seemed what was truly important was why espers had been born and what mechanism brought them about.

Yet the boy before her eyes was different.

That boy could alter all vectors be they motion, heat, or electricity, so he would not be injured even if he were directly hit by that last resort of a nuclear missile. He would just reflect the shockwave that would blow everything way, the heat that would scorch everything, and the neutrons and radiation that would kill everything.

He was Accelerator, Academy City's strongest Level 5.

The word "monster" came to the girl's mind. The creature before her eyes that had a human form held the power to singlehandedly make an enemy of the entire world and survive.

The boy crouched down next to the girl.

"My Level 5 power lets me control every kind of vector." That boy seemed so different, but he spoke as if it was nothing. "If I use it, I can even do this."

The boy stuck his slender index finger into the dark-red hole in the girl's right shoulder. It was like the action of a child squashing a bug on the road.

"...!!"

There was a sound like a red fruit being squished and the girl's body stiffened in intense pain.

"Now, it's time for the question for the consolation round," Accelerator said mockingly. "I'm touching your blood. I'm touching the flow of your blood. Now, if I reverse that vector...If I reverse the vector of your blood, what will happen to your body? A correct answer gets you a nice peaceful sleep!"

A blank expression appeared on the girl's face as if she did not understand what was going on.

An instant later, unimaginable pain assaulted her entire body.

"Huh?" Kamijou said upon leaving the used bookstore with a paper bag in one hand.

Misaka Imouto was nowhere to be found.

(Maybe she got mad that I forced her to take the cat, so she left.)

The cat alone was sitting there on the ground.

Kamijou picked up the cat as it laid its ears back and trembled a bit. He looked around the area again, but everything about the street tinted in the colors of twilight seemed normal. A lot of boys and girls wearing private clothes were walking along the street as they returned to their dorms after an exhausting day of fun.

(...?)

As Kamijou casually looked around, he felt something from that normal scenery. He spun back around and looked at the alley between the used book store and the multi-tenant building next to it. Something about it drew his attention.

(What is it? What's wrong with that alley?)

Kamijou looked closer. A tile walkway headed along in front of the entrance to the alley and a wind turbine spun nearby. The entrance must not have gotten cleaned often because quite a few leaves and a single girl's shoe were gathered there. The tiling of the pathway ended right at the alley entrance and the ground in the alley was made of incredibly makeshift-looking asphalt.

...A single girl's shoe?

"...?"

Still holding the black cat, Kamijou approached the entrance to the alley. A bad feeling crawled up within him like a centipede. There was definitely just one girl's shoe there. It was a small brown loafer that looked like something that would be required by a school. The shoe was clean and had no dirt on it, so it couldn't have been there for long.

Kamijou stared into the alley.

The sun was already sinking below the horizon, so its light did not reach the gap between the buildings. The darkness made it look like the entrance to a cave and he could not see anything within by just peering in.

"..."

Kamijou took one step into the alley.

With that one step, it felt as if the temperature had lowered 2 or 3 degrees. A feeling of having stepped into some unknown place slowly rose from his foot up to his body.

Kamijou continued on. There he found the other shoe lying on the dirty ground of the alley. He continued further on. The bad feeling grew. He tried to keep his pace slow, but his legs continued to accelerate. Kamijou didn't even know why he was hurrying, but his breathing and pulse were picking up pace as if they were falling down a hill.

Then Kamijou realized there were marks like part of the wall had been scraped off. It was as if someone had scraped along the concrete with a metal stake. And it was not just one or two marks. Both walls were covered with those marks like someone had been recklessly swinging a metal rod about.

Kamijou stepped on something.

It was a metal similar in color to gold...or more accurately, copper. It was a metal cylinder about the size of a battery. Kamijou thought it looked like the empty ammunition cartridges he had only ever seen in movies. There was a faint smell of smoke remaining as if someone had shot off a firework.

(What...?)

Kamijou almost spoke out subconsciously, but he suppressed it. For some reason, he tried to walk silently as he headed further in. With each step, he felt like the air was getting dirtier.

As he continued on, he saw something lying on the ground further ahead in the darkness. No, it was someone collapsed on the ground. He could see the legs from where he was. He could see two legs, but he could not see the upper half of the body as if it had been eaten by the darkness. Something was scattered around about the legs. It was plastic-looking shards and springs. It was almost like the remains of some sort of toy.

"Misaka...?"

Kamijou did not know why her name came out first. He headed closer as if he were cutting through the darkness obscuring his view.

And there she was.

Misaka Imouto's corpse was lying on the ground.