Part 4
A girl's voice flowed smoothly within St. George's Cathedral in London.
"Chapter 8, Verse 25. Beginning elimination of the person obstructing the remote viewing. Analyzing the structure of the enemy's spell."
The noise as if from a scratched record was now gone.
And with a great wind, red wings grew from the back of the girl in the white nun's habit. Their color resembled blood more than fire. As complex magic circles flickered within her pupils, she slowly moved her head around viewing her surroundings.
She was Index.
Seeing that her manner had completely changed, Stiyl Magnus frowned slightly. He would burn enemy magicians to ashes without his expression changing even slightly, but those slight wrinkles appeared on his face because he could not completely suppress the pain within him.
"M T W O T F F T O. (One of the five great elements from which the world is constructed.) I I G O I I O F. (The great flame of the beginning.)"
Even so, Stiyl did not fail to take action.
He had been entrusted with her life.
He pulled out a single rune card.
"I I B O L A I I A O E. (It is a light of blessing that raises life and a light of judgement that punishes evil.) I I M H A I I B O D. (It is overflowing with calm blessings and with freezing misfortune that destroys cold darkness.) I I N F I I M S. (Its name is fire and its role is the sword.) I C R M M B G P!! (Be manifested and become the power that eats into my body!!)"
No, it was not just a single card.
There were cards stuck to seemingly every single spot in the room. It was to such an extent that it seemed odd that no one had noticed them up to that point.
Flames swirled.
A mass of exploding flame exceeding 3 meters in height appeared. It was in the form of a person. The mass of flames that burned at 3000 degrees Celsius was named Innocentius.
Index's head moved slightly to ascertain her target.
Immediately afterwards, a great noise exploded out and Innocentius had already been blown away.
The girl had swung the red wings growing from her back. With that alone, the giant god of flames was instantaneously ripped apart despite being supported by thousands of cards. It did not even have the chance to carry out its automatic regeneration. The burden received by Innocentius reversed the flow of energy and burned the cards black making them useless.
That was the power of the grimoire library Index Librorum Prohibitorum.
By freely wielding the 103,000 grimoires, she became the strongest defense mechanism for protecting that treasure trove of knowledge from those who would usurp it.
However, Stiyl did not have time to calmly analyze all that.
When Innocentius was blown away, it scattered in all directions and the explosive wind bared its fangs towards Innocentius's user.
"…!?"
He was knocked straight to the wall.
With that great shock to his back, even his breathing stopped. The girl with magic circles hidden in her eyes calmly watched on.
"Chapter 10, Verse 3. Effects of the current spell confirmed. Extending the power and range in order to end the life functions of the enemy element has been determined to be the most effective method."
Multiple red wings stretched out all at once.
The wings had grown large enough that they grazed the ceiling of the cathedral as they rushed towards Stiyl like a closing bear trap.
He had no time to think of a spell.
Stiyl forced his body to move despite having been weakened from the previous blow. He rolled along the floor.
The multiple wings soared down.
There was nothing beyond luck to explain how he was not hit.
But the floor of St. George's Cathedral broke with a loud crumbling noise.
The stone footing, Stiyl Magnus, and everything else there were swallowed up by the earth.
He didn't have time to think about bracing for his landing.
The taste of blood mixed in with his breaths.
Stiyl had landed face up and it took a few seconds for him to finally realize where he had landed.
He was in the underground spiritual item vault.
Index's strike had damaged the very foundation at the base of the construction of the cathedral.
(…Ghah. Dammit. There are tons of defensive walls prepared here. She just caused a part of the anti-magician headquarters to collapse!!)
She was the defense mechanism developed to prevent her tremendous techniques and knowledge from entering the hands of global magic cabals.
Thinking you could take her on 10,000 to 1 was still being naïve.
Taking her on 1 to 1 was just plain stupid.
Fighting her when she was in John's Pen mode was like trying to hold back an entire war.
Before, the Saint known as Kanzaki Kaori and the Imagine Breaker known as Kamijou Touma had been there.
But this time was different.
He could not rely on those kinds of irregulars.
He heard a noise coming from directly above him.
As he stared up from his face-up position, he saw a small girl looking down over the edge of the crumbled hole.
Her lips moved.
"Chapter 11, Verse 2. An effective level of destructive power has been confirmed. A shower of repeated attacks that do not give the enemy time to recover has been determined to be the best strategy."
The grimoire library jumped down without hesitation from that cliff-like height.
Stiyl rolled to the side with all his strength.
Immediately afterwards, Index's feet mercilessly crushed the spot he had been in a moment before.
Part 5
He stomped on the accelerator so hard he thought it would break.
Hamazura Shiage desperately made slight adjustments of the wheel of the four wheel drive car to ensure he did not lose control on the snow. The car had studded tires that were not allowed inside Japan, but the snow was piled up so high that the car still skidded to the side.
Why was he continuing to drive despite that danger?
The answer was reflected in the rearview mirror.
"Fuck!! I can't even get a chance to pull away from them!!" Hamazura yelled while gritting his teeth.
Academy City powered suits were closing in on him from 50 meters behind the car. Those monstrous mechanical suits were approaching at high speed in a team of 5 that looked like the protagonist team to a super sentai show. They slid along as if on skates, jumped in a way that resembled a triple jump, and otherwise accurately pursued Hamazura and Takitsubo. The two of them had not been able to safely escape the surrounding forces. The enemy forces had enough leeway to send five troops after a single car. Hamazura had taken them lightly.
But even so, he hadn't been foolish enough to just take them on.
He would have been killed in an instant in a fight with even one of those things. Against five of them, he would be killed in a fifth of an instant. Hamazura didn't know if that was a good way of expressing it, but he couldn't come up with a better term.
Takitsubo spoke to him from the passenger seat where she had her seatbelt properly buckled. She had a map on her lap.
"Hamazura, they're getting closer bit by bit."
"I know that!! Dammit. They're all chasing after us like they're ice skating or something!! The exhibition of that kind of unreserved tech didn't bring about more weird urban legends, did it!?"
"The border of the Elizalina Alliance is about 500 meters away. Can we make it?"
He didn't have time to respond.
He had barely been keeping the car under control up to that point and it had finally started to skid to the side. Hamazura frantically spun the wheel in an attempt to recover, but the car swerved off the road that had no fence or guardrail and straight into a forest.
He couldn't hit the brake.
If he didn't continue to step on the gas, the powered suits would catch up.
As the scenery changed, the speed at which he seemed to experience things suddenly increased.
Trees thicker than telephone poles slipped past both sides of the car at terrifying speeds.
(500 meters…)
The powered suits did not care.
Despite cutting through the forest at about the same speed as Hamazura and Takitsubo, they unhesitatingly approached as if they were running atop a safe roller coaster track. They didn't just head along the snow-covered ground. They would occasionally take daring shortcuts by kicking off of the branches or trunks of the thick trees. It wasn't just their strength that was being increased by the machine. The suits' sensors to take in information and the processors that heightened their thought and decision-making processes were above anything Hamazura had ever seen before. They may have had electrodes attached that directly influenced the workings of their brains.
(500 meters!!)
The car floated up in to the air.
The forest was not flat like the asphalt road.
A slight rise in the ground acted as a jump that sent the four wheel drive car souring into the air.
"Oh, shi—!?"
The tires touched down again before he could finish swearing.
The car skidded much more than it had before. He frantically operated the wheel, but the car turned 90 degrees to the side in no time at all.
But luck was on Hamazura's side.
At that same time, the car slid out of the forest and back onto a snowy plain.
The border with the Elizalina Alliance was ahead.
A 2 meter chain-link fence with barbed wire was set up between the countries, but Hamazura just ignored it. If he tried to regain control, it would just lead to losing time.
(We just need to slide on through!!)
They plowed through the fence while still facing to the side.
The powered suit's thick fingertips just barely missed them.
The car was wrapped up in the chain-link fence and the driver side window shattered loudly. The car continued on into the Elizalina Alliance. The remains of the fence must have been chewing at the front wheels because an odd noise reverberated up. Shortly thereafter, Hamazura completely lost control of the car. The car spun around three times and finally came to a stop pointed towards the Russian border.
They had escaped.
They were only about 20 meters into the Elizalina Alliance, but they were inside it nonetheless. The powered suits…or more accurately, Academy City's forces, were officially at war with Russia so they could not enter the Elizalina Alliance.
But…
"You're kidding…" Hamazura moaned from the driver seat.
The powered suits that were supposed to be unable to touch them relentlessly walked forward.
He doubted they had not noticed the border.
They knew it was there, but they were ignoring it.
One of the machine's hands was gripping something.
It was a much too large revolver. A can of coffee could easily fit inside the barrel. It probably fired grenades or something like that. If it was actually a shotgun, Hamazura couldn't even imagine how much destructive force it would hold. Either way, the car had no bulletproofing, so it would become a ball of fire after a single shot.
The barrel unhesitatingly pointed their way.
No voice called out a threat or a warning.
Hamazura's gaze moved to the doorknob on the driver side door, but the remains of the fence were wrapped around the door preventing him from opening it even if he tried.
(I forgot.)
Hamazura thought to himself while staring blankly into that barrel that looked like a tunnel to death.
He was not playing a sport.
It was not a card game.
It was a real battle.
If the weak or the loser yelled out about a violation of the rules, no one would come to fix the problem. With all the time he had spent running around in back alleys, he should have known that well.
He didn't even notice how dry his throat was.
The powered suit's thick finger that was on the trigger of the giant revolver moved.
And then Hamazura heard what sounded like a firework being fired. It was not the explosive noise of the firework blooming into a large flower. It was the sound made when the firework was fired up into the sky from the ground.
He frowned.
He didn't have time to figure out which direction the noise had come from.
Immediately afterwards, a line of flames erupted along the border including where the powered suits were.
The scene looked like some kind of joke.
It was not a usual explosion where the flames spread in every direction. The flames spread out unnaturally like a line had been drawn with oil. The flames were 10 meters high and they stretched for four or five hundred meters. The windshield shattered. They were a fair distance away, but the intense light and heat were blown against Hamazura and Takitsubo's faces. He could feel the car that was stopped atop the snow sliding a few centimeters back due to the shockwave.
"What?" Hamazura made sure his throat still worked and then spoke to Takitsubo who was in the passenger seat. "Napalm…?"
"From the sound just before…it seems it was a rocket with a liquid explosive inside."
Takitsubo's breathing sounded faint.
But she was still alive.
Hamazura didn't know what had happened or who had done it, but he decided they should at least get out of the now-useless car and hide within the Elizalina Alliance.
But then a loud noise exploded out.
It was the sound of metal being crushed.
Someone was standing atop the hood of the car. Hamazura couldn't believe it, but it was almost like the person had fallen from the sky and landed there.
From the driver seat he could only see slender legs.
As he could see the person's heels, the person must have been staring at the wall of flames from the liquid explosive.
A number of powered suits squirmed within the flames.
Even in that much fire, the powered suits were still functioning properly. They looked at the person standing on top of the hood…and then took a step back. Hamazura had seen them stop moving for an instant before they took that step. It was as if they had received orders over their radios. The powered suits continued through to the other side of the flames and left.
It seemed the person standing on the hood had saved Hamazura and Takitsubo.
Who was this person?
That question was resolved quickly.
The person whose heels were pointed their way used one of those heels to lightly scrape at the edge of the broken windshield. At least, that was all it looked like the person had done. Immediately afterwards, the car's roof that the heel had scraped against bent and separated from the rest of the car.
With a tremendous noise, Hamazura's view greatly opened up all at once.
The person standing before him was a monster with white hair and red eyes.
Hamazura Shiage recognized him.
That monster was…
"Accelerator…!?"
"Tch. Don't bring in more fucking problems while I'm trying to find spies that are already here," the monster said sounding irritated to the bottom of his heart. "Tell me absolutely everything."
Part 6
"Fine then," a blonde-haired blue-eyed woman said in Japanese within a field hospital that was really just an old stone fortress that medical equipment had been brought into.
The woman sitting up in a bed had bandages wrapped around her. However, her body did not look as if it would be fine even without them. Her skin was more pale than it was white, she had large shadows under her eyes, and she was so slim that the lines of her bones could be seen. She looked like she might turn into quite a beauty if she were fed chankonabe for half a year straight.
She was Elizalina, the women for whom the alliance was named.
With a melancholy attitude, she held her head in her slim hands.
"If I have a chance to use recovery magic, I would really rather use it on myself first, though."
"Oh, sorry."
"There is no need to lower your head to me. It's just that I was forced into emergency surgery by my aide despite having said I did not need to rest."
It seemed she had taken damage, but that she was going to help Takitsubo. Hamazura was truly thankful, but he was also confused.
What was "recovery magic"?
At first, he thought she must have gotten the Japanese word for what she was trying to say wrong, but she clearly seemed to know more Japanese than an idiot like him. That meant she had said what she meant, but…what did she mean?
He looked over toward Accelerator who only clicked his tongue and averted his gaze.
Hamazura had heard from him that the Elizalina Alliance might have some kind of special medical techniques that did not even exist in Academy City. It wasn't clear if they would be able to alleviate Takitsubo's symptoms, but he had decided it was worth looking into and had headed for the field hospital carrying Takitsubo.
(Recovery? She said recovery magic, right? Like in RPGs? Or is it some medical term? Recovery makes sense in that context, but how does magic fit in?)
Hamazura's head was full of questions, but Elizalina had spoken about it so readily and smoothly that he didn't voice his questions. It was a method that worked for swindlers, too. Just by rattling off words without giving the other person a word in edgewise could leave them thinking there was some level of sense behind it.
Elizalina ignored Hamazura and turned her head in a different direction.
She was looking at Takitsubo who was just barely managing to sit in a small chair and at a girl who appeared to be around 10 who was lying in a bed. She had been referred to with the extremely odd name of Last Order, and Hamazura wondered if it was some kind of esper name.
"I have come to the following conclusion." From atop her bed, Elizalina pointed to Takitsubo and then Last Order as she spoke. "I can probably manage with that girl in the track suit, but that smaller girl will be more difficult."
"…"
Accelerator's eyebrows twitched slightly as he leaned up against the wall.
It seemed Last Order had been brought there by the #1.
Hearing Elizalina's calm or perhaps cruel statement, Hamazura's eyes widened in surprise.
"Ah…eh? What do you mean when you say you can manage?"
"Is the word magic not enough for you to understand?"
"Hah?"
"Is the word magic not enough for you to understand?" Elizalina repeated herself.
It seemed she was not going to let things continue without some kind of reaction from him, so Hamazura just nodded.
What was all this about magic?
"Let's set aside the issue of whether it actually exists or not," she said casually avoiding the core of the issue. "I'm sure you know that witches and the like have carried out occult rituals since ancient times. Whether those rituals have any real effects or not, there was a time when that kind of thing was believed in and those rituals were carried out using certain processes."
"What? You mean those hook-nosed old women stirring giant pots?"
"Those rituals used certain types of medicinal plants that are similar to what are known as narcotics today and toxins taken from certain animals."
"??? Wait a second. What does this have to do with what's wrong with Takitsubo?"
Takitsubo's illness was caused by the Body Crystal created by Academy City's scientific technology. Hamazura didn't think a clue to healing her lay in strange occult curses.
"Leaving aside the issue of whether those things were mere illusions or if they truly had effects that overcame physical phenomena," Elizalina said, "methods of safely carrying out those rituals using toxins were passed down orally when those rituals were prevalent. For instance, there was a method of training one's body to resist the toxins by taking in the toxin bit by bit in order to get used to it. And there was also a method to remove the toxin collected within one's body."
"What…but, what're you…?"
Suddenly Hamazura almost stood up from his chair.
"You mean you can heal her!?"
Elizalina held out a hand to try to calm him down.
"Yes. The girl in the track suit and the smaller girl have different illnesses. The smaller girl is having the toxin constantly poured into her body, so it will be replaced even if I were to remove it now. But the girl in the track suit should be okay once I remove the toxin collected in her body. It will not completely heal her, but she should be much better off than she is now."
Elizalina must have been referring to the Body Crystal.
It was true that removing the Body Crystal from Takitsubo's body would improve her condition by quite a bit even if it did not completely heal her. Hamazura wasn't sure how much the hospital could do about Academy City's Body Crystal, but methods of healing that seemed fake would sometimes actually have a scientific basis behind them that could be used as the basis of a new medical technique.
"…I see."
Hope seeped into Hamazura bit by bit.
Without thinking, he embraced Takitsubo who was sitting next to him.
"I see!! Isn't that great, Takitsubo!? It's not quite what we planned, but coming to Russia really was the right decision!"
"Hamazura, I can't breathe."
"Sorry! But I…I...!!"
Takitsubo kept saying she was having trouble breathing from his tight embrace, but she brushed her cheek on his back when she saw the tears welling up in his eyes.
"…"
Meanwhile, Academy City's strongest Level 5 silently folded his arms as he leaned against the wall.
He hadn't found a way to save Last Order there.
If the same thing had happened just a few hours before, he would likely have felt an intense impatience and fear burning inside him. He might have settled for hopeless struggling in an attempt to remove Last Order's pain even an instant sooner.
Something seemed to be changing within him bit by bit.
It was like iron changing to steel by being intensely heated and then rapidly cooled.
(…Yelling out and stomping around isn't going to help the situation. At any rate, I know I don't have much time. I can't waste time on a dead end. If I use more time than I gain from this stopgap measure, I'll be cornered in the end.)
Having made that quick decision, Accelerator pulled the pieces of parchment from his pocket.
"You can go with that plan for healing them, but answer my question first. Can you read this?"
"If I spent time on it, I might be able to." Elizalina nodded slightly. "The strings of characters on the surface are nothing more than a help for deciphering it. From what I can see, it looks to be in a Russian Orthodox format, so I could likely solve it. However, it would take time. Do you still wish to leave this with me?"
"No." Accelerator lightly lifted his hand with the parchments in it as if taking them back. "I just needed to know that it could be 'solved'. You focus on healing those two."
"Ah…"
Hamazura opened his mouth to speak after listening to all that, but he couldn't come up with anything to say.
Accelerator gave a scornful laugh. Hamazura felt that the other boy might have felt as if Hamazura's own joy at Takitsubo being able to be saved was like rubbing salt in the wound because the girl with him could not.
"I don't have much time. I'll be going."
Accelerator headed for the door with his cane and Elizalina asked him a question while Hamazura was still at a loss for words.
"Do you think you've found a lead?"
"If I haven't, I'll go look for one."
Accelerator left the hospital room and called over a soldier who was walking down the hall. That hospital was not a peaceful medical facility. It was just a fortress being used for military purposes that had medical equipment brought in. It was more of a military facility than a medical one.
"Where are the spies I caught?"
"Th-they're being interrogated, but it isn't going well. We aren't experts at getting people to talk and the Russian spies were divided into small cells for each job, so they may not know any more information than they needed to."
"I see," Accelerator replied bluntly to the withering soldier.
"Where are you headed? If you want to watch on, I can show you the way."
"No." Accelerator waved the man away with a hand. "I'm going to follow up on a better source of information."
The soldier frowned, but Accelerator had no reason to explain further.
Leaving the soldier behind, he walked along the long hallway to a different hospital room from the one Elizalina was in. He opened the door without knocking.
Inside was someone who it was surprising was not restrained.
He might really have been influenced by that Level 0.
"…Misaka Worst," Accelerator muttered and the high school-aged girl sitting on the bed glared back at him with contempt.
She was a special clone created in the project known as the Third Season based on the cells from the #3 Level 5.
The girl was wearing a white battle outfit, but her right arm was wrapped in a cast and hanging from a strap. In their battle, Accelerator had broken that arm after he had snapped. She also had a large amount of gauze stuck from behind her ears to the back of her neck.
They were enemies.
It would not be surprising if either of them stabbed a blade into the other's heart without a word of warning.
"What do you want?"
Misaka Worst moved her skin just a few millimeters and created an expression that would make anyone uncomfortable.
She seemed to be prepared anew.
"Even if you saved Misaka back then, her only value is for information. But unfortunately for you, Misaka does not have the ability to just tell you everything. It should be clear what would happen if she did. Although, Misaka supposes you have pretty good taste if you're going to destroy her anew right after healing her."
"Work together with me."
"For what? Why? How?"
"I found a few Russian listening devices. The spies will be giving all sorts of information and I want you to sort through that information. With your knowledge, you might be able to find a clue."
"What's your basis for thinking this?"
"The timing of your attack." Accelerator lightly waved the rolled up parchments. "It was right when I was about to ask that Vodyanoy person about the details of these parchments. The timing of your arrival seemed intentional. You may not know the details yourself, but you were probably used in order to prevent me from finding some clue. If we compare the information you have and the information from the Russian spies, we might find something."
"No, not that. What's your basis for thinking Misaka will work with you?"
Misaka Worst grinned.
Her words intentionally brought the possibility of danger on herself. Perhaps someone who viewed the world through spiteful eyes did not hesitate even when it meant bringing injury to herself.
But Accelerator responded without any change in expression.
"The Third Season is not going to be the winner in this. I'm sure you aren't stupid enough to think it is."
"…"
"It seems Academy City wants to use the Misaka Network to do something. A problem occurred with that network, so they needed to set up a new network. That is why you were sent to kill that brat and me. …But guess what. I don't know if tens of thousands of clones are supposed to be created for the Third Season, but the fate of you and the new network will be the same. You'll either be used up for someone's profit or you won't be able to carry out your purpose and another network will be set up in your place. Either way, it's a dead end. This is about the values of people who applaud the deaths of 20,000 people as a success. I'm sure you know that you won't be used in any good way."
"And you're saying Misaka should work with you because of that?" Misaka Worst laughed scornfully. "Are you going to join hands with someone who is in the middle of all that evil?"
"You were made to pick up the negative emotions such as spite and hatred from the network, right?"
"And?"
"Does that fucking dark brain of yours really possess anything as admirable as devotion until death to your masters who see you as expendable? I've heard that brat saying she wasn't going to let even one more clone die."
"Even if that's so, Misaka doesn't think that obeying you will resolve that issue. In fact, joining with you would only shorten her lifespan."
"I see. Then it's time to make a deal."
"Hah?"
"The Dark May Project."
"You don't mean…?"
"That project attempted to use my method of controlling my power to strengthen other espers' personal realities. It seems they had a certain level of success, but it didn't lead them to a Level 5. The only way to make you irreplaceable is for you to gain an ability that the other Sisters do not have. What'll you do? If you analyze how I fight, you might be able to find a way out."
"…"
There were a few seconds of silence.
That time was not taken up by her thinking.
She did not mind losing her life.
The way she had spoken before made that clear.
What would make up her mind was whether it sounded fun or not. Was doing it really worth turning her back on the large organization of Academy City?
In other words, she was testing the flavor.
She rolled a mass of spite around in her mouth seeing if the taste of it was appropriate for her or not.
And then she smiled.
Misaka Worst once again began acting out of spite as she had been created to do.
"Ah, ha. …That is very much like this Misaka. That may be more effective than bringing out an expression of suffering on that lovely command tower's face and appealing to your good will and philanthropy."
"I will find a clue to getting rid of that brat's illness. I will find a route for you other than to just be used up. That is why I will fight Academy City. I will outsmart them. Our interests are aligned, so quit complaining and get to work."
"But y'know…" Misaka Worst stood up from the bed and lightly waved her right arm from the elbow because it was in a cast. "Misaka was modified solely to kill Academy City's #1, so she never thought the day would come when she would be forcing a smile after having all that done to her."
That kind of spiteful comment was a special characteristic of hers because she was made to easily display the negative emotions from the network. Even if it wasn't intentional, it still rubbed Accelerator the wrong way. It especially affected him because it had likely been designed to do just that.
Accelerator stared at Misaka Worst's cast and muttered a few words while barely moving his mouth.
"…Sorry. That was my mistake because I went along with their manipulation."
For an instant, Misaka Worst's spite-covered face turned to a blank expression. It was the expression of someone whose thoughts had ground to a halt.
"Bah hyah."
And then Misaka Worst rolled back onto the bed she had just stood up from.
"Ah hya hya hya hya!! What was that!? What was thaaaat!? Misaka's body was prepared and especially tuned to be sent to the battlefield!! You need to at least be a target of hate standing at the very peak of evil! If you show her that meek expression, her whole reason for existing starts to slip away!! Hya hya hya hya hya!!"
"…Fuck being a villain," Accelerator spat out as Misaka Worst held her stomach and kicked her legs around. "I wasn't able to ensure the safety of a single kid while being a master villain. I no longer have any reason to stay fixated on that."
Neither that Level 0 nor the monster known as Aiwass had been fixated on being either good or evil. When fighting against an opponent like that, simply choosing a side was not enough.
Misaka Worst had tears in her eyes and she asked a question in an oddly satisfied voice.
"Where is a monster that was so utterly stained supposed to go after leaving the field of darkness?"
"Don't ask me. That's what I'm going to look for now," Accelerator responded sounding annoyed. "Both you and I are monsters purposefully set to be filled with evil by Academy City. I don't think that is enough to just abdicate all responsibility for what I've done and nor do I want it to be. They made the preparations and we went along with it. By heading along the path of evil, we can't oppose them. That's just continuing right along the track they've laid out for us."
"…"
"So let's make them cry this time. Let's truly fight back. I've had enough of being manipulated by them. I don't care if I end up doing things that aren't like me for this."
Accelerator then gently stretched out the hand that was not holding his cane.
It was like he was asking for a handshake from a war buddy who had watched his back.
"Please."
In that instant, Misaka Worst sank into silence as if time had stopped.
But it only lasted a few seconds.
As if she couldn't hold back her true self, Misaka Worst once again began holding her stomach and kicking her legs around atop the bed with tears in her eyes.
"Hya hya hya hya hya hya hya hya hya hya hya hya hya!! Are you an idiot? Are you an iiiidiot!? Oh, wow! Look at that stupid serious look!! Ah hya hya hya hya hya hya hya hya hya!!"
As Misaka Worst rolled around on the bed, she laughed so hard that she seriously thought her diaphragm was going to break.
But she finally rolled up in a ball and then sat up all at once.
She tightly gripped the outstretched hand.
A nice sentimental-feeling sound like a glove catching a baseball rang throughout the hospital room.
For someone as filled with spite as her, grasping someone's hand like that must have taken quite a bit of resolution. But Misaka Worst had overcome it. That handshake between enemies who had once tried to take each other's life was proof of that.
Misaka Worst stood up with their hands still clasped like a lady being escorted. She grinned with a mischievous smile and spoke to the person who had once been her archenemy.
"This is the first time for Misaka to grasp someone's hand like this, but it is for you too, isn't it?"
"…No," Accelerator muttered quietly averting his gaze a bit. "I've done it quite a few times with a horrible brat who looks an awful lot like you."
Reminded of the touch of a certain girl from the feel of that hand, he once again set his resolve.
That was not the end.
He would hold that girl's hand once more.
He would make sure of it.