Misaka Mikoto also witnessed that change.
She was riding on an Academy City HsB-02 supersonic bomber. Of course, she was not taking part in a military operation on the orders of a superior. What she was doing was almost…no, it was a hijacking. The special forces that had been intended to ride in that bomber had been left behind in a District 23 hangar.
Perhaps due to the special characteristics of a bomber, the aircraft was over 80 meters long, but its only window was in the cockpit in the front. It was a coincidence that Mikoto had been in the cockpit. It was just because that was the only place with a proper seat.
Mikoto showed the pilot the screen of her handheld device.
"Anyway, get close to here and then I'll parachute down on my own. After that, you can do whatever you want."
The screen showed a still image from a recorded news program.
A reporter was saying something with a snowy plain in the background and an Asian boy who seemed to be a civilian was visible at the edge of the screen.
Letters at the bottom of the screen displayed the city where the footage had been taken. That cute tyrant was ordering him to go there.
"…D-do you know how much risk you're taking on by doing this?"
"Doing this?" Mikoto frowned. "Doesn't what I've already done give you some idea about what I can do? I had no problem with taking on group of professional assassins."
"…"
"This isn't an issue with how risky it is. If one side is putting all their efforts into killing a normal high school student and the other side is putting all her efforts into saving that normal high school student, which side do you want to be on? Which side could you proudly say you were on?"
The pilot fell silent upon being asked those questions.
Mikoto did not think that she was a "good person". Nor did she think all the other people she could see were masses of good will. The incident involving the Sisters and Accelerator had taught her how dark an environment Academy City was and how merciless humans could be.
But at the same time, she knew that not every person in the world was that dark. There was that boy who had held out his right hand to save Mikoto and the others from that hellish experiment. There were the Sisters who had stood up in response to Mikoto's call. While there was unavoidable darkness and desire within people's hearts, there was a small but strong light there as well.
That was why the pilot had fallen silent.
That was also why he was unable to laugh scornfully at her while drenched in the darkness of that underground organization.
(…Ahh. This kind of talk just isn't my thing. I think he infected me or something.)
Mikoto scratched at her head.
(This is all that idiot's fault! As soon as I find him, I'm punching him!! Strategy meeting complete!!)
Suddenly, something huge quickly moved up from below the white clouds. The supersonic bomber she was on was quite large at over 80 meters long, but this other object made it look like a tiny bug in comparison. The giant construction had to be dozens of kilometers long. It was like an entire city was floating there. The sight simply seemed to ignore any scientific sense (even the sense of Academy City that seemed fairly ridiculous to begin with).
The object had a completely unreasonable design.
It was just a giant mass that seemed to have been created by taking stone buildings from different ages and cultures and then clumping them together like masses of clay. Even then, it was changing form from moment to moment like gears or like a living being.
(…What is that?)
Mikoto pressed herself up against the reinforced glass and stared at the mass.
Making an object that big float in the sky was probably something worth a Guinness world record. She couldn't spot any wings or rocket engines, but it had to be gaining lift somehow. Perhaps it was actually hollow and the inside was similar to a hot-air balloon or a blimp.
(Why is it squirming around like that? Is it a collection of stand-alone robots?)
However, what truly surprised Mikoto was not the giant mass itself.
Something like a stone bridge extended out on the edge of the mass and she thought she saw the familiar face of a certain spiky haired boy.
(You're kidding…!!)
When Mikoto frantically tried to make sure, the supersonic bomber's intense speed had already taken them past that point. The location of the window was limited, so she couldn't just turn her head to keep looking.
That unexpected scene had brought Mikoto's thoughts to a halt, but the pilot did not wait around.
A steeple sticking out from the side of the mass was going to strike the body of the supersonic bomber.
He frantically operated the stick and the inertia suddenly gave Mikoto an experience similar to zero gravity as she was not strapped in. It only lasted a few seconds, but her body had definitely floated in the air.
She fell back into her seat, but she didn't have time to complain.
The changes did not stop.
When they moved back above the clouds, the blue sky without any sign of weather suddenly changed to dark night as if someone had flipped a light switch. With that giant construction there as well, the scene just looked like a joke to her.
There was a light in the darkness.
It glowed like the moon in the dark sky.
But it wasn't the moon.
It was a human-like silhouette floating in the sky ignoring gravity. It was so far away, she couldn't tell what its face looked like. However, she could say one thing for sure: it was not a normal human.
This was because it had what looked like wings growing from its back.
Those mysterious wings looked like crystals and like a peacock tail. The shorter ones were less than a meter long and the longer ones were over 100 meters long. The figure had a few dozen of those wings of unequal length.
Mikoto didn't have time to question it.
The figure swung one of those wings.
It was rather large at 100 meters, but that still was not enough to match the scale of the sky. Currently, the supersonic bomber was flying in an area farther away than that.
And yet the body of the HsB-02 that was made of the latest nonmetal materials was suddenly sliced in two.
The strike sliced the cockpit front to back. No, that single strike sliced through the entire 80 meter length of the bomber.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding!!"
Mikoto felt the chill of the high altitude air stab into her.
In the next instant, she was thrown out of the plane and into the air 3000 meters up.
She couldn't even cry out.
At the edge of her vision, she could see the pilot spinning but wearing a parachute. He would probably be fine, but she couldn't count on him. He had no duty to save her after all.
However, Mikoto felt more anger at having been taken away from the giant structure than she did fear of the height from which she was falling. Her small body was even then plowing through the clouds as it headed for the ground. She could clearly feel the thing she thought she had finally grabbed slipping from her fingers.
Of course, she couldn't change that if she just fell to her death.
(Kh!! Wh-what do I do!?)
Mikoto changed her focus and looked down toward the ground. She didn't even have 1000 meters left until she landed. She then spotted a mass of metal much farther down than her.
It was an attack helicopter.
She didn't know if it was from Academy City or Russian, but she could use it.
Mikoto could manipulate magnetism.
She was not going to use it to cling to the attack helicopter. At that height and that speed, her flesh-and-blood body would be crushed the instant she made contact. She had to only use a bit of the magnetism she could so she didn't completely cling to it.
Her body shot past the attack helicopter.
She didn't completely cling to it, but there was a clear force lifting Mikoto's body toward the attack helicopter. That force acted as a cushion to softly lower her downward speed. As Mikoto headed down toward the white snowy plains, she strengthened that force bit by bit in a carefully regulated manner so as not to crush her body from the shock of deceleration but to still prevent herself from being killed upon landing.
If someone had been watching from nearby, it may have looked like she was lowering herself down on an invisible rope.
Mikoto planted her feet atop the snow and completely cut off the magnetic force.
"Now then…"
She was in the middle of a battlefield. Here and there on that plain with almost no manmade objects she could see tanks and other armored vehicles from both Academy City and the Russian army. It might have been obvious, but the Russian weapons were the ones being destroyed.
Mikoto smelled the unpleasant odor of fuel being burned and looked above her.
Even using her powerful magnetism, jumping up 3000 meters into the air was impossible.
"How am I supposed to get up above the clouds?" Mikoto muttered and then heard the sound of someone stepping in the snow behind her.
From the magnetic state, she could tell there was a human form about 10 meters behind her.
She sharply turned around and…
"…You're…"
Mikoto froze.
The other person's expression did not change.
A girl stood there holding a rifle called a Kalashnikov that was made of both wood and metal instead of an Academy City F2000R.
"Misaka's serial number is #10777, kindly explains Misaka to the Original who is at a loss for words."
"Were you at an organization in Russia that was working with Academy City!?"
"The battle for the evacuation there is complete, so Misaka was given the rest of the time to spend on her private business, announces Misaka in a vacation-y mood with a dangerous rifle in one hand."
"Private business…?" Mikoto repeated in shock.
#10777 pointed up into the sky.
"Are you here on private business as well? says Misaka asking for confirmation."
"…Well, it certainly isn't an official job or anything."