Pain. But not the kind he expected. No screaming nerves, no ruptured organs. No choked breath or dying systems. Just... awareness.
Accelerator opened his eyes. A dull, overcast sky loomed above him. Orange light flickered from buzzing neon signs. He heard footsteps, murmurs, distant engines and normal city sounds, but with just enough difference to make his skin crawl. He was lying on his side in a narrow alley. Wet pavement. Trash bags. The faint stench of oil and old ramen. His fingers twitched first. Then his legs moved. His head throbbed, not from pain, but from the surge of data, wind direction, gravity shifts, vibration mapping. All still being calculated in real time, just like always. He still had his powers. He sat up and looked down at his body. No blood. No wound. No hospital equipment or painkillers. Just a clean white shirt, black jeans, and scuffed shoes. He looked younger than he remembered slimmer, slightly shorter, like someone had shaved a year or two off his age.
He pushed himself to his feet and staggered out of the alley. The light was brighter out on the main street, lined with shops and signs in Japanese, but the colors were louder, flashier. Giant animated billboards projected glowing images of smiling people in ridiculous costumes: capes, helmets, sparkles. One ad showed a man made of wood stopping a bank robbery. Below it, in smaller text: Kamui Woods - New Pro Hero's Debut - "Protecting Musutafu with Style!" Musutafu? That wasn't one of the twenty-three wards of Tokyo. Definitely not a sector in Academy City. A group of students in uniforms walked past him, chatting excitedly. But he noticed, one of them had gills and the other one's head looked like a cat. That definitely wasn't normal. He followed the crowd, careful to keep his hood up and hands in his pockets. Everyone here moved so casually. Laughing. Talking. Existing.
He felt like a ghost. Every second he moved through the city, he grew more convinced: this wasn't just another ward. This wasn't Japan as he knew it. This was another world entirely.
As Accelerator tried getting accustomed to his surroundings he slipped into a quiet public restroom in a convenience store and locked the stall behind him. There was a cracked mirror above the sink. He stared at himself.
The white hair was still there. His crimson-red eye. Same pale skin. Same sunken stare that made people flinch. But his body… felt new. Lighter. A little bit smaller like someone rewinded him a few years. Just Him. No Last Order. No Misaka clones. No Anti-Skill. Just silence. A flicker of emotion crawled up his spine—panic, maybe, or worse, vulnerability. He hadn't felt that in years. His right hand slowly clenched into a fist. "This world better have answers," he muttered.
Back outside, the street was mostly empty now. A single soda can lay on the sidewalk beside a vending machine. He knelt down, picked up the can, and tossed it lightly into the air. It spun once. Then, with a twitch of his fingers, he redirected its vector. The can suddenly rocketed forward at a blinding speed, smashing into the metal frame of a streetlight. The pole bent with a loud groan, nearly folding in half. He dropped his hand. The physics were still consistent. No suppression field. No AIM networks. But the math—the vectors—still obeyed him. The world had changed. But the rules hadn't. That was all he needed.