“Hamazura, find us a car, like, super-quick, please,” said Kinuhata. “Takitsubo is probably one of School’s targets. Now that they found this hideout, it’d be extra safe to assume they found other info, too. They probably discovered Takitsubo’s troublesome ability and came to crush us all to throw off pursuit.”
“You mean her search ability?” asked Hamazura. In terms of visible power, Mugino and Kinuhata seemed a lot flashier, but…
“They don’t have to kill everyone in Item—they can severely limit our operations just by taking out Takitsubo. Her being here or not decides who’s being chased and who’s doing the chasing. If it was me, I’d go for her first.”
“…”
“But as long as Takitsubo is safe, we can recover the situation. So please get her in a car and get really far away. If you avoid Item’s hideouts, you should be able to buy a lot of time.” Kinuhata took a stun gun out of her pocket and made Takitsubo hold it. “You always seem super-unsteady, so this weapon is good for you. Even if it misfires, you won’t die.”
Bang!! An explosion ripped through a nearby room.
It was from the lounge where Mugino and Kakine were.
“Get going, like, crazy fast, please!” said Kinuhata, turning her back to them.
Before he could say anything, the small girl had already run off toward the battlefield.
3
The explosion’s impact made the entire building shake helplessly.
As the chief guests ran about, trying to escape the indoor leisure facilities, Saiai Kinuhata walked through the lobby.
Men from School’s ancillary organization were lying on the floor. Kinuhata had thrashed them. She walked next to them, kicking away nearby guns and rifles.
Then suddenly, her face jolted to the side.
By the time she realized she’d been shot, a second and third impact flashed through her, and her small body was sent flying to the floor. She let herself land, then slid across and hid herself behind a nearby pillar.
…A sniper. Where?
The impacts had struck her in the head, chest, and lower gut—all vital spots. If not for the shield from her ability, she’d have died for certain. She placed her palm on a crushed bullet on the floor.
Steel rounds…The magnetic sniper rifle from before? If its initial speed is subsonic, then judging by the way this thing is crushed, they’re five to seven hundred away.
As she thought, she reached into an inside pocket. Her fingers came out with pieces of metal between them, about the size of juice cans, with thirty-centimeter metal rods on the ends. They looked kind of like maracas, or maybe old-fashioned grenades, but it was neither.
They were portable anti-tank missile tips.
The fleeing patrons looked at her in shock, but she ignored them.
She would aim the tips between her fingers in that direction, then pull the short strings attached to their back with her other hand. It would look like setting off crackers at a party or drawing back the string of a bow. After a breath, she jumped out from behind the pillar and looked straight out the broken window. A bullet hit between her eyes that very moment, but she ignored it and took aim.
Then, without hesitating, she pulled the strings.
With a dull shhhp noise, the power of compressed air sent the missile tips flying from their grips. After traveling about ten meters forward, they ignited—and, scattering flames behind them, closed the five-hundred-meter distance in the blink of an eye.
When all the missiles crashed into the side of the building, the building blew up like crushed mille-feuille. Perhaps as a gift of its excellent aseismic construction, it managed to at least avoid coming down entirely.
“Whoa, that’s crazy. I bet Sunazara and his magnetic sniper rifle are a goopy mess now, eh? Maybe that’s all someone we got in a hurry could manage.”
A bright voice came to her.
When Kinuhata turned around, Teitoku “Dark Matter” Kakine was just coming out of the hallway.
“Heh, wreckage from Project Dark May? You must have it tough. That was the one where they took Accelerator’s calculation patterns and used them to optimize a bunch of espers’ personal realities, right?”
“…”
“And you ended up with a self-defense ability. Though originally, it was an air control–type ability. Automatically deploying a defensive field made from your ability around you, same as Accelerator, is all you can do, eh? Haven’t you ever felt sorry for yourself?”
“Not really,” answered Kinuhata shortly. “I’m super–well off compared to the PRODUCE test subjects. They got their brains sliced up like birthday cakes so people could figure out where personal realities come from.”
“Right,” said Kakine, sounding uninterested.
Still on her guard against the man before her, she asked, “What happened to Mugino?”
“Right, well. Nothing much.”
His words were blunt. Just from that, Kinuhata knew: As a Level Four, she couldn’t stand up to someone who treated the fourth-most-powerful Level Five in Academy City like that. She’d gotten a vague impression to that end when they’d fought in the Particle Physics Institute, and now she knew she was right.
“So where’s the Ability Stalker? That’s all I want to know. Tell me where she is and I’ll let you go.”
“Who would be stupid enough to make a deal like that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Frenda, for example.”
“…”
“I’m just saying you’ve got the choice. And to make things clear, your Level Four Nitrogen Armor can’t beat my Dark Matter. No fancy tricks are gonna close that gap, either.”
Kinuhata said nothing.
As she glared silently at him, Kakine said, “Where is the Ability Stalker?”
“It doesn’t seem like I have the right to refuse…,” said Kinuhata, smiling a little.
As she spoke, she grabbed a nearby bench and hurled it.
But…
With a roar, a strange explosion burst out from Kakine.
It shattered the bench flying at him and even batted Kinuhata’s body to the side.
Her small frame flew ten meters through the air, then crashed through a thin wall and into another room.
Kakine watched and smiled thinly. “Weighed your pride against death, eh? Emotional, but certainly not practical.”
Then he turned to a nearby subordinate and said, “Retrieve her.”
“Retrieve…You mean she’s still alive after that?”
“That’s the sort of esper she is.”
4
Shiage Hamazura and Rikou Takitsubo made it to the elevator lobby.
He hit the button on the wall, and the display—paused on floor 48—quickly began to descend to the twenty-fifth floor, where they were. Meanwhile, Hamazura took out a lock-picking tool…Parking garage must be underground. Everyone here’s probably got a fancy car, but no time to be picky. We’ll go for the one closest to the elevators—
The elevator stopped on floor 25.
With a gentle electronic ding, the metal doors automatically parted.
“Oh, there you are.”
And then Hamazura heard the voice of despair.
One of School’s members came walking out into the hallway: The number-two Level Five who could even fight Shizuri Mugino. With strange nails attached to his right hand, the man approached slowly.
“I was looking all over for you, y’know! You’re the search esper, right?” he said, tossing something he’d been dragging with his left hand to them. “It” flew a few meters and landed at Hamazura’s feet. “It” was Saiai Kinuhata, with whom they’d just parted.
“…!!”
“She made a good decision. Item’s core isn’t the Level Five—it’s you, right? Man, if you’d gotten out of here, that would’ve been rough. On the other hand…” Teitoku’s voice lowered. “You can’t run away at this point.”
Each of his steps counted down the lives of Hamazura and Takitsubo.
/> Hamazura turned his attention to the gun up his sleeve. Then, looking at the open elevator out of the corner of his eye, he spoke to Takitsubo in as quiet a voice as he could. “(…You get on the elevator and go down.)”
“(…But Hamazura—,)” she whispered back.
“(…Either way, if I abandoned you and ran away from School, it would mean the end of Item! Damn it, I’m caught between a rock and a hard place!!)”
Teitoku Kakine stopped walking.
He wasn’t hesitating, nor was he trying to let them go. He was already in effective range as a Level Five. “So what’re you gonna do? How long do good-byes usually take?”
“…!! Go!!”
Hamazura tried to push Takitsubo into the elevator.
But instead, she reached for his hand.
Their positions whirled around like they were ballroom dancing, and then she pushed him toward the elevator. Hamazura, confused at the sudden act, fell onto his rear.
Only Takitsubo’s hand went into the elevator.
She pressed the B1 button—for the underground parking garage.
“What the hell are you—?”
“Sorry, Hamazura.” From the other side of the automatically closing doors, Takitsubo gazed at him. “I asked everyone about the furnace. I don’t want you to turn into ashes like that.”
Her eyes were smiling softly.
“It’s okay. I’m a Level Four, and you’re a Level Zero. I promise I’ll protect you.”
“…!!”
Before he could say anything, the door finished closing and the elevator began dropping like a rock. Something absurd had just happened, but on the other hand, he was out of immediate danger, and he felt an odd sense of relief wash over him.
Still sitting on the floor, he put his back to the wall and looked up at the ceiling.
Weren’t espers supposed to think our lives weren’t worth anything? he thought as the floaty sensation unique to fast-moving elevators came over him. He put a hand over his face, still looking up. There are heaps of us. We’re like disposable umbrellas. Even if we die, we’re supposed to get burned to a crisp in an incinerator and our ashes thrown out with the rest of the trash.
“Damn it,” he mumbled.
Hamazura probably hadn’t been the only one experiencing shock when he cooked the black sleeping bag in that furnace. The girl watching from behind him had been shocked just the same. Had Rikou Takitsubo always wanted to protect people like him, or had the furnace incident given her a change of heart? He didn’t know.
But he did know one thing.
Rikou Takitsubo had stood up to the number-two man in Academy City to save him, a Level Zero.
“…This is a load of crap,” he mumbled, putting a hand on the wall and slowly getting up. “This is a load of bullshit!!”
He slammed the wall with his open hand, pounding a button on it and causing the elevator to stop.
Clenching his teeth, he took a few deep breaths. To be honest, he had virtually no chance of winning. That Kakine guy was a Level Five, and he wasn’t the only bad guy. He at least had those black-clothed guys, probably from their ancillary organization.
But…
“Is there even a place for Level Zeroes? Of course there is. Can you get by without victimizing other people? Of course you can, damn it!!”
Once, he’d met a Level Zero completely different from him in the Dangai University database center, and now his words naturally came to mind.
“You had enough strength to form Skill-Out— If you’d used that to help people in weaker positions, you’d all be in a different place right now!! You had the strength to fight back against strong espers— If you’d used that to reach out to people in need, everyone in Academy City would have accepted you!!”
“…Yeah.”
Shiage Hamazura pushed the button for the twenty-fifth floor again, where he’d parted with Takitsubo, and closed the elevator doors.
“That’s right, asshole,” he declared, cutting off his own retreat and returning to the battlefield where the Level Five waited.
5
The elevator stopped on the twenty-fifth floor.
The automatic doors opened, and Hamazura passed through them to find the scene he’d predicted.
“What? Came back, eh?” stated School’s Level Five, Teitoku Kakine.
Near him, in the same position as she had been when he’d thrown her, was Saia Kinuhata.
And at the unscathed man’s feet was Rikou Takitsubo, head down, face unreadable, limp on the floor. He couldn’t even tell whether she was alive or dead.
Kakine cracked his neck joints. “I gotta tell you, she’s got no direct combat skills, but she came at me pretty hard. Must have been an application of her search ability—she interfered with my involuntary diffusion field and then reversed it, trying to hijack my own ability. Sheesh, if she’d developed normally, she could have been the eighth one.”
Each word of praise just sounded like he was making a fool of her.
Hamazura didn’t say a word. Silently, he whipped out the gun hidden up his sleeve and pointed it at him.
“Oh, you weren’t finished yet?”
Suddenly, another voice.
A girl wearing a fancy dress came around the corner behind Kakine.
The…the crane girl from before?!
Hamazura hesitated for a moment about where to aim.
“You’d better not.”
That moment, Shiage Hamazura lost the ability to move even a finger.
“I would’ve needed to kill you before, but now that I have the Tweezers, I don’t have to—you’re only part of their ancillary organization.”
His body wasn’t paralyzed for any reason. Physically, he was totally fine. But there was an idea blossoming in his mind—one that he couldn’t shoot even if he wanted to.
He felt like he was trying to stomp on a kitten taking a nap.
He felt like he was trying to kill a sick kid to steal his valuables.
He felt like he was accidentally pointing his gun at Rikou Takitsubo.
“You’ve got a mean face, but you’re a nice person on the inside. I knew I should have used my power from the start,” said the girl in the dress, smiling. “My Heart Measure can freely control the distance between people’s hearts. What do you think would happen if I set us to the same distance as all of your friends?”
“Ugh…!!” What is this? Some kind of telepathy?!
“Why not call it quits?” she continued. “Right now, I’m at a distance of twenty units…In other words, the same distance as between Shiage Hamazura and Rikou Takitsubo. You can’t shoot Takitsubo, so you can’t shoot me. I know you came all the way back up here for her sake. You’d never be able to hurt her, would you?”
The gun clattered, shaking in his trembling hand.
He couldn’t do it. He knew Takitsubo and the girl in the dress were different people, but he just couldn’t do it.
Kakine made a look like his fun was spoiled. “This is dumb. Now it seems like we’re the bad guys.”
“Hey, a boy and a girl protecting each other is romantic. It’s so rare I almost don’t want to break it.”
“Yeah. It’s too bad. Wonder if she’ll do us a favor and die without us doing anything.”
Hamazura’s shoulders jolted at that. “What the hell…? What do you mean?”
Kakine kicked the clear case near Takitsubo over in his direction. “The Crystals. Did you know she was using them?”
“…Yeah, for her ability…”
“Strictly speaking, they induce a physical rejection and make her ability go out of control. More specifically, they used ’em in the Explosion Experiment for Analyzing Runaway Ability Laws. Most of the time, it’s nothing but a disadvantage—but in really rare cases, someone’ll be able to get better results when berserked. This girl was probably one of them.”
Kakine sounded like having to explain every little thing was boring him.
“She won’t last long in this st
ate. She might be fine if she never uses her ability again, but one or two more times and she’ll break down.”
Break down. The unsettling phrase made Hamazura grimace.
Kakine ignored him and went on. “We don’t even need to finish her off like this. Without her search ability, her death doesn’t mean much.”
“Just so we’re clear, she collapsed of her own volition,” the girl said flatly. “It’s because she kept forcing herself to use those Crystals to fight against School in this building—if we were really going in for the kill, there’d be nothing left.”
Hamazura glared at her, unable to move in any meaningful way, even as the two School members ignored him and pushed the elevator button.
“Anyway, now what?” said Kakine simply as they waited. “Kill him, or let him live?”
“Leaving him be won’t be a problem, will it? Item’s on the brink of destruction anyway. They can’t stop us.”
Hamazura gnashed his teeth at the words “brink of destruction,” but he just couldn’t pull the trigger. Her Heart Measure ability had him completely under her control.
“Killing him would be easier.”
“Look, didn’t your personal reality get messed up through your IDF because of the search ability? Shouldn’t you check yourself? You going out of control is a lot more dangerous than a near-dead Item. I’d rather not die because an ally went on a berserk rampage.”
Teitoku Kakine cracked his neck again, annoyed. He wasn’t holding a gun. He must have had just that much faith in his ability. But if worse came to worst and his ability did go haywire, Kakine himself would be the first one caught up in it.
“Guess I don’t have a choice. Let’s go back. The check is simple, but we don’t have the machine here.”
As though timed, the elevator arrived on this floor.
Shit!! Hamazura pushed the gun’s hammer up with his thumb.
But the dress girl’s face remained steady. “Our current distance is twenty. The same as between Shiage Hamazura and Rikou Takitsubo. But I can make the distance even shorter, you know.”
A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 15 Page 14
