A Certain Magical Index, Vol. 15

by Kazuma Kamachi

  Zhaa!! The six wings flapped. They stirred up a gale, and as Accelerator buffeted it with his reflection, he realized what Kakine was after. He looked right at him to see him smiling thinly.

  “…I’m done reverse-engineering it.”

  “!!”

  Accelerator tried to get out of the way, but Kakine had already unleashed his six wings: as simple blunt killing instruments.

  Crack, thud, crush!! Dull sounds ripped through Accelerator’s innards.

  His body, reflecting every vector, was blown away. He crashed into a tree over ten meters away, breaking its thick trunk in one go.

  “Guh, pah…?!”

  The sunlight, the gale…their meaning…!!

  “Accelerator, you say you reflect everything, but that’s not quite accurate.”

  Kakine’s wings silently extended.

  They looked like giant swords now, over twenty meters long. Accelerator jumped over a building top, but the wings, positioned vertically, struck him like a crumbling tower.

  “If you reflect sound, you can’t hear anything. If you reflect matter, you can’t hold anything. You unconsciously filter out the harmful from the beneficial, and you only reflect what you don’t need.”

  As Accelerator coughed up blood, he jumped to the side, breaking through the remains of a water storage tank.

  The white wings swung down, ripping through the building from its roof to midway through, spreading dust everywhere.

  “My Dark Matter affected that sunlight and wind just now. I injected them with twenty-five thousand vectors each. After that, your reflection used its good-bad filter—I just had to attack from the direction of a vector you’re unconsciously letting through.”

  Even if Accelerator changed his reflection’s composition, Kakine would redo his search in an instant. It would trap him in a vicious cycle. He’d just accumulate damage while switching between attack and defense.

  “This is Dark Matter,” grinned Teitoku Kakine, holding his six wings at the ready. “A space filled with a foreign substance. A space you don’t know shit about.”

  Meanwhile, Accelerator manipulated the air to cause four tornadoes around him.

  And then he charged.

  His tornadoes wrenched Kakine’s white wings away, and Kakine’s white wings, along with their gales, erased Accelerator’s tornadoes. By the time the reinforced concrete structure began to creak and sway unreliably from the aftermath, the two were no longer there. They were moving parallel to each other, crashing their abilities together, sometimes jumping onto wind turbine propellers and sometimes leaping off traffic lights, dashing at an intense speed through the city streets.

  “I invented a bunch of schemes—stealing the Tweezers, taking a look into the Underline—but none worked,” shouted Kakine as he swung his dozen-meter-long wings around. “Looks like killing your number-one ass is the fastest route after all!!”

  “What’s that, small fry? Didn’t know you still had such a complex about being number two!!”

  “It’s not about that. I just wanted direct bargaining rights with Aleister!!”

  Accelerator ignored him and purposely crashed down onto the asphalt below. The impact caused pebbles to pop into the air; he flung out a hard, two-stage kick at them.

  A tremendous roaring noise split the air.

  The pebbles, their vectors altered, flew out faster than a Railgun shot, but disintegrated just four or five centimeters later. But the shock wave remained; the speed had already broken the sound barrier. However, Kakine, putting all his strength into his white wings, used them to disperse it. Their respective waves clashed between them, and the resulting surge of air ripped signboards and traffic lights from their fixtures.

  “That shithead Aleister has a bunch of plans going at once. Seems like they’re his highest priority. But even if you stop his crazy plans, he’ll switch to some alternative scheme, then go back to the original plan. Terrible guy. It’s like a game of Amidakuji—he goes to a different line for a bit, but he ends up right back on the track where he started.”

  Accelerator and Teitoku Kakine, who’d been running parallel, now made sharp turns, running at each other to clash at point-blank range. They were at a giant scrambled intersection, with four lanes on each side. Their clash completely cut off the flow of traffic, but nobody was complaining. Nobody could complain. Everyone instinctively knew that secrecy wasn’t the issue here—if they said something, they’d die.

  The two bodies crossed.

  Air exploded, and after a few seconds, a zbaaahhh rattled through it.

  “Which makes things simple. Just smash all his backup plans, and he won’t be able to compromise by going to a different line. And if I set myself up as the real core of it, rather than just a spare plan, Aleister can’t ignore me. It’s not like I want to destroy Academy City. I can use it. That’s why I’ll worm my way into the middle and get it all in the palm of my hand!!”

  Blood flew from both Accelerator and Teitoku Kakine.

  “Right. If you kill the current ‘core’ now, you’ll take over his plans.”

  They stopped, then slowly turned around to face each other.

  Teitoku Kakine was probably confident, beyond his big talk, that he could get accurate information on just how many plans Aleister had running at the same time.

  And Teitoku Kakine had a reason, something making him go that far. Accelerator didn’t think too much about that point. Wander into Academy City’s underbelly and you’d realize tragedies were as numerous as hills and stars. Teitoku Kakine had probably experienced one and broken. Just like how Accelerator had killed over ten thousand people for the experiment. And how he had thrown away his life for the sake of one person.

  “Worthless,” he said, having predicted that. “Maybe you’re trying to give me sound arguments like you’re some perfect person, but it’s still all shit coming out of a filthy mouth.”

  “Hah. You don’t have the right to tell me off when you don’t even know how valuable your own position is. You’re the closest to having direct bargaining rights with Aleister.”

  “That’s all you had to say to prove what a cheap villain you are,” said Accelerator in disappointment from the wrecked intersection. “You can use a tragedy a bunch of ways. You can carry it with you, you can tell others about it, and you can use it to decide what direction to take your life in. But just because it happens doesn’t make it right for you to go after totally unrelated little brats, got it? The moment you start to think your grand cause makes it okay for you to kill civilians, you’ve cheapened yourself as a villain.”

  “Right, sure. That means a lot, coming from you,” replied Teitoku Kakine, sounding uninterested. He went on, “I’m not going after civilians because I like it or something. If I’m in a good mood, I’ll even let lower villains go free. But not if it’s a threat to my life. How many random onlookers and pedestrians have you crushed in this battle so far? You just sent pieces of asphalt flying faster than the speed of sound. The shock wave leveled everything. It was our battle.”

  “…”

  “That’s why I went after Last Order—and that brat who looked like her guardian. Don’t lecture me from on high, murderer. You’ve got no right to tell me shit when you’ve let those onlookers die just to kill me. You think you’re an exception or something?”

  “Hah. Let onlookers die just to kill you, eh?” But Accelerator, denounced, laughed. “You really are third-rate. You don’t have the aesthetic, and that’s why you can only spout bullshit like that.”

  “Eh?”

  “Do you even know why I’m number one and you’re number two?”

  Laughing, Accelerator slowly spread his hands.

  “It’s because there’s a wall between us you can never get past.”

  Teitoku Kakine felt his head nearly explode with anger, but then he noticed something.

  What it was like around them.

  True, Accelerator and Dark Matter’s clash had messed up the city streets
. High-rise building windows had been shattered, broken traffic lights were strewn about the roads, and roadside trees had been whipped around so hard they were now stuck in concrete walls.

  But something was missing.

  The tragedy.

  Despite the glass fragments pouring down like rain, nobody was injured. The raging winds had diverted their course and the signboards had shielded people late to escape, miraculously protecting the crowds. The rest was the same. Not a single person hurt. He couldn’t check every single one, but he knew if he went back along the course of their battle, there would be many who had been defended by invisible hands.

  Are…are you…Kakine’s throat dried up.

  “Are you telling me you protected them…?”

  He thought back to the first shots. Accelerator had fired a gale at Teitoku Kakine, but he could have done a more powerful surprise attack as well. But if he had, the aftermath would have blown away Last Order’s acquaintance, but…

  In short, that was his way of life.

  Even embroiled in a Level Five death match, number one in the city vs. number two, even though the slightest diversion of his attention would have created a fatal opening, Accelerator had continued to protect innocent people.

  “You’ve…gotta be shitting me. How much can you fucking control?”

  Accelerator looked bored. He just grinned scornfully, as if this much was only natural—why couldn’t Teitoku Kakine do it?

  “You angry now, small-timer?” said Accelerator, as though this were all absurd, to Teitoku Kakine, awash with shock. “This is a true villain.”

  Even after all that, he was still a villain. How amazing did good people have to be in his mind?

  “!! Don’t get full of yourself, Acceleratooooorrrrrrr!!”

  With a shout, Teitoku Kakine’s six wings immediately swelled with power. He changed their length, then their properties—until the white wings spread out as lethal weapons. They were tense as a fully drawn bowstring, and their sights were set perfectly on six of Accelerator’s vital points.

  Accelerator just laughed. “Come on.”

  “Don’t get complacent. I’ve already analyzed your reflection’s filter. That fraud of a defensive power won’t work on these.”

  “Yeah, maybe this Dark Matter you control doesn’t exist in this universe,” said Accelerator, beckoning with his index finger. “Textbook laws don’t apply, and light waves and EM waves that touch those elementary particles go off in vectors they’re not supposed to. So yeah, I guess trying to use this universe’s vector calculations for it ends up putting holes in my armor.”

  The bloodlust between them expanded.

  The center of the busy intersection was covered up with death.

  “I’ll just have to redo my calculations to include it. I’ll redefine the universe so that it’s constructed of particles including your Dark Matter, and then, once I officially unveil your ‘new world’ to the public, it’ll be checkmate.”

  “You think…you can use your vector control on my Dark Matter…?”

  “You think I can’t?”

  “Hah. You think you’ve got me all figured out, do you?”

  “Wouldn’t be much of an issue.”

  “…!!”

  “And sorry, but I don’t need to know everything about you anyway.”

  There was an explosive ga-bam!!

  They crossed for an instant.

  And thus, the match between number one and number two was settled.

  4

  Accelerator looked toward the ground. His crutch was there. It was probably one of the things that came flying from the direction of the onlookers as a side effect of the battle. He picked it up and returned his choker electrode’s switch to normal mode. A moment later, it sounded like the noise from around the busy intersection had gotten closer. About a hundred, a hundred fifty witnesses. But he wasn’t about to try to hide any of this. That was for the underlings to do. It was too trivial for him to worry about.

  “…” He turned around.

  Teitoku Kakine was lying on his face in the middle of the intricate intersection—the vectors of the white wings he’d created had been predicted, their control wrested from him, and then his body skewered. Red blood spread out in the middle of the intersection like some strange magic circle.

  But Dark Matter still wasn’t dead.

  And Accelerator wasn’t a good guy—he was a villain.

  That detestable “good guy” probably wouldn’t finish him off right now. He’d just pick up and leave. He might even meddle in the villain’s affairs and leave him away to get back on his feet. But Accelerator instead pulled the gun from his belt. The option of letting Teitoku Kakine go, when he’d chosen to use Last Order and civilians as his weakness to defeat Accelerator, didn’t cross his mind. Guess that’s the difference between a good guy and a villain, he thought distractedly.

  “See you, third-rate,” he muttered to the unconscious Kakine, flicking up the hammer on his gun with his thumb. “Less pathetic than a good guy taking you down anyway.”

  He rested his index finger on the trigger. This was the end. He wouldn’t rely on man’s goodwill or God’s miracles—his was the path of evil, a future created simply as a result of his actions. Intending to live his own way, he lined up the barrel with his enemy’s head and began to put one last bit of energy into his right hand.

  About to accomplish everything, with a peace built upon death just moments away…

  “Wait up, there, Accelerator!!”

  A loud, out-of-sight voice interrupted him. He looked over as a familiar face jumped out from the wall of curious onlookers. One wearing an unbelievably unstylish green jersey and no makeup. She was both a school teacher and a member of the peacekeeping organization Anti-Skill.

  Aiho Yomikawa.

  She ran straight over to him.

  “I don’t know where you’ve been this whole time. I couldn’t tell you what any of this means. But I can say one thing—give me that gun. You don’t need something like that!!”

  Yomikawa wasn’t carrying one. She wasn’t even carrying the bare minimum for self-defense, like those distinct batons or stun guns. The onlookers nearby must have thought she was an idiot. That it was an act of suicide to go up to an out-of-control esper, one who had just committed so much havoc unarmed.

  Yomikawa probably understood the dangers just fine.

  In fact, as a front-line Anti-Skill officer, she knew it a lot better than those onlookers.

  “I’m a villain.”

  “Then I’ll stop you.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Stopping you is the only choice I know.”

  She said stop, not defeat or kill. That was how she did things. Just as Accelerator had chosen the life of a villain, Aiho Yomikawa would never agree to point a weapon at a child she should be protecting. Accelerator stared right into her eyes. The strength of her will was in them. From his point of view, the compass she used to decide her actions was nonsensical. She’d probably found enough value in this to be worth giving up her life for.

  “Accelerator, it doesn’t matter if you’re a good guy or a bad guy. It doesn’t matter what kind of world you’re immersed in, either. What matters is me bringing you back, ’kay? However dark your world, however deep it runs, I will never give up on you. I promise you that I will pull you out of there.”

  At that moment, the two were on a level playing field. He was Academy City’s strongest Level Five, and she was an adult with no power whatsoever—but all that belonged in a different dimension now as Aiho Yomikawa stood in his way.

  “That’s why I’ll stand in your way. I do it for the children I need to protect, and for this peace we love. In that, I see you and Last Order there, and everyone living happily. You won’t need that gun in that future.”

  “…” Accelerator, for a little while, stayed silent and listened to her words.

  And then he came to a conclusion.

  He turned his gun, a
imed at Kakine, and pointed it at Yomikawa.

  That’s why…

  Aiho Yomikawa was an enemy. Even if she was a “good guy,” even if the reason for her actions was so Accelerator could be happy, she was obstructing the path of evil he needed to dominate. So he would get rid of her. Not kill her. He was good enough with a gun to go easy on her.

  …right here…

  Accelerator had people he needed to protect. Last Order, the Sisters, Kikyou Yoshikawa, and Aiho Yomikawa. That was why he would stick to his cruel nature. Even if the whole world, even if the people he needed to protect turned into enemies, he was determined to save those people from the darkness.

  …I’ll shoot her!!

  “You can’t.”

  The next thing he knew, Aiho Yomikawa was close to him, gently holding Accelerator’s gun-wielding hand in hers.

  “I know you’re a better villain than that.”

  The match was decided. Yomikawa began to take each of Accelerator’s fingers off the gun. She took the magazine out from under the grip, pulled the slide, and removed the bullets already loaded, too. Accelerator watched in a daze as she finished the job.

  And then…

  Crash!!

  Teitoku Kakine’s Dark Matter attacked, putting an end to Accelerator’s train of thought.

  He hadn’t been the target.

  Aiho Yomikawa’s eyes opened wide with shock. Then she slowly looked down at herself. The tip of one of those unknown white wings was sticking through her gut like a sword. Her green jersey was stained red with blood. Already red, and it didn’t take much time for it to start spreading terribly fast.

  Yomikawa tried to say something. But her body wavered, and she fell to the asphalt without resistance. Accelerator watched. Beyond where Aiho Yomikawa fell was a single figure. It was Teitoku Kakine, who should have been unconscious.

  On his back were six wings.

  What had happened didn’t bear any explanation.

  Slllp. The sharp feather thrust through the woman quickly removed itself.