There they were, right in front of him.
So he began to break every single one.
✦ ✦ ✦
With shrill cracks and creaks and crashes, the transparent vessels shattered. The white-and-black liquid inside them spilled out, marbling together on the floor.
He felt something abruptly tilt.
He couldn’t see it with his eyes, but it was something that was clearly there. And Touma Kamijou had definitely just felt its foundation shake.
✦ ✦ ✦
And.
With Acqua of the Back reducing its total power by half.
And Touma Kamijou destroying the foundation supporting it.
As the strongest Level Five created by Academy City and the angel of science fiercely attacked, Misha Kreutzev…
✦ ✦ ✦
The archangel’s roar ripped through the night sky over Russia.
✦ ✦ ✦
A scream filled with sinister emotion, utterly incomprehensible to the human mind but clearly different from the simple sound of an explosion.
Misha’s form, barely maintained in the shape of a human body, collapsed into a mush.
It reverted to a ball of pure power.
To an immense amount of energy.
And it was a bomb.
Accelerator, confronting the archangel from the closest position, gave a start; then, ignoring his electrode usage time, shot straight toward the archangel at full power.
…Doesn’t matter if it’s out of place, or incongruous, or whatever.
The power to press forward.
The power he never had when he’d been wandering around Russia after fleeing Academy City.
He detonated all of it.
Yeah, that’s right!! I want to protect her! I don’t want to lose her!! I don’t even want to think about that!! If I can protect that one illusion, I’ll face whatever reality I have to!!
He couldn’t control that massive power with simple reflection alone.
He didn’t know if the angel of science was an ally or an enemy, but he shouted this at her:
“H old it baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!!!!!!”
Did she have time to move?
Was she able to make it?
Immediately after.
✦ ✦ ✦
It detonated.
✦ ✦ ✦
A pure-white flash of light reached out, shaped like a dome. A terrifying light, all too pure, that swallowed everything. Light intense enough to burn one’s eyes even if they were shut painted over the unnatural night in bright white.
Normally, everything for dozens of miles around would have gone to ash.
It was an explosion due to a unique force. Even aside from that, if odd side effects occurred, it wouldn’t be strange. It was even highly likely it would have become a literal barren wasteland.
However.
Before the explosion could expand, it gave off unnatural distortions.
The angel of science rammed the massive power residing in her body into Accelerator, who then manipulated its vectors to create a transparent wall that surrounded the explosion in a spherical shape. The explosion had reached out about three hundred meters in the span of an instant and, covering it completely with an outer shell, too, further increased the force trying to tear through it from the inside.
Light and sound intensified.
But Accelerator held it back.
Two enormous powers contended, one from within and the other from without.
The entire event only took place over a few seconds.
And then…