It had been easy to steal one of Academy City’s tanks.
For starters, Mikoto was the number one esper when it came to controlling electricity, and while modern tanks still ran mainly on diesel, many of their parts had been digitized. Mikoto could hack directly without needing any cables or dedicated interfaces, so weapon systems like these were no enemy for her.
There were soldiers out there who wore plated armor that would exhaustively reflect any and all electromagnetic waves as defense against electric-type abilities, and some powered suits featured a chemical system to contract springs to avoid electrical vulnerabilities. But apparently those countermeasures hadn’t been applied to vehicles.
After stopping one tank’s engine from afar and unlocking the hatch, Mikoto had jumped inside and beat up the drivers.
They had tried to raise the alarm, but Mikoto had been interfering with their radio communications, too. Much like how she had been messing with the radars comprehensively monitoring the battlefield and the aerial photography of UAVs. Nobody would notice if she left the battle line.
“Hmm. These go faster than I thought they would,” she murmured from within the tank the Sister was operating.
“Modern tanks have always maintained the output necessary to drive on highways without issue, but going up to one hundred and fifty kilometers per hour on this snowy road must be unique to Academy City technology, reports Misaka offhandedly.”
“Well, these hunks of metal cost seven billion yen a pop, so they’d better be able to help at least this much.”
“Actually, it’s hunks of composite alloys, Big Sister, corrects Misaka. Tanks these days can fire their main cannons at Mach 4.5, adds Misaka idly. That’s more output than your Railgun.”
“It’s not like speed is the only thing that matters.”
Railgun was just what people called her, and it was the ultimate symbol of electric-type abilities; still, it wasn’t as though every bit of her pride was concentrated into only one kind of ability. In fact, her true value was measured in her versatility, her many options to attack enemies from different angles.
…Well, I guess that would put that idiot in a league of his own, since he can erase anything I can possibly throw at him.
“I apologize for interrupting you during your muttering, but—”
“Nyah?!”
“—it seems we’ve been spotted visually by the independent unit preparing the Nu-AD1967 nuclear warhead, reports Misaka.”
Had their full-speed dash worked against them? Their enemies must have seen the snow clouds whipping up in the tank treads’ wake through a night-vision scope or something.
Something fired in the distance.
Mikoto’s spine tingled—she’d been so worked up over the nuclear warhead that for a moment she feared the worst, but it soon became evident that what just went off was something else. The missiles coming their way were small, but there were a lot of them.
“They appear to be surface-to-surface missiles for bombardment, cautions Misaka. They number thirty to forty.”
“Nyeah, yeah.”
“It seems you’ve been acting catlike for some time, but what shall we do? Asks Misaka, urging action.”
“Well…” Mikoto hummed as she put her hand on the hatch above her head. She opened the cylindrical, small manhole-sized hatch as wide as it could go, then hoisted her upper body out of the top section of the main gun turret. “I’ll do what I do best and fry them up, of course!!”
As she shouted, sparks sprayed from her bangs.
What shot out wasn’t a lightning lance. Massive electromagnetic waves were radiating out in a wide cone in front of her, in a way that disrupted the radars used for targeting systems by the surface-to-surface missiles speeding through the air at over twice the speed of sound.
The missiles immediately lost their mark and fell away in other directions.
Several explosions went off, and even though they didn’t hit her directly, Mikoto felt like she’d just been slapped across the face. But she ignored it and looked forward.
“Keep going!! If we retreat, we’ll just give them time to prepare another volley! We’ll take them all out right now!!”
“Mi…Misa…”
“?”
“Misa—serious—kami—electro-interference—sakami—network—sakamisaka—connection severed—misa—emergency—kamisa—restoration—kamisaka-blub-blub.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!! Are you losing it?! What happened?! Wait, what? You just now realized you have a vulnerability to high-intensity jamming from the strongest ability of your type?”
As the Sister began to writhe into a trance in the driver’s seat, Mikoto hastily cut off her electromagnetic wave emissions.
“Phew…A mass-production model could never match the original, says Misaka, reaffirming her own position in a somewhat self-deprecating manner.”
Obviously, though, if she stopped the jamming, they’d had no way of avoiding the brunt of the enemy’s next bombardment.
“Just charge!!” shouted Mikoto. “If we get close enough, they’ll be too afraid of getting caught in the explosions to keep up these huge missile volleys!!”
Vrrooom!! The diesel engine roared as if in response. Not even two kilometers remained between them and the point where the surface-to-surface missiles had originated.
The independent unit seemed to have given up on the artillery attack, but instead, they sent a formation of tanks out from their hiding places behind a hill. Though Mikoto and the Sister’s tank could probably survive a few hits, taking concentrated fire from dozens of main guns would undoubtedly be more than enough to turn them into a pile of scrap.
“This is only an estimate, but we’ll be blown up twenty times before we cross five hundred meters, says Misa—”
“Then I’ll finish things before that happens!!”
A black shadow swayed and squirmed around Mikoto’s tank.
No, that wasn’t right.
It was actually a huge amount of iron sand, which had been sleeping beneath the snow. Mikoto had ripped every last bit she could find in the surrounding area out to about two hundred meters, and was using magnetic force to have it all accompany her.
From the enemy’s point of view, it must have looked like a solid wall.
A wall of hopelessness, like a giant tsunami about to make landfall.
This was what it meant to face the number three Level Five.
Long-range attacks weren’t all she had up her sleeves.
Mikoto only knew of two people she couldn’t steamroll no matter what, even with this adaptability. Positive and negative. Just two espers, standing at opposite poles.
“Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!”
Along with her shout, the massive wave of iron sand caught up to Mikoto from above and shot toward the enemy line a step ahead. Like a roaring tsunami, or maybe like a living snake, the mountain of iron sand swept over the enemy’s defensive positions at a high speed, and even the Russian independent unit didn’t seem able to deal with it.
Of course they couldn’t.
A vortex of iron sand wouldn’t so much as flinch even if they shot at it, no matter how intense the gunfire.
The tank, driven by the Sister, leisurely plunged toward the center of the chaotic enemy lines. Mikoto leaned completely out of the hatch and focused her gaze straight ahead.
A giant truck-like vehicle sat at the center of the enemy formation. It was unique, with over twenty wheels, bigger even than a passenger car on a train. But the part where the truck’s bed should have been had instead been loaded with a very long tube. Stood up on its end using an oil hydraulic cylinder, it was probably the platform for the missile with the Nu-AD1967 on board.
Then, as if to make the situation even more urgent, flames burst from its rear end.
Mikoto took a mighty leap from the top of the tank as it slid sideways over the snow.
…I don’t care if it’s an ICBM or a strategic warhead with its outer shell replaced. Fundamentally, these systems are controlled electronically. One lightning lance, and it’ll be useless.
Using Railgun would be careless—she wanted to prevent any nuclear material from leaking out. Right now, it would be safer and more certain to destroy only the control circuits to turn this weapon into a pile of garbage.
Right as the arms holding the missile in place were about to break away, Mikoto, in midair, focused on her bangs.
With a spark of pale blue, Mikoto yelled at the top of her lungs.
“Blow up!!”
✦ ✦ ✦
