He heard a clack.
The assailant was getting ready to charge toward him.
“Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”
Screaming, Hamazura kept firing bullets on full automatic.
Ping-ping-ping-ping-ping-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding!! Sounds of little pieces of metal getting shaved away rang out in succession. The spat-out cartridges ran into one another in midair, adding noises to the gunfire that were similar to bells ringing.
However, they were not the sounds of the attacker’s body being pulverized.
They were the sounds of every single rifle bullet bouncing off the multiple white wings that had poured out of his big, flat mask.
They wouldn’t reach.
As despair began to swirl in Hamazura’s breast, the assailant moved.
Roar!!
Flapping all his wings, he closed a dozen meters in a mere instant.
There was no room to dodge.
He continued, ramming into Hamazura like a cannonball.
A dull creaking noise burst out from inside Hamazura’s upper body.
“Gahhhh?!”
Maybe it was a good thing that he could even scream.
His body flew several meters through the air before falling onto the snow. He felt hard roots pushing up against his back. With that attack alone, the taste of blood spread through his mouth.
Swoosh. The sound of something cutting through wind rang in Hamazura’s ears.
Multiple wings extended from the assailant’s gold-and-white mask, undulating like whips, lashing out into the entire surrounding area.
Hamazura rolled on the ground, stifling the scream clinging inside his throat.
Several of the conifers comprising the forest were torn through like paper. The ground nearby was gouged out, and a thick tree began to fall with a craaaaack toward Hamazura as he continued to roll.
The white wings and mask were made of the same stuff.
They spread out unnaturally, like heat extending sculptured candy.
“No…,” muttered Hamazura.
He’d never actually seen Teitoku Kakine use his ability. But something fundamental was wrong about this that let him understand it anyway.
“That’s not Dark Matter—that’s not even an Academy City ability…?”
The assailant didn’t respond.
Instead, he slowly brought his white wings to bear on Hamazura.
“?!”
Hamazura frantically got up and tried to retreat to gain distance, but then a different impact hit him from directly behind. This set of assailants wasn’t alone. Hamazura had only just now realized that, but it was too late. The trunk of the conifer behind him was torn through in one swipe as multiple white wings attacked from right behind him.
It was probably fortunate that the cut-down tree trunk hit him instead of the white wings.
However, the hammer-like impact still slammed into him.
This time, he couldn’t even scream.
After falling onto the white snow, he noticed the red stains around him. He’d been hurt so badly it had taken him a few moments to realize his own body was bleeding.
Lying there, he looked around to check his surroundings.
Three of them, and those were only the visible ones.
He had no idea when or where the last one had been hiding.
“Esper abilities are like flames.”
One of the attackers spoke.
Because he was wearing the same mask, Hamazura couldn’t tell which of them was opening his mouth.
“Flames are a powerful weapon only humans can control, to be sure. But simply flailing flames around makes it no more than a primitive man’s torch. The civilized use flames to strike metal—and so it is with abilities.”
I see, thought Hamazura.
Level Five abilities, like Shizuri Mugino’s Meltdown and Teitoku Kakine’s Dark Matter, produced effects that didn’t obey the regular laws of nature. So what about the new matter produced using that power? Didn’t it create an entirely new structure of matter, one which entirely ignored the derivation of elementary particles, atoms, and molecules that had been going on since the Big Bang?
Just like how carbon nanotubes were different from simple lumps of carbon. Just like how semiconductors using advanced calculations were different than lumps of glass. Just like how steel processed at high heats was different than soft metal.
A new substance created using energy not of this world would have properties not of this world.
Enough to disparage a true Level Five ability as a primitive man’s torch.
“…Don’t get too comfortable,” spat Hamazura. “Did you give the Crystals to Mugino so you could use the flame called the fourth strongest as a weapon, making her into some kind of flamethrower stuffed with naphtha? And it didn’t work out, so you came to grab her before the embers went out. Now what will you do? Hook her up to medical equipment and change her into a blast furnace for manufacturing a new form of matter?”
If that was the case, the project would have no need for Hamazura.
He was already on the run from Academy City. They’d kill a Level Zero without a doubt.
The masked assailants closed in on him from three directions.
He couldn’t beat them with just one assault rifle. Plus, the Level Five they were based on was strong enough to tackle entire army units by himself. Whether he brought out tanks or hand grenades, he’d never be able to take down even one of them.
That was right.
So if he wanted to fight them head-on…
Shiage Hamazura hadn’t stood up against them just to stay quiet and be killed.
“Hey,” he said, still on the ground, relaxing his arms and legs. “I was rolling around like that for so long that my pocket spilled out somewhere. Know where it went?”
The assailants ignored him.
They’d swiftly kill the two rebels, recover Shizuri Mugino, and return home.
That was the only thing on their minds—but then, suddenly, they felt a hard, gravelly sensation at their feet.
It had sharp, clear shards. Like the remains of a broken glass container.
“Damn it. That was my only hope,” he murmured as though he’d given up on something. “…I finally picked up the item I needed to negotiate with Academy City—and now you’re ruining it!”
A bad premonition swelled within them.
Still lying on the ground, Hamazura said this next to the assailants who were supposedly in a position of absolute superiority: