They needed to find something to escape in.
Shiage Hamazura used a thick branch to dig in the snow.
Right before Shizuri Mugino had attacked, the Russian saboteur team had been bombed by an Academy City super-large fighter jet. The vital equipment for the Steam Dispenser and the bacterial wall had been blown away without leaving anything behind, and the saboteur team that was a slight distance away had been neutralized, too, but the vehicles that unit had tried to use to escape must have been caught in the avalanche and buried under the snow.
In the end, he hadn’t found anything.
The bacteriological weapon’s spray, the battle with number four, the defeat of the Academy City team using weapons “not of this world” and built up using Dark Matter…
At a glance, the results may have seemed so excellent they’d overturn his position as a Level Zero. However, Hamazura and Takitsubo’s original objective was to find something that would allow them to negotiate with Academy City’s leaders. All they’d done was go onto a side road; they hadn’t been getting anywhere down the main street.
They hadn’t found a negotiation tool.
If they stayed here like this, they’d be killed.
They needed to leave this place as soon as they could.
Near Hamazura, as he single-mindedly continued digging through the snow, were Takitsubo and Mugino, holding similarly thick branches and doing the same work. Mugino was Academy City’s number four Level Five, but after the Crystals and the previous battle, she, too, seemed not to be in a state to use Meltdown right away.
Rewrapping her disheveled scarf, Takitsubo said to him, “Hamazura. What should we do now? Should we pick up the masks the assault team was using and use them as a foothold for a negotiation tool?”
“We’ll gather up what we can, but I don’t think they’ll be enough by themselves. Would they really throw such an Achilles’ heel into the middle of enemy lines? That city’s darkness runs deep. For them, even letting those masks get out would probably be acceptable.”
“Let’s use my blood as insurance,” piped in Mugino as she continued working with her thick branch. “Number four’s DNA map. If we each take a chip with a bloodstain on it, we might have a better chance to throw them off if they split us up.”
“…Damn it all.”
But Hamazura was looking away from them. He’d stopped digging in the snow, too. He was looking at somewhere far away, it seemed to Takitsubo and Mugino. They moved their heads to follow his gaze.
And then.
There suddenly came the sound of multiple footsteps scattering the snow. Before they knew it, soldiers had surrounded them in a circle about ten meters away. An Academy City kill team, all wearing white from head to toe. Completely indiscernible through their masks and goggles, they gripped carbines in their hands with suppressors attached.
They’d probably been watching Hamazura and the others in a two- or three-layered formation until now.
Considering the people from Academy City’s underworld, the extra-large combat forces they’d sent in before now—Shizuri Mugino and the masked men—these attackers were a simple team. Meaning they knew perfectly how exhausted this trio was and had sent in optimal troop strength.
Their time was up.
The moment he realized it, his spirit, inside the body he’d been pushing to its very limits, immediately shattered. In fact, he was envious of Takitsubo and Mugino for still glaring at their enemies with a will to fight blazing in their eyes.
But they would have understood, too.
Rikou Takitsubo and Shizuri Mugino, who had been fulfilling important jobs in Academy City’s darkness, had value. It might not be business as usual for them, but there was still room for them to be “retrieved.” Hamazura alone, however, was different. Standing on the stage for this long had been absurd to begin with. Even if the higher-ups had chosen the option to take them alive, that would only apply to Takitsubo and Mugino. Hamazura alone would be shot and killed here like a piece of trash.
That was why their eyes displayed such excessive fighting spirit.
He was happy for it.
But at the same time, he realized he was somehow relieved. If he played his cards right, he’d keep sacrifices to a minimum. Not finding a tool to negotiate with the higher-ups was his own fumble, so he swore to stop any more damage. A clear goal had been born within him.
“…Well. You sure have been causing quite a lot of trouble.”
A new figure appeared, drawing close to Hamazura and the others as they stood surrounded by ten men. It was a woman with hair the hue of chocolate, wearing an expensive suit. However, ruining the whole image was the full-face helmet she had on. It made her behavior, which spoke to a proper upbringing, appear unnatural instead.
“Although, on the other hand, being able to contain things this much may have proven the strength of our security.”
“Who are you?”
“Someone like you,” answered the helmeted woman in the suit immediately. “We may even share the same chain of command.”
“I recognize the way you talk.”
“Oh, please.”
At the response, Mugino and Takitsubo exchanged glances. But a shared acquaintance’s presence didn’t mean they’d let them off the hook, of course. The world wasn’t that accommodating.
The woman in the suit continued. “You have a general idea of how you’ll be split up, I’m sure.”
“…”
“We’ll immediately recover Shizuri Mugino and Rikou Takitsubo. As for Shiage Hamazura, that’s the hard part…Well, the conditions probably don’t match. You seem to have built up enough of an interpersonal relationship to use you as a hostage for Takitsubo, but her fundamental movement capabilities are low to begin with. Even without mental shackles, the research can proceed only by isolating her in a concrete room, and if some sort of action was demanded, it would suffice to bury a super-small balloon in her brain, then remotely expand and shrink her cerebral cortex as needed.”
“Wait,” interrupted Hamazura. “Research? On Takitsubo? Not Mugino?”
“I would guess that those two, at least, have figured it out.”
“Figured what out?”
“Shizuri Mugino used Meltdown when you defeated the masked group outfitted with Teitoku Kakine’s Dark Matter. But it wasn’t that Takitsubo had merely given her verbal instructions. Her Ability Stalker, which interferes with AIM dispersion fields, affected Shizuri Mugino’s personal reality, almost forcing her to take aim…Actually, you could go so far as to say she temporarily overwrote the correctional information.”
He can’t mean…Hamazura thought in awe.
He’d heard that Takitsubo had tried something like that in order to fight Teitoku Kakine.
And Shizuri Mugino had possessed Crystals.
“No, that’s wrong.”
But after studying Hamazura’s face, Mugino quickly denied it.
“Takitsubo isn’t using the Crystals. In fact, we weren’t acting on any sort of operation, either. If we’d had a way to interfere with Level Fives to begin with, her role in Item would have been different…After all, if she could do that, she could strengthen anyone or make anyone go berserk.”
The helmeted woman in the suit shrugged and added, “Originally, the plan to make Takitsubo the eighth was independent of the Crystals. The Tree Diagram’s simulation results came out, but the real-life conditions were too severe and out of our grasp. That was why we set our sights on Crystals instead, which had a just barely similar effect…Of course, those simulations came out the same: almost completely hopeless.”
“…And yet, you still messed with Takitsubo’s body.”
“Yes, because the chance was just too enticing to pass up. After all, if she continued to evolve and became the eighth, she’d be able to reach through AIM dispersion fields and freely control other espers’ personal realities. I’m sure you’re not stupid enough to fail to understand what that means.”
If such a thing was possible…
The personal reality was the wellspring of every ability and phenomenon in the real world. Controlling it meant a lot more than just increasing or decreasing ability levels. To put it simply, she could give Railgun’s ability to Shiage Hamazura and demote Shizuri Mugino to a Level Zero. She could exchange abilities and change their types, too, as she wished. Even the realization of a double esper was a possibility. She could produce all sorts of unsystematic results that ignored affinities and talent.
She could give whatever ability she liked whenever she liked, and take whatever ability she needed wherever she pleased. She could populate a Level Five team for her own convenience, and as for enemy espers, even if it was the number one Accelerator, she could tear his entire personal reality away, disabling him, then kill him.
She’d be far more than the queen of Academy City in that kind of scenario.
There was only one word that could express such a being.
“You see, Rikou Takitsubo…could provide for all of Academy City’s functions on her own.”
The helmeted woman in the suit gave her answer.
“No—considering she could instantly produce abilities of the desired category and level, and also instantly strip away any unneeded abilities, she would reign as a far more advanced esper-raising machine than Academy City in its current state.”
A person with incredible value. So much that it toppled the assumption that there were only seven Level Fives.
“Takitsubo had always had a rare nature, but it was difficult to get her to bloom. We dug up the forbidden research from Kihara’s cohort and even brought out Crystals knowing the risks, but it wasn’t enough stimulation to gain the desired effect…But with this, the pathway to the eighth has opened. Thanks to your wonderful relationship and this terrible war.”
As far as Hamazura knew, the only time Takitsubo had seriously tried to interfere with someone else’s AIM dispersion field was when the second-ranked Teitoku Kakine had been about to kill him. Did that mean Academy City’s leadership had learned from that and purposely let them free to give her an “opportunity” to bloom?
And Takitsubo had obtained a little key.
It was still hard now, but with research, she would become the eighth. Even without the Crystals, she would become a terrifying beast capable of completely controlling the espers all around Academy City.
And she’d do it on her own, with only her one ability.
A being with capabilities that equaled or surpassed all of Academy City’s functions as an esper-raising organization.
Instead of Academy City, an Academy Individual.
However.
That wasn’t what Shiage Hamazura was most shocked about.
It was pushed down, hidden by the impact of the term eighth, but the helmeted woman in the suit had said something he couldn’t overlook. Something that, despite being a dropout, he could absolutely never acknowledge as an Academy City esper.
“…Takitsubo has always had a rare ‘nature’?” confirmed Hamazura, his voice shaking.
Yes.