Baaaaang!!
A sharp, splitting gunshot rang out across the white snowfield.
✦ ✦ ✦
There was a red color, sullying the pure-white landscape.
Hamazura hadn’t closed his eyes.
Because he hadn’t needed to.
“Wha…?”
The shocked voice came from the helmeted woman in the suit. And no one could blame her—Hamazura wasn’t the one who had fallen with the gunshot. Nor had it been Takitsubo or Mugino. It had been several of the ten soldiers surrounding them.
At the same time, hidden behind the clusters of trees in the woods and past the bulges of hills, encircling the men surrounding Hamazura and the others at an even wider circle, were about thirty men and women pointing assault rifles their way. They were Russians, but they didn’t appear to be regular soldiers. Their clothing was civilian, and their rifles were somewhat battered, giving them a strange sense of regular usage.
“You alive, Hamazura?!”
Shouting that in Japanese was Digurv.
Next to him, also gripping a rifle, was Grickin, who tsked and said, “You told us to run away, but in the end, everyone came flying back, saying they couldn’t abandon you!! Anyway, are those guys friends of the ones trying to set up the Steam Dispenser?!”
“…Not quite, but thanks. We cheated death thanks to all of you.”
Hamazura slowly exhaled and relaxed himself.
He’d been spotting shadows in the scenery while they were talking to the helmeted woman. After that, he had to drag out the conversation until they finished getting into position.
“…How?”
The woman appeared sincerely confused.
“The state of the war between Academy City and the Russian military has been overwhelmingly one-sided the entire time. After all that, how could we possibly have been placed in a predicament this easily…?”
“Academy City was only in an advantageous position during the war because of its large-scale coordination and their powerful support of one another…Doesn’t mean everyone’s invincible—especially not independent teams running around by themselves like you guys.”
Hamazura forced his still-stiff cheek muscles to move to create a smile.
“You know I’m right. If every single one of you was actually invincible, Takitsubo and I wouldn’t ever have escaped Academy City to begin with.”
“Do you think you’ve won?” spat the woman, smiling scornfully at them. She didn’t seem to care about her fallen colleagues. “The system that’s been monitoring you all until now is still running. Reinforcements will be here soon. Your situation won’t change.”
“Probably…So we’ll just have to finish things before that.”
After saying that, Hamazura spoke to the people from the settlement.
“Digurv, Grickin. You guys tie up the ones in the white combat uniforms and watch them to make sure they don’t try anything funny.”
And then he turned his head toward Item.
“Mugino, you hold Takitsubo back. I’m about to do something a little stimulating.”
“What…?” began the helmeted woman in the suit, but Hamazura didn’t answer her.
Instead, he immediately pulled out his gun and shot her in the right elbow and right knee.
Bang-bang!! Two dry gunshots rang out, and the woman in the suit let out a long scream. Hamazura’s expression didn’t change. He grabbed her suit collar in both hands, then started through the snow, dragging her behind him.
“…There’s a little cave about a hundred meters up. We’ll continue things there.”
His voice was utterly calm, with no emotion in it whatsoever.
“An Academy City interception team will get here soon. I’ve gotta get our negotiation tool ready before then. And I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get it. I’m after the Parameter List. It can be the real thing printed on paper or a password for getting to the data on the Internet. Anyway, you’re telling me everything you know. I’ll make it so your mouth will be open before you even realize it’s happening.”
“Hee-hee…”
“Humans sure are scary, huh?” he said softly, bringing his mouth next to her helmet so that Takitsubo and Mugino couldn’t hear. With an utterly flat voice. “If they can make the excuse that they’re protecting someone precious, they can do the most brutal things. That’s how it seems to me. And you’re about to see how cruel humans can really be.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Accelerator lay atop a hill.
Neither Last Order nor Misaka Worst was here. Only the white snow, stretching on as far as the eye could see. Accelerator had crashed into the unknown energy mass fired from the fortress eight thousand meters high, but even he didn’t understand what had happened after that. The white wings had disappeared from his back, too. He decided, at least, that his being barely alive like this meant he was able to stop the destruction at the last moment.
He heard a loud noise.
A large transport helicopter with two rotors on it. The hunk of metal was slowly descending to a spot near Accelerator as he looked up into the sky as he was lying there. A sliding door opened, and out of it came several people who looked more like a disaster rescue team than soldiers, wearing baggy protective gear reminiscent of space suits. He could see them bringing down a stretcher attached to their belts.
Retrieval.
Accelerator remembered the time he’d crushed Amata Kihara on September 30. It was the same as back then. He’d come through a grand battle and had invited grand chaos. Instead of leaving it to them to deal with, he put himself in the custody of Academy City’s underworld and taken on dirty jobs.
In the end, no matter how much he fought or how far he ran, even if he left Academy City and fled Japan, he couldn’t escape this massive cycle. He knew he’d faintly realized this. More than his own environment and situation, those of the Sisters and Last Order were just way too severe. He doubted they could live an honest life without Academy City’s support.
They picked up his exhausted body and put him on the stretcher. From above, they wound him in several layers of thick belts. Treating his body as though they were transporting a tool—no, a weapon, they loaded him into the giant helicopter.
He didn’t resist.
With a tremendous shaking, the transport helicopter began to leave the surface.
Strapped in with belts, Accelerator muttered dimly, “What about the kids?”
“Different team.”
Only a couple short words came back.
“Hmph,” snorted Accelerator. “…Then promise me this. Don’t ever give orders using that kid or the Sisters as a shield. And freeze the Third Season. Killing ’em, making ’em, doesn’t matter. Never toy with their lives for your own convenience ever again.”
“…”
“Release everyone in the same circumstances I was in, too. I won’t allow you to use anything as a shield to push dirty jobs on people in the underworld. If I catch you doing it even once, I will not hesitate to turn against you. I will crush you as many times, as many dozens of times as I need to, as long as you keep up these atrocities.”
“You don’t seem to understand anything. Do you think you’re in a position to make a deal?”
“No, you’re the one who doesn’t seem to get it.”
One sentence.
As if sensing danger from it, the researcher in the protective suit put a hand to the side of Accelerator’s neck. His ability worked on proxy calculations from the Misaka network. He was trying to check the switch on the electrode he needed to access the network.
However.
That mindset, of all things, was what Accelerator took advantage of.
The moment the researcher’s fingertips touched the switch, Accelerator, still strapped in with belts, swung his neck. As a result, the finger on the switch slid across it, sliding it to its maximum setting.
His power returned.
The black belts holding his body down instantly flew off. The man in the protective suit was blown to the helicopter wall, and thick cracks formed in the fitted reinforced-glass window. His nearby colleagues got up in a panic, but it was too late.
“This isn’t a negotiation, or a proposal, or a deal, or a plea, or an agreement, or a compromise, or a surrender.”
Accelerator’s arm touched the transport helicopter’s wall.
Like paper ripping, the military-steel wall began to be easily destroyed. An incredibly chilly wind blew in, but the people in the protective suits couldn’t pay attention to that. The terror of never knowing when the helicopter would plummet began to dominate the craft.
Amid it all, the king of monsters ruling over that fear simply said: