At 8:30 PM, the switchyard became a battlefield.
Bluish-white flashes of light as if from a camera flash lit up the dark switchyard.
Misaka Imouto and Accelerator's feet kicked up the gravel.
The distance between them was less than 10 meters.
"Hah. What!? Are you just walking around casually without a plan? If you like pain that much, I'll make you cry so much you might as well take a cough drop now!"
With his arms still spread out, Accelerator bent over and closed in on Misaka Imouto like he was a carnivorous beast.
He did not need to think about defense. In fact, he did not even need to think about attacking. For someone who could reflect all kinds of attacks and therefore could kill his opponent just by touching them, a fight was nothing more than thinking of the fastest and most definite way of touching his opponent.
As he could reflect all kinds of attacks, there was no way of stopping his legs from bringing him closer. Misaka Imouto was faced with that unreasonable amount of violence that was like driving a tank into the middle of a group of demonstrators.
"Ah!?" was Accelerator's dissatisfied cry.
Misaka Imouto took steps back to put some distance between her and Accelerator as if she were fleeing from his advance. Misaka Imouto paid close attention to the situation around her and continued to flee back sometimes to the right and sometimes to the left. The carnivorous beast that was Accelerator chased after her with a look of pure boredom in his eyes.
"C'mon, c'mon, c'mon! That's pathetic! What the hell are you hoping for?! No matter how much time you buy yourself, there isn't gonna be a miracle!"
Misaka Imouto was not listening. She did nothing but put distance between her and her enemy while keeping that enemy in her range of vision. Accelerator felt like the blood vessels in his head were going to burst, but then he noticed that the girl was electrifying the surrounding air.
"Oh, come the hell on! Surely you know that's fucking useless! And I'm not going to play along with your pathetic attempts at resisting much longer!"
Accelerator laughed mockingly. He could reflect any attack that was thrown at him and Misaka Imouto was purposefully not firing the electricity at him out of fear of that. The sparks were flying around him, but no actual attack came his way.
"What's with her?"
Accelerator gritted his teeth, but then he noticed that he was short of breath. At first he thought he had used up too much oxygen by talking while running around, but it was too odd for that. A sharp stench sent off alarm bells in his head.
"Tonight is a windless night." Misaka Imouto's voice reverberated throughout the still air of the switchyard. "As such, Misaka may have a chance of winning, calls out Misaka."
Accelerator checked on his surroundings again. Misaka Imouto continued to run away, she was firing electrical attacks around him, he was oddly out of breath, and he could reflect any direct attack.
(Ohhh, I see. Ozone, huh?)
The oxygen in the air could be broken apart with electricity. Oxygen molecules were normally formed from two oxygen atoms, but once the two oxygen atoms broke apart, they had a disposition toward connecting together in threes as ozone.
Oxygen and ozone were two different things. Breathing it in would not satisfy one's lungs.
And as was obvious from its use in sterilization, it was toxic.
No attack would reach Accelerator, but that did not change the fact that he was a human that breathed in oxygen and breathed out carbon dioxide. If all the oxygen were removed from his surroundings, he would suffer from oxygen deprivation.
Misaka Imouto did not need to approach Accelerator. In fact, it was imperative that she kept her distance from him so that his attacks could not hit her while she continued to rob him of his oxygen.
"Good, good, excellent!! I take it back, you are a worthy enemy after all! Ha ha!! Now this is an excellent change of pace! After killing 10,000 of you, you've finally come up with a good idea!"
Accelerator chased after her while laughing out of enjoyment. Despite the fact that he was being cornered, he was still enjoying himself from the bottom of his heart.
"But!! There's one weak point!"
Misaka Imouto's shoulder's shook out of surprise.
"Your plan fails if I catch up to you!!"
Accelerator's foot suddenly caused the gravel behind him to explode. He had altered the vector for the motion of his foot. As if a rocket were firing from the bottom of his foot, he shot 7 meters forward like a bullet in one step. Misaka Imouto tried to jump further back, but Accelerator heartlessly flew forward many times faster than she could move.
"If you don't try to avoid this with everything you have, you really will die!"
As he yelled he struck with his left hand. The strike was gentle like he was stroking her cheek….and yet a cracking noise came from Misaka Imouto's neck upon receiving the attack. Her vision spun around as her entire body spun like a bamboo copter before landing on the gravel.
His attack did all that, but he had actually been holding back.
If Accelerator had seriously been trying to kill her, her body would have exploded the instant he touched her skin.
"Now for a question. How many times have you been killed!?"
As Accelerator gave a broken-looking smile, he looked like a darkness hanging over her.
The smile splitting across his face filled her vision.
Something like a jeer came from his mouth that was opened so wide that drool was about to spill out.
Accelerator had regained his utter advantage. Misaka Imouto was balled up on the ground, but the tip of his shoe weaved through the gaps in her defenses and stabbed into her. His fist flew and struck her on the back. With each strike, he was holding back enough that her body would not be destroyed. She was thrust into a spiral of intense pain as if she had been thrown into drum that was being repeatedly hit with a metal bat from the outside.
"Ghfh…!?"
Misaka Imouto was having trouble even remaining balled up and she finally lost to the force of a kick to the gut. She collapsed face up on the ground. Her forehead must have been cut because she could not see out of one eye due to flowing blood. She could see Accelerator breathing erratically in her blurry vision. He wiped away the drool that was flowing down from the smile splitting across his face.
Even after all that, Misaka Imouto did not resent Accelerator. It was not that she wanted to but could not. She merely saw no value in her own life. Once the experiment in which her 180,000 yen life was being used was over, her body would be retrieved and disposed of like a frog that had been dissected.
That was all there was to it.
That was all there was supposed to be to it.
And yet Accelerator suddenly stopped moving as if he had realized something. He slowly turned his head and looked at something over his shoulder.
(What…?)
From Misaka Imouto's position face up on the ground, Accelerator's body acted as a wall blocking her view of whatever he was looking at. But Accelerator froze up. The entire experiment existed in order to elevate him from "strongest" to "invincible", but he seemed to have forgotten all about that.
"…Hey. What happens to the experiment if this happens?" Accelerator muttered while still frozen in place.
Misaka Imouto felt that was an odd thing to ask the person he had been in the process of killing, but as time passed, Accelerator still did not move from that spot.
Misaka Imouto crawled along the gravel so she could see what Accelerator was looking at.
Someone was standing in a gap between the piles of containers circling the switchyard.
Standing there was a normal person who had nothing to do with the experiment.
Standing there was Kamijou Touma.
Accelerator did not know what the procedure was when a normal person entered the experiment. He looked like he didn't know what to do about the high school boy who had suddenly appeared.
"…Get away from her," said Kamijou as if stabbing at Accelerator.
His entire body was wrapped in such anger that it looked like static electricity would scatter about if someone touched him.
"Get the hell away from Misaka Imouto. Can you not hear me?"
Accelerator frowned at Kamijou's words. He then turned back toward Misaka Imouto. He turned his somewhat critical red gaze on her.
"Hey, Misaka's the name of your original, right? If he knows that, then he must know you. C'mon now, don't bring unrelated people to the experimental grounds."
Accelerator's expression made it clear that Kamijou had ruined his fun.
"…I mean fucking come on. What am I supposed to do now? I guess the standard thing would be to silence the person who knows about this secret experiment, but that just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. He's not some disposable doll. He's just a normal-…"
"Shut the hell up and get away from her, you lowly thug!!"
Kamijou's lightning-like rage cut off Accelerator's words.
Accelerator looked over at him as if he were looking at something he truly could not believe.
It was like he was a child who had never once been yelled at before.
"Who are you? Do you know who you're talking to here? Not only am I one of the seven Level 5s, but I'm the one who stands at the top of them all. And you call me a lowly thug? What the fuck? Do you think you're a god or something? Don't make me laugh."
His low, quiet voice was accompanied by killer intent leaking into the air around him like static electricity.
That massive killer intent felt like billions of eyeballs staring at Kamijou from the darkness of the night.
"…"
Even so, the boy continued to glare at Accelerator.
His incandescent gaze silently said that he did not care in the slightest if his opponent was the strongest or the best or the greatest or whatever.
"…Heh. Now this is interesting."
Accelerator's red eyes froze over.
Strongest and invincible were different. When someone was invincible the victor was clear before the battle began, but when someone was the strongest, their strength was only discovered once the fight began.
In other words, the fact that Accelerator was the strongest meant he was only at a level where people would still try to pick a fight with him.
"…You truly are interesting."
Accelerator's gaze had moved from Misaka Imouto to Kamijou. He was setting the experiment aside and giving 100 times more priority to crushing Kamijou's gaze.
A crazed crimson heat resided within the white boy's eyes.
His smile was thin and wide. It split across his face like a piece of melted cheese stretched out to the left and right.
"…"
Even so, Kamijou did not take a single step back.
Instead, he took a step forward.
"What are you-…?"
Misaka Imouto was in complete shock.
That boy was going to fight Accelerator. He had no weapon and he was going to fight that person who could singlehandedly crush an entire army smiling the entire time.
That boy had spoken to Accelerator.
He had told Accelerator to get away from her.
In other words, the reason that boy was on that battlefield was…
The reason that boy was risking his life in that fight was…
"…What are you doing, asks Misaka?" Misaka Imouto said in a trembling voice.
–I-I see, so you're the little sister. But you really do look alike. Both your height and weight look the same.
It did not matter how many times Misaka Imouto died in that experiment because her life had no value.
–Hey. Thanks for carrying those drinks and taking care of those fleas yesterday.
But he had nothing to do with the experiment and he could not be mass produced.
–That's right! A name! This is your cat, so take responsibility and give it a name!
An original who there was only one of in the world was going to get hurt due to the experiment.
(What is this…?)
Misaka Imouto felt some sort of pain within herself.
No matter how much she thought, she could not determine the source of the pain.
(Misaka has questions about her own mental state.)
Even so, Kamijou did not respond. He took one more step toward the battlefield.
Misaka Imouto switched out her thinking and spoke in order to stop him.
"What are you doing? asks Misaka for a second time. Misaka is an imitation that can be remade as many times as needed while you are irreplaceable, so what are you doing? asks Misaka for a third time."
There was no inconsistency in her logic. There was no disturbance in her tone of voice. Her words had been extremely exact as if she were running according to a program, so she concluded that her mental state was all green.
Yet her heart was beating at a terribly fast pace. Her breathing was unbelievably shallow and she could not suck in the proper amount of oxygen.
Misaka Imouto wanted to stop that boy from entering the experimental grounds.
Misaka Imouto wanted to stop that boy from clashing with Accelerator.
However, her useless battered body would not move as she wanted it to. That was why she continued to try to stop the boy with her words as she lay atop the gravel.
She did not realize that those very words were doing nothing more than drawing the boy to the battlefield faster.
"Misaka can be automatically produced at the press of a button as long as the proper machinery and chemicals are prepared, explains Misaka. Misaka has an artificially made body and a borrowed mind. Her value is 180,000 yen and there are 9968 more in reserve, so stopping the experiment just for her is…"
"…Shut up," the boy muttered cutting off Misaka Imouto.
"What?" she replied.
"I said shut up. None of that matters. You have an artificially constructed body? You have a borrowed mind? You can be automatically produced at the press of a button as long as the proper machinery and chemicals are prepared? Your value is 180,000 yen? Well, I don't care about that! None of that matters!" the boy yelled into the night sky as the conflagration of his rage burned.
And yet his voice was distressed like he was being hit by cold rain.
"I'm standing here to save you! I'm not here for anyone else. I'm fighting to save you! So the fact that you have an artificially constructed body, have a borrowed mind, can be automatically produced at the press of a button, have a 180,000 yen value, or any other insignificant shit does not matter!"
Misaka Imouto did not understand.
She did not understand what the boy was trying to say. There had not been a single lie in what she had said. She was a being that could be automatically produced at the press of a button. If one was lost, one could be made to replace it. If 20,000 were lost, 20,000 could be made to replace them. That was all she was.
"There is only one of you in the world! Why can't you figure out something that simple!?"
But for some reason the boy's yell reached her.
It was not that she believed what he was saying.
Misaka Imouto still felt that there was no problem no matter how many of her lives were lost.
However, there was still one person who was yelling that he did not want to lose that tiny existence.
That boy certainly had no power.
There was no way he possessed anything making him worthy of being referred to as Academy City's strongest.
"Don't go off and die. I still have plenty more to tell you."
Even so, Misaka Imouto felt that boy was strong.
"I'm going to save you now, so just stay quiet and watch."
She felt that way of living made him stronger than anyone else.