Accelerator may have been the strongest, but he was not invincible.
Kamijou's Imagine Breaker could destroy any kind of supernatural power even if it was one of god's miracles. Even if Accelerator's reflection was a perfect defense that could reject even a nuclear explosion, Kamijou knew it should not be able to defend against his right hand.
Accelerator was the strongest and therefore he could stand up to the entire world at once.
However, his power was not absolute enough to be able to defend against Imagine Breaker.
A chance for victory lay in that slight error.
"…"
Kamijou looked around the area.
For about 100 meters around him, the ground was covered in nothing but gravel and steel rails. Kamijou Touma and Accelerator were both standing on that level surface with nowhere to hide. They were about 10 meters apart. That distance could be filled in three or four steps if one of them started running.
Kamijou stopped breathing.
He slightly lowered his entire body like a spring and…
"Ooohhhhhhh!"
He explosively started running toward Accelerator.
However, Accelerator did not move from that spot. In fact, he did not even clench either fist. He kept his arms dangling at his sides, he did not use his legs to shift his center of gravity, and a smile split across his face.
Accelerator slightly tapped the heel of his foot on the gravel as if he were tapping his foot to a rhythm.
In that instant, the gravel below his feet exploded like he had stepped on a landmine.
A large amount of gravel scattered in every direction and at close range it was reminiscent of a shotgun blast.
"…!"
By the time Kamijou realized what was going on, it was too late.
He immediately brought his arms up to cover his face and over a dozen small stones of various sizes struck Kamijou's body. Just when he thought his feet had been knocked from the ground due to the large shock, his entire body was forcefully blown back. He rolled along the ground before finally coming to a stop a few meters back.
"…Too slow," said an unpleasant voice that sounded like pieces of rusted metal being scraped together.
The intense pain had disoriented Kamijou and he merely looked blankly in the direction of the voice completely forgetting to stand back up.
"That's nowhere near enough. That speed of yours is just 100 years too sloooooowwwww!"
Accelerator stepped on the ground again.
He must have converted the vector of that shock in some way because a steel rail lying at his feet stood up on end like there had been a spring under it. Accelerator used a backhanded blow like he was brushing a spider web away and knocked the rail flying.
His action had been nothing more than the slight strike one would use on an unreasonable child, but a great noise like a church bell resounded throughout the switchyard. The steel rail bent into a shallow V-shape and flew straight for Kamijou like a bullet.
"!!"
Kamijou frantically rolled and jumped away from its path.
Immediately afterwards, the crushed piece of steel pierced into the ground like a holy sword in the exact spot Kamijou had been lying in before.
Kamijou thought he had just barely managed to avoid it, but the mass of steel weighed hundreds of kilograms. When it struck the ground, it sent a large amount of gravel flying into the air. It was like a meteorite striking the sea.
Countless small stones stabbed into his body.
The shock this gave to his chest forced all of the oxygen from his lungs.
"Gh…Ah…!"
Accelerator fired a second and third steel rail at Kamijou who was rolling on the ground.
Those masses of steel flying through the air were as unavoidable for a human as handgun bullets.
A direct hit from one would be certain death and even barely avoiding one would lead to damage from the gravel scattered by the hit, which would slowly but surely add up and lead to death.
All Kamijou could do was continue to roll along the ground. Beyond that, all he could do was try to read the direction the gravel would be sent and jump in the same direction to reduce the damage as much as possible.
He could not approach.
He avoided 10 or 20 of those steel bullets and was struck by the scattered gravel each time, but he was gradually heading away from the center of the switchyard and to the outer part.
Even then, Kamijou felt the battle was in a stalemate.
It was true he was the only one receiving any attacks, but he believed that Accelerator would not deliver a decisive blow.
But the sound of the air being sliced cut off his thoughts.
"…?"
Kamijou thought a rail was headed his way, so he immediately jumped backwards. He had done so to reduce the shock from the scattered gravel even just a little bit, but the steel bullet did not come.
Kamijou suspiciously frowned while keeping on his guard.
The steel rail flew past over Kamijou's head and stabbed into the ground behind him.
"!?"
Kamijou had jumped backwards to reduce the damage he took.
The gravel sprayed at him at close range from the opposite direction than he had expected. It was like running into a truck that was moving at 100 kph while moving at 100 kph yourself. His own actions had doubled the damage that stabbed into his back. His breathing stopped as if he had been struck with a bat in the back and he pathetically collapsed onto the ground.
The sound of objects slicing through the night sky continued.
Kamijou looked up and saw multiple steel rails flying toward him.
(Wha-…?)
Kamijou immediately tried to roll out of the way, but the rails landed on all sides of him simultaneously. As if he were being beaten by 5 or 6 people, gravel assaulted him from all sides.
He could not defend against or evade that. Having lost all options, Kamijou could only sit there dumbfounded as over 100 small rocks stabbed at him. His body was knocked about making him look like a shrimp that had been brought onto land.
"Gh…gheah…! Ahh…aahhh…!"
Even so, Kamijou managed to grab one of the steel rails sticking into the ground nearby in order to stand up. His legs were still shaking from the damage leftover from Mikoto's lightning attacks and his mouth was filled with the taste of blood.
He was just barely managing to hold on to his consciousness when he saw it.
In the distance ahead of him, he saw Accelerator slightly lowering his entire body like a spring.
"Ah hah! See!? You're slow, so slow, so very slow! Can you become a fox and bring some enjoyment to your hunter or are you nothing but a pig to be eaten, you lowly thug!?"
At that time, there were about 30 meters between Accelerator and Kamijou.
Despite this, Accelerator brought that distance to zero in only two steps.
The gravel at his feet exploded as if from a rocket and Accelerator charged toward Kamijou with tremendous speed as he moved almost like a rock skipping on the water.
Tension sank into Kamijou's stomach.
He immediately tried to stick out his fist, but Accelerator's foot struck the ground first.
The steel rail lying at his feet stood up as if a spring lay beneath it. The bolt in the railroad tie popped off like a shirt button.
Before Kamijou could respond in surprise, the rising rail struck him in the chin like an uppercut.
"Ghah…!"
His body shot up and a space of 20 cm opened up between his feet and the ground. Accelerator watched that with a satisfied look and opened up his right hand like it was a demon's claw and aimed it for Kamijou's airborne body.
That was the very same hand that had sent steel rails flying like bullets with just a soft stroke.
"…!!"
Kamijou saw Accelerator's right hand moving in toward him like a poisonous snake and immediately struck out with his right hand despite still being in midair. In a small piece of fortune, Kamijou's right hand somehow managed to brush away Accelerator's hand.
That was all he did, but Accelerator looked up at Kamijou as if he had seen something truly unbelievable.
As if trying to shake something off, Accelerator forcefully stomped on the ground.
That stomp turned the gravel into a dangerous weapon and it struck Kamijou all over as he floated in midair. He stopped breathing and fell to the ground like a corpse. After rolling for a few meters with his arms and legs sprawled out, he stopped because his back had struck something.
"…?"
It was the side of a container.
It was part of the piles of containers that surrounded the switchyard. Accelerator and Misaka Imouto had been in the center of the switchyard, so Kamijou must have travelled a few dozen meters while evading the various attacks.
The containers were piled up five or six tall and the piles were about as tall as a three story building.
For an instant, Kamijou glanced at the wall of the container his back was to, but…
"Oh, so you have time to look away!? If you want to die that badly, I'll turn you into such a lovely piece of art that you'll end up with a Guinness World Record!!"
There was a crazed laugh.
Kamijou frantically turned back around just in time to see Accelerator sink down and then jump up from the gravel a few meters away. It should have just been a normal vertical jump, but his slender body shot 4 meters up into the air.
He aimed his feet for Kamijou's head.
Kamijou immediately rolled to the side to avoid the strike and Accelerator's jump kick struck the metal side of the container Kamijou had been leaning on.
A great noise like a church bell resounded throughout the area.
Suddenly, the pile of containers collapsed.
It was like when a pile of building blocks had the bottommost block pulled out.
The instant Accelerator's jump kick crushed the bottommost container like it was made of paper, the containers it had been supporting wobbled and suddenly collapsed. When one collapsed, it brought the one next to it down with it causing the entire pile of containers to collapse like a house of cards.
Kamijou gulped down air and looked above.
A number of containers had been thrown into the air like giant dice and were about to rain down on him.
"!"
He immediately jumped up to his feet. Just when he was about to jump to the side in an attempt to avoid the containers falling toward his head, he saw something in the edge of his vision.
He saw Accelerator lowering down like his entire body was a spring.
He then shot forward like a bullet in order to pursue Kamijou who was trying to flee the containers.
Accelerator could reflect any kind of impact, so he did not need to worry about avoiding the rain of containers even though each of them weighed more than a ton.
But that was not so for Kamijou.
If he tried to avoid the containers, he could not avoid Accelerator's pursuit.
If he tried to counterattack Accelerator with his right hand, he would be crushed by the containers.
"…!"
Kamijou immediately kicked up the gravel at his feet toward Accelerator's approaching eyes.
Of course, that would not stop Accelerator.
"Hah hah! Did you really think that would work? If you're gonna try that, at least make sure you go all the way…like this!!"
Accelerator manipulated the vectors of the gravel that struck his body so that it was reflected back at Kamijou at double the speed.
Kamijou immediately crossed his arms to protect his face and chest.
In the next instant, that shotgun blast of small stones struck Kamijou's body. His body flew back a few meters as if he had been shot by a shell.
In doing so, he evaded the rain of containers.
In doing so, he managed to get some space between himself and Accelerator.
"Ah?"
Accelerator gave that sound of slight admiration and the containers struck the ground an instant later. A large amount of gravel flew up into the air and a cloud of sand obstructed Kamijou's vision. Suddenly, countless containers came rolling through that cloud of dust as if to crush Kamijou. The containers rampaged around on unpredictable paths like living beings similar to dice dancing around in a giant cup.
(Shit…!)
Kamijou desperately jumped out of the way of the containers.
They finally stopped moving, but the cloud of dust continued to rob Kamijou of his vision. No, it was not a cloud of dust. It seemed the containers had held flour. The cloud of powder was like a white mist as it hazily obstructed Kamijou's view.
That white curtain surrounded Kamijou in all directions.
He did not know when or from where Accelerator would slice through that curtain and attack him. Kamijou felt a hopeless tension like he had been thrown blindfolded into a cage with a carnivorous beast.
But instead, he heard a voice coming from in front of him beyond the white curtain.
It was as if Accelerator were showing off his location.
"Heh. It looks like these containers held flour, but this nice windless night might be making this a very dangerous situation."
Kamijou looked questioningly in the direction of the voice.
"There are stories of explosions in mines, right? Those don't happen because someone didn't use their explosives properly." The voice sounded like it was grinning and enjoying itself. "They were caused by the fine dust from the stones filling the air in the mine. A lot like now."
Kamijou jumped out of shock.
He figured out what Accelerator was trying to do, so he moved his battered body in an attempt to get out of there.
"If there is powder floating in the air, it can be ignited. The combustion rate of oxygen is ridiculously fast, so it seems all the air in the place becomes one giant bomb."
Kamijou was no longer listening.
He was merely running as fast as he could without looking aside.
He had turned his back on Accelerator and was trying to escape that giant space filled with that powder.
He ran and ran and continued to run.
Accelerator's voice then pierced into Kamijou's back.
"Surely you've at least heard of a dust explosion."
Immediately afterwards, all sound was blown away.
The area with a 30 meter radius in which the flour had been scattered became a giant bomb. The entire area became wrapped in flames and heat as if gasoline vaporized into the air had been ignited.
Kamijou had just barely managed to escape the curtain of flour when it happened.
The shock wave struck his back and knocked him down to the gravel, but he managed to avoid being enveloped in the flames themselves.
However, a dust explosion was different from a normal explosion because it used the oxygen in the air as fuel. The explosion instantly stole all the oxygen in the area which lowered the air pressure dramatically.
Fortunately, it had occurred outside rather than in a sealed area, so a vacuum was not created. But the sudden change in air pressure internally squeezed on his organs to the very limit. If it had actually been a vacuum, his body would likely have burst open from the inside.
"Gah…Ahh…!"
Kamijou moved his battered body and just barely managed to stand up as the sea of flames lit the switchyard up as if it were the middle of the day. He turned around toward the pile of containers he had fled from.
Accelerator was walking there.
He was calmly walking through the crimson purgatory he himself had created.
"God damn it. I'm sure you just experienced it yourself, but the lack of oxygen was tough on me, too. Fuck, I thought I was gonna die. You should be glad. I think you're the first in the world to make me, Accelerator, think he was gonna die."
His voice was light, like he was just having a casual conversation.
"Heh heh. I guess I can't use my tagline about being fine even in a nuclear explosion anymore, can I? Well, I can just bring an oxygen tank with me. They make ones about the size of a can of hairspray, right? Do you know how much one of those costs?"
Accelerator's cheerfulness while within that hell of flames scared Kamijou.
"…!"
Kamijou immediately tried to put himself on guard, but the damage had permeated his legs making them tremble uncontrollably.
"…Well? What are you even trying to do?"
Amid the flames, Accelerator tilted his head to the side like a child.
"All your frantic efforts haven't gotten you a single step closer to me. And what the hell do you even think you can do if you were somehow able to get near me?" Accelerator refreshingly spread his arms open amid the hellfire. "I can manipulate every vector that touches my body. That includes the flow of your blood, y'know? In other words, the instant you touch me, every blood vessel and organ in your body will explode. Do you really understand that?"
"..."
Kamijou's trembling legs froze up.
Even though Kamijou's right hand could penetrate Accelerator's reflection, what could he really do?
He could only touch Accelerator with his right hand. That meant he was basically boxing with one hand sealed off. And even if he could strike Accelerator's face with his right hand, if Accelerator managed to grab his arm before he could pull it back…
Accelerator laughed in a friendly manner as Kamijou stood frozen in place.
"Well, don't worry about it too much. You put up a nice effort. It's actually a miracle that you're even breathing after facing me. It'd be rather selfish to want more than that, don't you think?"
He laughed in a friendly manner despite being in the middle of a deadly fight.
"Fuck. You are lucky that your potential was so low. You're so weak that I couldn't use my reflection on you properly. You really did find a weak point in me. Judgment acts so thoughtlessly with their powers and Anti-Skill brings out all their high-tech weapons, so it's all over after I reflect the first shot."
Accelerator clapped his hands in applause within the sea of flames.
He truly sounded like he was thanking his opponent from the bottom of his heart.
"You made a good effort. You made a really good effort. …So it's about time you had a rest!"
Accelerator's body sank down slightly amid the flames.
With a roar, the white boy shot like a bullet toward Kamijou blowing away even the flames as he went. There were a few dozen meters between them, but he brought that to zero in two or three steps. Accelerator made his way right up to Kamijou with motions like a rock skipping on the water.
"…!"
Tension crawled up from Kamijou's stomach to the top of his throat.
The right hand of suffering and the left hand of poison.
Those hands could convert any vector that they touched and were therefore hands of darkness that could bring death to any living thing. Just by touching the skin, they could cause a human heart to burst from the inside by reversing the flow of the blood via the capillaries and reversing the flow of the bodily electricity via the surface of the skin.
Accelerator brought both hands together.
His hands were pressed together at the wrist like he was wearing handcuffs and he thrust them toward Kamijou's face.
Kamijou immediately tried to move back, but his trembling legs would not move properly.
Those hands that could crush one's soul approached before Kamijou's eyes.
"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuucccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkk!"
Kamijou reflexively shut his eyes and swung his right hand up prepared for the worst. As he had cut off his own vision, he had no idea where he was aiming his fist.
With a dull sensation, his right hand punched Accelerator in the face.
"Eh?"
The first one to express his surprise at that result was Kamijou, not Accelerator. He had truly not expected to hit and he had not expected his battered fist to actually do any damage even if it did hit.
However, Accelerator was knocked away and was now squirming around atop the gravel.
"Ah? Ow… Ha ha… What the fuck? Oh, wow. Ha ha ha. Dammit. Excellent, excellent. That was great! That was wonderful! Now you've done it!"
The white boy laughed insanely as he crouched on the ground like a demon about to grow wings.
But Kamijou was not listening.
When he thought about it, it had been odd from the beginning.
Why had he not realized it after fighting with Accelerator that long?
There was an overwhelming handicap between Kamijou and Accelerator. Accelerator could kill people just by touching them. On the other hand, Kamijou would die instantly if he touched Accelerator with any part of his body besides his right hand.
And on top of that, Kamijou could not move his legs properly due to the damage he had taken from Mikoto's lightning attacks.
He had such a great handicap, and yet…
(Could it be…?)
Accelerator charged toward Kamijou.
His right hand that could kill with a touch was aimed straight for Kamijou's face.
(Could it be that he's…?)
Kamijou avoided it just by swinging his head to the side.
He had no military training or anything, but he was easily able to evade it.
(Is he…?)
Kamijou clenched his right fist.
He moved in toward Accelerator to counter Accelerator's missed attack.
(Is he actually…really freaking weak?)
"Gbah!?"
Kamijou's fist plowed into Accelerator's face. He moved his hand back and forth in complex trajectories like someone swinging a knife around, but Accelerator never once grazed his skin. Kamijou slipped past Accelerator's poisonous snake-like arms and attacked Accelerator's face with his fist again and again.
"Dammit, what!? What's with those weird movements!? You're not an eel, so quit wriggling around like that and stay put!"
Accelerator tried to grab the fist that was stabbing in at his face, but the smooth serpentine movements of Kamijou's hand prevented him from doing so.
"Hah. You've never lost." Kamijou danced around with precise footing. "And that is why you're weak! You defeat all of your enemies in a single strike and you can easily reflect any attack. There's no way you would actually know how to fightbrawl!"
That summarized the gap between them.
Accelerator's fights had no chance of loss on his part. They were just one-sided slaughters. Because his ability was simply too powerful, he had never needed to learn how to fight.
Accelerator's stance was sloppy. He did not clench his fist. His fingers were spread out like he was just asking to have them jammed and he gave no thought to his footing or his center of gravity.
However, Accelerator's ability was so powerful that he did not need to worry about that kind of thing.
If you could kill any enemy in a single strike, there was no reason to train in techniques to defeat your enemy well.
If you could reflect any attack, there was no reason to put any effort into predicting and evading or defending against your opponent's attacks.
Simply put, techniques and effort were things that weak people used to supplement their power.
But that strength was not Accelerator's strength. It was the strength of his esper ability.
So what if there was a right hand that could seal off that ability?
Accelerator was not someone who there was absolutely no way of defeating. He was not invincible.
He was merely exceedingly difficult to defeat. He was merely the strongest.
A chance for Kamijou's victory lay in that slight gap between invincible and strongest.
"Tch. Shut the fuck up, you third rate!!!"
Accelerator's foot lightly tapped the ground.
Like there was a spring beneath it, a steel rail lying at Accelerator's feet stood up.
If he knocked it away, the mass of steel would fly straight into Kamijou's body.
But Kamijou did not let him.
In order to stop that attack that he had predicted was coming, Kamijou's right fist slammed into Accelerator's face. Accelerator was forcefully knocked to the ground and he manipulated the vectors of the gravel knocked up by his own body to send a blast of small stones at Kamijou's upper body.
But it did not hit.
Kamijou had predicted that attack too, and he had managed to avoid it by crouching down like he was about to start crawling along the ground.
Kamijou was not especially good at fighting.
In a fight against delinquents, he could win with 1 on 1, he was in danger with 1 on 2, and he would unhesitatingly run away with 1 on 3. That was the extent of his skill.
But even so, Accelerator could not reach him.
The punches Kamijou was throwing did not have his weight behind them. They were diversionary punches that put more strength into pulling back than in the punch itself. In boxing, they would be called jabs.
But even so, Accelerator was being hit strongly.
Accelerator had never once lost which also meant that he had never once been in a proper fight. Because his power was the strongest, he had never had a chance to use his athletic abilities normally. Kamijou could not utterly crush even a delinquent in a fight, but he could easily beat the hell out of a sheltered boy who had never been in a fight.
"…! Kh. Hah! Interesting. What is with that right hand!?" Accelerator yelled recklessly with his arms stretched out after having received that fist to his face again and again.
One of them was the strongest who had never lost once in his life.
The other was the weakest who would never give up no matter how many times he lost.
Who was the stronger one? The answer was Kamijou. If he lost 100 times, he would stand back up 100 times. If he lost 1000 times, he would crawl back to his feet 1000 times. And each of those losses was converted into strength that was now poured into his right fist that slammed into Accelerator's face.
Accelerator had always been able to reflect any kind of attack, so even though he now thought of the attack before his eyes as dangerous, that thought did not lead to any actions to avoid it. Despite the fist striking him, he recklessly swung his arms about in an attempt to chase after Kamijou who was keeping away. He looked just like a child being teased by an adult.
Accelerator knew that better than anyone and he could not stand it.
The pride of Academy City's strongest shook the gap between it and reality and a creaking sound could be heard.
An unknown pain that felt like it was crushing his nose further affected Accelerator's concentration.
"Fuck. Fuck! Fuuuuuucccckkkk!!"
As Accelerator roared, the ground at his feet exploded. His body flew toward Kamijou like a bullet. He had manipulated the shock of his heel hitting the ground. He had used the scattered kinetic energy to double or triple his movement speed.
But…
"What the hell!? Why the hell can't I hit you!?"
Even with that carnivorous beast-like speed, he could not reach Kamijou.
Even if he was faster, his attacks were still easily avoided as long as they could be predicted. It was the same as how a sharp knife was a deadly weapon, but it posed no threat if it was being held by a kindergartener.
The fight was more or less over. The damage from Kamijou's light hits had piled up and Academy City's strongest esper legs gave out.
In the instant that strength left Accelerator's knees, Kamijou struck his face with a serious punch.
It was a strike like someone using a golf club to hit a golf ball with everything they had. For that killer strike, he rotated his hips to put his weight into it and knocked Accelerator's body to the ground where it rolled a bit.
"Pant…pant…!?"
Accelerator lifted his upper body and looked forward. When he saw Kamijou Touma slowly approaching, he starting using his hands to drag himself backwards.
He hurt.
Accelerator automatically reflected all attacks, so that was an unknown sensation for him. To him, his senses on his skin were just sensors to send pleasure from his skin to his brain. His undeveloped pain sensitivity had almost no resistance to pain, so the intense signals felt like they were burning him.
"…The Sisters were living with everything they had." Kamijou tightly clenched his right hand. "They gathered all their strength and lived. They worked with everything they had." Kamijou gritted his teeth. "Why do people like that need to act as your prey!?"
"Ee!" Accelerator froze in place.
But Kamijou did not stop.
"No!" Accelerator shook his head.
He did not know what it was to lose. He had never once lost in his life, so he did not have the slightest bit of resistance to losing. He had never even had to think of the possibility of losing before.
But even so, Kamijou did not stop.
The night wind blew on Kamijou's bangs making them wave like a nameless flower blooming in a graveyard.
(…Wind?)
Accelerator finally realized something as he was being cornered by Kamijou who looked like some kind of evil spirit.
The wind.
"Ku."
Accelerator laughed. Kamijou stopped moving. Accelerator guessed Kamijou had sensed some kind of danger, but he did not care. It was too late even if he had realized it.
"Kuka."
Accelerator's power allowed him to change the vectors of anything he touched. Motion, heat, electricity. Whatever kind of power it was, he could freely control it as long as it had a vector.
"Kukaki."
That meant that, if he could grasp the vector of the wind flowing through the atmosphere, he could bring the motion of the giant wind flowing throughout the entire world into his hands!
"Kukakikekokakakikukekikikokakakikukokokukekekekokikukakukekekokakukekikakokekikikukukukikikakikukokukukekukakikukokekukuka!!"
Accelerator lifted his hands above his head like he was trying to grab the invisible moon.
With a roar, the flow of the wind started to swirl around.
The look on the other boy's face changed, but it was too late. A large atmospheric swirl that looked like a hole had opened in the earth had taken a spherical form above Accelerator's head. Gravel in the area was swept up with it and that giant swirl of destruction with a radius of a few dozen meters gave its joyous birth cry.
Accelerator laughed and yelled "kill".
That sphere of destruction created from the world's atmosphere sliced through the air.
It became a spear of wind flying at 120 m/s. At that speed, wind could easily lift up a car. That spear of wind very easily blew away the boy like he had been struck by the hand of an invisible giant.