The wind died, sound died, and the atmosphere died.
Accelerator looked out over the disaster he had created. The gravel covering the ground in the switchyard had been swept up in the wind leaving the earthen ground visible in places. The boy was blown away twenty meters where his back struck the pole to a broken wind turbine. He then slid down to the ground. Falling to the gravel would probably have been a better outcome for him, but either way his fate was the same. Hitting something at 120 m/s was not much different from getting into a car accident without hitting the brakes.
Kamijou lay unmoving on the ground below the turbine with his arms and legs sprawled out. It was unclear whether he was alive or not.
"…Hm."
Accelerator had only just thought up that method and it had caused more destruction than he had imagined.
But it was still incomplete. Unlike his automatic reflection, he had to think about the original vector and the altered vector when he was altering vectors under his own will.
Wind, the flow of the atmosphere, required complex calculations that involved chaos theory, so it could not be completely predicted without the use of Tree Diagram.
He doubted that the flow of the entire world's atmosphere could be calculated in a single human's head.
He had only managed to manipulate the wind within Academy City and that had still been imperfect.
However, it had still produced that much destruction. He no longer needed Level 6. If he could calculate the flow of the wind more perfectly and more accurately, he already held the power to destroy the world in his hands.
He held the world in his hands.
That feeling rushed all over Accelerator's body. The feeling of victory felt even more fresh within his chest because he had been driven to the edge of defeat just before.
He was sure once more that there was nothing in the world that could defeat him.
A nuclear bomb or that unknown right hand would do him no harm.
"Heh…!" Accelerator finally started to laugh. "What's with you!? What's with you!? What's with you!!? After all that tough talk, that's all you could do!? I'm gonna fire another one, so how about you show me the return of the badass loser!?"
As Accelerator yelled, he spread his hands above his head like he was trying to embrace the night sky.
"Compress the air. Compress, compress. Hahn, I see. Excellent. I just thought of something really fucking nice. C'mon, stand up, weakest. This won't be worth it unless you play along!"
Kamijou did not respond.
Countless steel rails were stuck into the gravel like crosses and a deathly wind blew through that graveyard like area. Only the violent wind and the crazed laughter could be heard.
The black cat gave a displeased mew at Mikoto's feet.
In that instant, Misaka Mikoto set foot inside the switchyard.
She had been watching Kamijou's fight from the beginning. She had wanted to charge between him and Accelerator countless times, but doing so would make his plan fail. Mikoto had only been able to silently watch as Kamijou became more and more battered.
But she had reached her limit.
If she let that boy fight on his own any longer, he would truly die.
"Stop this, Accelerator!"
Mikoto stuck out her arm at a distance of a few dozen meters. A coin lay on the thumb of her clenched fist. Purple electricity was overflowing from her entire body. With just a light flick of her thumb, Misaka Mikoto could fire the Railgun she was named for at three times the speed of sound.
But Accelerator did not even glance over at the Railgun.
He continued to increase the power of the raging wind as if telling her to go ahead and do it.
Any attack she fired would just bounce back and damage her.
Any powerful attack he received would just be sent right back at the one who fired it.
"…"
Mikoto's fingers trembled.
If the Railgun was sent back at her, her body would be smashed to pieces at three times the speed of sound.
If she and Accelerator were to fight, she would be slaughtered in 185 moves. That result given by a machine could not be changed and it stabbed into Mikoto's heart like a shard of ice.
Even so, Mikoto lifted her head.
It was not that she wanted to protect someone because she could defeat her enemy.
She had to fight that enemy she could not defeat because she had someone she wanted to protect.
"…-op, Misaka."
Suddenly Mikoto realized someone was calling her name.
The voice was so very weak, but it belonged to a boy she knew very well.
"…Stop, Misaka!"
Kamijou Touma's sorrowful cry caused Mikoto's hand to freeze.
In Kamijou's plan, he had to defeat Accelerator in order to fool the researchers. Once Mikoto interfered, that plan would fail.
If Mikoto did not interfere, the mass of raging wind would crush Kamijou's body.
If Mikoto did interfere, Kamijou would be allowing 10,000 Sisters to be killed.
"…"
Even so, Mikoto could not just sit and watch.
She did not feel that she was abandoning the Sisters to their deaths.
She had another plan. If she purposefully lost to Accelerator, it would fool the researchers and the experiment would be stopped.
Mikoto did not want to die.
But no matter how much they struggled, she had never had any other option.
"…I'm sorry."
That was why she apologized to Kamijou in the end.
Whatever she chose, Kamijou could no longer be saved. If he was crushed by that swirling wind, he would of course die, but if he either had to watch the Sisters die or Mikoto alone died to stop it, he would be unable to withstand that truth.
Kamijou Touma wanted for everyone to go home with a smile and without losing anyone or anything. That dream would be shattered that night in that switchyard.
"So I'm sorry," Mikoto apologized even if it was selfish. "But I know I want you to live."
"Stop!!" Kamijou yelled.
He was so battered that he could no longer even stand up, but he still desperately stretched out an arm that would never reach her in an attempt to stop Mikoto.
Mikoto gave a small smile.
The boy was not aware that his cries were what allowed Mikoto to fight without fear of death.
"............."
Mikoto stuck her right hand out toward that enemy she could not defeat who was known as Accelerator.
She only needed to create the magnetic rails and flick the coin to pass the point of no return. She would not be able to do any damage to Accelerator because he could reflect any attack, but she would still be able to put a stop to the death that was approaching before her eyes.
(Why did it end up like this? Why couldn't it have ended in some different way? Why couldn't it have ended in the most wonderful way where everyone heads home in the end with a smile and without losing anyone or anything?)
As Mikoto's thoughts floated up into the air, Accelerator sneered as he spread his arms wide up into the night sky. In the next instant, the wind flowing through the city focused on one point. It was a point 100 meters above Accelerator's head. When the raging wind gathered there, a bright white light appeared as if from welding.
It was plasma.
Compressing the air created heat. Internal combustion engines used that fact. By compressing the city's air with a ridiculous compression ratio, it had turned into a mass of heat exceeding 10,000 degrees Celsius. This forcibly caused the atoms in the nearby air to split into cations and electrons which turned them to plasma.
That point of light swallowed up the surrounding air and instantaneously grew to have a radius of 20 meters.
The surrounding darkness was annihilated by the pure white light.
The heat of 10,000 degrees caused a burning pain on Mikoto's skin.
"…!"
A chill ran down Mikoto's back that seemed to freeze her spine.
That was not an attack that humanity could defend against. That mass of heat could dig up a nuclear shelter from the ground, so there was no way a flesh-and-blood body could do anything about it.
Misaka Mikoto was certainly Academy City's strongest in the category of Electromaster.
Plasma was created from the atoms separating into cations and electrons, so she may have been able to return the plasma to the original atoms by putting the electrons back together with the cations.
But how would that help?
Even if she did manage to return the plasma to its original state, Accelerator would just gather the wind again to recreate the plasma. To seal Accelerator's attack, electricity did not cut it. One needed the ability to control wind like he could. But Mikoto could not control wind with her electricity techniques. Mikoto gritted her teeth at the uselessness of her power in that situation.
She realized the simple fact that Accelerator could be stopped as long as the wind could be manipulated.
"Ah."
Mikoto's mouth fell open stupidly.
The wind turbines were spinning making a sound like the laughter of skulls.
Accelerator was making that plasma by compressing the wind he gathered from throughout the city. The scale was much too small for him to be gathering it from throughout the world, so his ability must have had limits. For example, when he was controlling rather than just reflecting, he might have to calculate out the original vector for the wind as well as the altered vector.
In that case, his calculations could be interrupted by something causing a disturbance in the wind throughout the city.
Academy City had wind turbines spread throughout the city. There were probably more than 10,000 of them.
And the wind turbines could be made to spin by using a certain electromagnetic wave.
Each individual propeller could only produce a small amount of wind, but more than 10,000 of them spinning at once was a different story. Accelerator may lose control of the wind as a result.
But it would mean nothing if a Level 5 like Mikoto manipulated the turbines.
If Mikoto directly interfered in the battle, the experiment would not end.
If she were to maintain the condition of her own power not interfering, then it was a job that the one and only Misaka Imouto could do.
The level of power between Misaka Imouto and Mikoto was too different. Misaka Imouto's Radio Noise power was a deteriorated version of Mikoto's and it was only Level 2 at best. She could not make very many turbines move.
But there were 10,000 Sisters within the city.
And unlike Accelerator who was calculating the flow of the wind in just his own brain, the 10,000 Sisters had their brain waves linked, so they could predict the flow of the wind using parallel calculations. It was just like how Tree Diagram used high performance parallel processors.
Mikoto ran over to Misaka Imouto who was still lying atop the gravel.
Misaka Imouto's entire body was battered and she did not seem to possess even the strength to stand up on her own legs. Mikoto did not like having to ask this of the girl when she was already in that state, but she had no choice.
"Please, wake up. I know how ridiculous and terrible it is for me to ask this of you, but please wake up!"
She had no choice but to ask.
"There's something I want you to do. No, there's something that only you can do!"
It was necessary for everyone to go home with a smile and without having lost anyone or anything.
"Just this once, please listen to what I have to say! I cannot protect everyone. No matter how much I struggle, I just can't do it! So I beg you!"
It was necessary to reach that happiest end that everyone wanted and where everyone was smiling.
"Please protect his dream with your power!"
Misaka Imouto heard the Original's cry within her intermittent consciousness.
She indeed thought it was a ridiculous request. She did not know the situation, so she assumed it would be better for the Original, the stronger esper, to use her power rather than cracking the whip and forcing Misaka Imouto to do it even as her heart was on the verge of stopping.
But she did not complain.
The Original's words were as unreasonable as they were violent, but for some reason, Misaka Imouto saw her as a small child crying and asking for help.
"…"
Misaka Imouto saw no value in her own life.
Her body could be created at the press of a button and her empty heart had been given to her according to a program. She truly believed that a life worth 180,000 yen could simply be replaced if it died.
But she did not want to die.
While her own life had no value, she now knew there were people who would be sad if they lost the tiny existence that she was, so she could no longer die.
And if that tiny existence could save that crying girl, then she felt that was a wonderful thing.
She had something she had to do.
She had found something she had to protect.
"There's something I want you to do. No, there's something that only you can do!"
(Misaka cannot understand the meaning of your words…)
Misaka Imouto slowly gathered strength in her limbs.
(…but those words have left an impression on her for some reason, thinks Misaka expressing her frank feelings.)
Because there was someone who was saying those things, Misaka Imouto was able to stand up once more.