Chapter 6: Streets Beaten by the Cold Rain. Battle_Preparation.

Part 1

September 30, 6:33PM.

One person from [God's Right Seat], [Vento of the Front], physically broke through Academy City's Gate No. 3.

At the same time, an unidentified attack was launched, inflicting massive damage to both Anti-Skill and Judgment, the people in charge of public order.

With the defenses down, Vento herself kills three of the general board of directors.

Same day, 7:02PM.

Aleister, chairman of the general board of directors, decides to use the incomplete Imaginary Numbers School District - Five Layer System to stop Vento.

In the heavily-raining night streets [Hound Dog], commanded by Kihara Amata, commenced their operation.

Their mission is the collection of Serial Number 20001 [Last Order].

Kihara Amata himself successfully led the assault on Accelerator, who's judged to be an obstacle.

He rendered Academy City's strongest Level 5 nearly helpless.

But here the Hound Dogs committed one small error.

"Help..."

They had let slip one little girl.

And so,

"'Help that person...!!' says Misaka as Misaka tries to beg earnestly!!"

Her pleas reach the ears of a certain lad.

Part 2

"You there, what are you doing?"

The rain becomes stronger.

In the incessantly *za-za-* falling raindrops, sounding through the dark night streets, her voice drives into the ears of the groveling [Hound Dogs], Kihara Amata, and a wet Accelerator who's collapsed on the road.

In the dark of night, her white habit is standing out.

Index.

She's a delicate girl. Even when clad in a habit whose silhouette swells grandly, it cannot conceal her short build. With silver hair reaching her back and large twinkling emerald eyes, she gives out an impression of a delicate craft where each part is destructible from a mere touch. On top of that, she's carrying a tiny tortoise-shelled cat with both of her hands.

(Oh joy...)

Accelerator absent-mindedly thinks as he collapses.

This is too much for even something out-of-place. Far from an opportunity, the difficulties increase with this. She seems unable to even face the hoodlums squirming about in the back alleys, much less [Hound Dogs] armed with guns.

In fact, even Kihara frowns.

He's utterly not analyzing or thinking that she's some new war potential. His expression is like him realizing that a greenhorn has suddenly walked up the mound in the middle of a baseball match.

This white-cloak gives out an order, and that nun would be ground meat in seconds.

If a sub-machine gun capable of punching a car door full of holes is used, anyone can realize that that frail-looking person will be blown to dust. Skin, bone, meat and all.

(Which way should I take? Abandon her? Assist her? Or should I use her...?)

Accelerator turns his attention to the choker-type electrode attached to his own neck.

He should still be able to use his abilities.

But his entire injury-ridden body refuses to move.

"What now?"

One of the black-clad men fortifying the perimeters whispers to Kihara.

Kihara Amata, looking bored, exhales and,

"What now, you say?"

A single statement.

"Guess we'll have to erase her."

(Tch!!)

Accelerator clicks his tongue.

This Index is witnessing a [Hound Dog] operation. The organization itself must have been hiding its unofficial workload in the first place. What was given out was of course an order to keep mouths shut. The girl's already in a situation where she'll be relentlessly pursued from here until refuge. It's probable that she won't last three days.

(Either way, there's no changing that the silent me would be killed. Time to do something!!)

Accelerator regains his explosive power through sheer will at the intention of breaking Kihara's sorry face, rather than saving Index.

(This sister isn't worth the worry, but I won't settle into being beaten and left behind. Next time you'll be gnashing your teeth, Kiiharaa!!)

The switch on the choker-type electrode on his neck has been left on for some time now.

He can activate his ability just by ordering it now.

And for that purpose, he confirms every situation.

There are three black minivans within a 10m radius with Accelerator at the center. Nearly twenty black-clad [Hound Dogs]. Kihara Amata, the most problematic one, is standing right next to Accelerator, and it suffices to say that attacking him is almost impossible. Accelerator's defense [Redirection] is useless against Kihara's attack, and even if he raises a wind vector-controlled storm, a special sound will activate disrupting the vectors, rendering him totally powerless.

Also,

Index is standing about 15m outside from the encircling minivans.

(I'll be postponing their extermination until later.)

Accelerator, lying face down, touches with the tip of his toes the wet asphalt.

He confirms the sensation with his toe tips.

(Only one thing to do right here and now. Get away until I find a safe place. And take along that sister!!)

Those red pupils are pulsating.

His ability is in operation.

"Ooooooaaa!!"

As Accelerator screams, he jams the toes of one leg into the ground, kicking with all his strength as he lay down. And he controls the vectors at the same time. Gaining the explosive power rivaling that of rockets, his body flies from the asphalt, slamming into the rear sliding door of a black minivan at terrifying speed.

As if taking an iron cannonball, the metal door is torn from the hinges and is jammed into the van interior.

Accelerator's body ends up in the minivan's back seat.

"!!!?"

Before the black-clad man standing by at the driver's seat can react, Accelerator reaches out and tears a piece from the crushed and jammed in door. Gripping tightly a serrated-edged, 5cm wide, almost 20cm long cylindrical iron scrap, he vigorously stabs it in the middle of the back of the driver's seat.

Right through.

He got it by sensation rather than sound.

"I—aa!!"

Accelerator speaks to the man, who's unable to even raise a scream and is skewered to the driver's seat.

"Drive."

Totally without mercy.

Calmly, and just the plain facts.

"You're dead in 30 minutes. Better get to the hospital fast before it's too late!"

Even the man might realize that from the level of pain, it's something an emergency kit can't handle. Also, in the first place, he should know better than anyone how *that* Kihara Amata deals with injury-ridden lackeys.

"Hiii!?"

The decision is swift.

Along with a high-pitched *screeech* engine sound, the black minivan with Accelerator in it hysterically departs.

The black-clads standing on the road jump out the way, scattering left and right.

Kihara, with a provoking face, shouts something.

During that time, Accelerator escapes from the siege net.

He knows that the men behind him will one by one aim their gun muzzles at him.

Glaring across the driver's seat ahead and towards in front of the windshield, Accelerator grasps Index's location.

"Veer left!!"

Accelerator shouts, throws away the hindering slide door from the gaping wide-open entrance, and then,

He leans out from there.

Ahead of where the vehicle is heading, the white sister is standing in the middle of the road.

"Shit!!"

He stretches his arm outside of the vehicle.

Index is holding the tortoise-shell cat with both of her hands. This left no choice but to grab her by the upper arms, but there's no assurance whether or not he can reach her even with his arm totally stretched out.

Even so he stretches out his arm.

Gunshots *bam!!* echo.

A bullet almost grazes across at his face, but Accelerator ignores it and grabs Index's arm. Controlling the vectors, he forcibly pulls her into the vehicle.

"Wa, waaa!!"

Index lets out an awkward scream.

Accelerator adjusts his own position to hide beneath the driver's seat. As he does so, he lightly touches with his fingertip the pointed metallic, dangerous weapon that is piercing into the back of the seat.

"I, gaaah!?"

*tremble* The driver greatly trembles.

Accelerator whispers in a tiny voice to prevent Index from hearing,

"...No racket! And keep on going. We both don't have time, right?"

"P, passenger, where to...?"

"I know a good doctor," Accelerator answers in a very disinterested tone. "Didn't think normal doctors would do. I want you to take us there, so do it well, driver."

Part 3

"Ah—ah—ah—ah—"

Kihara Amata lets out a flat voice as he watches the black minivan become smaller.

He holds out his right hand.

"Th-Th-Th-Th-! That one that one, bring me that one!!"

An all-too-confusing order is given out, but the subordinates obediently follow. With fast movements, a portable anti-tank missile is taken from inside the remaining minivan and delivered to Kihara.

Even as Kihara is screaming "Double time, boneheads!" and kicking subordinates off their feet, the artillery is assembled at once and its safety locks released, at speed and accuracy rivaling that of professional operators tapping on keyboards.

There is no hesitations at all in those movements.

Rather, it is the [Hound Dog] subordinates who had lost their presence of mind.

"T, the driver!?"

"To hell with him! Deserters get immediate death! Bye-bye pup, you'll be remembered for about two seconds!!"

*Heave!* Kihara shoulders the 1-meter-long 30-centimeter-wide launcher and looks over the side scope.

He sets on his sights.

And readies his finger onto the seeker missile's trigger.

Just as the minivan, already ahead by several meters, is about to turn at a road corner, Kihara laughs.

Just in time. Even though the van made a clean turn, the missile will follow said van diagonally, and when it slams into the walls of the building corners, the van should take a storm of concrete pieces and should turn over.

Accelerator might survive it, but he'll certainly lose a means of transport for now. With the other two injured behind him, it's better that they carefully deal with Accelerator.

(That's so naive, Accelerator! When you use a vehicle, you can't get around the fact that you still can't use your fine control of the wind!!)

"So long shitty bastard, that white body of yours will be burned black!!"

As Kihara Amata smiles broadly, he starts to press on the trigger.

But then,

"?"

The scope's sights are dyed yellow.

Something off the scale is blocking me, Kihara thinks as he looks off from the scope. There, a strange woman is standing at a position about 10 meters ahead.

Cold raindrops are falling on the road surface. There are no other persons or vehicles in the wide street. Pale light from the building windows and traffic signal lights reflect off the drenched road; within there, that woman stands alone, appearing isolated.

Totally unaware of everything up to this point.

She's a woman whose facial symmetry is ruined because of numerous piercings dotting on her face. A bunch of make up has been applied to emphasize around her eyes. It's a look completely without consideration on what others will think about it. She's wearing clothing that looks like a dress with yellow as the primary color, but it's so old its period is describable. She totally looks like a European of the Middle Ages.

But for Kihara, it's not worth the worry.

The more pressing matter is that thanks to him being preoccupied with this idiotic woman, the minivan had turned around a street corner and totally disappeared.

"..."

Immediately, Kihara's expression disappears from his face.

With his face looking absentminded, he casually pulls the trigger.

The anti-tank missile is launched.

Leaving a straight line of smoke, the missile strikes at the obstacle of a woman right in the middle of her chest.

Before one can realize whether or not her expression had changed, the missile explodes from within, unleashing a shock wave and blast of fire towards the surroundings.

An earth-shaking *BOOM* roaring sound explodes.

Rainwater that spread out like a membrane onto the road surface is blown off altogether, the signboards of the surrounding buildings are ripped and shaken. A large amount of leaves are torn from the roadside trees, dancing about in mid-air.

As the blast is in point-blank range, the black-clads that surround Kihara take a gusts of wind and are blown off.

Red blaze and black smoke obstruct Kihara's field of view like a cotton candy.

However,

It is only for about five seconds.

*Byuo!!* A violent wind blows everything off.

Even the flames and the smoke disappears without a trace due to a new whirlwind rolling at the epicenter.

The woman, with her appearance unchanged, stands among the burned, broken, and blown-off asphalt.

Everything about her, even her clothes, bear no signs of being burnt or hurt, not even a single hair strand.

"What a nice town, you know,"

The yellow-cloaked woman suddenly says.

Without looking at others like Kihara Amata.

"I thought the [Corrosion] would only make even faster progress, but that wasn't the case. Are most of the teachers and students not transgressors? If they were such, even my [Corrosion] rate would, of course, be delayed."

Although, the face-pierced woman looks at Kihara.

"...You people look like exceptionally pitch-black."

With that, Kihara finally opens his mouth.

"Who are you?"

"A competitor for a killing."

She turns to the corner where the minivan turned and disappeared,

"That was holding my target too, you know. Nothing's particularly wrong about someone else killing her, but I have a problem about someone uninvolved being able to take her.

Kihara sighs as he's not that into socialization, and,

"Kill her."

Immediately at the given order, one group of the surrounding black-clads simultaneously raises their guns.

But then,

"Stop it, you know."

The triggers are never pulled.

Just before they could, the men noisily collapse with a groan. Entirely without resistance. Easily an overkill attack that makes the other party experience something uncomfortable.

There are also people that collapse directly onto the ruins of the minivans destroyed by Accelerator, not to mention on the rain-soaked roads. Despite this, not even one stirs. They are totally helpless.

Just what kind of phenomenon is occurring?

Kihara steadily and lightly strikes the missile launcher barrel.

No one at that place can understand; at least that woman probably believes in that power. Her expression doesn't show any sign of changing, even though it's a situation where it will probably become a stirring hornet's nest at a single misstep.

The woman, with a bored-looking face,

"Even so, you did say 'Kill her' with no change in expression? **There was no hostility even with the intention to kill**. To begin with, you didn't even hold any guilty feelings because you didn't think of the enemy as an enemy. I wonder if it's not different from pulling out weeds? I said it when first I saw you and I say it now: you really are rotten to the core. At least the same as with me."

Kihara does not respond.

Turning to one of the surrounding black-clads, he waves his hand as seemingly annoyed,

"Split into two groups."

As he halfheartedly throws away the emptied anti-tank missile launcher someplace,

"Gather useless members from among the available members, line up 10 people a row and stay put. During that time, me and one group will head for the [Villa]Headquarters. Got it?"

It's too approximate for an order, but it's obvious that he's going to pump somebody full of bullets unless this order is followed. Moreover, unless Kihara is there, being unable to crush Accelerator is true once more.

The strange woman in front of them, Kihara Amata, Accelerator.

Judging who's the no. 1 [least terrible opponent], strangely it's still the strange woman whose, at best, degree of difficulty appears to be low.

Having just gave out his order, Kihara quickly boards into a minivan.

The woman calls out to that person who's facing his back to her.

"You, you have no hostility, right?"

"You want to face me, be a bit more capable." (!)

As Kihara says just that, he strikes the driver's back of the head, making the minivan depart.

Left behind is just the woman and the decoys.

"...Well, I just wanted to know who he is, but it seems he chickened out before I could ask. Sheesh, I'm not fit for intelligence gathering! Even too much killing is problematic."

As the woman cricks her own neck, she lets out her own tongue.

The chain *jingle* falls from within her mouth.

"Well, then. You're considerably treated with much contempt, but I wonder if you guys are useful."

Part 4

Kamijou Touma and Last Order are standing still.

Both of them don't have their umbrellas up, so both Kamijou, who's wearing a red shirt beneath a stiff collar, and Last Order, who's in a dress shirt on top of a blue dress, are completely soaked. Even the goggles that are on her forehead are drenched, but there might not be unexpected problems since it's intended for military use.

The tiny girl led him to a corner of the large avenue, not even far from the entrance of the underground shopping complex. With the trains and buses gone along with the final curfew time, there is absolutely no figure of a person in the complete darkness.

At least, the normal figures are those that stand and walk on two feet.

"——"

Several people are lying down, collapsed on the ground.

Beneath the night sky with the rain strengthening, the uniformly all-black men had tumbled, their bodies sinking into the puddles. Reflecting the streetlights is armor made of composite materials, drenched in a thin watery film are the ominous sub-machine guns. Their appearances, with their faces disguised by helmets and highly elastic masks, on all accounts reek of out-of-the-ordinary people.

A *pachi-pachi* popping sound can be heard.

The sound of burning fire.

Just meters from where the men lie collapsed are squashed and crumpled minivans. Those are the firewood. The vehicle breaking through the guard rail and stopping at the middle of the walkway... is that the right way to put it? The more one thinks it's more accurate that they're blown off, the more the minivan will lose its shape. There are no other vehicles nearby. When it comes to this, did those belong to the downed men?

Last Order points at one downed person.

Her face ghostly pale, she says,

"'He was attacked by these people,' says Misaka as Misaka tries to state the real facts."

Is that real? she repeats. (!)

Kamijou again shifts his focus onto the downed people.

(Are those not Anti-Skills?)

He might be deceived by the black-clad battle gear, but on closer examination he feels that it's different from the standard gear of an ordinary Anti-skill. But then again, he's no military official, so he can't make an assertion since he has no detailed knowledge to the point that he can understand the model numbers that he might suddenly see.

(But, if these are not Anti-Skills, just who the hell are these guys? If we we're unlucky we would have been attacked by several of them, who seem better equipped than the Anti-skill....)

And yet, the attackers in question have badly collapsed.

He can't get a grip of the situation.

Kamijou looks at Last Order,

"Was your acquaintance attacked here?"

"'That's right,' says Misaka as Misaka answers."

"About this, has that person killed would-be avengers?"

"'That couldn't possibly be,' says Misaka as Misaka shakes her head. 'That person has a short fuse and is quick to quarrel, but even with that much damage, him suffering revenge is unimaginable in the slightest,' says Misaka as Misaka simply tries to guess."

Just what kind of guy is that guy, Kamijou sets his mind into deep thinking.

But then,

"...."

He's no invincible ESPer.

He doesn't know what kind of power Last Order's acquaintance uses, but unless it's an irregular like the Level 5 Railgun and it's attacked by a trained group with guns, it couldn't have turned the tables on them.

It's not an obligation applicable to the Level 0 Kamijou, but ability users are basically students. It's reasonable to think even that power is something that is "popular within school."

They cannot do anything if they're thrown out *pop* into this kind of battlefield. Unless they honed their wits... it's because they're useless unless they have the mental will just to [hone their wits] in the first place. No ordinary students are perhaps able to do stuff like preparing oneself in that manner and fight.

Normally they die.

(Anyhow, I have to report this...)

It isn't clear whether Last Order's acquaintance has been caught or is currently on the run, but in any case, the urgent situation remains unchanged. This really looks like he'd better seek the Anti-skills' help, Kamijou thinks as he brings out his mobile phone from his side pocket.

But then...

"...?"

But then, Kamijou raises his face from his phone just before pressing its buttons.

(...Why... I can't report this to anyone...?)

He looks at the sight before his eyes. A crumpled and crushed minivan. It looks like a few hours have passed since it burst into flames, but even then the powerful light is from the flames that are not weakening. With so many of these occurring, they didn't even reach one ear. Even they will understand a fire occurs even if they see it from afar. Kamijou doesn't even use his mobile phone; he thinks it's expected that someone has already reported it, and what's more, even rubbernecks haven't gathered.

"..."

Kamijou surveys the surroundings.

In the streets where the lights go out, it's a scenery where no ruckus occurs, and is totally wrapped in silence.

If...

If noise is made and yet it's not possible to make noise.

If there are many people collapsing within buildings just like the Anti-Skills.

(What the...)

Is it an unnatural attack, or is it an unintentional phenomenon?

It's a completely unassertive state of emergency where even that is not clear.

That silence isn't the scariest.

By the time Kamijou realizes the problem, the fact is Academy City's facilities were already driven to suspension, just like termites eating out a wooden bridge.

It's close to like when dozing off in the final exams, then he's awakened by the examiner's "Ten minutes remaining" voice.

And in front of a blank examination sheet, cold sweat pours out from the lad's entire body.

(What is happening now in this very town?)

And then, there's movement in an unmoving Kamijou's field of vision.

Last Order is leaning over the side of the fallen men, poking the equipment. That girl suddenly raises her face as if she notices something, and runs over to Kamijou's side in hot haste.

Then, she grabs his hand with her rain-drenched cold hand, and begins to pull hard on it. It totally looks like she's taking her parent towards a department store's toy section but,

"'Hurry,' says Misaka as Misaka urges precaution."

Moreover, in a strangely urgent voice,

"'They are coming,' says Misaka as Misaka reports while trying to hide herself in the back alley!"

Pulled along by Last Order, Kamijou secretly hides in a nearby parked van, while frowning and saying "They?".

With that spot clogged by fallen leaves and like, a large pond-like puddle is gathering around the vehicle. Stepping into it, even his socks are getting soaked with water.

But they had no luxury to complain.

A low *garororo* engine sound echoes.

Coming down was a strange black minivan with headlights turned off.

As it lets out a stealthy, low sound, the van stops at the place where the black-clad men lie collapsed. Its rear sliding door opens, and out goes in groups people with the very same equipment. A quick glance shows there are almost ten of them. Even with them temporarily unarmed, it's definitely not a winnable number.

And then,

"...Shit. From where did they get those kind of guns?"

He unintentionally groans.

The black-clad men, as if preparing for something, hang up their identical sub-machine guns by their shoulders. Perhaps they'll be defending themselves with other weapons like handguns and grenades.

They don't look like they're Anti-Skills, the guardians of Academy City's public order.

And they don't even look friendly.

And should they find Kamijou and Last Order doing their thing, they would rather rain the two immediately with bullets; such tension has been following Kamijou even up to now.

He cast his view onto his own right hand.

The Imagine Breaker in that hand can deal with the Level 5 Railgun. But on the other hand, it's entirely ineffective against a bullet which is not involved with any unusual power at all.

The black-clads shoulder their (probable) colleagues lying down on the road, and throw them ruthlessly into the minivan. There is a person with differing movements aside from this type of work. A man with a transparent tank, the tank being as tall as three family-size PET bottles fastened vertically, shouldered on his back. Fitted on the bottom is a nozzle, and the man grabs it and prepares a flame thrower-like stance.

"'It's acid,' says Misaka as Misaka invokes a common name."

"And what's that?"

"'Acid cleanupAcid spray... A specially weak acid is sprayed, destroying fingerprints, bloodstains, and DNA information,' says Misaka as Misaka takes out information from a manual on evidence destruction."

"..."

This is bad, thinks Kamijou.

That group must have felt it necessary to destroy evidence, even as it prepares for a large-scale operation. And it's anybody's guess on what action will that kind of company take if in a worst case scenario they find eyewitnesses.

In conclusion,

(—In that kind of situation, I really have no hope of getting away.)

His throat makes a *gulp* sound.

And the *drip* sound of water reaches his ears.

"——"

Kamijou looks at his own feet.

He's in a pond-sized puddle due to drainage being blocked. And his feet getting soaked in there are shivering bit by bit. That shivering is creating tiny ripples on the water's surface. Going under their shield for a car, those ripples head for the other side.

However, they shouldn't be able to notice this.

The downpour has been beating onto the puddle. Even with their eyes attuned to this darkness they can't observe the state of the water puddles. It should be all right, Kamijou thoughtfully prays, but then,

*turn*. And,

The black-clads, in a spot a bit separated from where Kamijou is standing, are simultaneously looking at him.

Part 5

They've been on the run from there for about 10 minutes.

Speaking of ten minutes by vehicle, Accelerator thinks that's a [reasonable] distance. But conversely, it is the only the [reasonable] extent. It's highly improbable, but if those bastards didn't hesitate to use stuff like satellites in following their escape route, they would be overtaken in the blink of an eye.

While in the driver's seat, the man, skewered by Accelerator in the back, quivers as he says in a cracked, tiny voice,

"(...W, we're still running!? Haha, this ain't a joke. At this rate I'll really die—)"

"(...Shut it. We're not stopping until I'm stopping.)"

As he whispers back, Accelerator lightly moves the steel weapon that is piercing into the driver's seat. The man's body *snap* greatly trembles, his moan echoing inside the vehicle.

Index, having heard that, slightly raises her head.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Got it?"

On the pretext of settling down in front of the driver's seat, Accelerator is hiding that he's holding a deadly weapon.

The driver, sweating continuously, nods. Index frowns, but it seems she's clueless about the situation.

"But then..."

Accelerator unintentionally lets out his voice.

He thinks they might bump into the Anti-Skill for running through town in a suspicious, sorry-looking minivan which has a rear door missing and is really a hot vehicle, but somehow there are really no signs of that. Their time possibly saved to contact Yomikawa if possible — for a trampled Accelerator, it's somewhat of a let-down.

(No way, even this silence can't be one of that shitty bastard Kihara's laborious productions.)

For now, Accelerator has set the choker-type electrode back to normal mode.

This is simply for conservation. From the start, the battery won't last 15 minutes on ESPer mode. The fight with Kihara took off a considerable amount, and it was consumed little by little by normal activities even before that.

Considering the remaining battery charge, he can't even go full battle for seven more minutes.

As expected, he can't even use the minimum of [Redirection]. To fight Kihara and his men, saving up was important. But currently, Accelerator is a goner if for example a missile is suddenly launched onto this minivan before he could notice the attack.

Simply because there are such circumstances, Accelerator is out looking from the doorless entrance towards the flowing night town scape when,

"Ah, I've found the 'The Ugly Duckling'!"

Right beside him, the somewhat world-disconnected pure-white sister is rummaging and looking at the hot vehicle's back seat.

Perhaps this vehicle's real owner is a parent; Index brings out an infant-oriented picture book printed on solid cardboard. The tortoise-shell cat on her lap, its hunting instincts stimulated by the duck caricature drawn on the front cover, is for some reason slowly starting to eye the distance.

(Oh, a bookworm. The way her eyes twinkle isn't surprising...)

"You, carefree one. One thing, what the hell are you harassing me for?"

"Hm? I've come here to return what I've borrowed!"

As Index jams her hands into her habit sleeves and rummages through,

"Here's the cutting-edge daily necessity! You mustn't keep on leaving such important things! I was worried, but I'm sure you'll be fine with this!"

"Are you nuts!? It's a bother just to have you return such a disposable and ball-crumpled pocket tissue!!"

Eh, is that so? Index starts to spread with her tiny hands the pocket tissue crumpled inside the vinyl pack.

Looks like this ain't over until I take it. Accelerator, with an annoyed face, grabs the pocket tissue from Index's hands. He jams it halfheartedly into his trouser's pocket.

"Speaking of which, are you all right with those injuries?"

"So?"

"But, look! A while ago you were down—"

"It's nothing! You bring that topic up again and I might go on a rampage."

Index is totally oblivious to the driver who's starting to *rattle* tremble.

Upon hearing Accelerator's impudent talk, and apparently relieved for now, Index focuses her eyes onto the picture book in her hand.

"Hmm hmm. So this is the translated version in Japanese, right?"

Index apparently knows the contents of the fairy tale; flipping through the pages at high speed, she reads aloud only the last page.

"The ugly duck, insulted as useless and hopeless, turned out to be an ero-kakkoii swan. The End. ...What is this 'ero-kakkoii'?[1]" (!)

"Someone exactly opposite of your position."

"Hmmmm."

Index closes the picture book with a snap,

"...In the end, it's a story where the swan's victory was determined from the time of birth, right?"

"'The Ugly Duckling' isn't that kind of story!"

"Then what kind of story is it? Deciphering fairy-tales must be difficult with its many branches in interpretation methods."

"Hah? I see, what was it? Surely for that brat, the saying is [For the swan that wanted to get along with the ducks, is it really happy the swan itself was thrust with the fact that it definitely cannot join with their circle], if I recall."

Tch, Accelerator spits out.

The brat here is someone out of his league for sometimes saying such unchildlike opinions.

Because he heard a depressing groan from the driver's side again, he heartlessly shakes the steel weapon skewered into the back seat back and forth to shut him up.

As expected, Index is probably clueless of that.

Raising her head from the picture book, Index thus inquires,

"That brat you're talking about, was it a lost child you had been looking for?"

"Yeah. Although, truth be told even now the status is that I'm still looking for that child."

"Has the child gotten lost again?"

"...Yeah. That's right."

After leaving a bit of space, Accelerator affirms.

"From here on I'll have to search for that brat. At the worst, it looks like it can't go back to the house on its own feet. So we'll part ways here."

"Can I join, too, in the search?"

She doesn't even look away for one moment from Accelerator's scarlet eyes.

"But, I realize that you're worried. If Touma were here, I think he would have said the same thing."

"Hmm."

Accelerator uninterestedly turns his glance away, and calls out to the driver,

"Stop there."

The man, accepting the order from Accelerator who's literally holding his life, stops at the road shoulder.

Accelerator looks at Index.

"Help me out."

"Okay. What do you want?"

"There's a large hospital nearby. About 5 to 10 minutes by foot. Go there and find the doctor whose face really looks like a frog. If you meet with the doctor..."

Accelerator stops his words there, and taps the side of his own neck.

"Tell him to prepare a battery for the Misaka Network connecting electrode. Tell him that. The battery's important. I can't do any searching without that battery. So when you get that battery, run back here. Got it?"

"Understood. Battery for the Misaka Network connecting electrode, right?"

She flawlessly repeats it.

Of course she may not understand the meaning when she said it on her own, the 'Misaka Network connecting electrode', but damn she's unexpectedly smart; without giving Accelerator time to think of that, Index grabs the tortoise-shell cat and goes out unhesitatingly onto the road.

"You'll be waiting, right?"

"Hah?"

"Can't you wait until I come back?"

"...I'll be waiting. Just get on with it quick,"

Accelerator answers.

Index looks back at him twice, thrice; soon she's off running, stepping through *splash splash* the puddles. That tiny back then disappears into the heart of darkness.

"Shithead."

Instinctively spitting out, he leans onto the back of a seat.

There are no replacements in the hospital. The electrode itself is a prototype. Besides, the battery in question is a unique item, so it hasn't been mass produced. Otherwise, Accelerator would have jammed a large number of batteries onto his pocket on the onset.

It's an outright, simple lie.

With the exception of going to the place where the frog-faced doctor is.

There's no denying that there's danger everywhere one goes, but the worst case is that sister going solo. Better go to a place where there are many people to up one's survival rate, even just a bit. That frog-faced doctor's place is quite a worry, but it's probably better than nothing.

What begins from here on, to put it simply, is a battle with Kihara and his [Hound Dogs] for Last Order. While his fighting power is deficient, he won't last even under normal circumstances seven minutes of full battle, going against that enemy burdened with a baggage named Index is madness. That's why she parted ways there.

The burden has returned to the place where she won't be a burden.

No more than that.

That much is better.