It was Kuroko who moved first. She had been standing next to Asuna, but in the blink of an eye, she had vanished from the spot. She had used Teleport.
She moved to where Saten was crouching, holding her head, and the male student was lying on the ground. She then transferred the two of them, in order, behind Asuna.
Having finished her first task, Kuroko was momentarily relieved. Few people could keep up with Teleport, and she was lucky there was no interference. Thanks to that, the two couldn't be taken hostage.
"Saten-san, are you okay?"
"Y-yes. Thank you, Yuki-san. And thank you, Shirai-san."
"Don't mention it, Saten-san. So, Yuki-san..."
"Yeah. The blond-haired guy is probably the leader. He's completely different from the others."
Asuna was saying that her intuition as a swordsman was sounding an alarm about that man.
Kuroko and Asuna. The two of them had been working together a lot since they began investigating the Level Upper incident.
Although Misaka was overwhelmingly superior in terms of ability, Kuroko had become the de facto leader of the Railgun group for the uncontrollable reason that Misaka acted on her own whim. As for Asuna, Kurumi was elusive, and the other members weren't the type to step forward and talk, so she also had many opportunities to interact with Kuroko.
"Understood. Then I'll deal with that man."
"Be careful. He's definitely a Level Upper user. If things get dangerous, contact me."
"You, too, Yuki-san."
With that, Kuroko teleported in front of the blond-haired man. She touched him briefly and then disappeared again. She had chosen the abandoned building as their dueling ground.
"Damn it! That brat has Teleport!"
The men, who hadn't been able to keep up with the situation, finally seemed to grasp what was happening.
Asuna took a step forward toward them.
"I'll be your opponent."
The men recoiled from the fighting spirit emanating from Asuna.
"Saten-san."
"Y-yes?!"
"Can you move? If you can, I'd like you to move that man over there a bit further back."
The "man over there" was the one who had been beaten up. It seemed difficult for the man, who had been kicked without resistance, to move on his own.
"Y-yes! Understood!"
"Thank you, Saten-san."
"...No, don't worry about it."
That was the last time Asuna showed a gentle face. When she faced the men, she had the face of a swordsman.
Asuna's genuine killing intent was something one wouldn't expect from someone her age, as if she had been in real life-or-death battles for many years. Yet, her walking speed was leisurely.
"Gah!"
And in stark contrast to her leisurely movements, a lightning-fast thrust. Asuna had requested that the tip of her rapier be blunted to avoid killing, but it still delivered more than enough force.
The delinquents, who couldn't move a single finger, were brought back to reality by the sight of their comrade collapsing with his eyes rolled back.
They frantically tried to activate their proud abilities, but it was too late. Asuna fluidly took down the second person.
The one delinquent who remained, perhaps having awakened a magnetic manipulation ability, forcibly snatched Asuna's rapier.
"Hah! How about that! With this, you're... g-g-gah!"
However, even without her weapon, the man had no chance of defeating Asuna.
That was a warning that came too late for the man, who was just punched in the nose.
The fight ended so quickly that Saten was left dumbfounded.
---------
The scene changes, and time rewinds. Kuroko and the blond man were facing each other inside the deserted building.
Neither of them had a weapon in their hands. Unlike Asuna, Kuroko was still holding her bag, and she was casually playing with her twin tails, an expression of confidence on her face. The blond man didn't seem to be getting ready for a fight either. On the contrary, he was relaxed and at ease.
"Haha! What a cool ability, man! Is that Teleport?! I never thought I'd get to experience it!"
"I didn't bring you here to entertain you. I'm arresting you for assault and battery in the act of... "
"—You know, before we got Level Upper, we were scared of people like you..."
Interrupting Kuroko's professional words, the blond man chuckled. He wore a face that seemed to be thoroughly enjoying the current situation.
"So, I thought, once I got a great power, I'd crush you guys to a pulp!!"
The blond man spread his arms and lunged at Kuroko. There was a huge difference in their physiques; Kuroko's small body looked like it would be crushed by the man's weight alone.
Still, there was no sign of panic on Kuroko's face.
She thought it would be a simple matter of teleporting behind him, as she always did, and delivering a full-swing blow with her bag to the back of his head.
However, the blond man wasn't there in front of her.
"...Huh?"
There was no way she could miss a Teleport at this distance. She was certain she had teleported to a position behind the man.
Her mind was full of that thought, but thanks to her daily training, she managed to get her bag up just in time to block the attack from behind.
"Whoops, you blocked it..."
Although the force was greatly reduced by the bag, the man's kick could dent a wall. Kuroko broke out in a cold sweat at the power of the kick, which was more than she expected, and the fact that she could have been hit by it herself.
(Then I'll use a projectile! I'll teleport this metal arrow directly into his right shoulder!)
Kuroko's Teleport ability allows her to freely transfer anything she touches, as long as it's within the weight and distance limits of her own specs. The transferred object pushes aside whatever is in its way, so in theory, a single sheet of paper could cut through a diamond. She intended to use this property to attack.
In her skirt, where a regular detective would have a pistol holster, Kuroko had a special custom-made leather belt holding custom metal arrows. The tips weren't particularly sharp, but since they were designed to be teleported, it wasn't a problem.
However, the metal arrow appeared in the space near the blond man's body and fell to the floor, uselessly.
(I missed?! I couldn't have miscalculated at this distance...?! )
Her thoughts were interrupted by the blond man's kick. It was a heavy kick with a twist of his waist.
Unlike abilities that create fire, Teleport is very delicate to use. Kuroko couldn't choose to teleport away because her mind was preoccupied with something else, especially since she hadn't been anticipating this.
However, the blond man's attack was just a simple kick. She could easily block it with her bag. Kuroko's thought was shattered as the kick that stabbed into her side knocked all the air out of her lungs and her ribs made a horrible cracking sound.
"Keh, keh!! A-ugh...!"
Kuroko rolled across the lightly dusty floor. A terrible cold sweat broke out all over her body.
The man's leg bent in an impossible direction the moment it was about to hit her bag.
"W-what was that...!"
"That felt good. It must have really hurt, huh? Haha!!"
Ignoring the struggling Kuroko, the blond man approached. Enduring the pain, Kuroko threw the arrow she had left. Not with her Teleport, but physically.
The arrow, spinning as it flew toward the blond man, suddenly changed its trajectory. Its direction changed without any force being applied to it.
"What's wrong? Are you so worn out you can't even use your ability anymore? I'm not done playing yet, come on!"
As the blond man approached with a grin—Kuroko turned her back and started to run. She found the stairs and headed up.
"Is it hide-and-seek now? Fine, I'll play. But... if you go outside this abandoned building, I'll kill everyone out there!"
The blond man, with a few teeth missing, showed a gruesome smile.
---------
And on the top floor, Kuroko was finally cornered by the window. She had managed to escape a few times by using Teleport, but in this building where sounds echoed, it was only a temporary measure. A damaged Kuroko couldn't keep running forever.
"I'm getting tired of this game of tag. Let's just end it."
The blond man took a knife from his pocket and closed the distance with Kuroko.
"So, did you figure out my ability?"
"...An ability that bends the light around you to make people misperceive things."
"Heh~ So you figured it out."
"I know someone with a very similar ability."
Among the culprits of a past case Kuroko had dealt with, there was one with an ability that interfered with perception. She had used that as a hint to deduce his ability.
The blond man's ability was to bend light, making it seem like a different scene from reality. That's why the calculation for her Teleport was off and why the trajectory of his kick appeared to bend suddenly.
"Making the light form a false image... So that's why the things I threw looked like they were on an impossible trajectory..."
"It's called Polarized Light Trick Art... But what can you do, even if you figured it out?"
"True... I can't hit you."
Shirai reached out and teleported a random-sized windowpane into a pillar of the building. The transferred windowpane broke under the building's weight, and a diagonal cut appeared in the pillar.
"Huh? What are you trying to do?"
"My ability is to transfer an object so that it pushes aside whatever is at its destination. A single sheet of paper can cut through a diamond. This is your final warning. Throw away your weapon and surrender. If you resist, I can't guarantee your safety."
He laughed and ignored the last resort she didn't want to use—a special tactic that utilizes the property of her ability to "cut through a diamond with a single sheet of paper."
"Surrender? Don't make me laugh! No matter how amazing your ability is, it's meaningless if you can't hit me!"
"That's right. I didn't want to do this... but fine. I'll crush you along with your pathetic little deception!"
Shirai ran forward. The blond man was on guard, but all she was doing was teleporting windowpanes somewhere. The man couldn't read her intentions, and when she completed her plan, Kuroko gave him a fresh and somewhat sarcastic smile.
"Do you know what happens when 'all' the pillars supporting the building are cut?"
The blond man's expression froze.
"You... you can't... the whole building...?!"
It was already too late.
The building, which had been scheduled for demolition, collapsed earlier than planned.
---------
"Wow..."
Asuna stared in a daze at the collapsing building.
Asuna had finished her part of the job earlier than Kuroko, but she hadn't entered the building. It would be foolish to let the detained delinquents escape, and the blond man might ignore Kuroko and come out of the building.
Still, she had been thinking of going in because it was taking a little too long, but...
"A building collapsing..."
If Asuna had gone inside, something terrible might have happened. Kuroko was proud of collapsing the building, but when you think about it this way, it's not funny at all.
What's more, given how the building was demolished, Asuna had no idea who was responsible for its collapse.
Saten, who was beside her, had a pale face.
In front of the two of them, Kuroko teleported, holding the blond man by the scruff of his neck. The blond man had apparently lost his nerve from being almost crushed by the rubble, and he had shrunk down like a child being glared at by his father.
"I admit I might have gone a bit too far... but, well, it was scheduled for demolition, so let's call it a wash."
"No, you went too far."
"Huh?"
Kuroko, who was about to relax after a job well done, took a step back when she saw that Asuna wasn't smiling. Even though they hadn't known each other for long, she knew what that smile meant.
"Hah... well, we'll talk about that later. First, we need to ask him about Level Upper."
"Y-yes! As expected of Yuki-senpai! Your attitude of not losing sight of your goal no matter the situation is something I always want to learn from-"
"Ready to work?"
"Yes."
The two of them looked down at the cowering blond man with an air of intimidation.
"Are you going to tell us what you know about Level Upper?"
"I think it would be in your best interest to be honest. Whatever I might do, I can't say the same for my friend here."
"H-h-h-hie!"
To the blond man, Kuroko was the person who had destroyed an entire building just for him. And the smiling Asuna next to her was a complete object of terror. The blond man had no choice.
The two of them frowned at what he pulled out of his pocket.
"A music player?"
"Are you kidding us?"
"H-h-h-hie, no! Level Upper is... it's a 'song'!"
The unexpected statement made the two of them frown. There was no lie in his desperate face. The two of them tried to get as much information as they could from the clue they had finally gotten.
In their concentration, they didn't notice that Saten had disappeared again.
---------
After confirming the two's safety, Saten had left the area again, just as unnoticed as before. Asuna had defeated three men with just a weapon, and Kuroko had collapsed a whole building, she didn't know how.
They had done things she could never do and looked cool while doing it.
The feelings she had once suppressed began to flare up again.
"Ruiko!"
At that moment, a voice called out to Saten from the distance. It was her friend from school. A friend who, like Saten, wasn't keeping up with the "special" classes.
"Akemi. And Mu-chan and Makochin, too."
The four girls began to walk together.
"What were you doing alone? Shopping?"
"...Well, something like that. What about you guys?"
"We were studying at the library. You know, we have a test soon? Even if we're bad at practicals, we have to at least try our best at studying."
"...Haha, yeah..."
Then, Akemi stopped.
"Oh, hey, did you hear about Level Upper?"
"...!"
Saten's body froze.
"Huh? What's that?"
"Oh, I know! It's something that raises your ability, right?"
"Exactly. The rumor is that it's being traded for a high price right now."
"Ehh, I don't have that kind of money~."
Her vision blurred, and her head began to spin. Still, her body and lips moved on their own.
"H-hey!"
Saten,
"I have it right now!"
She held out a music player with a trembling hand.
--------------------------------------------
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