Part 1
Kamijou Touma, Accelerator, and Hamazura Shiage had defeated the Freshmen and saved Fremea Seivelun. They were now comparing cell phones.
"Okay, let's exchange addresses."
"What a pain…"
"There, there, and done."
As Hamazura operated his cell phone, he was wearing normal clothes, having changed out of the slim powered suit. It seemed he had contacted someone using the powered suit's communicator, and they would be coming to recover the suit from where he had it hidden after removing it.
"…Hey, why does your cell phone have a torn string on it?"
"Geh… The strap came off. Ugh, such misfortune…"
"You fell into the Arctic Ocean. It's a miracle you still have all your limbs," said Birdway in an exasperated tone. "I know you want to come along into the territory ahead, but you won't be able to catch up if you only look at one side of the world. In order to learn about 'them', you first need to look at the other side of the world."
"They" seemed to be a major problem at some deep portion of the world.
The goal behind Kuroyoru Umidori and Silver Cross Alpha's attempt to kill Accelerator and Hamazura Shiage via Fremea had been to prepare the system needed to fight "them".
And then there was the other side of the world Birdway had mentioned.
If one looked at things from the viewpoint of Academy City and the science side, it was the opposite side.
It was magic.
"…I don't mind gathering up the necessary information," Accelerator practically spat out. "But I have no intention of having a long leisurely talk here. We defeated the people who more or less led the Freshmen, but that doesn't mean the threat is 100% gone."
"True." Birdway nodded. "You two… what were your names? Anyway, as you were being directly targeted by the Freshmen, it is best to think of that as a risk. And I would like somewhere where we can sit down and talk, so we should find somewhere else to go."
"Is there really going to be some convenient place like that?" Hamazura asked.
Birdway pointed with her thumb.
She pointed at Kamijou's face.
"His place. …It's the perfect place for an idiot to bow down to a girl."
Part 2
And so, Kamijou, Accelerator, Hamazura, Fremea, Birdway, and her subordinates who wore all black headed toward a certain high school dorm.
As he walked along a twilit path, Kamijou's shoulders seemed to droop.
Hamazura looked over with a puzzled expression.
"…What's wrong?"
"Well…" Kamijou's words did not have much energy behind them. "In all the confusion of World War III, it seems I've ended up considered dead. So… I was just thinking that a lot of people must be worried about me. And I'm not sure what the best way to meet them and apologize is. This time, I'm not going to get off with just my head bit."
Hamazura was not sure what he meant by that last part.
Birdway smiled in a burlesque way and spoke.
"But if you're alive, you have no real reason not to go back. Whatever path you take, you're eventually going to walk down that one, so you should get it over with quickly."
"Maybe I should think of it like going to the dentist…"
Upon seeing how down Kamijou looked, Hamazura made a suggestion.
"If you have to do it, you might as well give yourself a little help in the right direction, don't you think?"
"What do you mean?"
"Drink some alcohol to bring up your spirits."
A gradual change had come over Misaka Mikoto's mental state over the last few days.
A feeling of impatience had welled up from the depths of depression.
At the end of World War III, Kamijou Touma had disappeared into the Arctic Ocean along with a giant fortress.
Since that boy had been in the place that was the very core of that war, Mikoto thought he must have been pressured into it by some kind of power from a force that moved the world. Even if that was not the actual reason, Mikoto still felt that she needed to collect accurate information, and a lot of it.
Academy City.
The darkness there.
She did not want to approach it, but their network gathered information from around the world that should not be seen by anyone.
Mikoto had no clear point of contact with the darkness.
But she still had a way in without one.
Of course, it was risky. They may notice her attempt to get in, and if they did, they would definitely put together some kind of interception plan. It was possible that the darkness would take action the very second they suspected that she was even thinking of doing it.
(But…)
She had to know whether Kamijou Touma was alive or dead.
She did not want mere hopes.
She wanted actual information. If she did not have that, Misaka Mikoto could not know which direction she should head towards from then on.
After worrying through all that, Mikoto started thinking of actual methods of hacking in, but…
"Heyyy… Is that Miko-chan I see over there?"
Why was she seeing an illusion of a drunk boy talking to her?
That spiky-haired illusion had a necktie of unknown origin wrapped around its head, had a box of sushi hanging from a string grasped by the thumb and forefinger of its right hand, and was drunkenly staggering toward her bowleggedly.
No…
That was…
That was not an illusion created by someone like the #5 Level 5…
"Ehh!? Why!? Why are you here!? World War III… The Arctic Ocean… Y-you were dead… Wh-what is going on…!?"
"Mhh… Oh, yeah. I forgot somethin' important."
"Yes, yes, like that, like that!! Okay, tell it all to Mikoto-san. What happened after that? In fact, why did you leave Academy City and charge into the center of that war in the first place…!?"
"Here, Miko-chan, this is your souvenir..."
"That is not a souvenir!! This sushi is like something from a nostalgic Showa skit!!"
"Woof woof."
"I can't follow your chain of thoughts, and now you aren't even speaking in a human language!! …What is with this? Even when Mama is at her worst, I can get through to her, but none of my experience with her is working here…!!"
Mikoto put her head in her hands while still holding the sushi box that had been handed to her, but the boy in question seemed to truly think that he had finished what he came there to do. He started to stagger off somewhere, leaving Mikoto.
If she let him get away, things would get very bad.
To put it in concrete terms, it was possible that she would end up with no scenes for three whole volumes.
Misaka Mikoto intuitively determined that fact, and frantically chased after that boy.
"Wait, stop!! Do you really think I can just accept this!? Hell no! You just left and disappeared! Today, I'm finally going to have you explain everything to me!"
"Does November even have thirty-five days…?"
"Give... It. A. Damn. Rest. Alreaaaaaaaaaadyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!"
Without meaning to, Mikoto sent bluish-white sparks flying from her bangs.
She was Academy City's #3 Level 5 and had the highest ranking electricity-type power. By making her alias of Railgun a reality at the base, she could manipulate high-voltage currents with a maximum of one billion volts.
As such, the lightning spear that she accidentally fired was quite the destructive attack.
But…
"Funyari…"
"W-what!?"
Mikoto's face paled as he evaded it with the unnatural movements characteristic of a drunk.
That spiky-haired boy had the power to easily negate the esper power Mikoto used (but she did not know exactly how it worked). He had stopped her attacks a few times with that power in the past, but…
He no longer needed his power.
So that was it.
She had worked so hard chasing after him, yet he was saying that all her efforts had been for nothing - a statement that could not be easily dealt with.
"Now this is getting interesting…"
While Mikoto hung her head down, heated feelings welled up within her.
She had not felt such belligerent emotions in a long time.
It may have been because of her rank as the #3, but she did not get many chances to go all-out. That was the feeling she got when one of those chances came along.
The drunken Kamijou looked at Mikoto's face.
"What're you smilin' for, Miko-chan. Did somethin' good happen?"
"I-I'm not smiling!! And don't call me Miko-chan!!"
"But tha'sh berbrarbrerb, i'n't it?"
"Ahh!! I have no idea what you just said, but I'm betting I should deny it, given how you said it!!" Mikoto started swinging her arms around. "My power is valuable because it has both a large output and an exceedingly vast range of applications!! I'll show you firsthand just how many types of attacks I can make wi… huh!?"
Just when Mikoto tried to point at him with her sparking finger, the spiky-haired boy was gone.
She hurriedly looked around, and found him staggering along a bit away.
But the situation was changing moment by moment.
Her thoughts simply could not keep up with the changes.
"Huh? What are you doing here?" said a black-haired girl who was approaching the spiky-haired boy and seemed like a shrine maiden outfit would suit her.
"Huhh!? Kamijou-chan, you have guts to skip school and then just go for a walk!!" shouted a girl(?) 135 centimeters tall who started to grab at him.
"Kamijou, how can you do this while we're so busy preparing for the Ichihanaransai… wait, you reek of alcohol!? I can't believe this! Why would you do something like this that shortens your own lifespan!?" said a high school girl with maddeningly huge breasts who also approached him.
"Ohh, Kamijou Touma. It's Kamijou Touma. I don't really care about you, but make kitty purr!"
In no time at all, they were in all directions.
"Oh, you're the guy who called the ambulance during the Remnant incident, aren't you?" said Musujime Awaki who she once had a confrontation with and had fair-sized breasts.
"U-um, if you were coming back, I wish you had told me," said a high school girl with glasses and huge breasts who was wearing a Kirigaoka Academy winter uniform.
"Oh, Kamijou. I didn't think you'd be coming back right now," said a high school girl with even larger breasts who was wearing a navy-blue sailor uniform.
"Wait! Wait just a second!! This is my scene! If you're going to do this, do it later!! Dammit, the guy-to-girl ratio here is completely out of balance. And is that group of huge breasts specifically targeted at me!? A-at this rate, I'll be lost in the background…!! Did they create a forest to hide a leaf!?"
As the Biri Biri girl shouted, Kamijou did not seem to even realize that he had all these people gathered around him.
Part 3
There was a girl named Index.
She had waist-long silver hair and green eyes. Her white skin seemed to reflect light. She was a little shorter than average for her age, and she may have given an impression younger than her age. She was wearing a nun's habit made of white cloth, with gold decorations giving it the coloration of a teacup. However, the major stitches were undone, and it was temporarily fastened together with large safety pins.
She stood within a student dorm in District 7 of Academy City.
It was not Index's room.
In fact, she was not even a student.
That room belonged to a certain boy. Index had been freeloading there, but the boy who was supposed to be her landlord was not there. There was no proof that he would come back. Given the organization Index belonged to, it was not exactly a good thing for her to be in that city and continue living in that room. Index wondered if she should obey the organization and head back to England…
Although she did not want to do that no matter what.
She felt that if she stayed here, he would pop up eventually. Index felt that if she gave up or left, she would be cutting off the possibility of that happening no matter how miniscule it may be. …Index had gotten to the point of thinking about things in terms of jinxes like that.
She was acting selfishly.
The organization she belonged to was allowing her that selfishness.
Perhaps they were doing so out of concern for Index herself. Or perhaps they were doing so out of concern for that boy who had disappeared in the middle of World War III in order to stop it.
"Touma…"
She quietly called his name.
The dorm room's other freeloading resident– well, this one was actually a pet– was a calico cat named Sphinx. The cat had its head inside a package that had been a souvenir from England and was eating the contents. It seemed to be saying, "I'd heard so much about British food, but the pet food is really just the same."
Only one who had leeway in her heart would have been able to smile at that unchanging scene.
She had gone beyond that point and instead felt a twinge of unease at seeing something continuing on unchanged despite having lost something.
Would he return?
How long should she continue staying here?
Was there any meaning to it?
Did there have to be a meaning to it?
She was unable to control her own emotions. The thoughts that should have been collected in a single place were scattered across her face. Those fragmentary thoughts brought forth various opinions like a short-circuit in some wiring, creating sparks; but there was no unity to the random images. If she collected them all up, there would surely be some contradictions.
If there was an opportunity, things would greatly tilt.
It was like a large board balanced atop a sharp stake. Wherever you placed your finger on the board, it would collapse in one direction or another.
She may have been remaining completely stationary because she was thoughtlessly trying to maintain that perilous balance.
Index was temporarily frozen like that while holding her memories that were much too fresh, but then the final slight force was added on.
"…This is…?"
It was the cell phone Kamijou Touma had given her. It was one of those electronic devices that she still had not mastered the use of and still needed Kamijou's help with despite her perfect memory. And it was a communications device that might be able to connect her to that boy if she only knew how to use it.
Upon seeing it, Index's heart tilted greatly.
Not even she knew which direction it had tilted in.
Index grabbed the cat that still had its head inside the pet food package, and headed for the entrance of the dorm room. Nothing would happen if she only waited. It did not matter whether she had any clues or not. Index was just about to charge out into the outside world in order to search for that boy when…
"U-uhhh… S-s-sorry for keepin' you waitin'…"
Kamijou Touma opened the door and came in dragging over ten girls with him, making him look like a magnet covered in iron sand after being dropped in a sand pit.
At first, Index only blinked a few times.
Immediately afterwards, she grasped the situation.
"T-Touma!! You were gone this whole time, so I was worried! Just what are you doing!?"
"Hic… Eh? Whaddya mean?"
"I was just about to say that you were being way too much like your normal self, Touma, but there's someone I clearly don't know mixed in!!"
"Hello, I'm the new beast girl heroine. I just met him over there."
The situation had become chaotic to the extreme and Kamijou, the person who would normally explain what was going on, was utterly knocked out, so Index had no way of dealing with it.
And…
Part 4
Accelerator and Hamazura Shiage were watching that uproar from a distance.
Just when that boy had gotten drunk, he had walked off somewhere on his own. The next thing they knew, he had a hold on a great number of girls.
"Thanks for leading the way… wait, why the hell is Musujime there, too?"
He no longer had anything to do with the dark side organization of Group, but he still had not expected to run into one of the former members here.
The #1 muttered in an exasperated way (but he also admired the fact that Kamijou Touma had a side to him other than just fighting and that he managed to let both sides coexist).
"I'll call him 'teacher'."
Hamazura didn't put much thought into it, and said that to no one in particular.