"You called me an intruder, and you called the girl on the ground a test subject. So I wandered into some kind of experimental site without realizing it."
Caelus calmly pieced together the situation from what little information he had.
"That would make you either one of the people running the experiment or someone assigned to carry it out. And that phone call just now was probably whoever's behind it ordering you to deal with the unexpected intruder. Is that about right?"
Accelerator said nothing. He simply stared at Caelus with obvious suspicion.
"As for your other question, the answer is fairly simple. I'm not human in the strict biological sense. I'm something else that happens to possess a similar appearance, senses, and general state of existence."
Caelus saw no reason to conceal the truth.
He considered himself human. He had passed through death and rebirth and reclaimed the meaning of life, restoring much of the emotion and sensory experience he'd once lacked.
But that did not mean he'd suddenly become a carbon-based organism.
At his core, he was still a conceptual lifeform.
[You're making it sound unnecessarily complicated.]
[If you're looking for something vaguely comparable, Greeza might qualify. It's another existence associated with nothingness, something that fundamentally shouldn't exist within ordinary reality.]
Caelus's interest immediately sharpened.
There were actually beings similar to him?
He had assumed an existence as complicated as his own would be exceptionally rare. Yet somewhere in the endless multiverse, there were apparently others that operated on comparable principles.
The possibilities really were infinite.
Accelerator clearly didn't believe all of Caelus's explanation, but this time he didn't immediately rush forward.
Instead, he seized control of the surrounding air.
Wind converged violently toward a single point, compressed tighter and tighter until it became a distorted sphere of plasma.
Then Accelerator released his control.
The plasma sphere shot toward Caelus at tremendous speed.
Caelus watched it approach.
If he simply moved aside, the girl lying behind him would be completely obliterated.
So would a significant portion of the surrounding buildings.
He stayed where he was.
The plasma sphere struck him.
Ripples spread across Caelus's body like a stone hitting the surface of a river.
Then the entire attack vanished.
He had simply absorbed it.
"Can we talk now?"
Caelus's voice remained perfectly calm.
"That was your third attack."
"You mistook me for an intruder and reacted accordingly, so I've been willing to overlook it. But I've given you enough chances."
His tone never rose, yet the warning carried absolute certainty.
"If you attack me again, I'll consider us openly hostile."
"And then I'll respond."
Accelerator's brows drew tightly together.
None of this made sense.
What the hell was this thing?
Physical attacks passed through him.
Vector manipulation couldn't affect his internal structure because there seemed to be no internal structure at all.
Even a compressed plasma attack had simply vanished into him.
If this really turned into a fight, Accelerator had no idea how he was supposed to win.
Worse, if Caelus truly could ignore his abilities completely, then there was a genuine possibility that Accelerator himself could be killed.
The standoff lasted only a few moments before the phone in Accelerator's pocket rang again.
He glanced at Caelus.
Seeing no movement from him, Accelerator pulled out the phone and answered.
"Hah?! You've got to be kidding me."
A pause.
"That's it? We're just dropping it?"
Another pause.
"Tch. Fine. Got it."
Accelerator looked thoroughly irritated when he put the phone away.
He gave Caelus one last look, said nothing, and walked out of the alley.
Caelus watched him leave.
The boy's personality was abrasive enough that trying to force a conversation would probably end with them fighting anyway.
Better to speak with whoever was actually directing things from behind the scenes.
He turned back toward the dead girl.
Her body was already beginning to cool.
Once again, Caelus found himself considering the same question.
Should he save her?
Before he reached a decision, a figure abruptly appeared nearby.
A young woman.
Her clothing was unusually revealing. A jacket hung loosely around her upper body, with bandages wrapped around her chest beneath it, while her skirt was so short it barely covered her hips.
It looked less like practical clothing and more like someone had intentionally designed the outfit to be provocative.
Caelus sensed the spatial distortion immediately.
The red-haired girl wore her hair in twin tails. Although she was clearly trying to maintain a composed expression, her face looked slightly pale.
Apparently, teleportation wasn't especially pleasant for her either.
"The Board Chairman wants to meet you."
She raised what looked like a flashlight.
"Stay where you are. I'll send you there."
"No need."
Caelus shook his head.
"Just tell me where he is. Your ability won't work on me."
He understood what she intended.
She wanted to teleport him.
But even if Caelus lowered every defense and allowed her ability to act freely, his sheer existential weight was far beyond what she could move.
If teleporting an ordinary adult had a difficulty value of one, teleporting Caelus would require a number so absurdly large that comparison stopped being useful.
And that was only spatial manipulation.
Temporal abilities would fare even worse.
The girl clearly did not believe him.
She tried anyway.
Then her expression changed.
She couldn't move him.
More than that, her ability couldn't even establish interference with him.
Within the coordinate space her power could perceive and manipulate, Caelus simply wasn't there.
Musujime Awaki stared at him, suddenly unsure what she was supposed to do.
A command came through the Bluetooth earpiece she was wearing.
She visibly relaxed.
Then she pointed toward a distant part of Academy City.
"The person who wants to see you is inside that windowless building over there."
Caelus looked in the indicated direction.
His vision passed straight through the intervening structures until he found the building she meant.
He nodded once.
Then vanished.
The next instant, Caelus appeared inside the Windowless Building.
His gaze settled on the figure suspended upside down in a cylindrical life-support device filled with red liquid.
The person's appearance was strikingly androgynous, making their sex impossible to determine at a glance.
They wore a green surgical gown, while long white hair drifted weightlessly through the fluid around them.
Then a voice emerged.
It sounded male and female at once.
Young and old.
Like a saint and a prisoner speaking through the same mouth.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, unknown traveler."
"I am Aleister Crowley, Chairman of Academy City."
"Hello."
Caelus regarded the figure calmly.
"My name is Caelus. I'm a traveler."
"Caelus..."
Aleister's expression seemed almost amused, yet simultaneously completely serious.
"A rather unusual name."
Caelus's gaze shifted slightly to one side.
"And what should I call you?"
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then another presence emerged.
"Aiwass."
The voice sounded like that of a middle-aged man.
Yet the form that appeared was unmistakably feminine, surrounded by a sacred radiance that obscured its exact features.
(To be continued.)
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◇ You can read the ahead chapter on Pat if you're interested: p-atreon.c-om/Blownleaves (Just remove the hyphen to access normally.)