This is fanfiction and is therefore Fair Use of the To Aru Universe as written by Kazuma Kamachi.

This is fanfiction and is therefore Fair Use of the Whateley Universe written by The Canon Cabal (TINCC!).

Thanks to all the Translation Teams!

Crystal Hall Version here:

crystalhall org /chboards3/?t=msg&th=3466

Crystal Hall Discussion Thread here:

crystalhall org /chboards3/?t=msg&th=3467

FanFictionNet Version right here ... Currently behind Crystal Hall version...

****************AUTHOR'S NOTE END**********************

Prologue: The Tale of the Running Boy. Imagine_Breaker.

Time: 8:27PM, July 19th 2006.
Location: Alleyway in School District 7 of Academy City, founded in the western Tokyo Metropolis, about 40km west of Tokyo's center.

**********************START****************************

"Eh?! Damn it! Damn it! Arghhh! Such misfortune!" [1]

Though he realized his frantic shouts must have made him sound like a maniac, Kamijou Touma has no intention of stopping his headlong flight. Fleeing down a back alleyway late at night, he glanced back over his shoulder.

There was no one there.

After he had run nearly two kilometers, his pursers had disappeared.

The reason he was running was simple.

July 19.

Yeah, it was because it's July 19.

Because he had been reveling in the fact that summer break started tomorrow, he picked up a manga at the bookstore that was obviously a dud. This fact was also why he went into a family restaurant thinking Maybe I'll splurge a little on something to eat, even though he hadn't been very hungry. And so, when he saw a middle school girl surrounded by drunken thugs, he got this wacky idea in his head telling him, Hey, maybe I should help.

However, he couldn't have dreamt that all their buddies would start popping out of the bathroom together. He thought, Only girls were allowed to use the bathroom together, right?

"I had to run out of there before I could get the bitter melon and escargot hell-lasagna I had finally decided on. Now I'm a dine-and-dasher without even getting to dine! Arghhh, what's with this misfortune?!" Was what he thought while running out of mercy.

If he managed to completely shake off the group of delinquents, the ones who had lost sight of Kamijou could simply use their mobiles to call for reinforcements and possibly even transportation. For the sake of making them collapse from exhaustion, Kamijou Touma had no
choice but to bait the struggling pursuers into following him, in order to slowly but surely wear them out. It similar to boxing: Letting your opponent hit you recklessly in order to drain his physical strength.

Kamijou's motive to the end was assuredly an "act of mercy".

It was certainly useless to fight, and he would consider it a "victory" if his pursuers were shaken off and made to give up. At the very least, Kamijou was very confident in long-distance running. Plus, the pursuers were in poor health due to a life-time of drinking and smoking and were wearing boots: Footwear with zero functionality. Disregarding the pace and the need to fully sprint to keep up, basic long-distance running was without doubt not possible for them.

He had dashed from one alleyway to the next as his pursuers kept growing in number until he could no longer recognize their individual shapes, all while trying to think of a way to end this without anyone getting hurt.

"Sh-shit... Why must I put my youth on the line for this?!"

It was regrettable. Everywhere he looked were couples full of happiness and dreams; somewhere within Kamijou, being alone, was the feeling he was a terrible loser. Even if the date was different, the summer holiday had already started, and with neither love nor comedy he was considered beyond a loser.

And then he looks back.

"Damn... They've finally given up."

Desperately bearing the urge to sit, Kamijou makes a *petan* sound on the spot, looks up at the night sky, and takes a deep breath. After managing to solve the problem without anyone getting hurt, he just wants to take a moment to praise himself for the accomplishment.

Moonlight descends upon Academy City, which is approximately one-third the size of Tokyo and therefore crowded with couples. It's definitely July 19. This is all July 19's fault, the single thought roared within Kamijou's mind.

The three-bladed, solar-paneled wind turbines that stood here and there glittered like tears shed by a bachelor, basking in both pale moonlight and the lights of the nighttime city.

*BACHIN*

The explosive sound of electricity came from close behind him.

Surprised, Kamijou's body froze.

"Good grief. Who do you think you are? Pretending to be a humanitarian, protecting the delinquents... And they were going repay you by jumping you. Aren't you one crazy idiot? "

Kamijou slowly turned around to face the previously silent presence in the alley.

Roughly five meters behind, in the direction Kamijou ran from, a girl lit by the moon was standing alone. A rather ordinary middle school girl wearing a gray-pleated skirt, a short-sleeved blouse, and a summer sweater.

Looking up at the night sky, Kamijou, more than half serious, thinks of just falling flat on his bottom in defeat.

How should he say it? The girl that was being messed with at the restaurant was the girl standing in front of him.

"... That's the issue, I guess. The company came afterward."

"Un. They were troublesome, so I fried them."

*Bachin* The sound of a blueish-white spark reverberated.

He didn't mean the girl held onto a stun gun. Every time her shoulder-length light-brown hair swayed, sparks flew from it like the crackling of an electrode.

"Whoa!" Kamijou says, worn out with a single word.

It's July 19. That was why he picked up the manga, a "landmine" from just a glance at the front cover, from the bookshop and entered a family restaurant despite not being hungry. There he saw a drunk delinquent obviously pestering a middle school girl, and considered whether he or not he should help.

However, Kamijou never pretending he was trying to "help the girl".

Kamijou only remembered trying to stop the young men from carelessly approaching her and getting themselves hurt.

Kamijou sighed. That girl was always like this: Even though they have crossed each others' paths sporadically for nearly a month, neither remembered the name of the other. In other words, they definitely weren't friends.

Today, he was sure, he'd be recklessly beaten like hell until he became living trash. To the girl's proud mindset, that was the appropriate way to deal with Kamijou. Without exception, all their fights to date had been complete victories.

A proper loss would clear up that girl's feelings, Kamijou thinks. His acting skills were poor however: Once before, when he had "collapsed" with a demon-like face, she chased him for an entire night.

"Hey, what did I ever do to you?"

"I cannot allow someone stronger than myself to exist. That reason alone is more than enough."

That was it?

He thinks, Not even fighting games have characters with such mindless agendas.

"You're making fun of me, right? You know, despite the fact I'm a Level 5, I'm considering going all-out you, you "Level 0" idiot. What kind of Ability is that Imagine Breaker of yours?!"

The "delinquent guys of rear alleyways = the violent are the strongest" image does not apply within the boundaries of this city. As dropouts from the Personal Ability development curriculum, they were terrible Level 0s.

The ones that were truly strong in this city were people like her, Level 5s.

"Well, about that, no one knows... I understand well that you are a 1-in-230,000 owner of talent, but you had better stop that 'looking down' on a person who wants a long life, in a matter of speaking."

"Shut up, you 1-in-2,300,000 unknown! To inject drugs directly into a blood vessel, to pierce the brain directly from behind the ear, to do such things like an oddball and not even be able to bend a single spoon... there's no other choice but to call the talentless you that!"

Indeed, that's the kind of place Academy City is.

With such deceptive names like "recording skills" and "memorization skills", the place incorporated "brain development" quietly into the curriculum - another face of Academy City. To begin with, all 2,300,000 "students" living in Academy City did not stop like protagonists of manga. In all, he had seen about 50 percent of the weak students, after fully exerting themselves to the point of tearing their brains' blood vessels, finally bend a spoon to some degree; as a matter of fact, it was only the Level 0s who were unusable.

"If it's to bend a spoon, using pliers is good enough; if it's to make fire, buying a ¥50 lighter works well enough. If it's something like telepathy, mobile phones already exist, don't they? Isn't such Abilities just unusual?"

These are the words of Kamijou: One who was classified as powerless by Academy City's body examination centers.

"The main point is that everyone is strange, being pleased with a byproduct like ESP. Wasn't that previous reason our objective?"

In response to that, the "Level 5" girl, one of only ten such people in all of Academy City, slants one of the corners of her lips.

"Huh? So that's it, right? I certainly wondered, 'A human can't do God's calculations.' If that's the case, when a body that exceeds humans can't be obtained, there wouldn't be a struggle to arrive at God's answer."

The girl laughs scornfully.

"Ha, you make me laugh. What the heck is 'God's mind'? You know, right? Rumor has it that my DNA map is being analyzed and used as the basis for some military sisters that are being developed. It seems like there was an even more delicious byproduct than the purpose, doesn't it?"

She says that much, and abruptly stops herself.

There's a sensation of the quality in the soundless atmosphere changing.

"Well... really the words of a strong person, right?"

"Huh?"

"A strong person, a strong person, a strong person. To just possess talent from birth, obtain power, and not completely understand the pain of struggling... your words are like those of a manga protagonist: Harsh and with boldness."

There are only ten Level 5s in Academy City; in their struggle to reach that pinnacle, how much of their "humanity" did they cast aside? A dark flame which hinted that flared from those words.

Kamijou denies them.

In merely one word, in merely that matter, to never be looked down upon. Of merely, for that matter, to never be defeated again.

"Hey! Hey! My level is 0 and yours is 5. Try hearing it from any walking chap on this side; things like 'who is above' is known in one hit, you know!"

Academy City's ability development freely uses pharmaceutics, cerebral medical science and physiology, and the like - basically, all things "scientific". If the fixed curriculum handled it, those without abilities could reach the point of at least bending a spoon.

Kamijou Touma couldn't do even that.

Academy City's measurement machines evaluated him as absolutely "zero" ability. "No way you're a Zero! You impossible failure!" The girl screams that word, throwing it from her mouth.

Her hand goes into her skirt pocket, and takes out a coin. One from an arcade game.

"You saw my 'railgun' last time, right?!"

"Huh? Wait! NOT HERE!"

*Ping!*, the girl flips the coin into the air with her thumb.

Kamijou burst forward and caught the coin in his left hand, right above her left fist, while holding onto that hand with his right one.

But, that burst left him unbalanced and he fell, pulling the girl down with him.

They each berated the other at exactly the same time with the same words: "Hey, idiot, what was that about?!"

Their responses were also the same: "Me? What were you thinking? Doing something like that? Do you know what could have happened?"

However, their priorities were different: "You/I could have died!/gone deaf!"

"Ehhh? That's what you care about? Going deaf? You think that right hand of yours could stop my Railgun?!"

"Yes that's what I care about! Your Railgun is LOUD! Nothing's stopped my right hand before, but I wouldn't want to test it~! Think before you fire! Who do you think you are? Some kind of manga character?"

"Hey! I know what I'm doing! It's my power! 'There's nothing that's stopped it before!' Who do you think YOU are, arrogant idiot failure? ... Let go of my hand!"

"Not until you promise not to shock me! ... And to think when you fire that Railgun again!"

"What? Why? Let! *Tug* Go! *Tug*"

"Why?! I want to not go deaf when we meet again! Promise and I'll let go! That's my promise!"

"Okay! Okay! I promise! Now, Let! Go!"

"Gladly!"

The girl stood up and let Kamijou run off... and just stood there, blushing...

***********************************END********************** ******************