Disclaimer: I own none of the characters or events created by Kazuma Kamachi. This work was taken from Baka-tsuki and edited for better English and new events. Please read review and enjoy.

"Shit! Shit! Shit Shit Shit! God damn it! What is with all this misfortune!"

Even as she realized that her cries sounded rather strange and were utterly futile, Kamijou Touka showed no sign of stopping her screams as she continued her tremendous flight.

As she ran through back alleys late at night, dodging left and right, she glanced over her shoulder.

There were eight of them. She had run frantically for almost 2 kilometers, but there were still eight of them chasing her.

Kamijou cursed as she kicked over a filthy plastic bucket and frightened off a nearby black cat.

The date was July 19th.

All the fault for her current situation lay in that date. Because summer break would start the next day, she was in such high spirits that she had bought a manga at the bookstore, despite a glance at the gaudy colored cover telling her that it was not going to be good. She had then entered a family restaurant to treat herself, for once, to a nice between-meals snack. She then found a middle school-aged boy surrounded by clearly drunk delinquents, and decided that some rescuing was in order.

But, what she had failed to factor in, was more of their drunk comrades to come swarming out of the bathroom.

Kamijou had always thought that going to the bathroom in groups was something only girlfriends did.

She cursed again as she another corner, slowing down slightly to conserve energy.

"I had to run out before I could try the hellish goya and escargot lasagna I ordered. I'm being treated like a dine-and-dasher even though I didn't even get to dine. What kind of misfortune is this!? Gyahh!"

Kamijou scratched her head as she ran out from one of the various back alleys of this city and into the moonlit street.

It must have been because it was July 19th, because everywhere Kamijou looked there was nothing but couples as far as the eye could see.

Everything is July 19th's fault.

Kamijou, thought that in her heart, as she tore through the couples as she ran.

Behind she could hear the shouts of the people she had rudely separated from eachother, but also the resounding footsteps of her pursuers.

"Damn it, what are these guys made of! Such misfortune!"

If she simply escaped the group of delinquents, they could possibly have used their phones to call in reinforcements and bikes to hunt her down. Her plan was to simply run down their stamina, so Kamijou had been letting them catch occasional glimpses of her as bait so that they would continue to run and wear themselves out. It was akin to letting boxers hit you to weaken them.

Kamijou's goal was only to save any possible victims.

If she could lose them and have them give up without getting into a fistfight, she would win.

Incidentally, Kamijou had confidence in her long distance running thanks to the small training regimen she did every day.

On the other hand, her opponents had damaged their bodies with alcohol and cigarettes as well as wearing boots which had almost no functionality in their current situation. On top of all that, they had been running at full speed without pacing themselves, which was impossible by its very nature.

As Kamijou had alternated and weaved in and out through roads and back alleys while seemingly simply clumsily running about in a panic, she had seen one and then another of the delinquents drop out of the chase, leaning forward with their hands on their knees. She that felt her plan was the perfect way of resolving the situation without any injuries.

However that did not dull her anger at all.

"Damn it! Why do I have to waste my youthful energy on this crap!?"

Everywhere she looked, Kamijou saw nothing but couples full of dreams and happiness, enjoying the summer night. Kamijou, who was single, could hardly bear the thought that the date could change, yet she would probably have the same amount of misfortune. The very thought of that brought a tear to her eye.

She then heard one of the delinquents shout at her from behind.

"Hey! Slow down you fucking bitch! At least give us a panty shot for our troubles!"

Kamijou felt all of her raging blood go to her face as she turned her head.

"Shut up you idiot! You should be thanking me for not turning around right now and knocking you and your monkey-level IQ out cold!"

As Kamijou shouted back, she stumbled slightly on a box and felt the back of her skirt rise above her hips.

"Wow, what cute panties! Who would have though a high school girl outside of a manga would wear such things!"

Gritting her teeth, Kamijou turned her head and saw that the sight of her panties had reinvigorated the nearly worn out delinquents. Out of seemingly thin air, two more of their comrades joined in with wicked smiles stretched across their faces.

With a sense of failure slowly creeping into her gut, Kamijou looked up at the night sky filled with brightly twinkling stars and shouted.

"Such misfortune!"

After another 2 kilometers of sweaty and teary-eyed running, Kamijou exited the urban area and came to the banks of a large river. A large metal bridge spanned the river, about 150 meters across with no cars on it. With no light source, the plain metal bridge was wrapped in an eerie darkness much like a midnight sea.

Ignoring that, Kamijou glanced back as she quickly darted across the bridge.

But then she stopped mid stride.

At some point in her flight, she had escaped all of her pursuers.

"Shit. Did I finally shake them?"

Kamijou desperately suppressed the urge to sit down right then and there as she stared up into the night sky with a smile.

She had actually managed to resolve everything without having to punch anyone.

She really wanted to praise herself for that.

Well all's well that ends-

"Really now, what are you doing you idiot? Do you think protecting those delinquents makes you a good person, like some sort of hero of justice?"

In one instance, Kamijou's entire body froze over, even though it was a fairly warm night.

Because the bridge had no lights anywhere around it, Kamijou had not noticed the boy standing about 5 meters ahead in the direction she had been running.

He looked like a completely normal middle school boy wearing a pair of gray slacks, a short-sleeved dress shirt, and a summer sweater.

Kamijou again stared up into the sky and seriously considered collapsing onto her back. The boy infront of her was the same one that was from the family restaurant.

"So you're the reason that they stopped chasing me."

It was more of a statement then a question.

"Yeah. Those bastards were annoying me, so I roasted them all."

There was a loud zapping sound that echoed off the water a few meters below the bridge. Rather than a stun gun, the boy's short brown hair swayed as if blown by the wind, as sparks of bluish white electricity flew from it like an electrode.

In that moment a convenience store bag in the wind passed by the boy's head, and in an instant it was blown away by bluish-white sparks.

Kamijou sighed to herself.

July 19th. That was why she had bought a manga at the bookstore despite one glance at the gaudy colored cover telling her it was not going to be good. She had then entered a family restaurant to treat herself, for once, to a nice between-meals snack. She then saw a middle school-aged boy surrounded by clearly drunk delinquents, and decided that some rescuing was in order.

That was what happened.

However, Kamijou had not a single thought about rescuing the boy. Instead, she had tried to rescue the idiots who had carelessly approached him.

Why was this boy always like this? After their first meeting weeks ago, whenever she and he crossed paths it always resulted in a fight. If this had been anywhere else in the world this would be easy to solve, but since it was here it was nowhere near easy.

"…What did I even do to you to make you like this? Did I make such an impression that you fell in love with me?"

The boy sneered in response to Kamijou's question.

"Don't flatter yourself, gorilla girl. I simply cannot allow anyone to be stronger than me. That is enough of a reason for me to do this."

Kamijou sighed to herself. Such an explanation would have been fine for a poorly written manga character, but for the real world it just sounded ridiculous.

The boy continued to talk as if Kamijou was listening.

"But you're treating me like an idiot, as well. Did you forget that I'm a Level 5? Level 0's like you should learn to respect your betters."

Kamijou remained silent for a moment.

Academy City.

In this city, the usual standard of a back alley delinquent being the strongest in a fight did not hold up to reality. Those delinquents were mostly powerless, being stigmatized by the name Level 0, those with no real power.

The truly strong in that city, the top-tier of students, were espers, those with powers straight out of fiction.

"Yeah, about all that. I do understand that you possess a talent that only 1 in 328,571 in this city have. I really do. But if you want to live a long happy life, you should really stop speaking to people so condescendingly."

To Kamijou's lecture, the boy simply grinned wickedly.

"Shut up. You probably couldn't bend a single spoon after having various crazy things done to you like have drugs injected directly into your blood vessels or having electrodes stabbed in through your ears and into the brain. What right do you have to lecture me?"

"…"

That was the kind of place Academy City was.

On the surface Academy City was the pinnacle of science and technology, having items and practices that were many years ahead of those of the outside world. Such things as extra sensory powers were common place in this super advanced world.

However, the other side of Academy City could be seen in how the means of developing these things. To develop these extra sensory powers, numerous "tests" and "practice aids" had been added to the curriculum that, outside of Academy City, would have been considered torturous and cruel.

However, not all of the 2.3 million students living in Academy City had suffered the machinations of this cites darkness. Just under 60% were utterly useless Level 0s who could only bend a spoon with their mind after focusing their brain to the point of all their blood vessel bursting.

However that was the sort of thing that angered Kamijou more than being forced to abandon her meal or being chased by random people all night.

"I really don't see the appeal of psychic powers. If I need to bend a spoon, I can just use pliers. If I need to make fire, I can just buy a cheap lighter. Also, what do I need telepathy for when I have a cell phone? Are psychic powers you have really that great?"

Those were the words of Kamijou Touka, a person who had been branded as useless by Academy City's physical examination sensors.

Those were the thoughts of the girl who hated that such a barbaric system governed this supposedly advanced city.

"And everyone's priorities are all messed up as well. They're all rejoicing over a byproduct we call psychic powers, but isn't the real objective if this city something beyond that?"

In response, the boy who was one of the seven monsters of Academy City laughed.

"Oh god. What was it again? Something like, 'Humans being cannot at this time calculate god, so we need to acquire a body that exceeds our humanity before we can', right?"

The boy instantly sneered.

"Hah. Don't make me laugh. What is all this about the 'understanding god'? We espers have the power to change the world with only a thought, so what point is there with trying to understand the world."

After saying that, the boy smiled and awaited an answer, convinced that he was right.

In the silence, it felt as if the quality of the air had changed.

"…For God's sake, those are the words of the strong."

The boy raised an eyebrow at this, confused.

"What?"

Kamijou began to flex her left hand, and also began to grit her teeth in anger.

"The strong. The strong. The strong. The strong. The strong. Those are the fearless and cruel words of a manga antagonist who is so out of touch with reality that it isn't even funny."

The river below the bridge began to make an unsettling amount of noise.

The boy in front of her had probably given up much to reach the top of this city. From his words it was clear that he had endured things that normal humans would have gone insane over.

Yet Kamijou had denied it all of it with only a few words. His sacrifices, his accomplishment, his very point of view. With only a few words it had been deemed irrelevant.

The boy stood silent for a moment, but then a twisted smile came across his face. Sticking his hand in his pant pocket, he pulled out an arcade coin that could be found anywhere.

"Tell me have you ever heard the term 'Railgun'?"

Kamijou continued to stare in silence. The boy gave up on an answer and continued.

"The idea behind it is the same as a linear motor train. By creating an area electro magnetism in which a metal projectile is fired through. The electro field allows for the coin to move at extremely fast speed without the fear of air friction. Upon leaving the field the projectile is traveling with such speeds that it can do large amounts of damage with very small objects."

Though she tried her best to keep a calm face, Kamijou could barely keep up with the technical jargon the boy was spouting. However she could not get rid of the feeling that something terrible was going to happen.

The boy meanwhile flicked the coin in his hand up into the air with his thumb. The coin rotated a few times before landing back.

"You see, a Railgun is something like this."

The second he spoke, an orange spear of light suddenly and silently shot past Kamijou's head. In the disorienting second that followed, Kamijou could only tell that the spear had originated from the boy's thumb because the afterimage of light that stretched back to it.

Almost like the thunder that follows lightning, noise rumbled back into the world after a slight delay. As the shockwave tore through her ears, Kamijou's sense of balance was partially destroyed. She staggered and fell. As she struggled to reorient herself, she turned her head to look at where the spear of light had gone.

The asphalt that made up the surface of the road had been blown away like water to Jet Ski. Even after it had travelled 30 meters on a path of utter destruction, the orange afterglow was still burning the air like an afterimage.

"See. Even an ordinary coin like this can be quite powerful weapon when it's fired at three times the speed of sound. Oh! And of course, the coin melts after 50 meters because of air friction."

That bridge made of steel and concrete swayed like it was an unreliable suspension bridge made of wood and rope. Failing metal bolts could be heard occasionally popping out of place.

Kamijou gritted her teeth and swallowed her fear from the display of force she had just seen.

"Damn you. Don't tell me you used that to drive those guys away!"

The boy chuckled.

"Thinking about those idiots still. Don't be so worried . I match my methods to my opponents. I don't want to accidentally become a murderer, you know."

As he spoke, sparks began to fly from the boy's brown hair.

"This is enough to take care of Level 0s!"

Bluish-white sparks flew from the boy's bangs like spear, and flew towards Kamijou.

There was no way to evade it. After all, Kamijou was against the bluish-white lightning shot from a Level 5's hair. It was akin to watching a thundercloud fire a bolt at light speed and then try to dodge it.

An explosive noise followed after a slight delay.

Kamijou immediately held up her left hand to protect her face and the lightning spear struck it. Electricity rampaged through Kamijou's body as sparks scattered in every direction, into the bridge's steel framework.

…Or so it seemed.

"So tell me, why are you completely unhurt?"

His words seemed lighthearted enough, but the boy was baring his canines as he glared at the fine Kamijou.

The high voltage current that had scattered into the surroundings had been powerful enough to burn through the steel framework of the bridge, yet Kamijou's left hand had not even a single burn on it.

Kamijou's left hand had erased the boy's electrical strike that numbered a few hundred million volts like it hadn't even been there.

"Honestly, what's with you? That power of yours isn't even listed in Academy City's Bank. If I'm a one in 328,571 genius, then you're a one in 2,300,000 monster."

The boy sounded annoyed, yet a smile was slowly creeping across his face.

"If I were to defeat an exception like that, I might be able to raise my level, don't you think?"

"…But you always lose."

Kamijou lowered her hand to her side and glared at the middle-school aged boy across from her.

Imagine Breaker.

Psychic powers ranged from the ones mocked on TV to the ones established with numerical formulas in Academy City. There were those who could use telepathy to lift things, those who could control fire, even those who could control any vector in the world.

Anything using supernatural power, even if it were part of god's divine system, it would be negated without question by that supernatural power of her own.

As it was supernatural in origin, even the boy's Railgun ability was no exception.

However, Kamijou's Imagine Breaker only worked on supernatural powers. Simply put, in a battle with espers, her power was the strongest in the world, but against those who fought with conventional means she was just a high school girl.

Kamijou locked eyes with the middle-school aged boy with short brown hair. A mature smile crossed her face.

"I guess you could say that it was either some misfortune or your just not lucky today."

That was how Kamijou Touka, a Certain Power Canceling Esper, brought that day, July 19th, to an end.

With just one comment, she seemed to be lamenting to everything in the world.

"You just really aren't lucky at all, are you?"