CHAPTER 2:
"The damage for the ballistic slider we leant you comes right out of your paycheck," Stiyl said. The seven foot tall teenager with long red hair and a barcode tattoo under his right eye smirked at the spiky-haired boy lying on the hospital bed in front of him.
Kamijou Touma gawked at the magician in a black cloak and commented, "You guys don't pay me."
"Guess you'll have to pay off Tsuchimikado some other way then," Stiyl remarked.
"Such misfortune!" Touma exclaimed and dropped his head back to the pillow. He opened up his eyes and gained a semi-serious expression. "And what about that magician?"
Stiyl nodded and continued, "Tsuchimikado took Ladylee into custody when he got up there, and she's being contained. You don't have to worry about her anymore." Touma sighed in relief and Stiyl shook his head at the older teen. "Guess I should thank you. The whole Earth does actually."
Touma did not change his expression and he just shook his head once. He was going to say something about how it wasn't him, but the door to the hospital room opened up and they both turned to see the chubby doctor with a frog-like face standing there. "Kamijou, there is a girl here to see you."
Said boy sighed and glanced above Stiyl's head at the wall clock to see it was already nine o'clock. "I told Himegami to bring Index home-"
"It is not the nun," the doctor interrupted. "Misaka Mikoto is here."
Touma's eyes widened for a second, then he turned to Stiyl who got up from his seat next to Touma's bed. "I'll leave you to it," Stiyl said and he put a cigarette in his mouth, instantly getting the doctor in front of him annoyed.
"Oi Stiyl," Touma began before the magician was out of the room. The taller teen stopped and glanced back, and Touma continued while scratching the side of his head and looking away, "Would you mind, checking on Index for me? Just to make sure she got back to the dorm-"
"Yeah yeah," Stiyl replied and waved his hand at the teen. He turned and walked towards the open door, raising his right hand as he did and igniting his cigarette with a finger. "I was going to do that anyway," he said in a low voice and Touma nodded with a small smile.
Stiyl walked out and he headed down the hall with the doctor walking after him complaining about the cigarette that he had told him he could not light in there. A girl watched the taller teen with red hair walk by, wondering who he was since she saw him here the day before too, but then she turned away and looked back into the open room in front of her.
Mikoto walked into the room to see Touma sitting up on his bed and looking at her with a small smile. He was in the same place she saw him yesterday before he suddenly vanished when she went to get drinks and somehow made it up to the top of the space elevator before her. "Hey Biribiri," he said, and instantly Mikoto's hesitant look turned into a frustrated one and she frowned deeply at him. "What are you doing here?" He questioned her.
"That's not my name," she growled at him and sparks flew around her. His face covered in sweat and he held up his arms defensively, an action that made him wince in pain and made Mikoto stop glaring so hard. The girl sighed and as she took off the backpack she had on she began, "Don't even know if I should give you this now." She opened the zipper of her pack and Touma watched carefully as she reached inside to take something out.
Mikoto pulled out her hand and in her grasp was a see-through plastic box. In that box was some food that made Touma's eyes widen. Mikoto began, "I hate the food in this place so I figured you might want something-"
"Yes please!" He said and reached forward, making him wince again and this time let out a grunt of pain.
"Stop moving, idiot," Mikoto snapped, then mumbled the last part as she walked around his bed. She handed him the box and Touma opened it up and started eating right away with the chopsticks she handed him as well.
He hummed in delight and said, "This is really good. Where did you buy it from?"
Mikoto just sat down on the chair next to Touma's bed and she pulled out a box of her own, but that comment made a tick mark appear on her forehead and she growled deeply. "I didn't 'buy' it anywhere."
Touma looked confused for a second, then his eyes widened and he asked in surprise, "You made this?" The amount of surprise in his voice made Mikoto glare at him and he leaned back nervously. "I mean, it's really good, so I just thought, you got it, from..." The more he said the more she was getting angry and finally he just shoved some food in his mouth to shut himself up which actually seemed to satisfy the girl next to him.
Mikoto started eating her food herself though she was still grumbling a little about his remarks. She had only taken a few bites though when Touma questioned, "So, you cooked all this?" She glared at him but he was looking down at his box of food and moving around the different dishes in their own separate areas. He looked up and said softly, "Thanks."
"It was nothing," she said, brushing him off so he would not think anything of it.
"Not for the food," Touma continued, which made Mikoto growl angrily at him. "Well yeah for the food!" He corrected quickly, then added, "But, I was talking about for last night." Her eyes widened and he continued, "Index was here earlier, and she told me you went up there with Anti-Skill, so I just wanted to thank you."
"There were a lot of people who needed help up there," Mikoto said quickly, her cheeks slightly red. "I wasn't just going up to get you- I mean I didn't even know you were there!" She corrected herself as the first way she said it made it seem like getting him was at least part of it. He chuckled and she glared more at him but it worked less when her face was red. Mikoto tried calming herself down, but now that they were talking about it, she had questions and she looked into his eyes which stopped his laughter. "Why did you go up there?"
He lowered his smile and replied, "Arisa needed help-"
"And what happened to her?" Mikoto snapped. His expression was not nearly as dark as it should be, and she continued angrily, and also a little sadly, "The news says the teams that have been going up there since last night haven't located Arisa-san anywhere in the space station. And since she wasn't with us when we left-"
"It's alright," Touma said, though he did seem a little sad as he said it. She was her own person, with hopes and dreams like the rest of us. And she's not gone, not completely. Shutaura promised Index that, but still... He did not know how he felt about the ordeal, but he knew it ended about as happily as it could have so he sighed and looked back into Mikoto's eyes. While he had looked down though to think, she progressively got more annoyed at him ignoring her and now she was leaning forward and glaring so hard at him that he snapped up so far his back was against the headboard behind him.
"How is that okay?" Mikoto snapped at him.
"It's just, she was," Touma scratched the side of his head with his right arm that was bandaged from the elbow up beneath his shirt's short sleeve. Most of his torso under his clothes had to be bandaged, but he was glad he knew the doctor here so well and the frog-faced man was great at patching him up by now. He could see she was still frowning and awaiting an answer, so finally he just went with, "Trust me?" He said it as a question, and Mikoto did not know how to respond for a moment. She slowly nodded and he continued, "Then believe me, Arisa's okay."
"I-" Mikoto instantly opened up her mouth to argue, but she thought about how she nodded at him and closed her mouth. Sure I trust you, but, but then what- where is- how- she looked so frustrated and she ran her hands up through her hair.
"Anyway, how was school?" Touma said, not-so-subtly changing the subject completely. Mikoto wanted to keep talking about it, but she sighed and accepted that she just had to trust him on this one. That did not mean she was going to go with his attempt to change the conversation though, and she snapped at him for thinking she would have fallen for that. He held up his hands defensively and she threatened taking his food away which made him gasp in mock-terror, which made Mikoto actually take his food and for that terror to turn real.
Touma begged for it back and after a few seconds of making him think she wouldn't, Mikoto finally handed it back to him. They finished up the meals she made together, and Mikoto realized something as she was taking her final bite. We're the only ones in here. We just ate dinner together. Is this- Is this a-
Touma noticed her face getting progressively more red and he looked at her funny. "Is something wrong?" He leaned up and put a hand on the girl's forehead which only made her even more red. "Wow, you're burning up!"
"I'm fine!" She yelled and smacked his hand away. Mikoto started huffing and puffing and she calmed herself down as she did. You're just checking on him! That's it! Think of something else! "Who was that guy?" She questioned. Mikoto looked him in the eyes and specified, "The one who was just leaving here. He looked almost like he was dressed as a priest, but he seemed a little young."
"Stiyl?" Touma asked. He opened his mouth to say who the guy was, but then closed it as he realized he had no response to describe who Stiyl was. "I guess, he's like, a priest," Touma said and tilted his head to the side. Does he have an actual job? Does the church pay him, or is that kind of stuff his night job? Does he work at a McDonalds or something during the day? He imagined Stiyl standing behind a fast food counter with an apron on and a huge smile spread across his face.
Mikoto took the smile to mean something else though and she asked harshly, "Are you messing with me?"
"Huh?" He asked, eyes widening at the accusation. "No, I mean, he is very religious," Touma argued for his explanation. And he uses crazy magic fire demons, but I'm not going to tell you that. "Hey Biribiri," he began, trying to change the subject again and this time succeeding better as once he said her nickname she lost focus on everything else and just became annoyed about that. "Why'd you come so late? It's already past curfew you know?"
"I know that!" She snapped at him. Mikoto had purposely not been thinking about it though. She did not want to think about the headmistress, and she did not want to call Kuroko and tell her to cover for her, because she knew once she did Kuroko would start accusing her of meeting up with 'that gorilla,' which this time she could not truthfully deny. "Hehh," Mikoto sighed and leaned back in her chair with ER eyes closed. "I had things to do today you know? I only managed to come here because it was on my way back from the mall-"
"But didn't you make these dinners before you came?" Touma asked. Mikoto's eyes snapped open and her cheeks reddened. He was looking at her funny and she opened her mouth but no words were coming out.
"I stopped at the mall first!" She yelled, then before he could question her since none of this made any sense, she continued loudly, "Why are you still in here anyway?! I figured you would be out in hours considering how often you land yourself in here. Yet it's been a whole day and you're still here."
She pointed a finger accusingly at him, and Touma replied while leaning back in his bed, "I check out tomorrow morning. The Doctor wouldn't let me sign out today..." He continued explaining while Mikoto stared at him with her bottom lip lowered a bit. She had mainly said that to change the conversation and mess with him, but now she was genuinely surprised that he had tried to check out with the injuries that she saw him with the night before.
Mikoto thought about his wounds while he continued talking about the doctor's analysis that made it so he could not leave until tomorrow. She imagined the day before when they got to the bottom of the space elevator and there was an ambulance waiting for them. He was the most injured of anyone at the space station, and although they did not let Mikoto ride in the ambulance, she saw them cut his shirt off before they drove away. As soon as they got him into the back of the ambulance, while the driver who came out back to open the doors and help him in was running back to the driver's side door, she saw them open his shirt up and both EMT's in the back cringe at the sight of his burns. He had some deep gashes too and a lot of bad bruises on his body, and she thought she heard that doctor mention bruised ribs.
"Sure you shouldn't stay for another night?" Mikoto questioned, interrupting Touma's complaint. He looked at her funny and she turned away, "I mean, your injuries were no joke, weren't they?" She pretended like she didn't know, but he was still surprised she would say that after taunting him a minute ago for still being in the hospital.
He waited a couple seconds, then shrugged his shoulders and said, "I've had worse."
"Heh, hehe, hahaha," Mikoto laughed. "That's probably true," she admitted. "I see you here more than anywhere else."
"This is like my second room," he joked back and the two of them laughed together.
Touma changed the conversation to something else and they kept talking for around another hour. Finally, Mikoto glanced up at the clock on the wall behind her and her eyes turned into saucers. "It's already past eleven?!" She exclaimed as the clock showed 11:32. The brown haired girl jumped out of her seat and mumbled under her breath, "The headmistress is going to kill me." She turned to the boy lying behind her and said, "Don't keep a hospital bed occupied longer than you need it."
It almost sounded like she was scolding him for taking up space in the hospital, and Touma got a bead of sweat on the left side of his face. Leave, stay, leave, make up your mind already! Of course, he did not say that out loud in hopes his hospital room would not get blown apart. Instead, he just smiled and said, "Thanks again for the food. It really was good."
"I know," she replied and spun around. Mikoto walked out of sight of the bed before allowing the huge smirk to spread across her face and her cheeks to turn beat red. I have to let Saten know the food we made really turned out great. Though, she'll probably start asking me how my, my da-dat- my date was. Not a date! She'll just think it is! Mikoto had a completely flustered expression on her face that got redder every second. She stepped out of the room and let out a long sigh, before clapping her cheeks a few times with her hands and then turning with a more hurried look in her eyes. "The headmistress is definitely taking points off tonight," she grumbled and started jogging down the hall of the hospital.
Back in the room she just left, Touma got up to use the bathroom before bed. It hurt walking still, but the longer he lay down the better he felt. Earlier that day even, it was three times as hard to use the bathroom than now. He liked to believe that he healed quicker now after being to the hospital so many times. I wonder if I went as much before I lost my memories.
The teen flipped off his lights and lay back in his bed. He thought about getting out of the hospital tomorrow and what he was going to do when he did. Soon his eyes were closing on their own and he let out a deep breath before closing them himself and trying to go to sleep.
Touma lay on his back, eyes closed, breathing slowly and softly, when the door to his hospital room opened up. Light from the dim hallway seeped into the room, and the shadow of a tall, broad-shouldered man draped across the floor and up the wall next to Touma's window. The man in the doorway walked inside, closing the door behind him until it was just a crack open. Both opening and closing the door made very little noise, as did the following steps he took to reach the center of the room.
The figure was three times as large as the boy on the bed himself. He stood there in a fancy purple coat with fur on the hood, and wore a light blue hat with a rim all around it. Under his purple coat that was open in the middle, he had on a white button down and a black vest. Around his neck and dangling over the black vest he was wearing was a golden cross, studded with diamonds.
This man stared at the boy lying on the bed in front of him. The two were illuminated solely by the moonlight coming in through the window, but it gave the man a good look at the kid's face. He showed no emotion at all as he reached to his side and pulled out a knife in one simple motion. When he removed the foot-long jagged knife from its sheath, a piece of moonlight caught on it and bounced onto Touma's left eyelid. The man walked to the side of the kid's bed closer to the window, and he lifted up his knife…
Kamijou Touma opened his eyes, and he rolled to the right fast. He fell roughly off his bed but it was better than being up there where a knife just carved straight through the mattress where his chest had been a second ago. The boy hit the ground hard and jumped up in a panic, "Who are you?!"
The figure ripped his knife through Touma's mattress and stood back up straight to look the kid in the eyes. "Your reflexes are sharp kid, I'll give you that." He flipped the knife in his hand and grabbed it by the tip. The man threw his blade forward and Touma dove left, though he still heard the thud behind him of the weapon imbedding in the wall. He spun after diving around to shout at the guy again, but the man had jumped over the bed to the side Touma had fallen on first, ripped the knife from the wall, and was already raising it up again.
"Whoa!" Touma pushed backwards and the knife the man brought down went inches in front of his face. "What are you-" he pulled his body left and dodged a swipe. "Trying to do-" he leaned back and another slash went right over him. "Stop!" Touma yelled, pulling his right hand back and leaning forward to get off the defensive.
"23- Protect," the man said, lifting his left hand and pointing his index and middle fingers up while the rest were curled into a fist. Touma's fist got within three inches of the man, before a thin veil of blue surrounded him and the kid's hand smashed into it instead. As soon as Touma's hand hit the magical barrier though, the magic shattered and the figure leapt back as well to avoid the fist. He landed on Touma's bed and smirked down at the teen who kept his fist raised and was glaring at him harshly now. "Imagine Breaker," the strangely-dressed man began. He twirled his knife around and then stuck his arm out and pointed the tip straight at the teen, "Lives up to its reputation. You on the other hand..."
Touma's eyes opened huge and his jaw dropped. Out of the corner of his eyes he noticed something flying towards him fast. His enemy seemed to notice it as well and rose up his hand again to create another barrier. Touma had no such magic, so when the figure slammed into his hospital room's window at sixty miles per hour, all he could do was raise up his arms for some sort of feeble protection.
Glass shattered and a woman came flying through the window. She hit the wall above the knife mark the man on Touma's bed made by throwing his blade a minute ago, and she left a huge crack in the plaster. Some of the glass from the window slammed into the lightbulb on the ceiling and it exploded, while another shard flew on Touma's left side so close to his body that some of his bandages ripped and blood splashed out of a fresh cut.
He winced but waited another second and then let out a deep breath of relief. The boy lowered his arms and spun his head left, only to freak out at the sight of the woman dented into his wall. She had long red hair, wore a black cloak from neck to feet, and she had a gun clenched in her right hand, but her eyes were what really disturbed him. Her eyes were wide open the size of golf balls and they stayed like that perpetually staring back towards the open window she smashed through.
"Tanker, why did you-" the man on Touma's bed stopped speaking as the woman pressed off the wall fast and dropped to the floor. It was just in time too, as another figure flew through the window like a missile and slammed a sword into the wall where that red haired woman just was. She jabbed her sword so hard that she buried it in the wall all the way to the hilt, sending over two feet of steel into the foundation of the room so that the tip was actually in another room over. The wind from this woman flying inside at a hundred miles per hour slammed into Touma and he lifted off the ground.
The teen with spiky black hair hit the ground behind him and rolled down past his bathroom almost to the door of his room. Right before he reached though, the door flung open and slammed into his back, making the teen 'Oof' loudly and roll back the other way.
Touma jumped to his feet, tired of being knocked around, but he was so lost as to what was happening that he did not know what to do. A glance towards his bedroom's door showed a woman with two curved machetes sprinting through his entrance, only to be slammed in the back by a fireball that made her fly right by Touma's side. "Kamijou! Focus!" A woman yelled on his other side and he spun away from the red haired man he just recognized in his doorway. He turned and also realized he recognized the woman yanking her sword out of the wall, but it was not fast enough to stop the two lunging at Touma.
One rose up his serrated dagger and the other her pistol, but the young man running through the hall at the start of the room yelled, "INNOCENTIUS!"
Despite the weapons coming right at him, Touma still thought in panic, In a room this small?! He thought this right before a massive flaming demon rose out of the ground around Stiyl and curved above him so its entire torso and face were on the ceiling looking down at the enemies.
The woman who the man first attacking Touma called Tanker darted her eyes up, then back down, and she fired anyway despite the flaming fist flying towards her. Touma pulled right as hard as he could, but still felt a strong jolt on his upper left side that was followed by an excruciating amount of pain. "Ahh!" He flew backwards with blood flying out of him.
"Kamijou!" Kanzaki yelled towards the teen falling to the ground. With a furious look in her eyes she spun to the three on the opposite side of the room as Stiyl's flame demon that moved in between them and Touma's writhing body.
The heat of the massive flame demon and sight of the angered woman next to it was disheartening to the enemies. "Facing a Saint is not in our best interest at the moment," the blonde woman with curved blades said as she leaned back against the wall behind her with a hesitant expression on her panting face.
The man in between the two frowned but he agreed with her sentiment. "Tanker, Slicer, with me- move!" He yelled it because the woman with a long black ponytail in front of them swiped her katana, and it suddenly looked like there were a dozen blades coming for them. The tall man grabbed the two women with him before they even knew what was happening and he leapt backwards out the window of the hospital room.
A dozen slashes flew around the room, and Stiyl yelled out as one came close to his back, "Watch it!" He had run forward to check on Touma, but he felt one of those slashes move through his hair. A couple strands of his long red hair whooshed up into the air then lowered down on Touma's bed, right over the slash marks the man who originally attacked Touma left in the mattress. "Hey, hey Kamijou get a grip," he shook around the boy on the floor.
Kamijou Touma opened his eyes and he winced as he looked to his left shoulder. Stiyl moved the hand he was grabbing Touma by the shoulder with and the spiky haired teen winced at the sight of the deep graze on his upper arm right at the curve of his shoulder. "The bullet didn't get stuck in you," Stiyl said, trying to give a positive to the bullet wound.
"Who, were those guys?" Touma muttered as he tried getting up. Stiyl stood up and reached down a hand, and Touma lifted his right and let the taller teen pick him up.
Kanzaki walked towards the window and she looked out and down towards the street level. "That's what I'm going to find out," she said, then hopped out his window without a second's hesitation.
Touma grabbed his left shoulder with his right hand and he staggered towards the window too. He was pretty bloody and in a lot of pain, but he wanted to know who these guys were too. "What do you think you're doing?" Stiyl asked the teen's back. "You can't make that jump-" Touma agreed but he wanted to look outside anyway. He stepped closer to the window but was not looking where he was walking and slipped on a blanket that was thrown off his bed. Stiyl froze with his jaw wide open as the teen in front of him looked like a cartoon character in the ridiculous way he did a straight-up dive out of the fifth floor window with a stupefied expression on his face.
Stiyl lost his shocked expression and he sprinted to the window himself, shouting, "Kanzaki!" The woman in a low-cut white tee was glaring down the road to her left, but she snapped her head up when she heard Stiyl's shout. Her eyes opened wide like the boy's dive-bombing her.
The swordsman, and one of only twenty Saints in the world, leapt up in the air and she caught Touma with one arm. She landed on the side of the hospital and skid down the side of it before jumping off and landing back on the street. "Thanks," Touma told her, his face pale and his eyes unfocused. He shook around his head to shake off his dizziness and then tried focusing down the road. "They're getting away," he mentioned.
The woman who was looking at him carefully to see how he was, spun her head and glared down the road to see the last of the three enemies turning down another street. She took a step but a hand grabbed her arm, and Kanzaki turned to see Touma staring seriously at her. "Who are these guys? Did they attack you too?"
"No," she replied. "Stiyl was watching Index when those two girls came after her. I was still in town thanks to the Endymion incident." She started running forward again and Touma stayed with her as she continued, "They're from the Roman Catholic Church. And they're powerful, the girl I was facing took several direct hits from my sword."
Touma gulped as that was not what he wanted to hear. They're sending people after Index too. I didn't- wait... Touma's eyes opened wide and he shouted, "You two left Index alone?!"
Kanzaki shook her head as she continued to run. "We wouldn't be that foolish. We called Tsuchimikado and he's taking her to a safe house." Touma sighed in relief and was glad he had so many friends in the city. The two of them spun around the next corner and looked down the block to see their three enemies standing in an intersection, apparently waiting for something.
"Stop!" Touma shouted their way. The two women turned, but Touma saw the man with broad shoulders and a purple coat looking to the right down another road. The man did not flinch when Touma shouted at him, and he could see the guy was holding something in his hand and speaking into it.
The man lowered the radio in his hand and finally turned to the two approaching him. The women with him, Slicer and Tanker, stepped in between him and their enemies, but he did not look concerned anyway. "Assassino is on his way."
"Did he take out his target?" Slicer asked, before spinning around her machetes as a warning to the two who stopped only twenty feet ahead of them.
"Target? Who else are you after?!" Touma shouted at the crazy people. The women in black cloaks and the big man wearing purple did not respond, and Touma clenched his right fist hard, lifting it in front of him. Tanker's already naturally large eyes bugged wider and Silcer's grip tightened on her blades. "Tell me what you're after!" He yelled.
"Calm down Kamijou," Kanzaki said, keeping her voice low. Touma glanced at her, somewhat confused as to why she was not attacking these people. Kanzaki was not even looking at them though, her eyes were honed in on the seventh floor of the building to her left on the other side of the intersection.
A man chuckled darkly under his breath and then dropped out of the air like a rock. Touma stumbled a step back as he had no idea where this creepy bald guy came from, but the man was smirking wide as he looked at Kanzaki. "You noticed me. I like a woman with a fight in her." His eyes twinkled dangerously and moonlight gleamed off of his katana.
This man is dangerous, Kanzaki thought suddenly. Her eyes darted from one enemy to the other, then to her own side as she noticed someone running towards her back. Even with Stiyl, these are not optimal conditions. Then again, they are not for our enemies either.
"Il Capo," Assassino began as he rode his katana in front of him. "Allow me to have a go at the head of the Kamijou faction. I wish to see this Imagine Breaker for myself."
"It's the real deal," the man in the purple coat said in a pitch less deep than the bald man's. He himself had short black hair that was slicked back and reflected as much light as the serrated knife still in his right hand. The man looked into Touma's eyes and he started in a louder voice, "As you just heard, I go by the name 'Il Capo,' 'The Head' in Italian. I am the leader of Soul."
"Soul?" Touma growled confusedly. "What is that?" Stiyl stepped up on Touma's left side and Kanzaki on his right. The seven of them faced off against each other and the tension was getting thicker by the second.
"On the Pope's orders," Assassino began with a serious expression. He rose his hood and finished, "The elimination of the Kamijou Faction has been ordered."
Kamijou Touma blinked a few times and lost his serious expression, confusing the four enemies in front of him. "Kamijou Faction? What the Hell is that?!"
Stiyl glanced right out corners of his eyes and spoke in a low tone, "We didn't tell you." Touma turned to the taller teen in confusion but saw that Stiyl did not share that look. The red haired man whose hair was longer than the ginger woman's who was staring back at him with bug eyes began, "The Roman Catholic Church isn't the only one that views you as a player. The Russian Orthodox, and, the Anglican church too," he admitted that his own and Kanzaki's church too thought highly of Kamijou Touma. The boy's eyes could not get any wider, at least until Stiyl continued quieter, "You've surrounded yourself with powerful people, or more precisely, they're drawn to you."
"What's this?" Slicer questioned, her voice coming out as a low guttural growl. The blonde woman slashes her swords across each other in front of her and she yelled, "You can't be serious!"
"He has no idea the target on his back," Assassino said while his lips twisted up again, visible below the shadow under his hood.
Il Capo frowned deeply as Touma turned to Kanzaki and asked if she knew about this. When he did, Il Capo lifted up his radio again and turned it on. "Racer," he said in a calm voice that got everyone on the road darting their eyes to him again and quieting down. "I told you to get to the rendezvous. Where are you?"
"There's another one?" Stiyl growled and he glared at the streets around them looking for someone else to be on their way.
The radio in the boss of Soul's hand started crackling, and then the tension on the street disappeared as everyone opened their eyes wide and stared at the walkie talkie. "Ahh, ah-ahh," a quiet woman's sobbing was coming from the other side of the line and the four members of Soul all looked at their leader's radio hesitantly.
"That's Racer's voice," Slicer said, the blonde woman having a hint of nervousness in her voice.
"I knew she was too green to be coming on this mission," Tanker remarked, though her eyes did not leave the radio. The sound kept crackling and they heard quiet mumbles coming from the other side between cries.
"C-Capo," the woman whispered and her voice came out on the empty street. "I, I'm sorry."
"Where are you Racer?" Il Capo asked.
As he finished asking, the street trembled and everyone snapped their heads to the east to see a pillar of black smoke rising into the air. A girl a few blocks away turned her head fast and went wide eyed. Misaka Mikoto gulped and the girl with bloody arms, searching the dark city for a missing hospital patient, wondered what the Hell was happening now.
The night glowed orange beneath the smoke, and then a scream came out of the leader of Soul's radio. Everyone on that street heard panting like whoever was on the other side was running away. "It's still after me," Racer's terrified, choked-up voice came over the radio.
"This isn't right," Assassino muttered. "She was supposed to have the easiest target. The control system to shut down the entire network in one blow."
Il Capo was thinking the same and he pressed the button on the radio again, "Report Racer. What is your status? Did you succeed in your mission?"
"I, I'm hiding now," the woman said, her voice sounding on the verge of insanity. "Oh God, help me," she whispered in sheer terror. Another explosion rocked a different part of the block as the last one, and the woman let out a muffled scream seemingly into her hand.
"What is your status?" Il Capo repeated, but his voice suddenly shifted to a different tone than Touma had heard him use up until now. His voice sounded, threatening. Even when the man was trying to stab him, he had been completely calm. This moment, the sound of his voice, it was completely different from before and everyone noticed it. The young woman they were communicating with over the radio heard it too, and her heavy breathing froze.
Two seconds passed, then her raspy voice started, "I got out, of the car. The men were with me, and, and we took, we only took a few steps towards the building. We knew she was in there, but, but why didn't we know anything about that thing?!" Her comrades looked at each other and then glared towards Touma but the teen looked just as confused as the rest of them. This time though, Kanzaki and Stiyl looked in the dark as well and everyone just continued to stare at the radio.
"He killed all the men," Racer said and then let out a small sob. "I tried attacking him, but he broke my hand, and he broke my ribs. Ahh, I just wanted to- oh my God," she whispered and the terror in her voice had never been higher. Her pitch rose eight notches and she squeaked, "He's coming. I can hear him! Oh my-"
"Ahahahaha! HAHAHAHA!" Hysterical laughter of someone different came over the radio. Every person on the street listening to Racer tensed up, and even Assassino had a bead of sweat rolling down his face. "I found you!" The maniacal voice of a crazy teenage boy shouted.
"I'm sorry! Stop! Ahhh- AHHHH!" Racer's voice screaming for help was immediately followed by bone-crunching noises and squelches. The other members of Soul stared at the radio in shock as everything fell silent for a moment, and then it started crackling again.
"Whoever this is," the voice of the person who just murdered Racer began. Touma's eyes were already huge but he gulped as his suspicions were confirmed. Accelerator, he thought, and he did not know whether this was a good or bad thing. Accelerator, the strongest esper in Academy City, continued speaking into the radio while surrounding by flaming rubble of black cars and a cluster of dead bodies. He had his right foot pressed on the back of a woman's skull, and she was still twitching beneath him even while her arms were lying twenty feet away on either side. "Never show up where I live with guns. And as for Last Order," he continued and Touma's eyes widened even more at the name of the MISAKA System's shortest member, the 20001st copy, and the control for the entire system.
Accelerator's crazed smirk faded from his face and in a seriously scary voice he growled, "She's off limits. Got it?"
Il Capo rose his radio and spoke one word, "Understood." He lowered his radio, then pressed a button on the side that made it start blinking red rapidly.
Assassino spun to the boss and he ground his teeth, but after a single look, he chose to hold his tongue. "This is going to leave a bad taste in my mouth," the assassin muttered angrily.
"They're retreating," Kanzaki stated, and she took a step forward with her sword raised. "Obviously they are at the disadvantage here. We would be foolish to let them go."
"Let us leave?" Il Capo questioned. "I never expected you would." Before they could interpret what that meant, Stiyl, Kanzaki, and Touma all snapped their heads up to see six bright lights coming towards them fast through the sky. The lights dipped down so they were in between skyscrapers, and the sounds of the spinning rotors of three distinct helicopters got louder as they grew closer to the group.
"Stiyl," Kanzaki began, taking a step back as she saw a bright flash from one of the helicopters.
He rose up his hands, and fired two fireballs towards the rockets shooting their way. The rockets exploded in the air behind their enemies on the ground, but more came out of the smoke after that and Kanzaki slashed her glowing sword once, slicing them all into ten pieces each from a distance.
While the two magicians from the Anglican Church focused on the missiles, three of the enemies ran backwards to where ladders were dropping from one of the helicopters. A girl who was only a few streets away heard explosions and helicopters and she was arriving on the street now. She saw the bald man she was fighting earlier getting pulled up onto a helicopter, but something else caught her attention and she turned.
In the middle of the street, between a woman with a katana and a man with long red hair she recognized, and the retreating enemies getting on their helicopters, two people stood ten feet apart. She recognized one of them and her eyes opened up huge at the sight of how bloody his left side was. Il Capo looked into Touma's eyes and he spoke in a dark, threatening, and terrifying voice. "We will be back in full force. This was a test to see if this mission was worth Soul's complete attention, and you now have it. You will not be able to stop us."
"Come back as many times as you want!" Touma yelled, angrily stomping forward and raising his left arm despite how much it pained him to do so. He pointed at the man with an arm soaked in blood from his shoulder to where it dripped off of his fingers, and he yelled, "I'll knock you off that pedestal you think you're standing on! You think you can just come here and attack the people I care about? What kind of world do you live in?!" He rose up his right fist and clenched it hard in front of him, "I'll punch you right out of that closed reality of yours!"
The burly man said nothing for a few moments. Then, in a tone with no emotion in it, he spoke, "The happiness you now hold will turn to dust in your hands. It will slip between your fingers, and by the time I am done with you, your soul will be broken." Touma's heart was speeding up and his entire body covered in sweat. His enemy glared straight into his eyes and finished, "I will make you taste true despair. I do this, in the service of our Lord."
Il Capo spotted Stiyl Magnus and Kanzaki Kaori dropping out of the air and then darting forwards in his direction. He lifted his gaze from Touma, and at the same time rose his knife in front of him, turned it upside down so the blade was pointed at the floor, and let go, saying in a deep voice as he did, "98- Erupt."
The leader of Soul then muttered another word, bent his glowing knees, and leapt backwards so hard he rose fifty feet up in the air to one of the ladders hanging off a helicopter. He did this before his blade hit the ground, but Touma's eyes never left the weapon with a serrated blade as it fell. Kanzaki followed the man with her eyes for a second, before she saw something glowing much closer to her and her eyes darted down to that knife falling to the floor.
"Pull up!" Slicer yelled at the helicopter pilot of the vehicle she was riding. She pulled back inside the helicopter from the side she was leaning out and she put her hands over her head.
Kanzaki saw this out the corner of her eyes, she saw all of the helicopters pulling up, and the man who just leapt all the way to a ladder letting go with one hand so he could hold it in front of him for protection. In a populated place like this! Kanzaki thought while the blade fell to a foot from the floor in front of a spiky haired teen. All the thoughts about the people in the buildings around her were replaced by just the thoughts of him as she sprinted past his side. Kamijou's too close, and he isn't lifting his hand! He doesn't know what this is!
The woman with a large bust pressing against her white shirt dropped her sword, she pushed Touma back as she passed him, then her entire body started to glow with a blue light. "Salvare000," she began in a quiet voice, diving forward and creating a bubble around her as she said her magic name. "Be the salvation of those who cannot be saved." Her body strengthened several hundred times with the aura around her growing more solid by the instant, and then the tip of the blade Il Capo dropped touched the ground.
The glowing weapon erupted in light, filling the entire bubble around Kanzaki. The bubble instantly grew a dozen huge cracks on it from top to bottom, making Stiyl and Touma lean backwards, as well as one other girl watching from an intersection not far away. Kanzaki's body fell over the glowing knife though and she tucked her legs in, pulled her arms down, and surrounded the weapon with her hardened body, right before it exploded. The street trembled and the bubble around Kanzaki exploded, sending wind flying out in every direction and dust shooting up with it. What the Hell type of esper power is that?!
After a few moments, the wind died down and the dust settled. Everyone looked over to Kanzaki, and Touma sighed a breath of relief as he watched the woman on her hands and knees get slowly up to her feet. She faced away from him do he did not see her hold one of her hands up to her stomach or see the large black mark on her skin stretching under her cut top and to both sides of her torso. Kanzaki's face had an intense expression of pain on it but she ignored it for now as she heard a grunt behind her. She turned and Stiyl looked in between them where a teenage boy who tried stepping forward stumbled to the right instead. Touma lifted his right arm to rub the side of his head that he hit when rolling off his bed, but the pain of lifting his arm was a lot more than what was in his temple at the moment. He groaned and accidentally rubbed blood all over his face by brushing his arm against it, and then as he could see Kanzaki was on her feet and the helicopters were flying away, Touma's mind gave his body the 'ok' to drop. Touma's legs stopped listening to him and he wobbled forward, then in trying to keep himself up he leaned back and wound up falling right off his feet.
The boy with spiky black hair started to fall with closing eyes. As he fell though, he saw someone running towards him from another street closeby. He recognized her face and though initially shocked, something came to mind at the sight of Misaka Mikoto. You know, the last time she came to visit me in the hospital, she brought cookies and I teased her 'cause they weren't homemade. The thought of the dinner she made for the two of them made Touma's lips curl up and he let out a single laugh before his head hit the ground and he knocked unconscious.
A/N Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed the second chapter. We get a look at some more enemies, some allies, and then there's the insane Accelerator scaring the crap out of all of them XD. Let me know what you think in a review below and thanks for all the reviews guys! Glad to have so much feedback after just one chapter! Time for review responses:
Cyber dragonarmy chapter 1 . Jun 2
ah Nice ane kamito fanfic always been a fan of those. I really enjoyed the chapter and I am looking forward for your next chapter.
Thanks! Hope you enjoyed the new one!
Railgun12 chapter 1 . Jun 2
Ahhh, I love this: Mikoto actually interacting more and more with the Magic side and being recognized as a big factor. Also I love how you describe Anti-Skill actually being professionals, Mikoto arguing her way into being part of the team, being badass yet recognizably her own civilian self. I also did enjoy her feeling excluded from Index and Touma because it is something she would have to deal with. I haven't actually watched the movie since I thought there wasn't much Mikoto in it, and I'm not really interested in non-Mikoto parts of this universe. But I might just to understand your story better. Can't wait to see where you take this.
Thanks for the review! I feel like every time we see Skill Out they act as fodder to make the MCs look better, but they should be actually pretty badass guys if they're supposed to be policing people with superpowers! Mikoto sees a little at the end of this chapter, so we'll see what she thinks about that. Glad you liked the first chapter and hope you enjoyed this one!
Anonymous Noob the 2nd chapter 1 . 23h ago
Oh snap
Oh snap indeed. XD Thanks!
Espada-001 chapter 1 . 23h ago
Well I enjoyed your starting chapter and I'm looking forward to seeing where this all goes. So until next time have a good day and I look forward to the next chapter.
Happy to see you here reading my new story! Got some writer's block with the next chapter of Nexus and started writing this, (will get back to Nexus soon), but until then I'm pretty into this one right now so I'm glad you liked it and hope you enjoyed the newest chapter!
AriaTheLostMelody chapter 1 . 12h ago
what happened to Kamijou? Is he okay? We'll have to wait to find out.
He's alive! That red on his bed turns out to be hairs from Stiyl that were cut off, (not that there wouldn't be Touma blood elsewhere in the room though) XD Thanks for the review!
fangs of death chapter 1 . 1h ago
really good.
Thanks a ton!
Chen chapter 1 . 12h ago
Interesting, looking forward to next chapters
Thanks! Hope you liked the new one.
-Thanks again everyone for all the feedback. I do review responses at the end of every chapter, so if you have any questions, predictions, comments, or criticisms about the chapter let me know! Well, 'till next time!