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…

Those who served the dark side of Academy City grew rich through their illegal activities and went on to become powerful individuals who could make things happen with just a passing remark. They lived comfortable lives in the most expensive high rise apartments Academy City had to offer and they did not have regrets. Many also became famous as a result of their incredible scientific achievements. The Kihara family exemplified this perfectly. Every member of that family was either a scientific or mathematical genius. The head of the Kihara family, Kihara Gensei, was the most famous and most respected scientist in Academy City.

Gensei was a man who was one of the masterminds of the dark side of the city. He was the one who proposed the plans that would cause despair and chaos to reign in the city's laboratories and its back alleyways. The terrible trials in his experiments were well known in the scientific community, but nobody said anything about it. Why did nobody bother to say anything? Why were they so afraid? The answer was simple and very obvious to those who didn't agree with his overly ruthless ways: Gensei succeeded and produced results in a way that nobody in the scientific community could. Time and time again he had introduced new innovations to resounding applause.

Kihara Gensei's intelligence and terrible creativity silenced all who opposed him and made the Kihara family the ruling family in the dark side of Academy City. But did the Kihara family stand above all of the countless numbers of scientists, thugs, and test subjects who worked within the dark side?

No, there was someone else who truly controlled all aspects of the dark side. Someone who pulled the strings while hiding himself. The man's name was Aleister Crowley.

Those within the Innocent Majority assume that the Board of Directors was responsible for all things that went on in the city. They were only half right. The man known as Aleister Crowley held the position of General Superintendent and he was the chairman of the Board of Directors. He held absolute power over all members of the Board of Directors and everybody else within Academy City. But power meant nothing without understanding and awareness. Did Aleister Crowley really know all of the horrible things happening in the shadows of his glorious city?

Of course.

The General Superintendent resided within the Windowless Building, a tall and indestructible building in the middle of the city. From there he could watch the actions of everybody in the city using his secret camera network known as UNDER_LINE. Nothing escaped his careful gaze.

But was he just another thug working in the dark side to bring despair unto test subjects and those unfortunate to discover the projects?

Not at all. He was the greatest magician in the history of the world and the ruler of Academy City. While he knew the plans of those who schemed from the shadows, their plans did not concern him. The plans of Kihara Gensei and others of his ilk were just minor side projects compared to the plan that Aleister Crowley himself had devised. It was a plan that nobody in the world other than him could claim to understand. That plan was why the dark side continued to thrive.

It served as shielding. The dark side was merely an impenetrable shield that Aleister Crowley could use to develop his plans for Academy City. The dark side believed that it was its own master when in reality the hand of one man guided it from its infant and relatively harmless stage to the roaring beast it was now. As long as Aleister saw the dark side as a way to manipulate capable scientists into unknowingly carrying out steps in his master plan and hide his own motives from the Innocent Majority and the prying eyes of those who might catch a glimpse if it was not buried deep within the cesspool that was the darkness of Academy City.

Darkness was indeed deeply rooted with the city.

But despite the darkness's iron grip on the city, the sun continued to shine. It could not erase the deep stains and the horrible scars the darkness left but the darkness could not blot out the radiant sun that always hung over the city, shining down on those within the Innocent Majority.

Aleister Crowley did not let the city fall into complete chaos. His plan relied on the balance within the city and so he formed two organizations that would hold the darkness back to a certain extent.

Judgment, a police force made up of students whose job is mainly to respond to threats against the Innocent Majority.

Anti-Skill, a strike force made up of adults whose job is to engage in preemptive strikes against those who would harm the Innocent Majority. They swear to uphold the peace even at the cost of their lives.

Judgment and Anti-Skill are both determined to stop evil wherever it exists and while they appear to be making great progress in eradicating all crime, their impact was limited.

After all, the Board of Directors presided over all their activities. It would be foolish to think that Aleister would allow Judgment and Anti-Skill run free, bringing the dark side to ruin. The two police forces could only effectively destroy minor operations and detain small timers who held no real influence in the dark side. Judgment and Anti-Skill were small time heroes defeating small time grunts while the true bosses continued to send more and more grunts out for them to defeat.

Normally, the two sides would constantly be pushing against each other, no side making significant gains. It was reminiscent of trench warfare during The Great War. The only real gains came from the trump cards of the two sides. The dark side had the Kihara family and groups such as ITEM, SCHOOL, and STUDY. The Innocent Majority only had one trump card: a high school boy named Kamijo Touma.

The boy named Touma displayed a sense of heroism not seen in anybody aside from the Level 5 known as "Attack Crash." Time and time again Touma appeared on the scene of large scale operations, quickly shutting them down. He was the boy who singlehandedly defeated Accelerator, the strongest esper in all of Academy City. Accelerator's defeat ruined one of the largest scientific schemes in the city's history. Touma had no powers. He was a mere Level 0.

Saying that Touma was untouched by the dark side would be incorrect, however, because he was not an error in the calculations of Aleister's Crowley. The power residing within Touma's right hand and his impact on the world around him were not coincidental. Despite being the ultimate hero, Kamijo Touma was another part of Crowley's plan.

Nevertheless, Touma continued to be the hero Academy City needed to fight back against the dark side. He continued to help people selflessly, leading them to become better people. He continued to be the person Shizuri hated the most aside from Accelerator. Shizuri had never met Touma but the tales of his exploits made her sick with anger and disappointment.

Whenever she heard some rumor about the "Imagine Breaker" doing something heroic and helping somebody, she would ask the same questions to herself.

Where was he when she needed help? Where was this great hero when she was struggled to break free from the clutches of the dark side? Why hadn't he shown up to talk her out of the miserable plan she was currently carrying out?

She never received help from anybody. She had to become her own hero. The Metldowner didn't need any help because she had made it this far, hadn't she? She knew she could do it. She had done it so many times before. She didn't need the Imagine Breaker to help her. She knew how to kill. And she was good at it.

…

Mugino Shizuri walked into the park for the third time. She had recently been released from the hospital and planned to head back to ITEM's headquarters, but for some reason ended up at the park she had seen in her dreams. It was a perfect day. The sun was shining, the breeze felt amazing, and the kids were playing in the park. Mugino spotted a shaded bench close to a tree and quickly headed there, trying not to draw attention to herself. She didn't want to talk to kids right now.

In fact, she didn't feel like talking to anybody. She just wanted to be alone so that she could think. Shizuri recalled the last few days and sighed. Not a lot of thinking had taken place over the past few days. Impulsive actions had dominated the precious amount of time she had spent finding absolutely nothing. That pissed her off.

"God fucking damn it," she said as she slammed her fist down on the bench.

Time was something she didn't have. Wealth, beauty, and a powerful ability didn't mean shit if time's up meant her eternal slavery. Distancing herself from the dark side by cutting ties was easy at first. It was like target practice. There were obvious targets that any idiot with a pistol could hit from miles away. They went down easily and the next set of targets popped up, ready to be shot. The targets got smaller and smaller with every round. Her Meltdowner had gotten her to the last round. One target in the final round. The final target should have been easy for her to hit even though it was without a doubt tiny and extremely far away. Unfortunately, the target was all of those things and zipped around so quickly that her Meltdowner wasn't fast enough to hit it. To make things worse, the target seemed to predict all of her movements, making it impossible to destroy in a crossfire.

That last target was The Cowardly Weasel. And Mugino Shizuri, the fourth strongest esper in Academy City, could not catch him not matter how hard she tried. It drove her insane. The Cowardly Weasel was the last person who held a significant tie with her aside from her old ability trainer who had long faded from both her memory and history. She pulled out her phone. Thinking about being enslaved by the dark side because she couldn't find one damn person motivated her.

She knew it was time to take another job. It was time to fulfill her role as a slave again. Her thoughts went to her teammates at ITEM. Frenda, Kinuhata, Rikou, and even that retarded Shiage. For a moment she considered bringing them to help her.

"Goddamn, I really am an idiot…" sighed Mugino as she stood up, shaking her head.

The fact that she even considered getting help from the rest of ITEM disappointed her. All that time spent taking jobs alone and that was her thought? Getting help from people she was trying to escape from? Shameful. Her hands curled into fists.

She would kill them if necessary.

Mugino walked out of the park, her hand tightly clutching her phone. She would have started crying if she was anybody but the Meltdowner. From the bottom of her heart, she hoped that she wouldn't be the one pulling the trigger.

…

"Too fucking easy."

The flames cast an awful orange glow against the concrete as Mugino walked away from the burning building, a disappointed look on her face. Another research center attack job. To think she had once enjoyed attacking research centers, eager to look into the despairing faces of the scientists before vaporizing them. Eager to find targets to lead her away from slavery.

Shizuri quickly walked away from the ruined building and headed towards ITEM headquarters. She had spent too much time away. They would soon suspect something was wrong.

The sun had long set and the streets of Academy City were empty, a stark contrast to the ridiculously busy streets during the daytime. The air was cool and Shizuri actually found herself shivering. She stopped in front of an alleyway and viewed it with a look of disgust. She never used alleyways to get anywhere, but she didn't have much time before ITEM dispatched search parties to find her. She didn't want to explain herself to anybody, even if the interrogators were secretly shaking in fear. The Meltdowner entered the alleyway, walking quickly.

"A lot cleaner than I expected…" murmured Shizuri as she walked, expecting heaps of garbage to be piled up everywhere.

She had been walking for a good few minutes when she heard the voices.

"Get the fuck back here!"

Mugino was approaching the entrance to a new alleyway when she saw a young boy run by, a bag flailing wildly as he ran. He wore a Judgment armband and the look of desperation on his face made her stop. Shots rang out and she heard the boy fall to the ground.

"We got the courier. Proceeding to destroy the evidence."

She saw three men wielding assault rifles walk slowly past the exit of the alleyway. They didn't look like thugs. Their faces were grim as they headed towards where the boy had been killed. She watched silently, hidden in the shadows.

"Poor kid. Got himself caught up in something he never asked for."

Mugino entered the alleyway, behind the armed men. This was far more interesting than an attack on a research facility. She cleared her throat and grinned. The men instantly turned, guns raised.

"What do you think you three are doing? Attempting to destroy evidence? That's a serious crime and you've even murdered somebody!" said Mugino mockingly as the men glanced at each other.

The green beams that came shortly after made short work of the three men, whatever their names were. She was more interested in what the boy had been carrying. She carefully walked over to the body and knelt down to open the bag. It was filled with files on some scientific organization called the Society of Organized Science. Shizuri's heart started to race. Was there a possibility? No way. It seemed too good to be true.

And that's when she saw the file on a man named Saul Karter. His alias? The Cowardly Weasel.

Shizuri carefully picked up the bag, trembling with excitement. She looked back at the boy and felt a tear coming up in her eye. She was about to thank the boy who had given his life to save hers when a boy's voice ruined the moment.

"Did you just kill him?!"

…

I want to use this sentence to thank everybody who waited patiently for this chapter to be uploaded. This one was more difficult for me because when I started it, I wasn't feeling what I felt when I wrote the first two chapters. Thankfully, I overcame it and this chapter was finished within the day.

Originally, I wanted to add Touma to this chapter but I decided not to because once again, I thought I was cramming. Rest assured, he will still be there although I believe everybody already knows what the next chapter is going to be about.

There was definitely some OOC especially towards the end but I've come to see OOC as something that can be tolerated when used in moderation. I can't have Mugino happily skipping with Frenda and co but I can have her almost shed a single tear. Anyways, please review if you wish to see more!