Accepting Your Role In The Story
Duel_Skill
Since he was born, he was the only one he had seen to have achieved the level of misfortune that he had. Some had luck lightly brushing against infinity. Some were cursed in everything they did. But for him, he was the only one with a such a tainted fate that it was a surprise he didn't have to roll a 600 sided die for every breath he took. Through the various worlds he had traveled, he had met many people with varying degrees of luck. Even counting amongst them, there was none that could approach his level. None that had his severe lack of luck.
This condition of his lessened somewhat once he left his world behind. That didn't make him any less cautious or more accepting of his decreased misfortune. For him seeing that he had gotten just a little bit luckier was like a patient with terminal cancer being told that he had just a little bit less cancer than he did yesterday. Even without his predetermined destiny to lose, he had to still plan for it.
He had lived his entire life as though the world could break underneath his feet after all.
It may be something to be underestimated when you question his luck. He was born healthily to two well-adjusted, middle-class parents in one of the safest countries in the world. They never divorced or were absolutely negligent in his upbringing. They made sure he was fed and had the ability to pursue whatever he wished for. Just looking at that, one might say that he started off far better than well over half the planet.
But this is where his situation becomes fiercely underestimated.
By being given such an excellent start, he was unable to comfortably accept that he was unlucky.
By having so many opportunities to make friends, he was unable to say that fate was what prevented him to attain friendships.
By having so many opportunities to fall in love, he was unable to completely blame luck on his inability to get a girl to love him back.
By constantly having so many chances to attain victory, he was unable to say that it was just his rotten luck that made him lose.
He couldn't survive like that.
This is where, even as a failure of a human being, mankind's capacity to adapt had saved him.
By being uncomfortable with his misfortune, he thought that it might not be his fault.
By having fate prevent him from having friends, he half believed that it wasn't his fault.
By not getting girls to love him the way he did, he realized that many aspects couldn't be his fault.
By constantly losing at everything no matter what, it all became something that was no longer his fault.
By making it so that no problem in his life could be blamed on him, he disconnected himself from reality and thus, finally broke his already fragile state of humanity.
His long, long fight to keep his emotions and feelings intact finally, finally ended.
His luck would not be what it was if that was true.
Medaka and Zenkichi had managed to somehow salvage the broken pieces and supervised as he remade himself. But his luck had already managed to seep into every shard that was collected. He didn't mind this and, for once, this wasn't his self-mutilating apathy talking. He had friends, people that actually cared and worried about him. How could he let his pathetic struggles get in the way of one of the only things that could actually break through the walls he had put up?
He can because it's him.
It's why he had broken contact with everyone he knew and loved. Because he couldn't let go of his absolute need to rid himself of being the nadir of the story he was written into. So, in the end, his selfishness won out and he made his existence in the world he was born into, all the bad and good he had done there, and all the relationships he made with so much difficulty as well, into nothing.
That is his misfortune. Even when he has all the ingredients for happiness, he can't allow himself to be happy. Kumagawa Misogi had long ago accepted that as part of his destiny.
But then he had entered Kamijou Touma's sphere of influence.
That one person had revealed himself to be someone that could theoretically reach his level of bad luck and yet antithetically be blessed. Touma had been blessed with being the main character, friends that admired and loved him, intelligence, worked hard, had even strangers and enemies liking him, and won when he tried to. Even if he paid for his blessings by having to get wrapped up in dangerous situations, getting his memory wiped and being regularly injured because of these incidents, being in danger of having to repeat his grade, rarely getting decent sleep or food, and constantly being poor, amongst a myriad of other things, Kumagawa just can't accept him.
Perhaps Touma's similarities aren't so much the issue here as it is Kumagawa being reminded about his weak points, which Touma lacks for to a certain extent, when he looks into that mirror. But that level of mental issues can't be confronted or even realized so readily.
For now, Kumagawa just wants to knock Touma off the pedestal that everyone else, himself unwittingly included, has placed him on.
Kakine Teikoku's experiment with attacking Accelerator's feelings had failed with the appearance of Mugino Shizuri. That was fine. He had figured that Accelerator would reach the conclusion that destroying those recreations of recreations would be fine even without outside interference. He had begun to expand his network of Dark Matter to preserve the system as a whole so that Accelerator would be unable to destroy it all before his choker ran out of power. All he need do now was wait.
But somehow, that made him feel...uneasy.
Everything was going as it should, nothing was wrong within his sprawling sense of self that went out across the city, and yet something was amiss. Something he can't account for. When he realized how easy a victory he had that it caused him to become paranoid, he laughed. Despite boiling it all down to just nerves, he decided to act. If all he has to do is wait, there should be no problems with a little more experimentation. His hail of Dark Matter spears stops raining down on the #1 and #4, hanging in the air.
"What's the matter? Does your pathetic power have fucking ED or something?"
"Haha. No, no. I can definitely keep going for awhile. I just thought I might use you for another test of my abilities. Besides I would feel a bit bad if I just wore away at you like this without anything exciting happening. At least this way, your death will be much quicker."
"Hah? The fuck are talking about? You can't even touch me as long as I'm connected to the Misaka Network."
"Well that's not quite true. Someone else has just recently proved that for me."
Accelerator frowns for a moment before his eyes go wide. Mugino's left eyebrow raises at his behavior.
"What? Do you have that kind of a loophole?"
"...It's not so much of a loophole as much as it is a logical fallacy being applied to reality. There's no fucking way you can replicate Kumagawa's power. It's the literal concept of nothing. Your Dark Matter may be something that people can't understand but it's not an impossibility for them to eventually grasp it. Nothing as a concept can't exist in reality due to it's absolute lack of properties so stop talking out your ass."
Kakine smiles thinly as the voids in his face narrow.
"That is true to a certain extent. Kumagawa's power seems to be able to produce an almost oppressive totality of nothing on whatever he wishes but I have no need for something so grand. Your field reflects any and all vectors but only if they have value. Things without that can pass through just fine can't they?"
The white spears of Dark Matter twist from the ends and become an array of distorted screws.
"With mass, volume, velocity, and every single other value being set at zero, there shouldn't be any values for you to manipulate."
They fire off paradoxically despite having no values to their speed or direction and reach just in front of Accelerator's face.
"You really are an idiot."
They shatter without Accelerator even moving from where he stood with a few seemingly missing their target.
"Hm? What happened there? Oh. You just learned from the last fight you had didn't you? Sorry to have insulted your intelligence then."
"Learned? There's nothing that I can do against that shit. The only reason why his power can work on me is because it doesn't exist to begin with. It bypasses my defenses because it's something that deals more with scalar values than it does vectors anyhow. If it existed, exists, or will exist, I can deal with that but not if it just wraps all those grammatical tenses and throws them in the trash. But really this is just pathetic. I can't help but become a broken record at this point when you come at me with this mediocrity. Just quit while you're ahead you fucking loser."
A low chuckle escapes from the lips of the human-like monster.
"Sorry to disappoint but that wasn't all to this experiment of mine."
A groan could be heard behind Accelerator and Mugino. They turn to the source, ready to destroy whatever Kakine planned on throwing at them, but they stop midway to preparing their powers.
"Kumagawa?"
[Guruh...uh...I...messed up.]
Several spears were lodged in his body with something like white veins spreading underneath his skin.
"I noticed him lurking around in the shadows earlier while you were dealing with those recordings of the clones. You said that not even you have a proper defense against his powers, yes? Then I have no need for attempting to replicate those abilities of his when I can just have the user in question use them himself."
Kumagawa's arm shakily comes up and produces a screw just as distorted as the spears. Accelerator leaps wildly out of the way with a boom that shakes the whole building as the screw pierces the wall behind him. In an instant, the entire building shatters as though made from glass, rusted metal raining down on all the occupants. Now outside in the underground passageways, the two level 5s stare in disbelief as one of the few that could reach them from so far below was slowly changing into something else entirely.
"Hm? Is it because you're rejecting my control that it wasn't as complete as it usually is? That's fine. I'll have total control in a moment."
Mugino, who had just barely managed to get out of the wreckage, mutters in disbelief.
"How the hell are you able to control him?"
"How? The answer should be obvious after all that you've seen tonight already. My Dark Matter has begun to replace all of his nervous system. Once I have replicated his thought patterns, brain waves, so on and so such, I will be able to use that power of his as though it were my own. Right, Kumagawa?"
[..gt..qwrrt...sasxz…]
His eyes twitch uncontrollably in random directions as tears flow freely. His flesh jumps as though every molecule had a mind of it's own with blood coming from every pore. Kumagawa's entire body was fighting against the foreign entity invading it with all that it had. It was losing badly.
Screws materialize from the air by the dozens and launch themselves through the air at Accelerator and Mugino. Accelerator was able to dodge them as he had before but Mugino didn't have his mobility. She was able to use her Meltdowner to shoot down most of them but three escaped her aim and pierced her body. White veins began to overtake her flesh.
"No!"
Green beams of light sever her left arm and lance away the veins that threatened to take possession of her body away. She screams out in extreme pain but that's not just because of her self-mutilating methods.
"Sorry but once they even touched your body, your fate had been sealed. I don't really need you so much but...well it'll be interesting to combine your abilities with Kumagawa's. If it's a bit of comfort for you, I've optimized the process from seeing how it affected Kumagawa so control should be handed over to me by the time I'm done speaking. For your case, Accelerator, the moment my Dark Matter grazes you, you'll be put under my control."
In theory, if he can take them into his system of Dark Matter, then it should be possible for Kakine to borrow the abilities of those in his control like processors in a computer to enhance his capabilities. He already has added the abilities of the Meltdowner and the Skills of the best, worst Minus. Say he added several, even a hundred, more, wouldn't his power exceed that of a computer, to borrow the previous allusion, and reach the level of a supercomputer? What if he added every resident of Academy City?
Couldn't he escape the restraints of the supercomputer and attain the power of a quantum computer?
"Actually, why don't I just borrow from that crutch you use for your abilities? That Misaka Network is absolutely wasted on someone like you. Under my control, I should be capable of reaching that level that you once sought after yourself. I can't think of a better method for revenge."
The sadistic grin widens his void-like maw until it splits his face in half.
"Using the processing power of the ones you claim to protect to gain the dream you couldn't while you remain helpless to do anything but watch."
Beetle #05 was at a loss.
It sat by and watched the two children it said he was going to protect play and laugh but this all felt odd to it. It had thought long about why it listened to Kumagawa's words but no reason in particular came to mind.
Was it really because it wanted to be an artistic beetle?
Probably not. Or at least it never had those urges before Kumagawa had mentioned them. It didn't feel any now at least.
Was it because it because it saw the flaw that was in the orders given to it?
That couldn't be it. There's no way amongst all the other beetles that #05 was the only one to have seen this possibility.
What about in letting Kumagawa go? Did it do that because of the risk he brought to their lives?
Also wrong. Kumagawa was a very real threat to the system as a whole but it could tell that he meant no harm to come to those girls. Otherwise, he wouldn't have bothered intervening.
It racked it's brain harder and harder over the issue but nothing came of it. So it decided to see if someone else might be able to provide the answers.
"Huh? I'm kinda having to work out problems of my own Ringo-san."
"My designation is Beetle #05."
Hamazura Shiage had been sitting off to himself as he mulled over what had happened earlier.
"Well, sure but it'd help more if we had something more, hm, personal for you. Like if more of you showed up and we call out 'Ringo-san!' then the others would just be too confused to answer while you respond to the call. That way we can just take out the ones that can't answer to that name. But anyway, I don't think I can help you out when I can't even help myself out over here."
"That's why I came. I couldn't figure it out myself so I came to see if you might have some answer for me. I'm not sure if I can provide you an answer but if we communicate with each other we might be able to reach some kind of conclusion that we couldn't get by ourselves."
Hamazura rubs his chin a bit at this proposal.
"Huh. Yeah I guess that could work. Well, I don't know. Maybe you're unsatisfied with being made to kill little girls?"
"No. As I had mentioned before, it's an optimized method for removing the motivations that move Fraulein Kreutune."
"Yeah but Kumagawa even said that's wrong right? Protecting them makes more sense in controlling her than to kill them. She'd probably just try to find some other method if you did anyway."
"Hmm."
"Well, what about my problem then? What do you think about a way to stop Kumagawa from fighting Touma?"
Beetle #05 tilts it's head.
"Who is that?"
"He's a friend of mine. But so is Kumagawa. I really don't get why he's so hellbent on fighting him or know who would beat who but I don't want either of them to get hurt. It's dumb but well you get the picture don't you?"
"Hmm, isn't this whole thing stemming mostly from the situation we're in now?"
"What do you mean?"
"Kumagawa seems to be prioritizing settling this situation before he involves himself too deeply in his hate towards this Touma person. If the circumstances surrounding Kakine and Kreutune were to be solved, then do you think he would continue to want to fight Touma?"
"I don't follow. Wouldn't that just free up the focus he has on this whole thing?"
"It would but considering Touma seems to be involved himself, it may just be that Touma and Kumagawa wouldn't be able to meet once a resolution has been approached. You had said that protecting those girls would be a method to control Kreutune but couldn't the same be said for this situation and Kumagawa? By reaching a quick end to all this, you could control whether they meet sooner or later. If you can change it to be later, you can plan better on preventing the fight than if you were to try it now."
"...Yeah. That might actually work. But I have no way of doing that myself."
"It is as you say but it's something worth considering, isn't it?"
"It is. It is. Oh. Looks like something is going on over by the entrance. I need to see what's going on. Sorry. You did more for my problem than I could for yours but thank you anyway."
He walks over to the commotion as the beetle ruminates on what he's learned. A small cracking sound could be heard if one listened close enough but there was none there that were paying any attention.
Accelerator stares at Kakine with a blank face, unable to fully comprehend what was happening.
"Oh? Is your unimaginative mind incapable of realizing what's going to happen? I'm telling you that I'm going to weaponize the ones that you care about to allow for me to attain level 6 just so I can destroy you. I'm fully capable of going that far just to beat you."
"..."
Kakine shrugs his shoulders noncommittally.
"Well, it's fine to stop every once and awhile to smell the roses but-"
"Kekakahahahahahahahahahahaha!"
All at once, Accelerator fell to the floor and rolled about with his hands clutching his gut.
"What? Have you been driven mad by the futility of fighting me?"
"No! Stop! Please-hahahahahaha! Goddamn it Kumagawa, you were right after all!"
Kakine looks over to Kumagawa, quizzically, but there was nothing unusual going on with him. He just stands where Kakine had set him with a vacant expression. His body had been turned completely white by this point with Dark Matter. There was no way for him to even save himself much less be able to do anything for Accelerator.
"I can't believe I'm actually admitting that guy was right. It feels so wrong but that's what makes it so funny."
"Right about what? You're not going to say that he predicted all this are you?"
Kakine had said this with all the sarcasm he could muster to mock his enemy, sure that he was going to deny him, but in a way he couldn't have seen coming-
"Yeah, that idiot saw right through your shitty plans."
-Accelerator denies his expectations as well.
"Impossible. I have his every thought at my disposal, there's no way-"
"You're an even bigger idiot than him. If what you're saying is true, then go back to when he and I talked about an hour or so ago."
Kakine suspected a trap but his arrogance lets him humor his enemy anyway.
"Let's see...you had some touching moments with each other but nothing that really goes over what's happening now."
"Skip to the end you fucking retard."
An uncomfortable premonition itches at Kakine's scalp as he views the memory.
"Hm? Are you talking about him saying not to take me seriously?"
"Congratulations. Someone give the moron a fucking medal."
"I don't know if you should be the one to call me that at this point. How is not taking me serious supposed to help you?"
"You've been trying to make me lose control haven't you? You already said before that all you have to do is wait until my batteries lose power and for me to lose control over those black wings."
"What does that have to do with anything?"
Accelerator sneers at the inhuman face staring him down with hate filling the narrow, dark slits where eyes ought to be.
"You keep acting like you're some sort of god that I'm helpless against when you have all the time in the world to laugh at me uselessly flail at you but that's just a load of bullshit. You're actually pretty impatient, aren't you?"
The slits widen into twin black holes.
"You're not some god. You're just some pathetic human trying desperately to become more monster-like to beat me. That's why you've resorted to indirect attacks like using the recordings of the Sister's memories and taking over the bodies of people better than you to try to get me to fight you seriously enough to wear out of energy just so you can throw a single weak-ass punch to be able to cry out in pitiful victory. Just how fucking pathetic can one one man get? I thought that Kumagawa was the lowest you could go but I think you actually beat him there! Hahahaha! Man, is he going to fucking PISSED at you when he gets back!"
He was surprised at first, perhaps expecting some counter-attack that he couldn't have foreseen, but now he's back to his mocking mood.
"That's it? You really think that's enough to win here? My system is-"
"Yeah, yeah, we've all heard your spiel already. And you said I was the one being fucking unimaginative. Well, I can see that part being right to an extent but with you trying to play at being monster, you're the one that applies to the most."
Kakine frowns as he opens his mouth to make some rebuttal but just as soon as he does, he thinks better of it and decides on a sigh instead.
"Well. It's no use trying to reason with someone as mentally unstable as yourself."
With a shrug of his shoulders, Kumagawa and Mugino step forward.
"Hopefully that was enough of a breather for you. All this talk has seriously detracted from my experiments."
Their white forms distort on the sides closest to each other. Kumagawa's left arm warps and Mugino's right arm melts as they combine with each other into a single entity. It was by no means a seamless transition from one side to the other. Kumagawa's side on the face was higher than Mugino's by a few inches. Their fused arm sticks out the center of the torso. Mugino's long legs are forced to support the heavy mass as Kumagawa's shorter legs just dangle slightly off the ground. The mouth was just a set of four flaps as the lips were entirely disconnected from each other.
"There's no need to preserve that form. It certainly will hinder their combat ability. Well, that and I have no further need to preserve the shape when I, myself, can use my own powers just fine without a small concern like that. I think I'll just take them for myself."
The Frankensteined form collapses into itself as it propels itself through the air toward Kakine's torso. Unlike the horror from before, there was no apparent conservation of the mass that was absorbed. He didn't grow extra limbs or faces nor did he grow in size.
The mass of Dark Matter simply melded into him quietly as the bodies of Kumagawa and Mugino were lost to Kakine's lust for power.
"Now, where were we?"
Hamazura had just left with Saiai and some French girl that had stopped by with some method to stop Fraulein Kreutune but the introspective beetle paid that no mind. What was distracting him were the two little girls under it's care that had snuck off while everyone else had their attentions on the French girl.
"Where are you two even going?"
"Nyah! We've decided to go help our friend!"
"What else could we be doing? asks Misaka as Misaka blazes a trail!"
They had been wandering here and there for awhile now with no apparent direction or purpose. They had stopped by a festival and won some prizes as presents for Kreutune. All in all, they hadn't really done anything other than drag the weary beetle around from place to place in search for their cannibalistic friend. It was getting exhausted but...it wasn't all bad.
But even so, beetle #05 had it's reservations about all this. It couldn't think of anyway to stop these two from coming into close contact with Kreutune other than doing it by force. It wanted to keep that as a last resort but by then it would likely be too late to do anything. It was at an impasse.
"There! In the first place, the GPS on the security buzzer says that she's on the overpass over there!"
It walks them over in that direction but all of a sudden, time is stopped for it. The beetle begins to panic for a moment but then realizes that this wasn't anything that Fraulein Kreutune could have done to it's knowledge. Then it sees the source. For both this phenomena as well as his problems.
At a spot a mere 5 meters from its cannon barrel stood a boy with brown hair and wearing a high-class jacket.
His eyes contained a dark light that was only found in those who had continuously walked down the
hidden back roads of life. The thin smile on his lips seemed to contain all forms of confidence. Despite Rhinoceros Beetle 05's cannon being at such extreme close range, he did not remove his hands from his pants pockets.
In that world where all color had faded to black or white, that boy alone contained color.
It was as if he was illuminated as that world's sole king.
"Kakine…Teitoku."
Groups of glowing alabaster globes hang in the air next to their ivory screw counterparts. Accelerator smirks at the array, to Kakine's growing irritation.
A glittering mass of white rushes for that derisive albino as he kicks off the ground in their direction. He agilely moves around the gauntlet of obstacles with a smile that reminded Kakine of someone else. More and more beams and screws are projected onto the film of reality as Accelerator gets closer and closer.
15 feet left.
Kakine forgoes shooting him down and projects a screw to gore Accelerator with.
10 feet left.
Accelerator just keeps racing towards the sentient mass of Dark Matter, as though playing a simple game of chicken.
5 feet left.
The screw comes screaming through the air for Accelerator's blood and reaches within inches of his chest.
He should have had that oversized carpenters tool skewered through him. He should have had the Dark Matter coursing throughout his being and been made apart of Kakine's system.
"That's why you're not going to win by using Kumagawa's powers. You have no imagination."
Being shown this impossible result, Kakine was helpless as Accelerator slammed his fist into that whiter than white face. It wasn't nearly as powerful as what Kakine has experienced from the #1 in the past. In fact, it felt quite...normal.
"...You didn't use your vector manipulation for that? Why? No, more importantly, how did you even counter All Fiction?"
"That's not important actually. Fuck, it doesn't even matter. And I'm not just talking about whether I use my powers to deal damage to you or in breaking that sorry replica of that idiot's screws. This entire fight has become far too stupid for me to take seriously anymore. That's why I'm giving you this kind of a handicap. From here on out, I will only use my powers to dodge those pathetic attacks. It'll be like an adult placing his hand on a rampaging child, chuckling and laughing at the brat's efforts. If you really want to talk about futility, then you'll experience enough of it yourself."
Kakine's eyelids twitch with rage for a moment but then his face clears with a frown as he turns to one of the dilapidated walls and launches a screw at it. It lands, sure enough, but it was lacking or rather the fact that it wasn't lacking was the problem.
"...What did you do to All Fiction?"
"Huh? Why the hell would I need to do anything? It's obvious that you'd be unable to control it once you tried taking Kumagawa into yourself. Honestly, why would you actually introduce that kind of a virus to your systems to begin with? Oh wait. It's you I'm talking about. Of course you'd be that fucking stupid."
"I have all the parts necessary to reproduce the power. I can even partition a section specifically for using a copy of his exact thought patterns to force his Skill to recognize me as the user. There's no reason for it to be a problem on my end. Why would...wait."
A virus.
He realized what had him so uncharacteristically paranoid. It was likely just something like nerves at first but then he remembered what Kumagawa had said in those memories.
He had said that Kakine was making himself indistinguishable from what was defined as Dark Matter. That much was better said to be fact at this point.
So what did that make a certain Minus now that Kakine had absorbed that personality?
"It is simple logic," whispered that someone. "As long as you are a part of Kakine Teitoku, you cannot hesitate to kill your proper target. If you are hesitating, that reluctance to kill must be coming from some portion that is not Kakine Teitoku. There is something you have gained in this short time…something that the targets trust. When you decide to kill using that excess portion of yourself, you determine that you are 'betraying' the targets. So release yourself from those conditions. Let this kind Kakine Teitoku forcibly give you your orders. Kill the targets while selfishly resenting me."
The conclusion was clear.
Rhinoceros Beetle 05 could not become something other than Kakine Teitoku.
No matter what.
[Well, yeah. Even an idiot like me can get that.]
Both the beetle and the colorful boy turn to a certain smiling boy.
"Kumagawa? How are-"
[Ah, well I kinda sorta messed up and got absorbed by that playdough kid. Hey! There's the bastard right there! But...he's not white anymore? Does he have revitiligo?]
Kakine's eyes narrow at his introduction.
"How are you here? If I have fully absorbed you then your will should've been squashed by now."
[Sorry but I'm too sufficient a fool for your foolproof plans. Anyway this is an A and B conversation so how about you just leave?]
"That's not even how-"
[So Ringo-san. Is that what has you so confused and distraught? Because you can't be anything else than that Kakine guy?]
Beetle #05 looks over to where Kakine had been but there was nothing.
[Come on pal! Pay attention here! You'll be hurting my feelings otherwise.]
"...Yes. I wanted to become something other than Kakine Teitoku so that I wouldn't have to kill those two but..."
[Well of course you can't become something else. Why in the hell would you want to be something other than yourself?]
That much couldn't be disputed but...something other than yourself.
"I get it now. The reason why I changed my mind was because...it's my mind to begin with."
With that realization, the other part of Kakine Teikoku's personality began to die.
"What?...Just what the h-hell is going on? Did K-Kumagawa's personality someh-how shield h-himself from me?...H-he kn-knew. He knew about all this!"
Kakine's body was breaking down in chunks.
"I doubt it. Come on second-rate, you have his memories. You should know better than anyone that he isn't smart enough to plan ahead. If it was anything, I'd say it was yourself. That's where that lack of imagination comes into play."
"Myself? W-what-"
"It's a part of that infinite possibility that you kept blabbing about. You might not have seen it, doubt anyone else could have, but from that sea of possibility there came another personality to take over."
"No. NO! I-I was here first!"
"That shit doesn't matter anymore. What the flesh-and-blood organs connect to is no longer an issue. You obtained the infinite, so you broke past the need for that kind of thing, right? When a network made up of flexibly replaceable equipment has a portion become isolated from the rest, the isolated portion becomes a small network of its own."
His mind raced. He couldn't lose here. Not now that he was so close. Accelerator was right. Kumagawa wasn't the only intervening factor here. There was that girl with the level 4 AIM manipulation ability. She had been nearby when that portion had made it's decision. All Kumagawa did was give it the nudge it needed in the desired direction.
"G-god da-damn it!"
"With all that personality it shouldn't have been a surprise that there would be some parts of you that would surface and wrest control from you. There would be cowardly parts. Wrathful parts. Courageous parts. I don't know what it was that took over your system but if I had to hazard a guess, if only because it'd be too fucking poetic for it not to be, it'd be the kind part of you."
At this point, Kakine was no longer listening. He was searching for a way to survive the change. There had to be a way. He couldn't just let it be. Why? Why was it that he was destined to lose to him?
Then he saw it.
"...Th-the kind part of me, huh? So wh-what if it's the loser side then?"
If that part of him could surface and take control after it had been severed from the whole of his system, what says that he can't do the same? Though he'd have to take some shortcuts.
"All Fiction!"
A giant metallic screw appears and impales Kakine in the chest.
The moment it does, his damage becomes nothing.
"What the hell!?"
"...Hehehe. Hehehehahahahahahhhhhh! I didn't think that would work since it hadn't before when I tried using it on you but I think I get how to use this Skill now. It's really not something meant to be in the hands of a winner. It frustrates me to have to say that but there's no way I can use it if I don't face that fact."
"Did you just-"
"No. That fake part of me still has primary control. I just managed to revert the damage and cut myself off from him entirely. That would be a problem if I didn't have All Fiction but well you see the outcome of that. I can no longer rely on my Dark Matter as I had but this Skill will do it's job as a crutch."
Accelerator hadn't seen Kakine as a threat this entire fight, even when he had been fighting seriously. It wasn't that his attacks couldn't reach him, the attack on his heart using the Sisters had been near fatal after all. But this now became something of another level.
Kakine now had the full control of one of three abilities that Accelerator was aware of being able to reach past his vector reflection field.
Spears appear by the dozens but stop far from shy of the number he had been producing. It was clear his power was lacking compared to before. But considering he had another that he could rely on, that difference hardly mattered at all.
"Shit!"
Accelerator flings himself wildly out of the way as the hailstorm of death crushes the ground. The spears change to homing beams of energy randomly in mid-flight, making dodging even more difficult for Accelerator. It was like having to outrun a machine gun whose bullets can change direction without you noticing if you were too focused on just surviving.
"I can restore functionality if I use you to erase that fake of mine. After that I can make good on my promise to take control of the Misaka Network. It's too bad I can't enjoy my revenge but I have to prioritize my own survival here."
The worst part was their previous fighting left next to no cover. Anything that wasn't obliterated in the impacts of the projectiles got unmade from existence. Accelerator was effectively running across an open field of fire for Kakine to play with.
"Haaaaa. I really can't win can I?"
His tone was heavy with disappointment but the look was at odds with that. That smile was that of someone in complete control of the lives they toy with. But that isn't all that special a trait for a level 5 to have. After all, the majority of them have that burned into their souls to some degree or another.
"Well of course not. Even if you hadn't absorbed that loser into yourself, that fact would still apply to you~"
Kakine turns to the new source of mockery and sees a blonde haired girl with stars in her eyes.
"Shokuhou Misaki. Really? You're the eleventh hour savior here?"
Misaki takes the returning fire with grace.
"What? Are you stupid? There's no way someone like me could face off against someone like you directly. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for my little brother in spirit."
"Little-ah. You mean Kumagawa. He's gone. Now that I, personally, have control over that Skill of his, I have no more need for such a cancerous personality. I've since erased that virus from my system. Well, maybe he survives on the fake's side but on mine, at least, he's gone for good. Sorry to say but you're not going to be able to get him back from me. I have no current need for you. If you run fast enough, you might reach the fake and get it to make a copy of Kumagawa if it can manage it."
"Oho? So critical of me at first and yet here you are trying to chase me off. Are you actually afraid of me now that you've stooped as low as you have~? Well, it really doesn't matter either way to me."
She holds her hands behind her back as she steps over the rubble.
"He's right here after all."
Kakine flinches but as he sees what she was talking about, he laughs.
"What? You aren't going to say that he's going to come back with the power of friendship are you?"
He just couldn't believe something as absurd as that. No one could. But why was he shaking?
"Why not? Kumagawa was an avid reader of manga in the end anyhow~."
Behind Kakine, there's the sound of ruffling clothes. As though someone had just gotten up from the ground and dusted themselves off.
"...No. That's just-"
"Hey, did you know? That I had tried erasing his mind before? I messed up though and his memories became ingrained into my head. He saw all of mine too. As a result we became really close friends since we came to understand each other so well. Ah, but I'm sidetracking myself. You see, Skill holders and their powers are directly linked to their psychology. It's probably why All Fiction began to work for you since you started to see things his way, likely thanks to both your current situation as well as to his memories lingering around that head of yours."
Steps slowly approach with all the tempo of a predator enjoying the hunt.
"You were able to utilize All Fiction because you had his thought patterns and personality under your control, right? But it's not as if you had completely analyzed all that data yourself. The 27 some odd years he's lived would be pretty boring for the most part. It's just nothing but failure after failure after pitiful failure. It's like the opposite of those stories with characters that always win, there's no fun in trying to follow along when you know what's going to happen every single time."
The footfalls stop about 5 feet behind Kakine but he can't bring himself to look.
That would mean accepting that as a part of reality.
But reality is rarely so kind as to let one ignore it.
"I had not only burned his thought patterns and personality to my memory but I had personally seen through every second of life that he had experienced. Every defeat. Every loss. I understand him better than anyone ever has, to include you. Enough so that I begin to hallucinate seeing him. You know how those screws of his work? He just forces his rejection of the world onto reality for all to see. Sounds kinda like Personal Realities right? So with that all in mind, wouldn't it be possible for such a person to be able to use that condition of mine to remake himself when he's reached the point where even All Fiction has been rendered useless~?"
Kakine rears his head to the one he can no longer neglect.
There, dressed in an all black uniform from a certain school, was his enemy.
[Thanks for the long-winded exposition, Misaki-chan! With that, my brain death has become nothing! Oh hey, I got my jacket back. Nice.]
"This is just a trick! You really expect me to believe a convoluted reason like that!"
[Hah? Why would I expect anything from a thief like you, playdough boy? Misaki-chan just has such deep feelings for me that anytime she sees that I've died, she denies the reality hard enough for me to come back! Well, maybe that's not it. But I don't really care either way. I don't really like thinking too hard about these things since I might just vanish with a poof of existential dust.]
Kakine sighs as he gets his nerves under control. His eyes retain their dull, bottomless gaze while he stares Kumagawa down.
"...So what now then? Are you going to try fighting me? That might help you considerably. We're both at the point where fate won't allow us to win so you may be able to use that paradox to come out on top. But what's the point in that? What's the point in butting your head in other people's problems when you have plenty of your own? You still want to fight Kamijou Touma, correct?"
Accelerator turns to Kumagawa with surprise but the other person there witnessing this exchange, Misaki, just grimaces as though she had been anticipating this moment. The man in question averts his eyes but otherwise stays silent. That reaction was all Kakine needed to put a smile on his face.
"So I am right. I don't mind letting you go. That's not just some stupid villain cliché I'm spouting to get rid of you or something. It may have been a painful experience that lowered my power considerably but you have given me something so much more in return. Besides, I know that once you're finished here or whenever Anshin'in moves on, you won't be staying around for much longer. As long as neither one of us get in the others way, I can't see a reason why we have to be enemies. Go. Go take all your frustrations out on that protagonist so you can focus wholeheartedly on saving the girl you love. That's what you came here for."
Kumagawa eyes glue themselves to the floor as Accelerator steps forward a few paces, fists and teeth clenched.
"What's the meaning of this?"
It was a few moments before he could turn to the one that questioned him.
"...I need to beat him. It's a matter of principal."
"Ah, so it ain't fucking personal then?"
Accelerator had spit those caustically sardonic words out with the expectation to be denied.
"Yeah. It's definitely a personal matter. I can't stand someone like him."
The albino hands relax as their owner raises an eyebrow.
"Oh. Well, feel free then?"
Everyone else looks at him in confusion.
"The fuck are you all gawking at? If it's personal then I can't imagine that you'd kill him. Hell, if anything you'd fix all the damage you'd do afterwards anyway. No matter who won it. Or am I wrong?"
Kumagawa blinks several times as his mind tries to recall the processes that operate his mouth.
"Uh, well. Yeah. I was going to put the screws to him but I had no plans to murder him."
It's Kakine's turn to be flabbergasted.
"What? He's your antithesis isn't he? Don't you-"
[You're stupid. My antithesis remains where she has always been, back in my old world. Touma annoys the hell out of me just by existing, sure, but I've never been a murderer! I'm not some loonie like you!]
The Dark Matter being opens his mouth as though to reply but he decides on simply shaking his head.
"Can't say I didn't try."
[Guys like us just can't win, can we?]
"Yeah. That's right. Shall we get to it then?"
[Yep! It's not my fault you decided to try using All Fiction so don't blame me when you lose!]
"That's my line."
Spears and screws race for dominance in the sky as the multiply from thin air. Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands. The moonlight glittering on their surfaces gave off the appearance of the objects trying to become more numerous than the stars in their bid against each other.
[Hey, Misaki-chan? Can you take care of Accel-kun? He'll need some help in coming up with the answer to this problem.]
"Wha-"
The moment Kumagawa returns Kakine's look, Misaki realizes that he wasn't going to wait for her. She runs out and takes Accelerator's hand just as both sides fired their arsenals at one another. As soon as they had dove behind some small bit of rubble for cover, she gasps for breath.
"Geeze! What does...that idiot think I am? Nobody can just...run flat out like that!"
On the other hand, Accelerator breathes just fine while he stares her down.
"...Just how fucking out of shape are you?"
"What!? Do you really think you can talk!? You look like some girl with cancer!"
"Wow. So your true face shows, huh Mental Out? Didn't think you'd be one for jokes in such poor taste but I guess that assclown out there is rubbing off on you."
Misaki huffs in frustration.
"Whatever. I didn't come rushing out to grab you so you could just belittle me."
"It's not like you make it hard with that fucking bog body of yours."
"Bo-bog body!? Wha- calm down. Calm down. He's just trying to get a rise out of me by saying ridiculous things. Just remember the pictures Kumagawa sent of that uniform he forced on that androgynous bastard. Pffhahahaha! Your face was so red then!"
The sound of plastic shattering erases all amusement from her face as her head creaks over to see her phone smashed to bits in Accelerator's hand.
"Needed some battery power. It won't provide much but a few seconds counts for everything. Thanks for reminding me about it."
"MY PHONE!? DO YOU PLAN ON PAYING FOR THAT YOU CROSSDRESSING PERVERT!?"
He sighs as he tosses the scraps of the device off to the side, much to Misaki's chagrin.
"Look, I'm sure he'd be amused by all this but I'm not Kumagawa. What the hell was he talking about when he said you could help me?"
Dark Matter and Minus. The both of them remained standing where they were as their projectiles collided with one another before they could reach their targets. Kakine's spears alternated between solid matter and energy beams while Kumagawa's would just become in their way within a blink of the eye. Spears, screws, and beams were deflected, rebounded, and destroyed upon one another. All the while their masters stood their ground in the middle of all the carnage. It was like a chess game on the scale of a war.
"Well, I have to say this rather…lacking."
[I'm just going off your first move playdough boy.]
"Really? You aren't just trying to buy some time then?"
These two spamming cheaters of reality idly have this chat in this chaotic situation.
[Oh no! He found out about our plan!]
"Knock it off already. You have power on par with my own at this point. I may have control over All Fiction now but it's impossible for me to use the others and there's no way I can push my will onto reality to create things out of nothing but my imagination. Why do you keep insisting on pretending that you're so weak?"
Even though Kumagawa's face darkens, the rate of screws doesn't go down at all.
[...You can see why.]
"Hm?"
[Or at least you should be able to considering you ought to still have my memories.]
"...You mean from back when you first met her? You couldn't have stopped any of that."
[Maybe. But until I win against Anshin'in, I won't accept any other 'victories'. Though it is a shame this time. You might have had a better ending if I wasn't here. Ah, well. Can't win them all!]
Another itching grows out from Kakine's scalp as he saw that smile of his stretch the corners of that joker's face. He was beginning to trust this instinct of his but even so he still had to voice his doubts. Better to spring the trap you're suspicious of than to let it be.
"What are you talking about?"
[It's just what I said. I never had any aspirations of beating you. To begin with, even if I cast aside my useless pride and went full bore into beating you, I'd still lose. So instead of suffering a loss, the winning move to make here is to not even try so that way I can't lose this fight!]
"Huh?"
Kumagawa's smile turns into a sneer.
[I'm saying this will be won with friendship, effort, and victory on the behalf of others.]
At once, all the artillery they fired ceased. For a moment, all was quiet. Then the sound of a body slumping onto the ground echoes throughout the passageways. Silence resumes for about a minute until two heads, one blonde and one white, peek above their cover.
"Did it work, Kumagawa? Is that loser down for the count?"
[Yeah, thanks Misaki-chan.]
They come out of hiding as they move up to the apparently lifeless form in front of Kumagawa's feet. Misaki keeps her distance behind Kumagawa's back but Accelerator walks over and kicks the body a bit.
[He was one of those kids that poked at dead animals wasn't he?]
"Hmm, I don't know for sure but yeah, he must have been the type to sadistically stomp on bugs huh~?"
The two jokesters had brought their heads close to each others in a uselessly conspiratorial manner when you consider how close they were to the one they were whispering loudly about. Instead of getting angry, he sighs as he turns to their snide, expectant faces.
"Oi. Tweedledumbass."
[Eh? Who do you refer to there?]
"Ah, good point. I'll revise these nicknames for you two."
He points to Misaki first.
"Tweedledumbass."
Then to Kumagawa.
"Tweedle-even-bigger-dumbass."
[EHHH!? Look, Misaki-chan, look! Accel-kun's heart has opened enough for him to give us such endearing pet names! I-I might cry! Our boy is all grown up! I need a tissue here!]
"Yeah. I get you're just mocking his insults but you're getting snot on me so could you tone the act down a bit please?"
Despite the displeasure in her voice, she makes no effort to pull off her blubbering friend.
"Could you move the conversation along, albino, so that way he might stop?"
With a click of the tongue, Accelerator does as much. If only because he has other things to take care of.
"So, how did you know that if Mental Out were to be used on me that I'd be able to amplify the effects enough to get past the reject's defenses? He might have weakened some but that really was the only way to have gotten past that Dark Matter of his and erased the memories he had recorded into that pathetic excuse for a back-up. I could have thought it up but it's pretty dubious that you could come up with that on your own. Did that Kihara brat mention it to you or something?"
Kumagawa scratches his head in shameful pride.
[Weeeeell, that was actually something I came up with. Misaki was pretty close to killing me when she erased my mind of everything but the basics. If she hadn't remembered everything about me, I would have been pretty screwed. So I figured if she had shot her mind beams at your reflector thing, you could mix in some crazy stuff to make it strong enough to wipe all the memory he has! Pretty smart for a guy like me huh?]
His chest swells up with pride.
"So, that means I could just kill you if I were to erase her memories before yours?"
Misaki's and Kumagawa's smiles freeze. Misaki's out of fear. Kumagawa's out his usual battle frenzy.
[Yeah. That could definitely work but-]
"Or maybe I could just copy those memories of what I did to you after the sailor uniform bullshit over to Misaki's mind. I noticed that was mysteriously absent from the memories that this guy had and when I think about how he had your brain, I can't help but think you might have used All Fiction on those memories before he could get at them."
Misaki frowns slightly as she thinks on this.
"You know, there were some parts of your mind that I couldn't access. I didn't bother getting past your defenses at the time since I figured I was going to wipe them anyway but...huh. They aren't in my head anymore. Do you know something about this, little brother~?"
The Crawling Minus that bets his life in the worst of situations with abysmal odds began to sweat and shake like a madman as the blonde eyed him mischievously.
"She was pretty amused at those pictures you apparently sent her but I wonder how she'll react to the costume WORST and I put on you? You were pretty cool about it at the time but will you stay that way when she knows about it?"
[Ah-hahahah. W-well would you look at my wrist! It's about a hair past the mole so I better go. Got things to see and people to do or something. Wait. I feel like I'm forgetting something here. Do you have any ideas Misaki-chan?]
"A better way to divert my attention from that detail you're so keen on getting me away from?"
[No, no. Definitely not. Most definitely not. It's...something else. Damn, it's right on the tip of my tongue too!]
Accelerator sighs as he rubs his face with one hand.
"The cyborg woman?"
Kumagawa's eyes shoot open as his mouth hangs.
[OH SNAP! How could I have forgotten!? Hang on a sec.]
He causally throws a screw where it impales into the air. An instant later, Mugino reappears among the land of the living with a bewildered expression on her face.
"What!? What just-hey, you're back Kumagawa? What happened? No, never mind. I can already imagine why. Hm? But why is that starry eyed slut here?"
"Haaah. I'm sensing a trend here among you high rankers and I don't really appreciate it. So, I'll just set things straight for you since it seems you lack the faculties of anything resembling complex thought. Without me, you would still be nothing more than a mass of flesh in that second-rater's body and I've already reserved my heart for one man. Besides, I don't know if the woman that once accepted ANY sort of job from that old man is in any position to be calling me a slut~."
"...You looking to start a fight?"
As it tends to happen amongst the level 5s, sparks began to fly between the #4 and #5. But those embers of a coming battle were snuffed by the sudden sound of a clap.
[Well! It's so nice to watch such beautiful girls chat so happily but I really should get going. Could you take that body over to that cafe where you first heard about me, Misaki-chan? I'd appreciate it! Later!]
He makes to go run but Misaki's unusually strong grip keeps him in place.
"Hey. Do you really think I'd be okay with this? 'Just drag the body of some comatose monster off while I go attack the guy you like', are you kidding me?"
Kumagawa sighs in exasperation.
[Man, everybody really has been hounding me about this since I started feeling this way about it.]
His lackadaisical way of answering angers Misaki, making the frown she wears increase in intensity.
"So it's my fault then? I should let you off to do whatever?"
[Well, no. I don't-]
"Drop the act and answer me seriously."
His whole body slumps at her confronting his attempts at avoiding the problem at hand.
"I don't expect you to be okay with this. I know how you feel about him but you need to understand why I've come to think the way I do about him. He-"
"He's some asshole that claims he has bad luck when he has so much going for him. Right?"
Her clear cut way of pinpointing the truth of it all stuns him until he remembers why she can do that.
"...Yeah."
"That applies to you too, idiot."
"I...know."
"No, no you don't. You're still looking away from that so can have your justification for fighting him. You just can't stand that someone else can win even with the bad luck he has when you can't yourself. Aren't you trying to change that side of you?"
Kumagawa's head hangs at her brutal way of pressing his face into the figurative mirror.
"..."
"But even if I tell you all that, you'll still go through with it huh? Are you really going to be so selfish about this when everyone keeps asking for you not to go through with it?"
"..."
"Fine. Have it your way. If words won't stop you then I have nothing left. But you better make it up to me after he has beaten you. I'm pretty pissed off enough that I can't do anything to prevent my little brother from getting his head smacked around so you owe me more than plenty for this okay?"
Her words shock him enough for him to whip his head back up to her.
"Huh? You aren't worried for him at all?"
"Of course I am! But like this overachiever said, you aren't going to kill him so I'm betting that he'll beat you pretty badly. Especially when you can only barely see yourself winning in any given situation nowadays. I don't care how injured you'll be mentally or physically from it, you are now obligated to take me to a cafe of my choosing afterwards. You'll be footing the bill of course."
"...I'm-"
Misaki's loud sigh interrupts his apology.
"I've already told you that you aren't the type for apologies so stop looking for an excuse to stop feeling bad about this."
"You really...know me too well."
Her gloved hand releases itself from his arm with great reluctance. Kumagawa takes a few steps away before he stops.
"Misaki, I-"
"Don't worry. If it weren't for the fact that I understand you so well, I'd never forgive you. But since I don't have the option to just look away from that, I have no choice other than forgiving you. You're my little brother in spirit after all. Even if you are retarded."
"Ouch. You...really don't pull any punches huh?"
"It has to be that way with you or you'd never understand. Anyway, do you really just want me to leave that there?"
Misaki points a dainty thumb over her shoulder at Kakine's body.
"Won't someone with the city just get him?"
[I'm betting on that not happening. Well, I've already done more than what I have to for Olly anyway so if he misses this opportunity, it's not my fault. At any rate, I'll come back and feed you whatever sweets you want to pay you back for dealing with my selfishness later on. So...yeah. Bye.]
In the blink of an eye, he was on his way to fight his unknowingly appointed nemesis.
"..."
"..."
What was left behind was two living level 5s and another that couldn't quite qualify as living anymore in the middle of a thrashed apart underground facility. Misaki looks over at Accelerator out of the corner of her eyes.
"...Hey-"
"Carry that by yourself. I have no responsibility for the crap he piles on you."
"Au contraire my whiter than white friend~. It was because of you that we were able to bring him down."
"And I give a shit? I have better things to do."
The strongest esper walks off as the fourth strongest calls out to his back.
"Oh well. That's your decision. I wonder if a certain video of the number 1 level 5 wearing a girls uniform will get enough views to pay for cab fare?"
Accelerator's feet stop in place with his hand tightening around his cane.
"...Do you really think you can fuck with me?"
"Yes, actually. The video is already on several flash drives in some security deposit boxes across the city so even if I die, someone will be bound to find it. Plus, if you hurt me I can just coerce Kumagawa to get into a double KO with you releasing whatever you have on what you forced him into while he puts out the one with you to the world. Honestly, it'd almost be worth it to see the too of you so desperately trying to ruin each others reputation."
"...He really has rubbed that shitty personality of his onto you. Why don't you just bug that cyborg for-"
He looks in the direction where Mugino had been but finds nothing. To reiterate, there are just two level 5s in this space.
"That sneaky bitch."
"We do agree at least on that point. Now could you use that number 1 power of yours to carry this guy up to the surface while I get us a cab?"
Accelerator clicks his tongue in frustration for what felt like the hundredth time tonight. Having to deal with these indirect types really wears at his psyche. Almost enough to long for the lonesome days back before he got involved with the Sisters and just had to worry about himself. Almost.
Whew. This chapter, and the next one, took some doing. I wanted to try and see about getting Kakine a bigger role but well, he is one of the Index series resident jobbers. It's the reason why a Minus like Kumagawa's can work so well for him, or at least as long as he doesn't try winning. Also, the level 5s are all assholes to each other. I don't think Mugino and Misaki had ever met in canon but I imagine that it would be like most meetings between level 5s in that they're just about about at each other's throats. Oh and if you thought I just had Kumagawa 'forget' about Mugino as a joke, you'd be dead wrong. I literally forgot about her when I was done writing this chapter. Just went out for a relaxing smoke, feeling all proud that I actually managed to get a lot done, and then WHAM I realize Mugino Shizuri is a thing that exists in the story. Oh well! The next chapter is done for the most part, it just needs a bit more fine tuning. But it does becomes more of a Birdway vs Kumagawa fight than it does a Touma vs Kumagawa fight. If only because I can't imagine the first encounter being more than something of a stalemate between those two. They'll get a proper fight later on though. Well that and because I realized how overpowered that whole 22 Major Arcana combo could be.