I Don't Regret Saving You

by HazelWasTaken

After saving a girl in his hometown and getting framed for being the one harassing her and her aggressor, Touma loses everything he knows. He is sent to Juvenile Hall, and then sent to Academy City for the length of his three-year Probation. Being a hero is what got him into this mess, so he vows to not be a hero anymore. This AU is first person, and is set one year before canon.

8. Chapter 8

Title: I Don't Regret Saving You

Summary: After saving a girl in his hometown and getting framed for being the one harassing her and her aggressor when he was innocent, Touma loses everything he knows, is sent to Juvenile Hall, and then sent to Academy City for the length of his three-year Probation. Being a hero is what got him into this mess, so he vows to not be a hero anymore.

A/N: Hello! This chapter is a bit long, so it took me a bit longer to finish it, tack on my usual indecisiveness and it took me way too long to get it out. Sorry for that, everyone. Anywho, review responses!

GG Vegito: Lol! I got major Smash Bros vibes when I read this, and I couldn't help but laugh out loud when I read the last part of your review. It was so unexpected! xD

Levolutioner: I went and checked out those sites you mentioned and realized something; I'm actually pretty nervous. I barely have the guts to post on here, and before posting this on anything else I want to make sure this is perfect. I've never read on any other site other than fanfiction before so I have no idea what to expect from other communities, really, but I wanna go reread this story one of these days and just fix everything up, like any typos I may have missed or something like that before cross posting. I'm very comfortable with Fanfiction, but other websites scare me, much like overly serious substitute teachers do. I was a bit trepidatious about the word count, but just realized it's really just a number at the end of the day. Kind of like Avatar, my goal is for each chapter to (sort of) have its own story line, instead of each chapter setting up the next chapter, which sets up the next chapter, and so on until the climax. But on a lighter note, you're comments here and there are hilarious just like always! :D Seria's and Touma's interactions in A Certain Magical Index (which she rarely makes an appearance in sadly) and the Biohacker arc were always funny to read as well. She was like that one adult-like figure that always bullied poor Touma around, but at the same time she was a kid just like him and every other character. The difference in IQ is apparent, and yet they are really good friends somehow. Seeing them together never fails to put a smile on my face, so hopefully my interpretations of them reflected that. As for the emergency drill course thing, you have a sharp pair of eyes on you! Thanks for the support and laughs, Levolutioner, I'll take the things you said to heart! Oh, and the in between the lines thing, I had a lot of fun writing that short story so I'm glad it came out good. :)

superlance909: Thanks for all the compliments! When I first began writing this story, I did not think it would receive all that well because it was first person while the original narrative was the exact opposite, but I'm glad to see you feel otherwise. I'm also very glad for all the attention this is getting, and it is super awesome to see that people enjoy this too! School takes me away from my laptop more then I'd like, but I'm constantly jotting down outlines for this story in my notebook when I have nothing to do, so whenever I get to actual writing at the end of the day it's a matter of putting all those ideas I have into actual words, and it is always very challenging to take something like, 'Touma meets xxxxxx while doing xxxx, and xxxx happens' and spin it into something I think is awesome. It was super inspiring to hear your input, and I'll make sure to keep it up!

RUiN The Extinct: Woah! You really think so?! I actually just started reading 'A Certain Unknown Level 0' after reading your review and I've gotta say that now I am a little intimidated… No matter what though, I'll do my best! Thanks for the good faith, Ruin! It's pretty uplifting. :)

Voltsssss: I think Touma is adorbs too! He has a very bad habit of acting on his impulses, which could sometimes lead to… situations he'd rather not be in. It's always funny to witness the trouble he gets into lol!

bees be beein: I've always loved the idea of there being something more mysterious and sinister to the 'Imagine Breaker'. And when I saw Aleister (try to) kill Fiamma after he saw SOMETHING, but then not try to kill Gunha after seeing literal dragons(multiple dragons, by the way!), that got me thinking about Imagine Breaker on a much deeper level than 'dragons' like I did before. What if there is more then what's on the surface? More than the dragons? Afterall, Why try to kill Fiamma for seeing what's in Imagine Breaker, but then leave Gunha alone? Why try to kill Fiamma and then let Aureoles Izzard live (as a shell, maybe, but still). Fiamma didn't even see any dragon and was nearly killed off while Gunha sees dragons and Aleister's just like, "Meh. This won't affect my plans at all" Hmmmmmmm? Did Gunha see the same thing Fiamma saw, or is Gunha just too dense for Aleister to feel threatened? Mikoto saw the dragons too, and yet she gets to live while Fiamma is nearly killed off? Once again, hmmmm? Of course, I have some ideas for what I think Imagine Breaker is, and why it constantly chooses to accompany Touma even after being separated from him multiple times throughout the series (even Othinus herself states that she doesn't want to kill Touma out of fear that Imagine Breaker will find its way over to her no matter what new world she creates and take vengeance on her for killing its host… ok… I might be exaggerating, but I swear Othinus said something like that). Well… I wouldn't say I'm the most creative, but I definitely will try to explain what exactly (I think) Imagine Breaker is in the future. Thanks for the awesome review like always, bees be beein, and I'll try not to disappoint you! :) PS: This doesn't really have anything to do with anything, but I'm actually a she.

Sagnik Deb: Thanks! It's always exciting to hear that, so I'll do my best!

Guest - chapter 7: I'll do my best to interpret what exactly Imagine Breaker is when I get to it. And also, I think dragons are pretty awesome too. I used to watch Merlin, and that one elder dragon that helps Merlin always made me happy. He was always helping Merlin out with his wiseness and alike to Merlin, I like how dragons were portrayed in this series, too. Index herself (or someone I forgot who exactly) says that her walking church can only be destroyed by the fire breathing dragon of St. George, and guess what destroyed her walking church in canon? You only get three guesses.

A/N: Alrighty. Just a heads up, this chapter took me super long to write, so hopefully it came out well.

Like always, thanks for reading, everyone! :)

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Chapter 8: Sometimes I Get Lost In My Blues – An_Unexpected_Rain xxx Catharsis

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I'll make it right again

"But it's no use." You said, "You can't fight a symbol, a word, a name."

And yet I will do so anyway

As my hunger for revenge grows and grows

While I'm still sane, I have to write it down

The meaning to life – My reason for walking down this bloodstained path

Or everything I do will be in vain

- Hazel (?)

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If you lined up 1 billion randomly selected people from across the earth, not even one of them would share the same skin tone, set of beliefs, values, morals, likes, dislikes, temperament, or personality. You could arrange all of them from darkest to lightest from craziest to sanest from normal to abnormal from shortest to tallest from skinniest to fattest and there wouldn't be even a single tie between any one of them.

No two people can be exactly the same.

Even two twins with the exact same set of DNA couldn't ever be the same person.

Everybody is different in their own way.

Every single person is special.

Every single life is priceless.

Every single-

"Touma, are you insane?! What were you thinking, rolling up and touching up on some random spacecraft airplane thing?!"

Those were the things I was telling myself when Aogami Pierce and his plus one started ripping on me so I wouldn't clench my right hand and use it against them.

"He fell on his head as a baby far too many times." Said Tsuchimikado sadly before shrugging. "Just look at his forehead. Oh, that's right, you can't see it cause of all the bandages."

Pierce scoffed, "That has to be why he's so stupid." Facepalming, he turned back to me, "You broke the one rule, dude. The one rule; don't walk up to random airplanes. Haven't you watched what happens if you do that in those horror movies?"

"Hey, you can't really blame him all that much, Aogami. Like I said, his screws were never in the right place to begin with."

"Oh yeah, your right."

"Mhmm." Hummed Tsuchimikado, "We can't blame him for his lack thereof. It's not his fault he lacks basic common sense."

My shoulders drooped downwards at it all.

I was put into this position due to a precarious turn of events.

After Kihara Kaninshiki left for the gymnasium with Lexi in his tow, I had turned and looked at the jet longingly before gritting my teeth and turning away from it, disappointed that the Kaninshiki had said it was 'slow' - how dare he? This thing, by his word, could move twice as fast as sound could!

Dejected, I had begun walking to a wide-eyed Kumokawa Seria-senpai whose jaw was dropped like she'd seen a ghost as Kaninshiki walked past her. That was when my misfortune made herself known. A certain Aogami Pierce and Tsuchimikado Motoharu burst out from literally out of nowhere behind Kamisato – knocking the poor guy over who'd shouted a high school boy like him didn't deserve that - and ran straight over to where they must've heard a super jet was parked right outside.

When Pierce saw me, that was when he started ripping on me, and the bastard Tsuchimikado would not let me worm my way of anything because his logic was always better than mine for some stupid reason I couldn't pinpoint.

Then, I realized something weird in what Pierce had said.

I grumbled agitatedly from where the three of us stood by the jet, "First of all, where the hell did you two even come from? Fucking Narnia?" I stepped forward, and referenced to the jet behind me, "Second, this is a jet, Pierce, not an 'airplane'. And lastly, what the fuck kind of horror movie did you watch to make you scared of a jet?"

"E-eh…" Pierce deflated, "I-it wasn't a horror movie, not really… But let me just tell you that you don't wanna be near one of those during a zombie apocalypse! They could be filled with dozens upon dozens of flesh-eating zombies!"

"Flesh eating zombies?" Tsuchimikado wondered, just as confused as I was, "Hey, if there's Zombies in it, isn't it a horror movie?"

"You're right," I pitched in, "Sounds like a horror movie to me that you watched. A weird one, but a horror movie nonetheless."

"That's exactly what I was thinking." Agreed Tsuchimikado, "Maybe it's one of those freaky zombie comedies, Kamijou?"

I nodded, "Shoot, maybe it is."

Pierce was fearful, "G-guys, I'm telling you, it's not a comedy or a horror movie. It definitely isn't a horror movie either because I wasn't scared at all when I was watching it."

If that was the case, then why did Pierce start shaking a little every time he looked at the jet? Hmm…

"Alright," I ended up saying, "If you're not scared, then prove it."

Tsuchimikado realized where I was going with this and folded his arms, "Touch it. Touch the jet, Aogami." He ordered. And it made sense, too. If Aogami Pierce wasn't scared like how he stated, then touching the still running Militaristic Jet without flinching in the least from the zombies that could be in there would back up his claim.

At that, though, Pierce started sweating and shouted with rapid hand gestures, obviously not caring about backing up what he'd claimed, "Wow! I just remembered! We have to go to the auditorium in the gymnasium, don't we?!" Before either me or Tsuchimikado could say anything in response, Pierce turned on his heels and sprinted towards the auditorium we all had to gather at, thus confirming our suspicions that he was scared of jets.

It was almost funny how fast Pierce got the fuck out of here, too. If real life was one of those anime, he would have left a whole dust cloud in his wake.

Tsuchimikado did not approve of that in the least, though. "Zombies on a jet. Seriously?" He grumbled, shaking his head disappointedly before stepping forward. "At the end of the day, I guess he's right. We should probably get going."

"We probably should."

I nodded and started heading back to the crowd of students who'd still were all keeping a safe distance away from the huge jet which made the even bigger grass field it rested on feel a lot smaller than it really was.

There was something on my mind as trudged along, however.

"Ignoring what the heck zombies even have to do with this," I started, pointing a curious finger at Tsuchimikado, or rather, the golden metal around his neck, "How'd you guys win?" It had been bugging the back of my mind for quite a while now. I just never voiced it…

Tsuchimikado's lips pulled upward.

…Huh?

Tsuchimikado's grin got even bigger for another weird reason I couldn't pinpoint, "We didn't win. We lost – twice."

Seriously?

"Then why are you smiling like that?" I wondered with suspicious written in my tone, "What's there to be happy about if you lost? Or are you one of those masochists who get happy over weird stuff?"

"'Happy'? Oh, I'm not happy. I'm in a deep pain that we had to wait in line for two hours just so we could try again. So, again. I'm definitely not happy. If anything, I'm clinically depressed."

"And yet you're smiling ear to ear?" My head tilted in confusion when Tsuchimikado said:

"Yes, I am."

"Hmm. Cool."

"…"

"…"

"…"

A few moments passed, and then Tsuchimikado started giggling like a maniac. "Heh heh heh… Aren't you going to ask why I'm so happy?"

"Before I do that, let me think very deeply on why I should care about it; with more than two brain cells, of course…" After contemplating it for a moment – and believe me, I did - and realizing that there was something deeper to this, I decided, "Hell no. It's probably something weird anyway."

"Okey-dokey." Tsuchimikado's reply was swift and uncaring as he turned and started walking backwards so he could face me as we walked. With his arms folded around his neck, his expression resembled that of one who'd told another of an impending storm who didn't listen to him, "Suit yourself then, Dragonslayer-san. I don't want this heat, so see ya!"

After saying that, he turned on his heels and sprinted for the auditorium in the Gymnasium in very much the same way Pierce had.

I sighed, then my eyes widened. "W-wait…"

He had tried to warn me about something, didn't he?

Tsuchimikado called me a 'Dragonslayer,' then left because he didn't 'want the heat.'

Fearful, I looked around and tried to find whatever it was he'd tried to warn me about.

The dragon ended up being just about the last person I would expect.

After all, in my short time of knowing her, Kumokawa Seria-senpai had never shown this much emotion before.

To be more clear, within the crowd of students that had gathered to spectate the strange Jet parked in the grass field outside the gymnasium and were making a fair bit of noisy discussion, Kumokawa stood there. Her arms were folded, her teeth were grinding against each other, her eyes narrowed dangerously. Fumes surrounded her entire body distorting light itself and fire was coming out in droves with every breath she took. Fiery red wings that seared the very air and even and even the gr-

-Ok… ok… my claims may not be based in the natural world, but this was the personal reality I faced.

It was an illusionary reality not even this right hand of mine could break.

To be frank, I debated just running away like the kid I really was when no one was watching and heading for the auditorium so I could be with Tsuchimikado and Pierce where it was (somewhat) safe. But I just steeled myself and faced this dragon with a stupid right hand that wouldn't help in the least.

"K-Kumokawa-senpai," My voice came out as a tremble despite my attempts to make it sound as strong possible, "I don't know why you're mad, but-"

"Kamijou-kun, there's something important we have to discuss." There were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Not even an inch of slack was present in her voice. I couldn't tell if she was disappointed, worried, angry, or maybe even a mix of all three.

But as I followed her towards the gymnasium, I asked her the one thing I really wanted to know, "It doesn't involve any crazy karate teleporting super moves, does it? I happen to not like those kinds of discussions."

I hadn't meant to do it, but she lightened up a bit, "As fun a conversation that would be, no." Fun for you, maybe! "Before I go on, however, I have to ask you, where did Karate come from? I would get it if what I did reminded you of Jugo, Aikido, Jujitsu, or any other Martial Arts, but Karate?"

"E-eh… I don't really know what those other things mean, but I've watched enough Kung-Fu movies to know that what you did is definitely Karate, and that-"

"Karate and Kung-Fu are two completely different things."

"H-huh? Really?" My mind was blown. I couldn't believe what I'd heard, so I didn't believe it, "Wait a second, you're lying, aren't you?! I've only seen people teleport like how you did in those ninja movies! So what you did has to be karate!" My reasoning was undeniably perfect, and in no way could it be outdone by anything she could say.

Apparently coming to that conclusion on her own , Kumokawa groaned. "Ugh… I give up on trying to enlighten you."

"So this is you admitting that you're a teleporting super Esper ninja who knows karate techniques, then?" I folded my arms judgingly. I knew she cheated! There's no way she could disappear like that without any superpowers!

That made her laugh, "I'd literally be invincible with such a rare ability like 'teleporting'. But to answer your question, no. I didn't teleport, it was simply a trick of the eyes. An illusion, so to speak." She pointed at her hazel-blue eyes with her right index finger and middle finger in a 'V' formation. "Human minds are a lot more unreliable then what you've most likely been led to think. We can be easily tricked, and when distracted, we can miss things that are right in front of us in our tunnel vision. On that note, human minds are just like very advanced machines. And, similar to machines, we can be hacked if even the moisture/hormone balance in our brains that regulates the flow of bioelectricity is ever so slightly distorted. So, following Signal Propagation Theory, once you all lost sight of me and your eyes stopped transmitting radio signals of where I was to your brain, I erased my presence, which allowed me to get behind my opponent and….."

That was where I lost her.

My poor brain started having a mental overload from all the big brain terms being thrown at it. My mouth was hanging wide open, and my eyes were shaking.

"-And that's why you think I teleported." She concluded, "If you weren't distracted so easily, you wouldn't have lost sight of me."

If I were a pyrokinetic, the air would've started steaming from how fast the gears in my head were spinning. That was when I hit a road block. "W-wait… S-say that again for me?" If my head was tilted like how a puppy's would be after hearing a strange noise, it wasn't my fault in the least, I think…

Kumokawa looked at me blankly, then started laughing while facepalming at the same time. It wasn't just giggles like usual, this was full on laughter. "You're actually so stupid that your stupidness is infecting me like some kind of strange contagious disease. Why did I expect you to even understand any of that?" She seemed to be asking herself that more than she was asking me that.

Honestly, I couldn't bring myself to feel offended all that much. Second year stuff was beyond me, but I knew I'd be spitting facts like that a year from now when I became a cool Second Year just like her.

But until next year, "Yeah, sorry," I scratched the back of my head sullenly, "I'm not even going to pretend I know what any of that means." I shrugged at all her science-ey talk, then got a bit more serious. "But earlier, you said you wanted to tell me something. What was it?"

"That, hmm…? it's quite difficult to say it without being overly blunt." Kumokawa went from smiles and giggles to dead serious in just three seconds. It scared me a little as she even stopped walking, waited for students to pass us by, then asked me when no one listening would hear:

"How much do you value your life?"

That loaded question hit me like a truck filled with bricks, doused with gasoline and then lit on fire.

I cared about myself enough to not want to do something stupid like hanging around rear the end of a jet, but I guess not enough to overpower my curiosity of wanting to touch that same jet. I cared about myself enough to not want to drink poison, but not enough to think eating fast food at a fast-food restaurant was a bad thing. I cared about myself enough to not want to do something like-

-Pause, why the heck am I even questioning myself on something so stupidly simple?

"Of course I care about myself. Quite a bit, too." I answered her heartfully, pounding my chest with my right hand clenched into a fist, "I can't die. Ever." And that was that. The only way I'd ever die is if it's by my own terms. Nothing else is worth trading all the days I've painfully collected for 15 years, even if many of them are ones I don't want to look back on, ones I could do without, or even straight up want to erase. If there was a bright red restart button right in front of me that'd take all my memories away and leave me the way I was before all this stuff happened, I wouldn't press it.

I may not know the answer.

I may never know…

I may not know the answer to whether it was a good thing or not, but..

The few good days I do have collected are ones I cherish. They are worth it, and I'd do anything to prove that their pain actually had value. Because… they far out shine those dark days that will forever be a part of me.

That was why I was steadfast when I took this right hand of mine off of my heart and held it forward in Kumokawa's direction, unflinching. "The things I hold in this right hand of mine is even more valuable than my own life."

A memory of a person may not be as valuable as the person themself. But you know what they all say; you die once when you stop breathing. You die twice when your forgotten.

I won't let them be forgotten so easily. If anyone wanted to take the things I cherished away from me, they'd have to be willing to put their life on the line to do it.

Kumokawa seemed both confused and satisfied with my answer at the same time, "You have a weird way of viewing reality. But… ok. If you are telling me the truth, then promise me this, ok?"

I nodded.

She smiled and said, "That man in the white lab coat and his cohort aren't trustworthy. In fact, they come from a long line of… less then savory individuals…."

"And what makes you think that?" I questioned. I'd take her warnings to heart, but there's no way in hell I'd damn someone in my heart merely because their family made a bad decision or two. My entire life, people damned me before knowing who I even was. I wasn't just going to go around assuming someone was bad just because Kumokawa said so. "They didn't seem that bad when I first met them. Heck, even Lexi was just playing around the whole time. I didn't even get a slap on the wrist for checking out their jet."

Kumokawa seemed to be getting angry, "You're not listening to me. Just… promise me. Promise me you won't take what any higher up in this city say without a second thought. Actually, just don't trust anyone with a badge, license, or anyone else who has any kind of authority of you. Don't even trust people without those things. Your own friends could turn around and stab you in the back if you aren't careful. Always be vigilant. Always keep an eye out on even those people you think you trust. If something seems too good to be true, it probably isn't."

"S-senpai…" I started, though my blood pressure was rising.

It was one thing to be a cup half empty, but please don't tell me that this is Kumokawa Seria-senpai's life…

Always having to look over her shoulder.

Always going it alone:

Always being a lone wolf.

"Kumokawa-senpai," I started, though I didn't wait for a response, "Please tell me your kidding me right now." When my upperclassmen glared at me, I realized that there was something I'd even go up against ever her for. I chuckled, although this wasn't a laughing matter, "You are serious, then. Let me get this straight. You basically don't want me to be a yes man? You want me to go around assuming everyone is an enemy until they prove me wrong? And then, I should watch out for people who aren't even enemies and I consider my friends… because they could be enemies?" Kumokawa was taken aback by what I spat without a second word.

"N-no… All I'm saying is that you have to watch out. Even those you are closest too and trust can be evil and will backstab you if-"

"No, I don't have to 'watch out'." I growled. It seemed my second word didn't come far from the first, "I don't know where you grew up, how you were raised, or the kinds of struggles you've been put through, but trust isn't something you withhold until someone proves they won't 'backstab' you."

Kumokawa shook her head and… smiled.

It was a smile full of pain, even I could tell that much, because it was enough to make me stop walking towards the auditorium and face her when she stated factually, "None of us knows what might happen in even the next minute, yet still we go forward. Because we trust. Because we have Faith." My eyes widened, "That's what you're thinking right now, am I wrong?" My heart jerked in my chest when she walked past me without batting an eyelash, "I just realized that you're not my problem anymore. Don't take my warnings to heart if you don't want to. But also, don't spout your bullshit rhetoric without anything to back it up. I tell you not to trust someone, you probably shouldn't trust them. People aren't as great as you think they are."

"So don't trust you either, huh?"

"Correct."

"Then tell me something," I stepped forward challengingly, "You want to cut me off, that's fine. But just answer me this. What made you want to clench your fists and step forward when you saw Kaitabi in trouble? What made you want to stand for something more than yourself when it could just get you hurt? What made you want to throw your trust into something that could turn around and get you expelled?" Kumokawa stopped walking and balled her small hands into fists. But that's all they were to me.

Small fists with nothing behind them to propel them forward wouldn't ever be something to be afraid of.

One could know all the ways to kill a person, how to arrange the blows they deal to specific places where they'd strike one down without any effort, how to arrange the best tasting foods to where just one sip or bite would make someone fall into an endless sleep, how to aim a gun that could end an entire world in just one trigger pull... But all those lessons learns equated to only one result… one ending… the end of that path would be a dead end where all other paths to connect with that person you killed would be destroyed.

So where Kumokawa stopped, I didn't, and as I walked past her with my back turned and my head looking forward, I told her something I truly believed in with all my heart, "You shouldn't cast away my thoughts or reasonings simply because they aren't 'logical' or make 'sense'. You shouldn't act like a calculating robot that can only see positive and negative, good or bad, like or dislike. You should be your own damn person and just ignore your head sometimes. Have faith in your own heart and you won't regret it. Sure, you may already know what I'm going to say, but I'm going to say it anyway; I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And if I can do it, then you can too. Again, I don't know anything that's happened to you, but the fact that you know all these techniques to go around hurting people when you probably don't even know the reasons as to why they'd do the things they do tells me you've lost something. You have to train yourself to love that which you've lost, because even the absence of love is better than hating and distrusting everything you see. It is only when you are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that you're forced to make a choice. To fall, or to move forward. To unravel those wings you locked away in favor for a sword and make your own destination. And as you fly, you still may not know where you are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. The miracle is not the fact that finally woke up, but the awakening. You may not know where you're going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings and have trust in the things you can control, you'll end up in the place you want to be. Because those winds. Those winds will carry you the right way."

"That's what I promise you." I finished.

I was looking forward as I walked while Kumokawa Seria was not.

All I knew and could speak on were my own experiences.

Hopefully she heard the next things I said.

Hopefully, it was enough.

"So no. I won't give up trusting people. I'll never be able to just go around automatically assuming everyone's a bad guy. Everyone has a reason for the things they do; there's no good or bad guy. Just people who are happy with their life and people who want to change something, there are also some people who are not happy at all and want to be happy and to stop crying. The world isn't so black and white like how you may think it is, you know."

"I don't know anything, but…" My right hand that was in a fist came undone, "It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, your cheeks wet from all the crying, and do what needs to be done to keep on going. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul, if you can be… sure of yourself. If you can…trust yourself. You have to have trust for the things you stand for. You have to trust that you are knowledgeable of the reasons those who stand against you have for doing so." I gritted my teeth in pain, "Trust isn't something you get for free. If you're too scared to stick your own head out to get what you cherish out of fear it'll get chopped off, then don't go around waiting for other people to do the same."

I gave my last words before heading into the gymnasium, "Trust has nothing to do with how smart or dumb you are. Trust is your heart. A heart is something you give, not something given."

And with that, I disappeared into the light, ignoring the growl I heard coming from behind me.

"Sure of myself, huh?" It asked, not expecting an answer. "You damn hypocrite."

I couldn't help but smile at Kumokawa's voice that didn't sound so cold and calculating anymore.

Honestly, what was wrong with it if it meant I could see it?

What was wrong with wanting to see others excel where I haven't?

Sure, this fucked up system may have lost my trust, but that didn't mean others were allowed to just go losing their own trust in it too for absolutely stupid reasons. After all, looking back at my life, looking back at all the trouble I caused for people who had just wanted to live their lives in peace but couldn't because of a monster like me… my presence would've only hurt the majority had I not been sent away to Academy City.

I may have been angry at the world for that, I may have resented a lot of things, but even something as simple and frugal and meaningless like a snowflake that would melt in a second deserved to be protected.

That was what I honestly believed.

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Sardines.

That was all we were in the face of them.

Sardines.

We were sardines packed in barrel. Or was it a can?

Either way, it felt packed and I didn't particularly like it all that much. This must be how a sardine feels…

There were at least seven hundreds of us attending this school, each with our own names, feelings, hopes, measures of personal space-!

-I felt a something jab into my left side painfully. "Ow." I yelped. Yup, my measure of personal space had been broken all right. Thrown into the trash like yesterday's leftovers. Comfort was only an illusion in this building.

"Sorry!" The second-year girl voiced in apology while rushing past me.

I tried to keep track of her when I said, "It's okay." But lost her in the crowd of student that had overtaken the entire gymnasium turned auditorium. Or was it an auditorium turned gymnasium?

"Here, follow me, Kamijou-kun." A soft hand grabbed my right one and started leading me through the crowd to who knows where. Although it surprised me, Kumokawa deciding not to ditch me brought a certain warmth to my heart.

I had thought she'd just start treating me like a stranger after I refused to listen to her, and hence broke our agreement, but it seemed as though I was wrong. That was something I didn't mind at all.

Before long, I was dragged by her to the front of the crowd where there was a lot more room to breathe.

In fact, that was what I did. I took in a great deep breath and then let it out in satisfaction.

Now that I could arrange the gears in my head properly so that they were in the right place, I realized something crazy obvious.

A lot more students than I thought went to this school.

Everyone had to come to the Auditorium in the gymnasium, but this was why. When I was in the cafeteria, I noticed that the place could be used as an auditorium as well… but there was no way that small room – in comparison to this one at least – was going to hold seven hundred, even if 99 percent of them were teenagers.

Along with brightly shining lights raining down on us, stage lights were set up and pointed to the elevated platform stage thing in front us, I honestly don't know what it's called, but it's what performers would stand on. There was no one on there right now, but I knew there would be soon.

All we had to do was wait, and then after this we could finish our scavenger hunt.

Speaking of, "You don't think they'll tack on something random just so we won't be able to go home, right?" It didn't seem like something the teachers would do, but I had my suspicions.

Kumokawa proved those suspicions unfounded when she said, "It seems all too unlikely. That'd take away from the game they set up, and no one would be motivated to go on and complete the game once they realized they'll stay in school anyway."

"Hmm." I nodded with a hum. "That makes sense."

Kumokawa had led me to the very front of the room, and though I thought it was strange at first, I discovered that there were a lot less people here. Admittedly, it was still packed, but I could breathe without people shoving into all the time. My guess was that most people thought it too intimidating to go to the front of the crowd.

Either way, this was a waiting game.

My upperclassman said as much, "I hope they don't take forever." She folded her arms in annoyance.

I looked down fearfully, then blurted out, "Sorry," Kumokawa's eyes and her body jerked in surprise, but I continued, "I'm sorry for everything I said. I guess I am a bit of a hypocrite. People at this school go around calling you a Lone Wolf all the time without even thinking about how that makes you feel. And yet, earlier, I just went ahead and went on a whole tangent. So… I just wanted to say that I'm sorry."

I wasn't expecting forgiveness. In all honesty, I felt like a huge reason she even stayed with and put up with everything that entailed was because that was required of her.

Contemplating, Kumokawa closed her eyes with her arms still folded. Almost like a computer reviewing every single file in its hard drive in search for a virus, she seemed to be looking for something in herself. I can't claim to know what it was she was doing, exactly, so I just fearfully waited.

Then her eyes snapped back open. "You sure do talk a lot, don't you?"

What she said was more than enough to make me blanch like a knife was shot into my back.

"Y-you think I talk a lot?" I said that wondrously while scratching my warm cheek. Nervous chuckles came from me, "Heh heh. Maybe I do. But that's probably because it lets me feel like my voice matters."

"That's… sad to hear."

"Or happy to hear. I'm not sad at all."

This time, Kumokawa blanched.

"Not like it's a secret or anything," I continued, "But where nothing I say matters, I'm used to that. But in this place, in Academy City," Where no one knows who I am, "I'm allowed to speak my mind. That's definitely a good thing, and in no way sad."

Kumokawa hummed.

I had no what was on her mind as she looked forward towards the empty stage thoughtfully. For as long as I've known her, I've never known what was on her mind. To me, she was like one of those cool street bikers only wearing pitch black leather kutte. She looked cool, but was near unapproachable, and wholly unreadable inside her thick black helmet.

"You said that I talk a lot," I blurted out, but went on anyway, "But… I think you should talk more… so I could learn more about you..."

My gaze flew away from Kumokawa right when I said that with slightly red cheeks. I had mentioned my opinion in a way so it wouldn't elicit any more conversation. It was my opinion, and that was all it was. It didn't matter to me whether she took it or not, but that was what I honestly believed, just voiced out loud.

There was silence as we waited.

"I-I…" Kumokawa's voice came out a stutter, which was something so farfetched then her norm, to get caught on her words that is, but unfortunately, right when she was going to talk someone had to walk onto the stage and interrupt her.

"Testing, one two three." He said, tapping the microphone in his hand and hurting many a' student's ears with the ensuing ringing nose. The entire Auditorium that had been quite noisy before now went quiet, "Ah, sorry about that harsh noise, everyone. But yes, everything seems to be in working order. As this school's principal, I have a few things to say to you all." At his pervious statement, I jumped and got serious.

This guy was the Principal?

The 'Principal' wore a black and white colored suit and tie, typical of a business man or executive. He looked a bit clumsy given how he just randomly tapped the mic like how he did a second ago, but other than that he seemed more human to me than I ever thought a principal could seem. He was tall – around 6 feet or 1.8 meters – and had light grey hair that was almost white.

"First and foremost, I'd like to apologize for interrupting everyone's day." After saying that, he bowed heartfully. When he came back up he continued, "Myself, and every single teacher here, orchestrated this Scavenger Hunt so that you all could get familiar with our school in a fun way. While we may not have the facilities to truly nurture those of you with such unique Esper powers, we wish to make all other academic areas as optimum as can be. As an Esper myself," The principal held his empty left palm out. He snapped his finger, causing a spark. That spark raged into a fire no bigger than a golf ball. "I'm a Level 1 pyrokinetic, and I know what it's like to go through a schooling system where others fare better merely because they are 'lucky' or are simply just 'better'."

Like a thin raincoat, a silent pressure that was almost unnoticeable was put on us all.

I expected the principal to be some kind of educational robot and say generic school things for generic school things' sake.

But that proved to not be the case when the Principle gave a hard smile and continued after putting his fire out by clenching his fist, "When it comes to Esper development, even I will admit that we don't have the proper facilities when compared to other schools. However, that will not stop me and all my other colleagues from doing our utmost best to help you. And it doesn't even have to be Esper development either. If you are stuck on a certain topic, or need help with anything in your life, really – your problem doesn't even have to be academic in origin - don't hesitate to reach out your hand and ask for help."

I gave a hearty nod. This guy, he was good in my book. Just earlier today a student's arm was broken in this school, but then again, he couldn't be everywhere at once.

Hopeful, he went on, "For those of you who attended our seminar, or even our orientation two weeks ago at the start of the welcome course, you'll know that my name is Shundou Himara. But enough about me. I was asked to gather you all here for a reason, and though I hate pulling you all from your day, even I have to follow protocol when protocol is due."

Just then, someone else walked onto the stage. It was a man who looked like he could single handedly beat down a real-life werewolf with his fists alone. His muscles bulged and his walk was more of a lumber then actual walking. He surpassed Principal Shundou's height by a couple centimeters, and he wore a more traditional teaching uniform then Principal Shundou did with short black brown hair reminiscent of a military commander's style.

"Saigo here is the school's student counselor." Informed Principal Shundou, "Per protocol, he will be going around collecting all of your technology. In the meantime, a special guest would like a few words. They will explain their reasoning for having to perform a physical check like this, despite there being no proof suggesting the Hacker Threat originated from this school." Principal Shundou bowed lightly from behind his podium. A scowl was present on his face as he started heading for the backstage, clearly not liking how his students were being suspected.

I, however, smirked at it all. "I have a good feeling who this 'special guest' may be." I said smartly and confidently. There's absolutely no way I could be wrong.

Kumokawa had a different expression. It was almost dreadful because she bit down on her teeth, "I have a bad feeling."

Oh yeah, she didn't like that Kihara guy for whatever reason, did she?

She turned to me, almost pleading, "I know you will not listen, but I really do think you should be more careful."

My eyes narrowed. Kumokawa seemed very sure of herself, so I nodded. "I don't know why a normal high school boy like me should be careful, but…" I sighed, "Ok, I'll be careful."

She seemed happy about that because she smiled. "Thank you."

My cheeks went a little red, but I just gulped down the spit that accumulated in my mouth at the sight of her smile and looked forward to see that my earlier suspicions proved to be correct.

As Saigo got to kidnapping every single students' phones so that he could put it in the huge clear box he held, a man in a white lab coat followed by another in pitch black body armor that clanked with every step came out from backstage.

"I knew it'd be them. I'm such a genius." I bragged.

"Calling yourself a genius doesn't make you one."

"It makes me feel like one though."

Kumokawa facepalmed, "I have succumbed to the stupidity yet again. Why do I even bother…?"

It was around this time that Kihara Kaninshiki took to the stage, Lexi standing two meters behind him further to his left side, or my right, menacingly.

Kaninshiki looked like he'd rather be anywhere else when he said into the microphone, "I'll go ahead and skip the pleasantries, as they play no major role in the grand scheme of things." He set the microphone on the erected podium in the middle of the stage as everyone went quiet, then pulled out glasses tinted the same color as his purple eyes and put them on. "Since your Principle at least wanted me to explain my group's reasoning in exchange for thoroughly searching the entire school for the culprit, or any signs of them, that is what I'll get right to doing."

Kaninshiki adjusted his glasses that started glowing a slight purple now. He then pressed on it with his index finger as if he were pressing a button, causing a thin purple beam to shoot out of the lenses toward us. I, along with many others flinched as if it were a laser about to disintegrate us, only for it to coalesce to a thin purplish holographic screen displaying a slanted capital 'M' surrounded by a transparent globe.

They were projector glasses?!

So cool!

"My group is called the Maori Corporation." Kaninshiki lazily declared, "I make it a point to not make it a household name, so its fine if you've never heard of it. As for our goals, well, you all already know that Academy City was created in order to achieve SYSTEM, which, in essence, is a Level 6. Someone with the power to manipulate the physical world to their very will much like how god would, and yet still reside in a physical, mortal body, is a Level 6." He explained. I remembered Pierce saying something about how the First, Second, and Third Ranked Espers were trying to achieve that level as well, so I understood, somewhat. Kaninshiki continued, "One would be led to assume that The Maori Corporation I head is focused solely on achieving that goal – the creation of the first ever Level 6. But… well, that person would be right, but they'd be wrong at the same time. While we do put our efforts towards creating a Level 6, whether or not our actions achieve that outcome is absolutely irrelevant, though it'd be beneficial to the city if we achieved Level 6. In truth, all we wish for is to cure disease all over the world. We dream to eliminate the physical burdens humans like myself, and even that of Espers, face. The only bad thing about it is that, in order to cure the world's deadliest diseases, we must gather those diseases and study them. A particular disease we were trying to make a cure for was stolen, and we hope to find that thief before something dangerous occurs in Academy City." Kaninshiki's voice started getting deeper, scratchy, and just generally more angry near the end of that.

I would've checked to see his facial expression if the huge specimen of a Student Councilor not blocked my line of sight with Kaninshiki. Saigo glared at me as he passed by and I dug my phone out of my pocket and put it into the clear box as Kaninshiki said, a bit irritably, "If this virus we've yet to cultivate a cure for is unleashed by the thief who stole it, the 2.3 million people residing in Academy City could be put in danger." Said he once more, as if to clarify his point.

Scared gasps went through the entire Auditorium. What was only whispers before became voices of mock fear at the validity of Kaninshiki's statements.

"W-we're going to die!?" I heard a familiar feminine voice shout from way behind me.

I tried to see who had shouted that so fearfully but was interrupted by another fearful shout, "Holy crap! This is serious!"

"This has to be a joke!"

"I-I don't think it is…"

People started getting rambunctious at the thought of a city-wide pandemic.

But suddenly, "Hey, whoever you are, how close are you to making a cure!?" That question was shouted and focused towards Kihara Kaninshiki, who smirked like he had won the lottery.

"I'd say that we are pretty close. Too close, actually." His assured sounding, unwavering voice brought all of the wandering souls in front of him to a quiet standstill, "However close we are, though, the risk that this virus gets out to the public before completion – while small – is a risk I cannot take due to how many innocent could be hurt." He turned off his holographic glasses. Removing the proof of his company's/group's existence, then said with a clenched fist, "The Maori Corporation won't allow that to occur. I feel like I'm getting close to the source of all this as well. In fact, I have reason to believe that the thief I am looking for goes to a school somewhere in this area. I've already cleared every single school except for this one, meaning that there's a very high chance that one of you can be our culprit."

"R-really?!" Someone shouted.

"No way!" Another added on.

As screams of betrayal started arcing through the auditorium, I found my head making a home in my hands worriedly. "Why am I not worried about this all that much? That's weird."

Maybe it was weird that my reaction was dissimilar to that of my peers, but I think my head was just wired on a bit differently. Famine, disease, conflict, war, and especially disease, when they became serious threats to humanity, it would become such a huge deal that we would have all heard of it by now, right?

if they felt this really was all that serious, would we really be hearing about it from some researcher who came to this school by chance? If he was right, wouldn't Academy City have already taken measures to thwart this deadly threat?

Or maybe it's some kind of cover up? Maybe this is all just one big conspir-?

-I heard Kumokawa sigh. It was enough to bring me out of my thoughts and face her.

"You shouldn't think so deeply on this." She told me with arms crossed and her narrowed hazel-blue eyes glaring a hole into Kihara Kaninshiki. "It's not something to worry about, nor is it something to focus your meager amount of brain power on."

"O-okay. But didn't he just say that-?"

"Hush, they're speaking again, I need to focus." She suddenly said when on stage, Kaninshiki turned to Lexi and told him something lowly so that the mic wouldn't pick it up.

Even if I tried to listen in, I wouldn't have been able to hear anything because everyone in the auditorium started speaking over themselves, making any intelligible words impossible to hear unless it was literally said right in front of me.

Any yet… Kumokawa was listening to them? I would have asked her how crazy she was on a scale from 9 to 10, but she was so focused that I'd felt bad if I did that.

It was around this time when the heat came in. A tick mark appeared on my forward as I felt it start to seep into me, or was it the accumulated body heats of over 700 students that made me start sweating?

No matter which one it was, I was starting to feel boxed in, even though I wasn't even claustrophobic.

On stage, Saigo walked up to Lexi and Kaninshiki - who were still having a serious looking conversation – with a box full of several hundreds of phones being carried effortlessly in his hands. Saigo had positioned himself, with his huge body, right in front of Lexi and Kaninshiki, making Kumokawa frown deeply in disappointment.

"Damn it." She cursed in annoyance, clenching her fists tightly. She turned to me, just as seriously and even a little angry. Her pinpoint eyes softened a little when she asked hopefully, "Kamijou-kun, do you trust me?"

My nod came without a second thought.

She let out a breath of relief, then asked, "Can you help me with something?"

"Of course I will."

My upperclassmen smiled and grabbed the golden medal on her neck. She effortlessly took it off after leading it through her long hair then held it out for me to take, "When you turn this in and get a good grade, can you tell my homeroom teacher, Taikoto-sensei, that I had to go home early cause I was sick?"

A weird request to ask so emotionally, but I nodded once more nonetheless, "Consider it done." I told her.

She smiled at me and reached her right hand out, lanyard in hand with the golden medal dangling from it.

I took it and brought it around my own neck.

"It looks good on you." She complimented.

What she said was more then scoffable, "I'd say the same thing if it didn't look way better then 'good' on you."

Once again, it felt awesome to see Kumokawa-senpai smile so brightly like she was right now as she patted me on my head, "Is this you trying to 'flirt', Kohai?"

"F-flirt?" My cheeks went beet red as I slapped her arm away that was petting me like I was some kind of puppy. "Wh-wh-wh-what? Are you serious?" Did she legit think I'd lie about something like that?! "But I wasn't even exaggerating. It really does look better on you then it does me! Take it from a member of the opposite sex that what I am saying is factual, not flirty."

"That's not very convincing." She groaned disappointedly, "And is that what you really think, that I don't believe you?" She sighed once more, then muttered something under her breath before saying, "Anyway, for what it's worth, my time spent with you today was somewhat better than most days and… enjoyable. Thanks, again, Kamijou-kun. See you tomorrow… maybe… maybe not…" She bit down on her bottom lip and turned away.

"B-bye…" I couldn't help but stutter as she turned on her heels and disappeared into the crowd of people and noise. I waved my right hand left and right in the air hesitantly even though she wouldn't see it.

The last thing she said to me before worried me. "What do you mean, 'maybe not'?" I whispered. It bugged the hell out of me that she'd say something like that, "But then again, aren't we in different grades?" She was in eleventh, while I was in tenth. Realistically speaking, even walking past one another in the hallway would be pretty rare, so I guess that was what she meant, right?

Shrugging, I turned back to Lexi and Kaninshiki, who'd already been in the middle of saying something.

"-that you all know what's going on, I'll get to work." I missed Kaninshiki entire speech, and only heard the tail end of it.

My eyes were drawn to the box of phones on the stage ground. Having been previously placed there by Saigo most likely, Kaninshiki crouched down so he was right behind it. He pulled a metal glove out of his pocket that looked like it was the gauntlet of some high-tech armor piece, and he pressed a button on it after putting it on.

Out of dozens of small openings in the knuckles of the gauntlet dozens of wires - each form fitting and moving like they had a mind of their own - burst out of the gloves compartments. The wires couldn't have been all that much thicker than a strand of hair, and yet the dozens of them that came out of that glove pulsed with electricity.

High tech glove thing equipped, Kaninshiki placed his hand over the box so that his palm was hovering just over all the technology. He balled that hand into a fist before whispering something under his breath.

The pitch-black wires surging with a multitude of soft blue arcs of electricity raced for all the technology like it was only food to be devoured. Which, in a way, that gloved hand kind of was doing. It didn't take a genius to know what was happening here. Somehow, someway, that glove was eating all the data those phones had.

Damn, did I have anything incriminating on my phone?

I mean, other than my text messages with Caroline - and yes, I called her - there was barely anything suspicious on my phone… at least I think there isn't…

As the extended wires at least a meter long each devoured phone after phone, placing them in a neat pile next to the box, Lexi stepped up to the podium and said something because Kaninshiki looked to concentrated into his task to do so himself.

"If the thief is actually is here, the chances that they are not even in this room is a known quantity the Maori Corporation acknowledges, therefore we were also given authorization to search the classrooms and school lockers any incriminating evidence. Due to potentially unnecessary complications, I'd like the classes to be empty during my inspection, any students I find in their classroom tampering with their belonging will be suspected. This shouldn't take longer than 30 minutes for me to do." His voice was already distorted through his thick, pitch black body armor, but after going through another filter, Lexi seemed that much more terrifying. To me, he sounded and seemed like one of those armored guys in those space RPG videogames, and his dragon fly design helmet combined with all the weapons he carried made him even more scary. That was why not even a single person protested him when he said, "I'll get to it right away, so as not to waste anymore of your time. Fair warning, however: If you see me strolling around campus, do not be alarmed."

And with that, Lexi gave a friendly wave to all of us as if we were his audience, which we kind of were, and then left the stage via the backstage, presumably to go check every classroom.

I watched him clank away in his armor that must've been far too heavy for him, then my focus was drawn back to Kihara Kaninshiki, who was alone near the podium and seemed intensely focused on reviewing the data every phone had with that glove using seemingly his own mind to do the calculations... that's so friggin' weird…

How can people even do calculations with their head?

Is everyone in this city supercomputers or something?

Am I the only human here?

Either way, there was silence when the glove Kaninshiki held grabbed the last phone and covered it in a blue aura. That phone was placed in the pile adjacent to the clear box and Kaninshiki bit down on his teeth, apparently angry at what he must've found.

He stood up and said into the microphone, "As I suspected, nothing. Does anyone have any questions before I leave? Or any leads the Maori Corporation or me could utilize?"

Not a single person raised their hand.

I debated whether or not I wanted to know more… but… something was gnawing at me, so I raised my right hand.

Kaninshiki had been just about to leave, so he grumbled and pointed in my direction, "Whoever that kid is, what is it?"

With a small, curious smile, I pushed through some students so I could get closer, then I projected my voice to Kaninshiki when I felt he could hear me, "I have two questions."

"Acceptable. What is your first inquiry?"

"My first question is: If it's a virus, why are you going around checking people's phones? Isn't this a hacker threat? Why would a biological virus that can infect actual real-life people be on a phone of all things?" I had always thought that was a weird contradiction ever since I saw him start scanning peoples' phones.

"Yes.. yes…" Kaninshiki answered thoughtfully, "I thought this'd be obvious, but it is a hacker threat. We were hacked, and information on how to fabricate and obtain this virus was stolen. That is just as bad as stealing the actual virus itself. In short, our data was stolen, so that's what we are trying to get back." Kaninshiki seemed to not remember who I am, or rather he didn't bother to check. He just rasped, annoyed and wanting to leave, "What else do you want to know, or are you going to be as just as troublesome as that one Sakugawa student?"

I flinched – what the heck is Sakugawa? - but just went on to my next question without any further thoughts, "What's the name of this virus?"

"Oooh, now that's a question that benefits the both of us." Kaninshiki smiled.

For the first time since stepping up on stage and being forced to fraternize with students in order for the school to cooperate, he smiled.

And it was with that bloodcurdling smile that he brought up his gloved right hand into a fist and declared:

"We call it Cloudburst. And soon, everyone in Academy City will know that name."

As soon as I heard the term, 'Cloudburst,' my heart stopped.

I've heard that term before, hadn't I? Or… no… I didn't hear it from anywhere, but then… why do I recognize that word?

"Is that it?" Kaninshiki asked me, but was promptly ignored for something more important to me.

The time belonging to everything and everyone around me slowed down to a crawl. My world lost its color with a bright red pulse and went from monotone to black and white to pitch black darkness.

The blue screen of a laptop unassumingly filled my mind like a transparent field of dancing spider lilies swaying in the wind.

Cloudburst.

Cloudburst.

Cloudburst?

Just this morning, didn't I see that on… Kumokawa Seria-senpai's laptop?

And… Kumokawa flinched as soon as she heard them say something with her supersonic hearing.

She left out of nowhere after that and… it was just so strange.

And just earlier today… she had a pitch-black laptop with the words 'Cloudburst' on the screen. Not only did the clunky laptop look far too similar to the armor Lexi wore, but Kaninshiki-san himself said that 'something was stolen'.

To be more specific, data on some virus called 'Cloudburst' was stolen.

Kumokawa was…

She was-

"Hello? Kid? Are you there?" Kaninshiki was aggravated with my silence.

My head snapped up when someone tapped me on my shoulder and said, "Dude, he's talking to you."

I gulped down some spit that had been gathering in my mouth without asking permission and wondered out loud to Kaninshiki, who wasn't even that far from me, "The thief? What will you do with the thief once you find them?"

"Oh, that question has a simple answer to it." He smiled, "They will be dealt with, of course."

So… you're not even going to bother with lying, huh?

"Okay." Though I trembled in fear, my voice was more of a scoff when I declared, "That's all I wanted to know."

"Good, then I'll take my leave." Kaninshiki was nowhere near as friendly as Lexi was, but what really was their 'friendliness' at the end of the day?

A harsh breath escaped me.

I gulped once more before biting down on my jaws. My heart raced with fear, telling me to just take the flight as opposed to the differing ideology. Both of my hands clenched into fists regardless as Kaninshiki finished up and told us we could all leave to continue with our everyday lives.

I didn't even bother to hear what the principal had to say before I rushed out of the auditorium.

The double doors leading out of the gymnasium were nothing but obstacles in my way to be burst through-

-The only thing was that I crashed straight into someone in my haste, tackling them by mistake.

"Oh crap, sorry!" I shouted apologetically.

After looking to see who it was, to my surprise, it was Kamisato I crashed into.

On the ground, he moaned in pain as he rubbed his chest which must've been the point of impact I guess, then when he tearfully looked up and saw that it was me who knocked him onto his back, he groaned, "Oh gosh, first it was Aogami and Tsuchimikado, and now you! What's up with everyone trying to be football players today?!"

"Sorry again, Kamisato, but I gotta go! I'll make it up to you next time!"

I didn't even have the time to offer my hand and pull him up to his feet, I just ran away after saying once more, "Sorry!"

"C'mon, god! Why is high school so hard for this poor average middle schooler turned high schooler!?" Kamisato shouted that into the wind as I ran away.

Buddy, I know exactly what that feels like.

But either way, "I gotta go faster!" I angled my head that was on a swivel to the floor so I wouldn't fall down from how fast I was going and kicked down even harder!

"Woah! You better chill with the super speed before you get a detention!"

"It's that same spiky haired boy from the first game we played earlier! Hey, Kamijou! You're not allowed to use your ability in school so recklessly!"

"What kind of ability would let someone run so fast anyway? Muscular Dystrophy?"

"That's a fucking disease, you idiot!"

"How the fuck am I supposed to know what that shit is?! I only heard about it on a news blimp!"

"Hey, First-Year! Stop right there before you hurt someone!"

"But he already hurt meeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

I heard Kamisato's heartfelt cry and many other people hollering things at me as I cleared the distance between the gymnasium and student building at breakneck speeds, but they were all catalogued into my subconscious because my conscious mind was focused on one thing, and one thing only.

That was getting to the second floor. More specifically, Kumokawa's homeroom class.

I crashed through the student building's first floor double doors and wracked my mind for any information I could use while I internally set a course for the nearest stair well.

There was no information in my mind to be found, although there had to have been hints or something like that I could use, but I just couldn't-

-Wait!

This morning, Kumokawa attacked me right when I touched her laptop.

No matter how much I tried to think about it or theorize reasons for her doing that or anything else she did, I knew one thing.

That weird laptop was the key to all of this. If it had the data to create a virus like Kaninshiki said, then I had to get it, if it didn't, then I needed to get it anyway so I could find out what Cloudburst really was, and the chances that laptop would tell me what I honestly wanted to know were pretty high. Kumokawa herself wouldn't have stolen something for no reason, so finding out what that reason is was my goal. In pursuit of that selfish goal of mine, I ran up the stairs crossing four steps at a time with each hop.

Upon reaching the second floor, I slid the sliding door leading to Kumokawa's classroom wide open, hoping against hope that she hadn't left for home or wherever she was gonna go already.

Sweat dripped off of my chin, soaked my eyebrows, and stuck my undershirt to my skin as I heaved for air while swiftly scanning Kumokawa's classroom for her presence. When I saw her all alone in the room by her desk, I couldn't help but breathe out an even deeper breath I didn't know I had in relief.

Kumokawa Seria-senpai must've been seated before having jumped up surprisedly at my entering the room so suddenly. She was standing over her desk in the middle of the classroom with her bag packed and her blocky black laptop next to that bag. She looked shocked that I was here, but her expression hardened when I closed the sliding door behind me.

"I know about Cloudburst." I stated while stepping forward.

Alone, those words didn't mean much to the normal person.

In fact, Kumokawa brushed them off easily as if she really were a normal person, "You mean that oh so strange phenomenon where rain comes out of nowhere unexpectedly?" She scoffed, "Of course I know about that. I'm sure a lot of other people also know what a Cloudburst is even without-"

"Stop playing around." I growled deeply then threw my right arm forward in frustration, "And stop beating around the bush too! Tell me what the hell's going on, Kumokawa-senpai! Don't even bother trying to trick me because I'll know if you're trying to lie to me or not!"

"Trick you? No, you most certainly wouldn't know if I were tricking you or not." Kumokawa answered calmly, returning to her cold and calculating self – the lone wolf. She reached into her desk and pulled out a pencil case, which she seamlessly placed into her bag without a single wasted motion. Without even looking up, she said, "In very much the same you would've fell for all the things that the Kihara said had I not seeded doubt into your mind, the chance that you'll fall victim for anything I say is all too high. After all, the human brain is far too fragile and vulnerable to the whims of others. Even without the aid of highly advanced machinery or Esper abilities, manipulating another living, breathing person isn't even all that hard. Even something commonly refused by a person – like murder - can easily be shifted to becoming acceptable if one knows how to pull the right strings here and there. In comparison to that, tricking you is far, far too easy. In fact, witnessing your estranged actions to the simplest of things was a joy to me."

I gritted my teeth in annoyance. Was she seriously doing this right now, of all times? Annoyed out of my mind, I stepped straight up to Kumokawa, and even though I was at least two centimeters taller it didn't feel like that at all.

I wouldn't let some illusion imposed by my stupid brain scare me into fearing someone like her.

"I don't care for all that high-tech machinery BS, stupid Esper abilities, make believe mind manipulation, or whatever the hell you were just talking about that I can't even understand." My voice that was strong earlier came out annoyed. I had never once took anything she said seriously. "No amount of mind games or whatever the hell or whatever the heck will influence any decisions I make. My mind isn't so weak that the thought of my own thoughts not being my own thoughts will make me think twice. Kaninshiki said that he wants to kill you, and I can't rationally think up any reason that would justify something so stupid like death. So right now, the only thing I care about is you. So are you going to tell me about what this Cloudburst thing is or am I just going to have to do this blindfolded?" I hadn't met to snap at her like that, but her overloading me with all the stupid technical terms was downright offending me at this point.

Kumokawa, apparently, seemed shock for the umpteenth time, "Wh-what's wrong with you? To be more accurate, what's wrong with your head? Why are you so… how can you just automatically think I'm a good person?"

At her genuine question made of me, I noticed something. How long would someone have to constantly be looking over their own shoulder that someone wanting to help them was something to be suspicious of? Or to be more accurate, how many times would someone have to be treated like a bad person to start getting surprised when someone thinks they're a good person?

I gritted my teeth at the injustice of it all. I looked away towards the door and answered her question with what came to the top of my head first, "It's obvious to me that you wouldn't steal something that could get you killed for no reason, or to hurt people, or else you wouldn't have lifted a finger in that library or even gave a crap about whether I was expelled or not. If you want more proof to know you're a good person, the fact that you didn't try to force me into working with you is right here around my neck. You felt bad when you kicked me this morning, and…" My cheeks went a little red as I felt the bandage on my forehead, "And if you weren't kind, then you wouldn't have helped me get this wrapped up so many times…" My voice was more softer at the end. I hadn't met for it get so light, but it just did.

Kumokawa went dead silent.

She brought her hands together then twiddled them from where they were locked in one another nervously. No more was she the super serious super smart high school ninja medic computer musician mind reader(?) girl. She was just a totally normal 11th grade high school girl. Her cheeks were tinted red and her breath came out a bit more rapidly. But then suddenly, as if realizing something, the humanity in her disappeared and she went back to being more robotic. She sat in her seat and pulled her laptop open. "Details. Now." She ordered as her hazel-blue eyes got bluer from the laptop's screen, "As perceptive as you are, I am sure you know a few things that I do not."

I gulped at the rapid mood change, but got just as serious, "Lexi-"

"The one wearing ESP Armor I assume?"

"That's the name of it?"

"Not the full name," Kumokawa properly explained while typing away on her computer. She looked up at me for a brief moment, "But yes, that's basically the name for it. It grants the user nigh invulnerability to several harsh conditions that could kill a person one hundred times over. Unlike the mass-produced variants of combat suits developed by Academy City, Lexi's is much more compact in exchange for a lot less mobility and protection, but it is still equipped with mechanically assisted movements powered by an internal Hydrogen battery. It can be adequately used in Esper Ability warfare, among other things. But what is It about this 'Lexi' individual? How is he involved with the attempt on my life? You said the Kihara wishes to kill me, did you not?"

I nodded, then tried to answer her inquiries one by one, "Yes, I'm pretty sure he wants to kill you, because it was heavily implied. Kaninshiki also likes to be called Kaninshiki and not Kihara-"

"He is a Kihara. That's the only thing that matters. Whatever he chooses will never change that fact." Kumokawa commented angrily, "But go on." She said.

It made me a little worried that she so easily judged this guy as evil despite never having met him, but I couldn't find it in me to judge her all that much, as I didn't know much myself about anything to say she was in the wrong here.

I didn't feel comfortable sitting down in a chair like how she was, so I just leaned on the desk adjacent to Kumokawa's and relayed while unbuttoning my blazer to release some heat, "Lexi said he was going from classroom to classroom checking for anything 'suspicious'. He could be coming into this one any second now."

"The chances that his orders imposed by the Kihara are of the KOS typing is low, as this is a school. Although if reason to shoot is given, then I'm sure he'd do it without much complication. What's a few students death's worth in the grand scheme of things after all?" Kumokawa seemed annoyed as she talked mostly to herself. I didn't know what 'KOS' meant, but I knew it couldn't have been good.

However, of the things she said, something stood out to me, "He'd kill other students?"

Kumokawa nodded easily, "That, among other things. But I will not allow that to happen by remaining here any longer." She clicked 'enter' on the keyboard, making the computer go black. She closed the thick black laptop at least 60 centimeters big and held it to her side as she stood up, "You said you wanted to help me. You accomplished that by using your abnormally high perception to inform me of a few important details I missed. Thank you for that, but this is where we part ways."

Part ways?

Is she that dense?

The same frustration I felt earlier with this same stupid girl reared its head when she slung her bag over her shoulder and walked past me without batting an eyelid. She was heading for the door, but unfortunately for her, however, I jumped off the desk I was leaning on and followed after her, grabbing her shoulder.

"You seriously think I'm just going to sit back and let you go out there all alone now that I know about the danger you're in?" I asked that of her in irritation.

Kumokawa stopped moving. "I am not in any danger thanks to you." She said simply, "You're my hero, Kamijou-kun, so you can go now."

"Tch, 'hero'? Who the hell do you think I am? You really think a crappy patronizing title like that will drive me away?"

"What? Would you like to be a super hero instead, then?"

"Kamijou Touma is the only person I want to be, but that isn't the current problem. The current problem is Cloudburst, and I still don't know what it even is."

Kumokawa shrugged my hand off of her shoulder and headed for the door. She stopped with her hand on the handle, "The fact that you still don't know what Cloudburst even is means you cannot run head first into this. If I tell you, I would be damning you to a world you have no business knowing about. It's a rabbit hole you cannot escape. It's a world where not everyone gets a happen ending. It's a world of darkness where even if you win, you still lose. It's a world where being a child doesn't matter anymore. That world… I don't want to be the one to subject it to someone like you who has no idea how fragile life really is. Chalk it up to my selfishness, but I feel as though you've yet to realize it is far too easy to kill or to be killed, and often enough, good people who only want good things to happen to everyone involved are usually the first to die. It only takes one screw up, one second of hesitation – just a moment – to get killed in that world. I will not be the one to subject an innocent high school boy to that world who was unlucky enough to look into the wrong closet, and that is all. Just go back to your class, Kamijou-kun, and live in a blissful ignorance. I assure you that you will live a much more fulfilling life that way."

Every word out of Kumokawa's mouth, every sentence spoken, every urge pointed at me to just stop at the precipice of this 'other world', I ignored it, "If I was fine with living in a blissful ignorance and taking the path where only I'd be happy while others cried and suffered in some dark place I didn't even know about, I wouldn't have even ended up here." I couldn't help but smile. "I'm unlucky enough that if this didn't happen now it would have happened sometime later. Whether its tomorrow or even a year from now. But right here, right now, I'm already involved whether you like it or not."

A scoff of annoyance was omitted by Kumokawa Seria-senpai. "Say whatever you want to say, it won't change my mind." And with that she opened the opened the door-

-A man covered in pitch black body armor stood there.

"Change whose mind?" Lexi wondered, towering over Kumokawa.

My entire body would've froze at the sudden dread and sense of coldness taking over if Kumokawa hadn't pointed at me with her thumb so calmly, "This idiot never listens to a thing I say. He just keeps ignoring my please for him to change and doing his own thing."

From where I was a meter behind Kumokawa, having followed her, I flinched when Lexi asked rhetorically, "Oh, you two are going out, huh?" Genuine chuckles came from his thick body armor. He told Kumokawa, "I actually just met this one earlier today, and he does seem to be of the reckless type. If it's not working out, just dump him."

"Tch." Kumokawa breathed through her teeth, then looked back at me harshly, "That's exactly what I'm doing right now, if you'd excuse me."

"Oh yeah, my bad." Lexi apologized and stepped out of the classroom doorway out into the hallway so Kumokawa could pass, which she did.

H-he fell for something so half-fast? Wasn't he a trained soldier or something?!

I shook myself out of my awe and tried to go after Kumokawa, but an armored hand clenched around my shoulder and stopped me, "She seemed really pissed, Kamijou. If I were you I'd just let that one go. Trust me on this one, you're gonna want someone you can be yourself around, you're obviously cramping that one's style."

Those would have been wise words if I didn't absolutely disagree with them, but both me and Lexi watched Kumokawa head down the stairs and disappear. I didn't shrug Lexi off of me, because wanted her to get as far away from Lexi before I clenched my right fist and-

"Actually… wait a second… did you see that strange laptop she was carrying under her arm?" My eyes widened in fear, "That's strange… wasn't she instructed along with the other students to bring all tech to the gymnasium? I don't remember seeing such big ass black laptop there… Could she be… m-maybe…" Suspicious, Lexi let go of my shoulder then said as he headed off to intercept Kumokawa, "If this person is who I think it, it is definitely a good thing that she dumped you." And with that Lexi reached over his shoulder and equipped the high-tech rifle that was holstered there. "I think I've found my target." His voice came out far deeper than it ever had before as he clicked a button on his helmet and began walking down the stairwell.

In this exact moment I decided something. This guy was going to go and try to kill my friend, and I wanted to do something about it. No, I had to do something about it right here and now before he tried to go atomize that precious person. "What is it you want me to do in this situation, senpai?" I whispered to myself, getting ready to burst down the stairs and sneak attack Lexi, "Nothing? Doing nothing won't get me anything that I want, nor would it prevent anything I don't want from happening. If doing nothing is out of the question, then I have to act right at this moment, don't I?"

And with that simple sequence of words said to myself, and only to myself, I gritted my teeth and pushed off at max speed!

Lexi couldn't even get past the first flight of stairs before I crashed into him, "What the-?!" He started in his surprise, but couldn't finish his sentence before we were both thrown down the stairwell.

While all of his armor could protect him from a point-blank range shotgun blast or the slash of a katana, there wasn't a baby's chance alone in a zombie apocalypse that it was strong enough to completely negate the force carried behind those attacks. A force was a push or pull as opposed to something serrating and meant to pierce, and tackles carried a lot of force behind them.

No matter how much armor a human wore, they were still a human. No matter how much armor a human wore, a car crash would still kill them unless the force carried from that car crash could be properly dispersed away from them. No matter how much armor a human wore, the fact that humans couldn't handle large amounts of force remained.

That was why as soon as we crashed to the bottom of the stairwell between the first and second floors, Lexi groaned from what must've been a headache, "The fuck just crashed into m-?" He started, but before he could finish, I threw myself on top of him and threw a fist straight where his face was!

His head snapped back from the blow just as I pulled mine back in pain.

Ouch! Punching armor fucking hurts! It really does!

Upon seeing my misery first hand, Lexi started laughing, "Hahaha! Did you seriously think that punching while I'm wearing armor would do anything?! I'm literally wearing ESP Armor created solely for the use of fighting powerful runaway Espers who think they can get away from Academy City! This thing could probably take a blow from a Level 5 and I'd survive… probably!"

I didn't know the validity of that statement given my own experience with a Level 5, but I punched him again and felt a great pain assault my right arm like I had punched a five-foot-thick wall. What the hell is this thing made out of?! Reinforced titanium?!

Lexi laughed some more and then suddenly said, "Alright, stealth attacker, so you must be the thief, then? And you convinced an innocent bystander like that girl to get the data out of here, am I right?"

I didn't say anything, but I probably should have because before I could react something cold and metallic clenched around my throat and threw me into the wall!

It didn't feel very good, and it never would no matter how many times the air was knocked out of me. I coughed uncontrollably as Lexi worked out the kinks in his armored left hand that had thrown me and got himself to his feet.

I can't take him head on given all the protection he has wearing! I needed a weapon – something to turn the tide. I needed a-!

-both of our eyes snapped over to the beam rifle that Lexi dropped after I tackled him down the stairway.

No further words needed to be spoken.

Suddenly, like a green light went off in our heads, we both went for it!

Actually, only he did, I ran up the fucking stairs like an escaped convict desperately trying to get away from guards dogs.

The guard dog wasn't all that far behind, because I heard an electronic whirring and a shout, "It's actually a lot more difficult than you'd think to recreate an Esper ability and fashion it into a weapon using science! Given that fact, while it may not be the real thing, you might as well just treat this as an actual Meltdowner beam, although it pales in comparison to the real thing if you ask me!"

Before I could even think to know what the hell he was saying, I heard the soft metallic pull of a trigger in the back of my ears. I crashed straight through the sliding door of Kumokawa's classroom and dived for the floor!

Beeeooooooooom!

My head snapped up in horror as what could only be described as a pinkish red-green plasma beam tore straight past where I had just been and exited through one of the classroom windows.

The window did not crack, nor did it shatter. A perfect hole that started meting the rest of the glass was made from where the plasma beam went straight through and escaped into the afternoon sky.

I was so astonished that I couldn't even scream in fear at what would've happened if that had hit me.

Lexi's voice boomed from the stairwell. "While it isn't exactly the manipulation and transference of the electron currents surrounding an atom like how Meltdowner is originally based off of, this dangerous optical maser can be accomplished with a little thing called the power of fusion. With just a can of compressed hydrogen alone and this baby's fusion reactor to feed off of that hydrogen, I can do something like this for 5 minutes straight after prepping the fusion reaction." Beam Rifle in hand, Lexi pointed it directly at me after walking up the stairs and a huge red glow long with a blazing heat enveloped the second-floor hallway as the fusion reactor on the beam rifle started spinning like a gatling gun's barrels. "Killing kids isn't really my style, but I've seen kids even smaller then you murder entire classes with a single thought and feel nothing about it! So this ain't really gonna be making me lose any sleep, you know!"

That was all the warning I needed to get the fuck up. I jumped up onto my feet like the ground was lava and dove behind the teacher's desk for cover and to block line of sight, trying to make myself as small as possible as the beam rifle emitted another 'whirring' sound.

A laser beam that was just a few centimeters in diameter soared right over where my head was before I ducked my head down so it was between my knees. It almost made me screech in fright, but I just bit down on my teeth and tried to think of a way out this!

This wasn't something I could just magically get rid of by flashing my right hand at unless I wanted it to get melted off like cheese. Lexi said that the weapon he used was inspired off of some ability called 'Meltdowner', meaning this wasn't an illusion fabricated by someone's personal reality, but hard science. Something in me told me that this right hand of mine was useless here, unless I wanted to become the legendary one-armed Touma, which I did not to be anytime soon!

Unfortunately, nothing useful came to my mind as the plasma started bearing down on me.

I had to survive if not fight, so I rolled away from under the desk and saw a mountain of paper sparking and catching fire. They were thrown all over the room with a quick swipe of my arms, partially obscuring Lexi's view as they hovered and slowly came to the ground. That didn't matter to him, though, as all he had to do was drag his rifle horizontally to get me, which he did.

Paper caught fire instantaneously once they made contact with the beam coming straight towards me, causing a chain reaction that lit everything flammable in the room on fire, drowning my surrounding in black smoke. The plasma beam haphazardly aimed melted a diagonal line through the windowed wall right behind me, making a foul stench crinkle my nose distastefully.

When the beam came down on me next, I dove to the floor so that I was on my stomach as the beam passed through dozens of students' desks and belongings. Flames came down and I found myself coughing from a lack of oxygen. An ignited piece of paper landed on my back, burning me, and making me jump back to my feet just as I heard Lexi say through the smoke, "If you ain't dead, yet, this'll finish the job."

The metallic clanking sound of Lexi holstering what must've been his beam rifle reached me, then there was another sound akin to something also metallic being unclipped.

Pew.

I heard the sound of a gas compressor going off.

Not a second later, something hit the ground with a clank. I had to squint my stinging eyes to see what it was through the dark smoke.

It was a grenade.

Oh fuck!

Sometimes I think I was a homicidal maniac in the past life to get this much bad luck!

I looked around for an escape – heck, I even thought of hurling the grenade back at him like how they did in the videogames, but I was far too scared to get anywhere near an explosion that could pulverize me so effortlessly. And plus I'd feel absolutely terrible if the explosion killed him or anyone in the hallway because I threw it back at him.

That was when I saw my only route of escape. Running towards the armored guy was out of the question, but a new path was made available to me when my keen eyes spotted the melting window behind me.

I didn't think twice about how high up I was.

If I were had to choose between a two-story fall and being blown up to an unrecognizable lump(s) of biomass, I'd have to go ahead with the former.

The space between myself and the window was crossed in a second, and the window leading to a two-story drop was vaulted just as quickly.

As someone who watched informative documentaries just to go to sleep because nightmares are a real thing I dreaded, I've heard of people miraculously surviving drops from over ten story buildings, and even skydivers surviving over ten thousand-foot drops without a parachute.

However, when I vaulted out of that classroom two stories up in the air, I seriously did think I didn't even have the time to clear the window in time.

Surprisingly enough, though, I did.

Just as my body was out of the window an explosion reverberated from behind me!

BOOOM!

Something ripped into my back painfully as the shockwave pushed me forward. I cried out in pain but muffled it when a split-second realization told me I was falling.

I took a deep breath to relax my body despite the thick liquid running down my back. My opened eyes had narrowing as I completely focused my efforts onto landing on the balls of my feet. The fall itself lasted several seconds; I landed on my bent feet and rolled forward, making sure to avoid impacts to my head or pelvis, but the momentum I gathered from the explosion just made me end up losing my balance anyway, springing me three meters forward to a landing on my side pathetically. I groaned in pain but shot back to my sore feet to see what had happened.

The spit in my mouth was gulped down in fear at the ringing in my ears combined with the sight of Kumokawa Seria-senpai's homeroom classroom in shambles. A horizontal slice was made in the wall and a hole was blown straight through where I'd just been. Smoke and fire billowed out of the four-meter-wide opening as a certain armored individual stepped up to the opening he made in the wall in his effort to kill me. Lexi glared at me and holstered his hand cannon pistol, which had to have been what shot that grenade.

Kumokawa-senpai was right. If I had hesitated for even a second I would have been killed at least 6 times now.

I couldn't help but smile and chuckle at how close to death I'd just been. My heart raced as I wiped away the blood trailing down my forehead and past my mouth with my right hand.

"S-such misfortune… heh heh…" I couldn't help but turn what had just happened and was still happening into a joke. "I must've killed at least at least a hundred people in my past life to deserve this crap. Heh heh heh…"

The time to face reality wasn't something I had the luxury of as I squared myself and examined my surroundings in preparation for what was to come. This guy had a tank for a body while all I had was a useless right fist and a brain that couldn't think of a way out of this no matter how hard I tried.

The expression behind Lexi's helmet was something I couldn't see, and even if I did have a Level 1 pervert ability and could see through anything, I still wouldn't have been able to see Lexi's expression because I was 97 percent sure that the armor he wore was a bit thicker than 3 centimeters.

Along with a good amount of trash and debris thrown around by the explosion, I had landed in the grass field right next to the event grounds/obstacle course me and Kumokawa competed in earlier. Students who were hanging out in the shade of a tree nearby, students who were participating in the events, and students doing literally anything started screaming and running away. The teachers regulated the emergency drills, and they themselves started running when over the PA system a person's voice announced, "The thief was found near the west side of the student building. Evacuate to a safe area at once. I repeat…"

Oh.. wait…

This whole time I hadn't even realized that PA system had been saying that for the past minute now, had I?

Good, now nobody's going to get hurt in a random plasma beam or explosion.

Lexi and I glared at each other. I stood two stories below him, and he two stories above me.

"Distance is no obstacle for me, wretched thief." His electronically modulated voice boomed. He stepped off the ledge as if he were stepping down the last step on a flight of stairs.

The ensuing result was that he started crashing to the ground like a meteor.

Dirt, dust, and other kinds of debris was kicked up into the air along with a deafening roar to go with it due to how heavy Lexi was in his armor. When the dust cloud cleared he was standing in a human sized crater at least two meters big, a testament to how heavy he was inside his two-meter-tall suit.

The emptied-out obstacle course laid right behind me, Lexi stood right in front of me.

Lexi lifted up a hand to his helmet and pressed some button I couldn't see. "Yes, I've found the culprit, Kaninshiki. Yes… yes… he doesn't have the data on him, but I saw the girl he gave it to. Of course I remember her face… Alright, I will eliminate him before authorities arrive, wait… no authorities are coming due to an incident at Anti-Skill HQ?" The pitch of Lexi's distorted voice raised as he pressed the button again then equipped the beam rifle on his back, "Perfect." He said. "Looks like I don't have to worry about any interruptions."

My teeth grinded against each other when I said, "You didn't even bother to hide anything you just said."

Lexi's reply was kempt, "And what's an unarmed boy going to do about that? Punch me again?"

My right hand balled into a fist, "You'd seriously ruin that girl's life?" I growled, "She has nothing to do with this, I'm the culprit, so just leave her alone."

"You seriously think we'll let her live just because you asked us?" Lexi chuckled while reloading a new hydrogen battery into his beam rifle, "Kid, If she saw anything on that laptop, actually, even if she didn't there is no way we'll let her live. Cloudburst isn't finished yet, and it has a one hundred percent mortality rate in exchange for peak human physical conditioning until death occurs, which is something that cannot be allowed to fall into even an idiots hands."

So that's what Cloudburst is? Some kind of steroid?

And I can't just run away from Lexi either, because if I allow him to get away after having seen Kumokawa's face, her life would be changed forever.

I took a deep breath and stepped forward, "You'd ruin an innocent teenaged girl's life over something as stupid as an unfinished steroid."

"It's far more than a steroid, thief, how do you not know that after stealing our data on it? Or was it just another job to be carried out for whatever chairman you work for? Actually," Lexi's personality did a one-eighty, he went from being a little reasonable to murderous, "It doesn't really matter to me why you stole the data anymore. I'm going to kill you," He finished reloading his burst rifle, "And then, I'm going to tie a little bow on your girlfriend's dead body before getting the data back for my employer."

"I won't let any of your sick illusions be allowed to become a reality, Lexi." I brandished my right fist. "You work for some mystery 'employer' who wants nothing other than to kill someone who is only trying to put an end to this 'Cloudburst' experiment." I didn't know if that was actually the case, but that was what I assumed. "And you yourself have no problem being another person's puppet, so I'll just have to clip those strings myself if you can't realize that killing is just flat out wrong."

"For a thief, you really do spout a lot of bullshit, huh? Once the Cloudburst Experiment is overcome, normal people like me will be able to stand up to Espers like you who only want to cause havoc with your abilities. If it means protecting one hundred innocent people, then I'd gladly kill the one out of control kid Esper who seeks only to kill those hundred innocent people. Purposefully or not."

"So you'd completely damn that one soul to save the many, even if causing pain and misery isn't what that out of control Esper wanted in the first place?"

"If it's for the greater good, then the answer is obvious."

"You wouldn't ask any questions, then?" I scoffed. My right fist was balled so tightly my nails dug into my skin and blood fall onto the dirt below me, "For you, the answer is already clear cut and any paths leading to a solution where no one has to die fades away merely because taking the 'easy route' and killing someone who can't control their powers is the quickest and most surefire way to save one hundred people. And this 'Cloudburst' will give you the ability to kill out of control Espers more easily. Cloudburst isn't going to be used to save people from burning buildings or earthworks… but… it's going to be used to make killing easier than it would be otherwise be?"

"Bluntly speaking, yes."

Lexi had confirmed my thoughts with a simple nod before pointing his beam rifle at me. "I won't even bother asking you to make this easy for me, so go ahead and struggle for all I care. The result will still be the same no matter what you do. You're outclassed and you know it. For a thief who prepares for everything, you really did get blindsided, huh?"

I frowned when Lexi pulled the trigger without any further information, making the fusion reactor installed in his beam rifle start whirring like a jet engine.

He hadn't even stopped to question whether I was really the thief or not, and even if I told him I wasn't the thief there was no way he'd believe me at this point; I hadn't even tried to defend myself anyway. That was just what he'd assumed, and I realized something. If it were not for my bad luck, anyone could've been put into this situation where they were innocent just as I was, and would then be killed for something they never even committed.

I heard about those lynchings they did way back when in Europe, where supposed 'magicians' were executed and killed even if something as stupid as their neighbor claimed 'magic' was being used.

But 'magic' didn't exist, so countless people were killed for fucking nothing.

This seemed to be the scientific equivalent of those lynchings.

I was not a thief, and yet I was going to be killed.

The beam rifle's capacitator finished charging, and then a plasma beam was shot straight at me that I evaded with a sharp side step.

The pupils of my eyes had to have become pinpoints as they zeroed in on Lexi.

He had easily jumped off two stories and survived without even being a little fazed, and yet I pushed him down the stairwell and he showed visual surprise?

His senses seemed to be entirely reliant on himself.

That suit would not warn him of ensuing danger nor would it allow him to see through things or through different spectrums and dimensions like how T.E.-chan's Analyze could, or he would've killed me with perfect accuracy once I took away his line of sight with all the flaming paper earlier.

He also had no sixth sense available to him, or I wouldn't have been away to do half the things I did without at least getting a limb blown off. He survived a lack of oxygen back in the classroom while I struggled to breathe because of his armor. He was able to walk through that entire classroom devoid of O2 without showing any care.

As I dodged and evaded plasma beams that would kill me instantly if I slipped even once, I noticed that the closer I got, the more accurate his aim got.

I tried to go for a punch but when part of my unbuttoned blazer caught fire from a Plasma Beam that got way too close for comfort, I was forced to throw my blazer away and get back the distance I had.

Once again, I was limited to only my right fist while Lexi could shoot and kill me as long as I was in eyesight.

Fed up with how I kept dodging his attacks - that were a lot easier to avoid when compared to Itago Jikan's more wide spread and relentless ones – Lexi angrily holstered his beam rifle and reached for the pistol that made me jump down from a two story just to get away.

"Fuck… fuck, fuck!" I shouted under my breath as I turned around and started running. Those grenades that had come out of that pistol like CO2 propelled pellets from a BB Gun had exploded in just a couple seconds after impact earlier in the classroom, and it was more than enough to blow that classroom to hell.

So I did the logical thing and ran.

I ran towards the only cover in sight - the empty obstacle course - as I heard dry clicking sounds from behind me. The sound of gas filled cartridges being fired, allowing grenades to be launched towards me much faster than any arm could throw them resounded into the air.

There was no explosion, no nothing, not when multiple grenades were lobbed at me and landed in various positions nearby.

I heard four air compressors go off, letting me know that the gun Lexi held contained 5 small grenade before needing to be reloaded.

Two of the four safely missed me, one of them came dangerously close to me being in its range, one did get in range.

It landed on my right side, and I knew it would go off as soon as the ignited spark reached the gunpowder in it.

My entire body jerked diagonally to the left and I ran that direction as fast as I could, not stopping to dive into the ground and hug it like a second set of skin because I knew Lexi was coming after me-

-CRASH!

The first explosion went off, and the other three followed in a quick succession.

The one closest to me exploded at least 6 meters away on my right, but was far too close, forcing me to hold my head in a shielding gesture with my right arm to protect my neck and head.

Where my jugular was, I felt something dig into my bicep painfully. Something sharp and metallic hit the right side of my chest as well, but the wound on my right arm was a lot worse and bled freely.

At the pain, I bit down and ignored the limpness in that arm and ran forward. I looked over my shoulder and saw that Lexi was jogging forward far too fast for someone in full body armor to be able to do while reloading his mini grenade launcher that proved to be far more effective than his Beam Rifle against me.

When he finished reloading way too fast for my liking, forcing me to run even faster then what I thought was my max speed, I paled.

This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all! I told myself I'd beat him, and yet I was running away! He was absolutely right, I was outclassed. He seemed to have no weaknesses I could exploit. There was no core on his suit that I could go for and my right hand was useless. There were no kinks in the armor, even at the joints. He jumped off of a two story drop and felt nothing afterward. He had highly advanced weapon designed to kill that were going to do exactly that if I didn't do something right now.

With my right arm going limp at my side and dripping blood uncontrollably from my fingertips, I finally surpassed the grass field leading into the obstacle course and burst through several obstacles in the zigzagging path that were a lot easier to avoid without roller-skates on.

For Lexi, however, those obstacles such as nets and pendulums and speed bumps and the occasional fake stalagmites only served to prohibit his suits clunky movement and interfere with the trajectory of his grenade pistol pellets, which landed near me once more after he shot them in a quick succession – all five of them this time!

Like firecrackers, they went off almost as soon as they impacted the ground, but I was prepared this time around. I heard one go off right behind me kicking up concrete and other sharp projectiles, and only a slight cry was emitted from me when something small and sharp tore straight through my black t-shirt and started soaking my back.

Lexi didn't even bother gloating when he saw that something hit me, he just kept on moving forward and shooting like some kind of monster terminator with only a single goal. To kill me and retrieve the data on Cloudburst from Kumokawa Seria.

I needed to end this fast before I broke, so when I saw the cloud of steam that I passed through earlier today when I participated in the event, I burst through it just as the sounds of compressed air being released resounded once more, indicating that another volley of explosions was coming.

When I got to the sheer two-meter drop that made me fall into a net earlier, I stopped just before falling, knelt down near the end of the ramp, and dropped down into its depression for cover.

My heart jerked in my chest when I heard two pellets land far too close to me. I held my hand to my ears and ran forward, hoping against hope that escaping my cover was the right decision!

It was the best decision I ever made, because-

-KABOOOOOM!

The explosion behind me was far bigger than anything Lexi could've done on his own.

A steamer the size of a small bucket exploding wasn't even that dangerous, and yet it could still kill or injure adults.

An industrial grade steamer - like the one behind me - exploding was an entirely different case.

Steamers, in itself, created steam by boiling water within a (usually) pressurized heating tank. Consumer grade over the counter steamers had little to no chance of exploding because pressure is rarely used in those ones, but boilers/steamers used to create hot water or steam were a lot more likely to cause a fatal explosion if water is evaporate far too fast or the pressurized tank itself collapses. Industrial grade steamers, like the one behind me, were a lot more terrifying for obvious reasons.

The explosion was nowhere near the size and level of the steam explosion that I heard happened in New York City in 2007, but to me, the explosion behind me may as well have been a nuclear bomb because my ears started ringing as boiling hot water fell on me, making me cry in pain and get out of range even faster.

The explosion was at least 5 times bigger than the grenades Lexi shot at me, which covered about 8 meters. This steamer explosion was absolutely massive and rocked me to my very core. I would've been killed if I hadn't moved from that steam covered ramp, and as my eyes widened at the sight of steam bursting out and spreading everywhere I realized how close to death I'd just come for the umpteenth time in just the past couple of minutes.

I shook my head and decided that this needs to stop now before it got out of control and one of us got badly hurt, particularly me.

Looking around for anything I could use, I saw guns mounted at various stage points set up through the obstacle course. I frowned when the fact that they were paintball guns dawned on me, then… wait a second… I smiled at the coming of an idea and sprinted as fast as I could for the nearest staging point with a paintball turret.

Originally, the third years put these here to thwart any opponents trying to steal their goal ball. I was going to use it for very different reasons.

The paintball turret that looked a little too real was far too heavy for me to just carry around, and I was glad they weren't used against me during the game because it would have been embarrassing to walk around with paint ball marks and bruises all over me.

I sat down in the seat under the paintball shooter and placed my hands on the trigger.

That was when I saw Lexi stepping out of the steam, beam rifle whirring in hand. He had apparently given up his grenade strategy for now despite how effective that was, and he instead favored stalking the obstacle course with his more accurate beam rifle that would easily destroy any cover I bothered to hide behind.

If I was lying in wait like he probably thought I was, a grenade that'd hurt himself would be counterintuitive no matter how much armor he had.

He hadn't seen me, and must've been so surprised when I pressed on the trigger of the paintball turret and lined up the barrel in what I thought was his direction.

Paintballs 17.3 mms thick each came out with light 'pew' sounds clocking in at least 5 BPS, or 5 balls per second. It was a lot slower than I originally thought, allowing for more accuracy. The recoil itself was nearly nonexistent as well, and yet I still missed at least a dozen paintball shots before I finally acknowledged that gravity was actually a thing that existed.

I readjusted my aim and finally started hitting my target.

In just a few seconds the pitch-black suit of armor Lexi wore started turning yellow.

After figuring out where I was based on the multiple impacts I landed on him, he aimed his beam rifle down on me and then started laughing at me under the onslaught of paint that assaulted him.

"Even bullets far thicker than those used in sniper rifles are deflected all too easily by the armor I'm wearing. Do you seriously think a children's toy found in airsoft shops will kill me?!" Lexi shouted that at me with pure anger written in his tone of voice, then when I didn't respond and just kept shooting at him, he growled out offendedly, "You did account for the fact that paintball guns are powered by Carbon Dioxide Gas Compressor tanks, right?"

My eyes widened in fear when he pointed his beam rifle at me and held the trigger down, apparently prepping the fusion reaction, but I just gulped down and ignored the fearful child in me that wanted so desperately to just run away at the threat of death.

If this didn't work, I was as good as dead, and I knew it. The photon plasma beam of excited particles would shred straight through the meager amount of cover the paintball turret provided me, and the beam that would surely surpass over 1000 degrees Celsius would easily ignite the paintball tank and fatally wound if not straight up vaporiz3 me depending how good Lexi's aim was.

I bit down on my jaws and sustained my fire, banking everything I had on the hope that this would work.

Lexi scoffed as the Beam Rifle's capacitator began maxing out and from where I was on the receiving end of the beam rifle's barrel there was glowing red. The heat that came along with fusion started causing all the paint covering Lexi to start boiling, "See you in hell, kid," Were Lexi's last words to me before the Beam Rifle reached the required excited particle coefficient to convert compressed hydrogen gas into a plasma beam.

I closed my eyes and just kept on shooting as death stared upon me, cold and unflinching in its everlasting to desire unite us all.

Before long-

BOOOOOOOOOOOM!

BANG!

CRAAAASH!

A series of explosions rang out, and I closed my eyes, awaiting the inevitable.

No overbearing pain came.

No eternal darkness fell upon me.

Everything was quiet other than the 'pew' sounds filling the air. The smell of ozone filling my nose for the second time today made my nose crinkle up.

"I'm… alive…?"

I… I was still alive and holding onto the trigger of a paintball gun that kept on shooting. I released the trigger, and slowly opened my eyes-

-To see a large crater right in front of me.

"Crap! H-hey!? Are you okay!?" I shouted that at the top of my lungs, jumping out of cover and bursting forward towards the crater In front of me.

Lexi's charred body armor was still standing, and my heart jerked in my chest when it fell to the ground in the middle of a huge, 15-meter crater that was way too close to where I had been.

To describe what had happened in as few words as possible, I'd have to go with Nuclear Explosion.

At first, I thought it was weird.

I thought it was weird that Lexi could walk around with a gun that could effortlessly create the conditions needed for a fusion reaction – which is how the sun creates light and heat, by smashing atoms against each other and fusing them in order to create plasma – without succumbing to the intense heat.

My conclusion was his armor.

Earlier in the hallway, I felt a surge in heat right before he fired that beam rifle at me all willy-nilly.

The excited particle beam itself held enough heat to ignite paper in the air via a chain reaction without direct contact, which was a testament in itself to how hot it was.

That meant that whenever he used that gun, an intense heat was created and surrounded him, leading to the assumption that Lexi's suit had to be strong enough and thermo conductive enough to protect his fragile human body from being burnt alive in his suit.

However, that heat had to go somewhere, or else all the explosives and hydrogen tanks Lexi carried on his person would ignite and blow him up.

The place where that heat escaped was behind Lexi on his left side, as that was where the back of the Beam Rifle's barrel was – Lexi was left-handed.

Under normal circumstance, I'd never be able to ignite all the explosions Lexi carried on himself, which was why I didn't even bother trying to do that.

Until I saw this paintball gun, of course.

Paintballs were typically made of a paint, dye, or solvent called Polyethylene Glycol, or PEG for short.

PEG is a pretty non-flammable solution when compared to rubbing alcohol, and that was why it only boiled when exposed to the intense heat produced by Lexi's beam rifle. The PEG in the paintball bullets were diluted, causing it to have a small molecular weight and was fairly viscous, but once all the water evaporated and PEG was left with a more pure, larger molecular weight, PEG became a solid.

It resembled a mineral oil in viscosity and vapor pressure, and the PEG would really need to cook in an intense heat in order for it to catch on fire. But after it does, it will burn for a long time (I assume a blue-orange flame) and heavy viscous burning things will continue to burn for much longer then rubbing alcohol.

That fire and heat that covered Lexi ignited the grenade pistol Lexi held, his ammo, the fusion reactor on his beam rifle, and it even ignited the remaining Polyethylene Glycol on him, which caused a chain reaction resulting in a mini nuclear explosion.

But an explosion was still an explosion. Lexi may have worn armor that allowed him to (probably) survive an attack from a Level 5, but I was still worried for him.

I ran over to him, ignoring the hot ground that burned me from just standing on it, and did my best to push Lexi's armored form into a sitting position from where he'd previously dropped to the floor, unmoving.

"Hey, Lexi, are you okay?!" I shouted, hoping to god that I hadn't killed him.

My heart painfully jerked in my chest when there was no response.

"Please answer me!" I shouted at the top of my lungs while shutting my eyes in my fear. "C'mon, say something! Do something! I don't even care if you try to start killing me again, just please-"

"Keh…"

I heard a dying cough.

It was so light and painstakingly emitted that I barely heard it. My mouth zipped shut; I went dead silent.

There were more coughs coming from inside the heavy suit I held, and then then I heard something more robotic, "Error. Power Rerouting From Systems A Through E To Systems E Though Z. Loss Of Mechanically Assisted Movements Detected. Loss Of Thermometric Temperature Regulation Detected. Loss Of Oxygen Utilizing Based Reactions Detected. Loss Of-"

The robot lady had a feminine voice, and I shouted at her, almost crying, "Is he alive?! Just tell me if he's alive or not!"

"Command Not Recognized. Loss Of Life Support System Failure Detected. Loss Of-"

"Wh-what do you mean, 'Command Not Recognized'?!" Tears started coming out from my eyes unbidden.

I had never killed anyone before. Just the thought that I had murdered another person who had a family waiting for them back home ate away at me. The thought that I'd taken away someone's world for my own worthless one… that I'd killed someone just to protect my own life hurt me far more than a knife ever could.

"P-please… someone… please…" I rasped out those cries for help, for a hero to come and save Lexi. My voice was cracking, my heart was breaking, my lungs were struggling to get air; like always, there was no hero. I cried and tried to wipe my own tears with my right hand, but instead I just smudged blood into my eyes, making everything sting and my vision go red. There was no hero to come and save Lexi in his time of need, and I had been the villain who carelessly took his life away from him… "Please wake up, Lexi, please don't die-"

Suddenly, there was more coughing, making my red eyes widen. And then I heard a voice through those "What's… wrong with you…?" It was an adult man's voice I didn't recognize-

I smiled!

-It was Lexi's voice, but there was no voice modulation to disguise it!

Through all the coughs, he laughed inside his thick black suit, "Really- keh!" He coughed again, then finished, "What a… stupid thief … I tried to kill you… and here you are… crying like a baby just because you think… I'm… dead…" He coughed again, unmoving in his suit that had protected him from an explosion somehow, then ordered, "Computer: Release Me. The threat is no more."

"Authorization Code Required."

"Admin Code: F1G8RJQUTMFE1WH97AX6Y71V7."

Lexi muttered a string of letters and numbers that I stopped following past the 4th character, and then the computer lady replied emotionlessly, "Confirmed, Kihara Lexi. Standby."

My tears stopped when the suit opened up, revealing a living(!) young man who looked like he'd just graduated from college inside of the suit. He had short black hair that barely reached his eyes, but above it all, he had purple eyes, much like how Kihara Kaninshiki had.

He looked to be unharmed, but he cough in very much the same way I was coughing when he knocked me into the wall earlier in the stairwell. He had only lost his breath after being in the center of an explosion, and I was so happy!

"K-Kihara-san." I muttered joyfully while letting go of the empty suit of armor. He looked to be Kaninshiki's younger brother, so that had to have been his name.

A bit shaken up, he stood up on two legs. The Kihara was wearing a skin tight pitch black Zero Gravity Suit that looked like something a space person would wear to… space?

He kept on coughing like he inhaled smoke, then said, annoyed, "He called me, 'Kihara-san'. I should have that status taken away from me. How did I get outsmarted by a high schooler? Was I so focused on trying to kill him that I overlooked something so stupid like the fact that 'Paint is flammable'." Kihara looked very disappointed in himself, he turned over to me, then said, "Eh… I don't feel like killing you anymore , why don't you just get away while you still have the chance, and- ahhh!"

Kihara's legs were kicked out from under him. An arm wrapped around his throat before he could fall to the ground, another hand gripped his chin tightly. His assailant was right about to twist his neck and kill him in one quick motion when I shouted out, as loudly as I could, "STOP IT, KUMOKAWA-SENPAI! WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!?"

Right before Kumokawa could snap his neck like a twig, she shouted back at me, "I was right about to handle him myself, and then I hear fucking explosions from down the block! Didn't I tell you to ignore this and go back to your own normal life!"

"I won't just ignore you! And let Lexi go, he didn't do anything wrong!"

"But he tried to kill you! If I hadn't arrived on time, he would've tricked you and killed-!"

"No!" I shouted, then regained my breath and said more calmly, "He isn't trying to kill me, not anymore. Just…" I sighed, "Just… look at what you're doing, Senpai. Look at what you are doing right now, and ask yourself, 'Is this the kind of person I want to be when I grow up?'" I didn't yell at Kumokawa. I didn't judge her either. I didn't reprimand her, nor did I attack her.

I had just asked her a simple question.

She looked at herself.

Kumokawa truly looked at herself, and saw what she had done without even thinking twice.

The Kihara, who had an entire world, a life that was all his own, was struggling to breath. His neck was twisted, right about snap. He was futilely struggling against Kumokawa's grip, fighting for air.

Just as any other person would in the face of death, he wanted so desperately to change that outcome.

Kumokawa's hazel-blue eyes trembled like she had seen a monster. I don't know what she saw, but a tear streamed down her left eye. "I-I…" She started, then released the man who wasn't a danger to anyone anymore.

Kihara fell to the ground, struggling to breath; I crouched and patted his back, trying to help.

"Th-thanks, kid…" He rasped out between coughs.

I looked down, guilty, "I'm sorry, for blowing you up…"

Kihara laughed, "I'm sorry, for trying to kill you and all that…"

Kihara Lexi… he had always seemed like not that bad a guy, even when I first met him. He had thought I was an enemy, and hence treated me like one. But I wasn't… sort of. And after proving that to him, the need to fight was eradicated like the illusion it was.

"Oh…. Oh my god… he's a Kihara, and he's…" Kumokawa gasped in horror at what she was witnessing, "They are not supposed to... Th-they're monsters. They're not supposed to understand empathy. They're not able to be reasoned with, neither do they contain the possibility for good, and yet…" More tears came from Kumokawa, and it broke my heart to see them, "H-he has no ill intent. He's sorry.. and…. Oh my god! What have I done?!" Breaking, Kumokawa shouted that into the air, "I-I can't… I can't take it back… Wh-what have I…?!" She started, but her tears made a sobbing sound escape her instead of any actual words.

She turned and started running away.

She was not a ninja, nor was she some kind of Super Highschool Girl.

She was someone who was suffering, just like the rest of us.

I gave Lexi one last pat on the back, then said before standing up, "I have to go."

Lexi nodded.

I brandished my right fist and then ran after my senpai.

There was one more person's illusions I had to break.

.

---

.

Kumokawa Seria-senpai drowned in an illusion of despair of her own creation in a place where no one would find her.

A cemetery.

I did not know what brought me here.

I did not know why my gut told me to head in this direction.

All I knew was that this was the dreadful place where Kumokawa Seria was crying all alone.

The entire area was empty except for the both us, and I followed the sobs and found her sulking in front of a grave. She was crouched down and rubbing her teary eyes. Her voice came out broken when she said, over and over again, "I'm a monster… I killed so many Kihara without even bothering to understand them…"

My heart jerked in pain, and yet I didn't say a single word from where I stood over her like a silent guardian.

Time passed.

School ended.

People came and went from the cemetery, but we were the only constants.

…

I don't know how long I waited but the sun was beginning to get orange. As she silently cried, I took off the bloody gold medal that was stained a little red and carefully put it over her neck.

She finally stopped crying when I brought my right hand over her shoulder and pulled her into a hug.

Together, we looked at the grave with the name, 'Kihara Kagun,' on it.

"I was a child error… He was my teacher and… he saved me. He saved me and my sister from them…"

"From the Kihara?"

"Yes."

"And they killed him?" I assumed.

Seria nodded, "I swore I'd get revenge and kill every Kihara for him… and yet… I witnessed one lose the desire to fulfill their goals right in front of me just now. Wh-what if there are more like him? What if even one of those I've killed could've been saved? What does that make me?"

I didn't respond. I wanted to say she was a great person. I wanted to say yes, but I knew that would only throw her back into her despair.

But…

What if it was necessary?

What if Seria's suffering was necessary for her to heal?

What if… no, 'what ifs' wouldn't help me at all here.

I thought about it for a moment. Seria was silent, waiting for an answer. She didn't know the answer, nor did I.

Instead, I answered her question with a question of my own, "Why do children have to suffer, Seria?"

Seria flinched under me. She took my right hand that I put over her shoulder in both of hers and gripped it hard, "That question has no answer, Touma."

"But it does. It really does have an answer, senpai."

"Then what is it?" She inquired, almost angry with me, "Since it has an answer, what is it?"

I sighed, painfully, then said, "It's… 'To break our hearts.' Whenever I see someone suffering, like how you are right now, it only breaks my heart. So that has to be the reason for why children have to suffer."

"Y-you're actually joking right now? Aren't you?" Seria started laughing, "What kind of self-important claim is that? Do you seriously think the entire world revolves around you? Hahahahaha." Seria's laughs felt great to hear. It was so different from sad Seria, but it was just as important.

My head drooped down, but I smiled as well. It was a pained smile.

I hadn't been joking, yet I asked Seria, "Can I tell you something? You asked me if there's a 'good' Kihara. I have something to say to that."

Seria giggled one last time, then said, "I'll allow it. Speak your mind, Kohai."

My smile fell apart, "Once a heart is broken, it can never truly heal to what it once was. Maybe a broken heart could be, 'Put back together', but even still… it would only ache. But perhaps a broken heart can be more loving then a whole one? Perhaps, only after our hearts have cracked wide open, after we feel an unbearable pain, after we are finally and utterly destroyed from that pain, can we truly know love without boundaries."

I remembered it.

I remembered drowning to death.

I remembered completely giving up on this world, not out of defeat, but out of self-loathing.

I had completely given up on everything.

But then I remembered something else.

I remembered that man who tried his very best to save me.

I remembered waking up on the side of a river and realizing something.

I loved the world so much that I killed myself in order to save that world from the chaos I presented it.

But… wasn't I a part of that beautiful world too?

And the Kihara.

The supposed 'bad guys'.

Were they not a part of that world, just as I and everybody else was?

And if so, did they not deserve to be protected as well?

The answer was all too clear to me.

I laid out a path for myself that was as clear as day.

I did not waver, nor did I wish for anything other than that one wish of mine.

My wish for nobody else to cry all alone like I had.

It was only after my heart had been cracked wide open that I was finally able to open my eyes, that I was able to cross that endless bridge and see the truth. I took that truth into this right hand of mine.

That was the same hand I held Seria's shoulder with.

"I don't know much about the Kihara," I started, "But if they have anything in common with the one I fought, then it seems like they are doing the wrong things for the right reasons. Kaninshiki himself said he wanted to create a cure for mankind, and yet I feel like he is doing bad things in order to achieve that goal. Lexi is very much like his brother. He told me he wanted to save the many by cursing a single soul. In short, he would do a bad thing, for the right reason. So I'll ask you this, Seria, do you think there are anymore Kihara who would do something bad for the greater good?"

"Y-yes… all of them…"

"Do you think someone deserves to die for wanting to do good?"

"N-no…"

I smiled, "Then there's your answer."

My reasoning may have been childish. My reasoning may be able to be defeated by anyone who used even a little bit of logic against me.

But this world?

To me, this beautiful world made perfect sense to me.

It made even more sense when Seria looked up to me with a smile.

"Thank you, Touma."

I didn't do the things I did for a 'thanks'.

What I was doing was entirely selfish.

Nothing more, nothing less.

I don't know why, but everything started going black.

I started feeling really heavy all of the sudden.

My head drooped down onto Seria's shoulder.

"H-hey…" I muttered tiredly, "You still haven't told me what Cloudburst is, and…" I felt my eyes begin to close, "Huh? Wh-what is this weak feeling?"

Seria seemed confused for a moment, then shouted at me, apparently realizing something, "When did you get this wound on your right arm?! Why haven't you said anything about it?! Why didn't I… why didn't I NOTICE?!"

"O-oh… that? That's just a flesh wound… no reason to be worried…" I rasped weakly, closing my eyes, "I get these all the time when I skate… It'll stop bleeding… soon.. enough…"

Seria started shouting something at me, but I was far too tired to interpret anything she said.

I was tired and I loved sleep.

That was a very dangerous combination.

.

.

---

.

.

A/N: Um… that's the chapter. Without even knowing it, Touma took a lot more damage than he thought, and we all know his very bad habit of magical pain tolerance… He can brush off serious attacks so well that even others thinks he's fine when he's really not.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, and while there were some parts I'm still on the fence about, I feel overall satisfied with how it ended up.

PS: The quote in the beginning of the chapter was actually made by this interpretation of Seria some odd years ago, in case anyone didn't figure it out.

As always, thanks for reading, everyone! :)

- Hazel