12/19/21 - Minor edits.
A/N: Betaread by Homcomru and Stdioh.
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The words of his reply died in his mouth.
Accelerator watched as the clone named 'Misaka' blinked the haziness away from her eyes. From his point of view, it almost looked like she had abruptly lost consciousness. She hadn't crumpled over either, but bizarreness aside, that's not what he was initially concerned with.
The steadily flowing tears that trickled out of her eyes and down her cheeks didn't seem particularly natural. Not when it was combined with the impassivity of her face and the almost dead-stare look in her eyes.
It didn't seem that she expected the appearance of the tears either. The clone had rubbed her forearm against her face and stared at her arm in curiosity. She even leaned her head down to taste her own salty tears.
From that act alone, it said a certain amount of lack of bodily awareness that didn't meld well with their current circumstances. That and Accelerator couldn't really see himself needing strategic planning if this was what he was dealing with. Something felt deeply wrong here.
Uncertainty colored his thoughts, 'What the hell are you doing?'
Regardless, Accelerator still needed to get closer if he wanted to deal with the grenade. He took a slow step forward, only for the clone to take a shaky step backward shortly after.
Another step forward from him. A reactionary step backward from her.
Accelerator frowned.
It was obvious to him that should he visibly chase her down or otherwise do anything threatening, she would retaliate by moving quickly away. If her movement was too great, then the trigger mechanism inside the grenade could go off, leaving the clone as good as dead.
Of course, that's unless something were moving fast enough to beat both the reaction time of the human eye and the speed of detonation before it could blow up his apartment complex.
The only thing stopping him from doing just that was an opportunity.
Certainly, he could go for it whenever he wished, but why bother when he had all the time in the world? Even to him, he could see that the clone was almost waiting for him to make the first move.
The esper narrowed his eyes, trying to analyze her intentions, "Why'd you suddenly change patterns?"
"Misaka leaves behind an answer: You were not the only one reacting to their opponent's actions. When you had stayed still with your arm raised up, she suspected a plan of action. She had decided to change course to retain unpredictability."
Accelerator scoffed at the statement.
"Fine. I'll admit, that's a pretty clever move. Then again, I don't think I've ever met someone so determined to swing a piece of broken metal around. You deserve praise. Ingenus battle strategy. Really." He said sarcastically. Meanwhile, he slowly moved his foot forward inconspicuously. "This has been going on for quite a lot longer than most groups usually last for- if I really wanted to call whatever this is a 'fight.' You should be proud."
"..." The clone had no reply.
He chanced another step, halting the action midway when he saw her eyes twitch at his feet. "What's the plan now that we're here? Are you going to blow yourself up? Because rest assured, that shit won't do anything to me. You should've known that going in."
"Misaka states: That is of no concern."
Accelerator changed the subject, his voice coming out with clear annoyance, "And what about the Experiments? You're an idiot if you really think this counts."
"Misaka answers: Irrelevant. The only thing that matters is winning. If you die, then she wins."
He gave her a cruel grin, trying to hide his frustration of having to deal with a one-track-mind. "Huh? I've heard plenty of examples of stupidity. You do realize you have nothing to gain by pointlessly throwing bodies at me, right? It's futile. No, less than futile. It's practically self-defeating."
She merely tilted her head in an indecipherable gesture. "Misaka poses a hypothetical: If she doesn't know that she has failed, then she can convince herself that she has succeeded."
Accelerator chuckled without mirth, "You've got it backwards, you dumbfuck. I'm telling you right now that you can't harm me. Simple as that. That little thing in your hand is not even close to being on the higher scale of what I can redirect. I should know, I've literally played baseball with bigger grenades."
"Misaka presents a counter-argument: You cannot know that every possible attempt will end in either success or failure. Since you had not correctly predicted that your opponent would change actions at the last second, this implies that you do not know every possible variable or end result. Therefore, any potentially successful outcome, however low the possibility, will still have the chance of succeeding."
"Tsk. And yet you're the one who put me up to this shitty trap." He muttered.
The white-haired esper pointed his arm between the two of them, "You haven't put me in any sort of risk. What is your angle in this?"
She said the next words with a dreamy-undertone, as if quoting it from somewhere else, "Misaka states: To escape."
She gave him no time to respond, the grenade already slipping from her fingers, gravity pulling it to the ground in a slow tumble through the air.
To Accelerator's eyes, it appeared as if it were slowed in its fall, as if the object deliberately focused his attention on its presence. It caught him as being particularly odd, but the curious scientist in him wasn't feeling up to observing the phenomenon in favor of being pragmatic.
The esper's body moved before his mind fully caught up to him, his vectors launching himself forward faster than she could react. Arms raised, he pressed both his hands around the smoking explosive, positioning his back to the clone to prevent what he couldn't contain from reaching her body.
A full second passed after he had moved.
His power's calculations were working to contain the explosion and dispel it through harmless means, except… The 'grenade' had not given off a single reaction. A lack of an explosion, only could have meant...
Eyes widening in realization, he quickly felt out for the chemical signature, only to come to the conclusion that it was completely inert, incapable of blasting apart.
The 'grenade' was simply an empty shell of metal.
Accelerator felt something slip around his neck, tightening to a thick cord that pressed against his skin before his ability registered the threat and stopped the pressure from increasing.
The cord tightened against his calculations, his ability easily keeping it from constricting him, but also creating an uncomfortably easy handgrip that the clone used to her advantage. He felt legs straddle his backside and extra weight added to his person. The pit of an elbow latched around his head and eyes, covering his vision.
Trying to keep his balance, Accelerator growled out a few words of his displeasure.
The clone moved her arm away from his face, only for what looked like a black flashlight to approach his face and press tightly against his nostrils.
Red-yellow liquid sprayed into his nose, pinged against his ability as a dangerous substance, containing high levels of capsaicin, and was redirected back outside. 'Pepper spray?' The redirected liquid droplets formed a cloud of moisture that couldn't affect him, redirected constantly away from his eyes, but flooding the air around his head with a constant haze of opaque particles.
The sudden image of steel glinting dangerously in the air should have given him enough ample warning. He couldn't have prepared himself for the shiv attack as it tapped against his right eyeball and snapped back away.
Invisible, intangible shrapnel harpooned into one of his eyes, shredding his retina into obvion with just one stroke. Even with a second example, his power was unable to comprehend how the action was done, and flared out useless defensive calculations at the air.
Accelerator screamed in rage and pain.
In the same moment, a resounding boom echoed throughout the night air from his own power. The order he gave it was a simple one: Get away!
Rail-guards and concrete bent away in a spherical shape around Accelerator as windows close and far shattered in the wake of his kinetic explosion. He didn't have to think about the advanced calculations that went into such an offense, automatically funneling his confusion and anger into his power in one sudden burst.
For a brief moment, Accelerator worried that he had just killed the clone without intending to.
The worry lasted only a moment as he came to terms with his lost vision. Blood leaked out of his ruined eye in a small river, confirming the existence of the injury.
He had to temporarily cut off the electrical receptors in his eye, force-stopping the pain signals from reminding his brain of what he already knew.
The damage was deep, and very likely would've been untreatable if he had lived in any other country with shit healthcare. Luckly, Academy City offered plenty of options and Accelerator was hardly in need of cash.
He toyed with the idea of just letting go and murdering the clone outright. 'It's not murder. This isn't even a real person.'
He looked at her face and tried to recall the rows and columns of giant vats containing dozens of mass produced clones, when he had been invited to see them. Identical bodies grown to exact specifications.
He memorized the location of the building and the basement housing all of the necessary cloning equipment. He also knew that it was just one of many participating faculties.
He knew that he could've delayed the experiments for as long as he wanted- including the delays he had done already. Perhaps he could've halted all progress on cloning-based methods indefinitely, since they needed him to volunteer for their goals to have a chance of remotely succeeding.
There probably wouldn't be another opportunity as good as this one to shortcut his way to greater power. He'd seen the math, understood fully that the theoreticals weren't nearly as theoretical as they had been presented.
In fact, Accelerator suspected that he could've calculated alternative ways of optimizing the methods being used so that literally anyone, not just himself, could kill a few thousand clones and get the same 'leveling up' effect that he could benefit from.
And as it turned out later, when he gave it further thought and wrote down the technical thesis, it was possible.
The dumbass researchers were only about thirty critical elements away from realizing that their slaughterhouse methods could easily be applied to most espers in Academy City and work just as well with a few major and minor tweaks.
The dark thoughts in the back of his mind reminded Accelerator of the fact that the researchers wouldn't have stopped if he denied them. They'd simply go to the next level 5, and so on, should they be found denied again.
Maybe then, their higher-ups might even go back over the material, review it for flaws, and eventually see what he'd seen. Then what will happen?
He really had no intention of freely letting something like the mass production and slaughter of clones become a standard practice, even if it meant participating in the City's filth just to make sure that no researchers ever realize just what they had almost accidentally created.
It was an esper's Pandora's Box. One that Accelerator wanted no other soul knowing, except for himself.
He turned toward the voice that was talking casually to him, "Misaka relays a theory: The Number One Ranked Esper, the Accelerator, has never fought in a one-on-one encounter lasting for more than twenty-seconds. From this, it can be inferred that your actual battle experience is fairly limited. Meaning, your capabilities on how to defend and prepare for an attack are also limited."
His new blind-spot forced him to tilt his head awkwardly to the side to keep track of her. The clone was crouched down to the side, partially hiding herself behind one of those metallic trash-can robots that had evaded his notice until now.
"Misaka continues thusly: She had used a dummy grenade to divert your attention, under the assumption that you would attempt to protect her from explosion. Under the right conditions, this would lead to you facing away from and allowing her to freely attack."
Accelerator's next words came out with alarm, "Who said I was trying to protect you?"
"You did."
His remaining eye watched her steadily, "What are you talking about?"
The clone stared at Accelerator, then began to walk. Sidestepping slowly, leaning slightly forward with the shiv still in hand. He saw the blood licked at the tip of the blade.
"You are hostile through your words, but you have yet to directly attack me with your actions." She said, noticeably having dropped her verbal tic. "If you're not actively trying to kill me, then how will you win? If you don't win first, then how will you meet the next sister? Or the next one? Or the following one after her?"
"...You think this is a game?"
The robot flickered back to life, strobe lights turning on as it repeatedly yelled out a "CAUTION" alert that neither of them took notice of.
The clone smiled at him, "You started this game first."
Accelerator couldn't believe his ears, knowing without acknowledging the fact that, technically, she was right. Even if the Experiments weren't in full swing yet, that still didn't change the fact that he needed to be the one to initiate them. After that, it was just a matter of participation.
Esper and clone were fixated on each other, but within Accelerator's mind, the doubt grew.
The shiv glinted in the dark.