.

.

.

VI.

Sub rosa

They never talked again.

It was the longest three days of her life.

The fact alone, technically, should be put down in record. Even though Mikoto had tried, discreetly, just a peek or a glimpse test but nothing ever came out, or in, for that matter. No indignant huffs, restless sighs, or even a scoff here and there when he stopped by the usual convenience store for his daily dose of coffee could make him turn to her anymore. The girl even contemplated maybe dropping a few insults on hand, but it would probably only be another step of going backwards for the both of them. Accelerator clearly didn't want to have anything to do with her anymore after what happened, and she was kind of owing him that much after everything she'd said.

Misaka Mikoto was still unsure of why she cried.

The wet, hot trails of tears didn't stop running, even when the guy had dissolved into darkness and she was left alone in the shadows again. She'd locked herself out of his mind completely for no less than five times and broken down into uninhibited sobs, wrapping weak limbs around herself for cold comfort. The deaths of the fallen men never looked any better, clear and bloody in her memory, but she always found herself remembering something else in those fractured moments, staring up at raw, burning red irises.

The brunette sighed as she pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. Her face was mostly dry now, a bit warm and sticky from all the crying. The silence was starting to feel familiar, although never less deafening. The only solace she'd ever had in this empty void was with the guy whose head she was occupying in, and now even that was gone. Mikoto would fry her throat dry before she would ever admit it, but this isolation petrified her, and the only thing that had been helping her get by so far was the guy himself.

And she had to go and bloody ruin it.

She sucked in a loud breath when a small click resonated in the air, and her hazel eyes trailed up to find the door to his room slowly shutting close. Accelerator was placing the coffee can in his hand on a table, before crutching himself over to sit down on the bed.

He was holding his phone open, and Mikoto wasted no time in peeking out to look at the bright screen. The text was aligned perfectly spick-and-span, and upon reading the information put up, her hazel eyes widened.

"You're leaving?"

There was no reply besides a click of the tongue, but it was at least something after a long while of nothing. Mikoto fixed herself straighter and tried to settle back her tumbling surprise, but the words hurried out before she could think twice.

"They're taking you out of Japan," she repeated, just for a good measure to let it sink in even though she knew he'd probably heard her the first time already. "You're going to have to leave Academy City, but what about Last Order, or…or – "

"It's none of your business." He finally ground out, flipping his phone close.

It was the first few words he actually said to her after their little banter the other night, and even though every syllable was spat out with utter despite in his voice, Mikoto couldn't find it in herself to be aggravated. She was much more perturbed about what was about to go on ahead then.

The white-haired Esper did not even spare the girl a glance inside, and pivoted on his heels to get out of the room again.

"Last Order," he called as he clicked the door of the ward next to him open, and as expected, the addressed little girl was sitting on her bed in her sky blue sundress and oversized white coat. "I'm leaving."

The girl blinked at the announcement, before jumping off the bed and running to him. "'What?' MISAKA says in surprise, 'Where are you going?'"

"Avignon," he said simply. "France, apparently."

"'That's sooo far!' MISAKA exclaims in sadness. 'MISAKA wants to come with Accelerator too.'"

"No. No you're not."

The Esper muttered, in absolute finality as he stared down at the twinkling, bambi eyes. "You're gonna stay here with Yoshikawa until I come back. This is for a mission, not some damn vacation trip."

"'B…'"

"No 'but's."

He repeated, slow and steady, but blinked upon seeing the twinkling traces of tears filling to the brim on the little girl's eyes. "Hey, hey quit that."

"'Accelerator is a meanie' MISAKA says in annoyance. 'You never let me go anywhere!'"

"Because the last time you 'went' somewhere," Accelerator muttered, and grabbed at the girl's collar to drop her onto the bed in a pulp of fumbling limbs. "I got shot a friggin' hole through my brain. So no, I'm not about to get my ass hit again just to look after you while in a mission."

Last Order yelped at the surprised assault, and hissed in trying to get herself together in the pile of blankets. "'Meh, MISAKA's found way better things to do here anyways.' MISAKA says." She sighed finally, as if he was interfering with her non-existent schedule.

Accelerator figured he would be better off not pointing that out, and turned back on his heels. "I'll tell Yoshikawa when she comes home."

The only acknowledgement he got in return was a huff, and Accelerator sighed with the weight of every babysitter in the city, who's ever had to suffer the same fate like he has.

"I'll try to come back soon."

He finally said, just a volume louder than a whisper but the girl heard it nonetheless. The pout was still there, but the thin brows knitting together on the babyface were starting to detach, and the girl finally released her annoyed moue.

"'Okay' MISAKA says in defeat. 'MISAKA will be eagerly waiting for Accelerator to come back soon then!'"

He nodded, just in case any more mushy, gushy words and he might actually claw his throat out. He twisted the door knob open, only to stop on his spot when the little girl added.

"'MISAKA will look out Onee-sama's body for you two!' MISAKA promises!"

There was no reaction, whether inside or outside of him. Accelerator simply nodded, grip tight, and walked away.

x

x

x

The 11 HsB – 02 Supersonic Stealth Bombers was a huge, spacious, and too fucking loud helicopter. He's lost track of how long they'd been staying on air, but it had to have been at least half an hour since he boarded the ride. The maintenance crew members had mostly stuck to the head of the copter, wary, careful looks on their faces upon seeing him, and Accelerator promptly swiveled on his heels and dropped himself on one of the seats in the main cabin, cane tucked safely at his side. The black autogiro was flying with supersonic speed, which meant they should be there at the destination in another half an hour, not to mention he had no time for chit-chatting, less to people he would likely never meet again.

A nap wasn't an option, not even after the less-than-acceptable-time-for-sleep sleep he's had last night. The grating, dark presence of the other girl had disappeared completely after the mission message was sent to his phone, and Accelerator did the only thing he was exceled at and promptly ignored it, like most other things he'd done the same in life. She was still there, just refusing to appear, and he was more than willing to indulge that request as he shoved some clothes and daily necessities into a bagpack and dropped himself back into bed.

The renewed space to think was refreshing and amicable, although his head was sort of pretty jacked up from the aircraft and radio buzz at the moment. The fact that he barely slept last night wasn't helping much either. There was no blood, screams or hot frustration running under his closed eyelids anymore, and Accelerator told himself good riddance. Everything of that girl was downright jarring to bear, from the eyes to the voice.

Even if she wasn't wrong.

He wasn't sure how many times he'd chosen not to think about it – always refusing to drill any deeper into anything he had to put his hands into. But the truth remained the same as ever, and Misaka Mikoto was nowhere above pointing it out. It wasn't even like he could blame her. The hellion she was thrown into came from nowhere else but him in the first place either way.

Accelerator shuttered his eyes closed and leaned back into the headrest, wondering why the hell he would even be thinking about this any longer. He should have been spitting with spite and pushing her as far away from his mind as she could get. He wanted to despise her, to charge back inside and tear her apart like the thing she knew he was.

But he couldn't.

He never could. Not again.

x

x

x

The plane's pressure on air was thick and heavy, and Mikoto could feel it weighing down on his body as much as it did on hers inside. Her skin was on pins and needles, and her mind was a clutter of chaos, but she knew there was one thing she had to make clear before anything else.

When she returned back to her spot under the shadows, he was there.

Accelerator's eyes were shut close, and he was leaning back against the black wall. He was as still and silent as a statue, but she didn't need to look any closer to know he'd recognized her presence.

"What the hell do you want now?"

The top Esper finally said, a low growl in his tone, not even moving an inch from his spot.

"I – " Mikoto muttered, downright surprised that he would even address her after all this time. She fumbled with the sleeve of her sweater. "You haven't come here for a while so I thought…"

"Thought what? It's my head. I can go anywhere and anytime I want…Or do you have a problem with that too?"

"No. I – no," she stopped, sucked in a deep breath before looking up at him again. "I just want to talk to you."

There she was again. Accelerator snapped his eyes open and turned to finally look at the girl. She looked even worse than the last time he saw her, as if that was still even possible. She seemed drained, like something weighed on her jaw and all the blood has run out of her face. The ashy, pallid complexion bled all over her form like a second skin. His eyes twitched.

"I don't care." He offered instead, and pushed himself up to turn away.

"Accelerator, wait," Mikoto said quickly, straightening her back and wondering again exactly what she'd intended to say. She had no clue why the other Level 5 paused on his track, but she didn't dare question it, lest he remembered his unwavering desire to stay away from her as far as possible. "I just need to talk…Please."

It took a short, yet endless moment, but then he finally sighed. "What?"

Mikoto blinked, not having anticipated he would actually let her. She released her tightly wrung hands and licked at her dry lips. "Are you still mad about…well, about what I said…the other day – "

"When you called me a fucking monster?" he finished, tone stoic, and turned back to face her. "So it matters to you now?"

The brunette almost winced back at the sudden and familiar sight of dark, maroon eyes boring into hers and the weight of his words. She looked down at her hands instead, and realized in a daze how close their skin tones were finally coming close to a match. Blanched and china-like. "I guess it does." She offered nervously.

Suspicion and shock almost made him stumble on his step, but he'd quickly caught himself in time. "What? Why the fuck does it now?" he spat angrily. "What difference does it make?"

"It does now. It does for me. I – " she stopped, short on air again. All he could see was the top of her head, but then the girl looked up, chest rising steadily. Her eyes were snapping open again, huge and determined, and he almost blinked when they bore into his in a flash.

Accelerator's jaw twitched when she suddenly took a purposeful stride, then two, three more across the empty space between them, until she was standing right in front of him. Not close to ever touch, but enough for him to incline his head lower to meet her eye to eye, facing each other. It felt wrong, it was wrong, and they both knew it. Her face, usually full of emotion and life, was calm and grey. He stared at the thinness of her wrists and the wry bone jutting out below her neck. He looked at everything of her, and just hoped his face was as equally as still.

"It matters to me." She repeated.

There was no answer to his question yet, so he compelled himself to stay silent. His hands twitched uncomfortably at his sides.

"I was…," she started again, awkwardly. "I wasn't in my right mind."

He looked at her pointedly. Oh the fucking irony. "Really now?"

"Can you just –" she hissed, then as if realizing what she's just done, sucked in another deep breath instead, and sighed. "Let me finish, Accelerator. Please."

It was the second time she's ever said his name since everything happened, although he didn't think the girl even noticed it, not that he would ever tell her so.

The pale Level Five didn't respond. She's clearly decided she was going to continue either way, and he doubted she would let him go if he didn't let her. He did lean back, though, swiftly putting some space between them. Even when not in a body the girl still had a scent, and it was all over the place; clouding the darkened atmosphere like an autumn fog the longer she stayed. It was such a contrast to the perpetual tang of blood and flesh he was used to – not entirely annoying, just fucking suffocating when he had to bask in it every time he was here.

"Look," she said, and he snapped out of his thoughts to focus back on her again. "I won't repeat what happened, because I was dumb and said stuff I shouldn't have. Yeah, typical of me, isn't it?"

He didn't reply, but Accelerator figured his face mush have shown his silent agreement, because the girl looked away with a soft snort, rolling her eyes.

"So yes – that," she continued, lungs depleting. "About the other day? When I…you know."

He nodded, watching the girl's chest rising with each word. For an empty, psychic void she sure as hell was inhaling a lot of non-existent breaths. Her posture was rigid, fingers burrowing knots into the fabric of her peach sweater. He knew what she was prepping herself for, and knew he would eventually wound up feeling lower than the ground if he had to listen to exactly what she was about to spew again.

"I doubt it'd be possible to hate your ass any more than I already do." He finally told her, voice calm and devoid of any emotion. She snapped up at his words right away, dark eyes wide and troubled, and the need to continue with something else buzzed around his tongue.

Accelerator felt his irritation spike, but eventually clenched his eyes shut and sighed loudly. "Consider it dealt with, Railgun."

A fascinating mixture of relief and surprise pooled on the girl's face. "I – really?"

"That," he said squarely, looking down at her with a hot glare as he took a step back. "And this never happened. If you ever bring this stuff up ever again – "

"I won't." She nodded, and shook her head hastily. "I won't."

He wasn't sure if she was just relieved at not having to apologize or finally being able to rid of his temper again, but by this time he was ready to take just about anything to fend off the tension ridging inside for the past three days. They didn't talk about it, but it was there. She wouldn't say it. He sure as shit would leave it there to stem and rot on itself if he had a choice. When their eyes met again, she let him turn away, and he never looked back.

He could feel her when he opened his eyes, and everything was finally much less suffocating.

x

x

x

It was just half an hour later when a high-pitched alarm blasted through the cabin, following by a buzzing transmission from the radio signal. One of the maintenance crew members poked his head out from the door, a wary look on his face as he came to face the Level 5.

"Part A is complete. We can now move on to Part B, and the wall over there will open once Part C begins," he said carefully. "You'll need to get your parachute on."

"I don't need one."

Accelerator muttered with a shake of his head, pushing himself up and dragging the cane with him. He turned to stare at the flat-panel monitor on the wall instead, not bothering to even sparing the other guy a second glance.

The pale Esper was almost tempted to whistle. From above, Avignon looked like it could be a miniature version of Academy City. The borders were ridged up with stone walls, with sky-scrapers shooting up tall and brooding over twisting, loopy streets.

"We're flying at supersonic speed," the other crew member continued, more confident at the Level 5's impressed look. "Air resistance raises the surface temperature of the fuselage significantly. When going at full speed, it approaches 1000 degrees so there's a lot of pipes for liquid coolant throughout the entire thing."

"Liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen?"

"Yes." He nodded. "The pipes have a low freezing point passing through these tanks to increase the cooling effect. Liquid oxygen and hydrogen are used as propellant for space shuttles and they're also a part of what is used as fuel here. But that also means the cooling effect can be lost when we use up the fuel."

Accelerator turned to the guy, red eyes hard and calculating as he contemplated the thought. "So we really are going to London instead of making a U-turn and going back. I can't believe they agreed to give us supplies for the bombers," he said, and almost crackled at the notion. "Fucking hell, not even Japan has given us permission to have bombers."

The other guy chuckled nervously. He turned to finally look at the Esper, lips open for a reply when they were cut off as another alarm reverberated through the cabin.

"Part B is starting!"

He shouted to the rest of the crew, picking up his headphone and sorting through the monitor for surveillance.

Accelerator stood and watched, staring hard at the monitor when another familiar buzzing sound caught his attention. He looked out to the window to see four more bombers surrounding them suddenly changed their course with a high turn, before speeding away into the clouds. His eyes narrowed. He didn't remember seeing a jet black blade the size of the aircraft itself attached to the bottom of the bomber when he boarded the plane.

"Oh that," the crew member said, upon noticing the confused frown on the Esper's face. "Don't worry. Its surface was made so it could electrically contract. In 1/100 millimeter units, the concavity and pattern could be controlled."

Accelerator didn't reply, controlling those blades was the last thing he would be fretting about. A cutlass from one of the bombers sliced through the fluffy clouds like butter, breaking the atmosphere's pattern as wind currents got reverted. The white-haired Esper watched with utmost focus as they shot down the ground below like lightning strikes, cutting Avignon from the borders into square land.

The cabin shook out of motion as a blast broke open the ground into a trench, melting away until it collapsed on itself like a box of Tetris.

"They're trapping the city with a river of lava."

Accelerator blinked, before remembering the familiar presence lodging in him. He looked in to see Misaka Mikoto standing on her feet, peering out at the landscape under them through the plane window. Just as she said, the burned, orange rocks were molten until they were morphed into magma, pouring down the fallen trench and making a circle around the city's borders.

"It's called the 'Earth Blade'," he told her, hooking his hand into a seat handle to keep himself steady in the shaking aircraft. "With this iron sand and those blades, they can probably cut the entire super continent of Eurasia in two if they want. These bastards aren't screwing around alright."

"There's still people in the city."

Mikoto murmured, shaking her head with a deep frown. This wasn't what she'd expected when she read through the text sent to the other Level 5. "Isn't there supposed to be only one target? Why are they trapping the whole city?"

Accelerator thought in disdain at the idea, and gripped tightly at his cane. From the monitor screen, there were still many people stuck inside the old city of Avignon, except those who were lucky enough to be near the powered suit pilots, but he knew the chance of actually escaping was low. The burning lava and the 8000 degree blade would definitely bite before they would even be able to step foot on the pilots.

Inside his mind, Mikoto was a restless, unsettling wraith. Her eyes were hard and narrowed, and her hands were wringing in knots at her sides. She looked to him when she finally noticed his stare, and simply inclined her head in a nod.

"I know." He thought to her, before turning back to the former crew member again. "Hey, change of plan."

"Huh?"

"We're after the Palace of the Popes, right? Focus your attack there first."

At the guy's baffled look, Accelerator sighed, and rolled his eyes. "If that doesn't work then I'll go down there myself. If you don't hear from me after that, feel free to crash the entire old town as planned."

The guy stuttered at the request. "But y…you're only to supposed to go down when Part C begins. The calculations say that we should be able to eliminate the enemy forces with only Part B."

"Oh I trust me. I would know all about the calculations," the Esper said, and glowered dangerously. Red irises darkened at the monitor. "Never again. Change of plan."

The man stiffened at the strange pressure pushing into the air. He had never gotten a chance to look much into the Level 5's powers and abilities, but the white-haired boy was definitely deemed 'The One to wield the Power of God' for a reason. Passing the Esper a quick nod, he made a hasty grab at his radio and started on a new transmission. The man on the other line sounded less than thrilled at the idea, but gave in at the end with a heavy sigh.

"Y-your request was accepted." He told the Esper as he set the radio down, averting his gaze right away at the hardened look on the latter's face. "The plan for Part B has been changed. We will concentrate our attack on the Palace of the Popes."

Accelerator simply nodded, focused and silent as he observed the motions on the monitor screen. The isolated city was a clean cut landscape on the screen, with people scattering high and low like bees broken out of a hive.

"We have to move fast."

Mikoto said, lips curling in as she looked on at the scenery outside. Accelerator didn't reply, but turned away from the monitor instead and held on tight at his cane, readying himself. The addressed crew member was still staring, practically burning a mental hole through his head, and he promptly swiveled back to face the guy, pale brows raising.

"What?"

"Ah…nothing," the man blinked, before inclining his head in confusion. "I was just wondering, but why…?"

Inside his mind, Mikoto choked on her breath, before letting out a humorless snort. The Level 5 clicked his tongue in annoyance.

"It may all look the same to you, but there are different levels of evil out there."

He said simply, just in time a loud warning resounded through the Stealth Bomber, signaling the opening of the bay. The wind quickly shot into the cabin with a harsh blow, sharp and stinging.

Accelerator crutched himself forward, mindless of the blaring force. He titled his head back to find the rest of the maintenance crew members staring at him, dazed and far-flung.

"A first-class villain doesn't target honest lives."

(TBC)

A/N: It's a crap habit of mine to only be able to finish stuff right before Monday starts, so here we are again.

Apparently it's been three weeks? I've been trying (and failing) to stay consistent with the story, and have finally come to only one grand conclusion - school is a total writing cockblock. I'll come back to reedit every chapter later for sure though, too many little, stupid mistakes shhmmn.

But thank you guys, for being patient, favoriting and following. Review as you may~