Hello, everyone! We now enter the Kamisato arc. This new chapter skips into NT15, since I figured that the initial clash between Touma and Kamisato in NT14 would play out similarly.

Aminadab Brulle: This arc is indeed pretty controversial, but I did like the KaMikoto moments in NT15-17. Yes, while Mikoto was talking to Kuroko, Touma was also dealing with Kamisato in the events of NT14.

Rekuta: Yeah, Mikoto does have Touma to comfort her here, though that won't completely alleviate her insecurities. Shokuhou wanted Kuroko's talent, but she is loyal to Mikoto. It would be cool if she and Mikoto got more chances to fight together. That's an interesting idea, though I'm not completely sure of a good way to get the Railgang involved in the fights during the Kamisato arc.

Guest: Mikoto wearing Touma's hoodie would be cute, though since it's bigger than her normal clothes, she'd probably have to wear it over her uniform instead of under.

Hauhentai70: I'll try to focus on the KaMikoto moments in this arc, since those were among the best moments for me.

xellos540: True, the ease of the evacuation wasn't completely explained in canon, but I guess lots of people witnessed the High Priest's rampage that it was believable. That joke might not work in Japanese, but it was too good to exclude. I think the High Priest can control rocks. His argument really was silly, too bad Mikoto was so affected by it. Hmm, you're right about the moon being too far away, though Mikoto said something similar in canon. It was hard for Mikoto to give herself the proper credit here, and it is similar to what Touma has done a few times. Comets do have some rock, which the High Priest can control. I think Touma wanted to break his own arm, and maybe he would have been able to do it on his own? And then the power inside could stop the comet before it got close enough to damage the city. Touma does try to use the most convenient argument, but he really does believe what he said about Mikoto. I think Noukan did enough destruction for Touma to think the High Priest died, and it would be obvious when the High Priest no longer attacked them. The bike was already recharged, but Mikoto could help top it off again. You're absolutely right, and I wish we got to see Mikoto involved usefully in more fights. There have been quite a few fights that she would've taken care of relatively easily, but Touma had to struggle through. Shokuhou's conversation with Kuroko was shown in Astral Buddy. She might have been trying to create some strife between Kuroko and Mikoto, but her request was probably genuine. What Mikoto does next remains to be seen.

dragonghoul9707: NT14 happens pretty much as in canon, and you'll see what happens in this version of NT15. A karaoke data is a fun idea, though I don't really want to insert song lyrics into the text.

Guest: Here is the new chapter.

The next afternoon, on December 4, Mikoto was at her hotel room. She was waiting for Touma to arrive so they could work on purchasing necklaces for her sisters for Christmas. Since there were almost 10 thousand necklaces to pick out, it would likely take a few hours to go through the entire process, so the couple had agreed to meet right after school.

Mikoto sat down on one of the beds and proceeded to pull two laptops out of her bag. One of them was her current laptop, and the other was an older one that she was going to let her boyfriend borrow. She booted up the first one and quickly brought up the spreadsheet she had sent to her sisters a couple of days previously.

The girl took the time to scroll down the entire list, skimming to make sure that each Sister had filled out her row. They were indeed all filled out, and Mikoto proudly smiled at her sisters' diligence. However, there wasn't yet a row for Dolly, so Mikoto quickly added one. Based on what Dolly had said back at the aquarium, Mikoto decided to get her a dolphin necklace. There were a couple other Sisters who'd also picked the same choice, but they'd agreed that this was fine.

As she thought about her sisters, Mikoto suddenly showed a slight frown, as a depressing thought came to her, "Just like I wasn't strong enough to save my sisters, I wasn't strong enough to do much against the High Priest." She let out a sigh, but she realized that this wasn't the best time for her to mope about her insecurities. Instead, she hoped that throwing herself into the present planning work would distract her from those unhelpful thoughts.

There was a big online store that sold a wide variety of necklaces, and Mikoto was pretty sure that she would be able to purchase all of the gifts there. Of course, manually searching through all the different types of necklaces on the website would take forever, so the girl planned to make use of her coding and hacking skills.

She first used some sheet formulas to calculate how many of each type had been requested, and sorted the results by those counts. Overall, there were hundreds of unique types, and so there were an average of 40-50 Sisters requesting each type, though some were more popular than others.

Now came the trickier part. Instead of manually writing code for this, she used her hacking ability to create a webpage that showed the images of the top search results of each of the necklace types. With this setup, all she or Touma had to do was pick out the requisite number of images and click on them, and then she would be able to add them to her cart. As a result, the process would be very efficient, allowing them to finish in a relatively reasonable amount of time.

A part of her was tempted to get started on picking out the necklaces, but she decided to wait for her boyfriend, so that they could start together. She set her laptop aside on the bed, and opened up the other laptop. She turned it on and set up the same kind of webpage, so that both computers were now ready for use. With not much else to do to get ready, she took a moment to relax by lying down on the pillow, looking over at the door.

A little later, Mikoto received a text from her boyfriend, telling her that he'd arrived at her room. A short knock on the door confirmed this, so the girl got up to let him in. She opened the door and greeted, "Hey, Touma!"

Touma placed his hands on her shoulders and gave her a quick kiss, saying, "Hi, Biri-Biri!" As the two of them walked towards the bed, he continued, "Sorry I'm late, Othinus hitched a ride with me to school, so I had to take her back home. For some reason, she refused to stay hidden, and appeared in front of my classmates." Her appearing brazenly out in the open had caused some embarrassing misunderstandings, even if his classmates had seen her as a talking figurine rather than the shrunken form of an international terrorist. Fukiyose had scolded him for carrying a lewdly dressed doll while having a girlfriend, while Tsuchimikado and Aogami had just congratulated him for being confident in his tastes.

Mikoto chucked at his amusing predicament, sitting down on the edge of the bed. But when she looked up at her boyfriend, she noticed that he had a frustrated expression on his face, as if something else more troubling had happened. The girl gently grabbed his left hand with her own, touching their rings together, and asked, "What's the matter? Did something else happen?"

Touma groaned and brought his right hand up to his face, telling her, "After I went home last night, I got involved in some more trouble."

The girl widened her eyes in shock, and she exclaimed, "What? Are you serious?"

The boy grimaced and nodded, "I wish I were joking, but no." He sat down next to Mikoto on the bed and began, "It all involved an annoying guy with a weird right hand and a harem army of girls."

Mikoto wasn't sure she heard him correctly, since what he said seemed so surreal. She smirked and jokingly asked, "Oh, are you talking about yourself?"

Touma rolled his eyes and muttered, "Not you too. I know you're joking, but why does everyone think I have a harem? That's totally ridiculous!"

Mikoto just sighed in exasperation and asked, "Okay, so what exactly happened?"

The boy then took some time to explain what happened the previous night. Apparently, the guy in question was named Kamisato Kakeru, and he had a power in his right hand called World Rejecter that allowed him to banish anyone or anything with conflicting desires, by having the shadow of his hand hit the target. Kamisato thought that all the girls around him only gathered around him because of his special power, so he had gained a grudge against the Magic Gods who had created that power.

When Touma told his girlfriend about how ridiculous Kamisato was for not believing that a bunch of girls could fall for an ordinary high school boy, Mikoto had to hold herself back from groaning at the irony, and this information did nothing to refute her hypothesis that boys were generally morons.

Kamisato had started banishing the Magic Gods. Part of Nephthys's body had been banished, but she had mailed the remaining portion to Touma's dorm doom. Touma and Kamisato had gotten involved in a situation involving Leivinia Birdway and her sister Patricia, both of whom were trying to save each other from death: Patricia from a parasite that had infected her, and Leivinia from her self-sacrificial plan to save her sister. And once that situation had been resolved, with Nephthys sacrificing the rest of her body, Touma and Kamisato had fought with their special right hands against each other.

World Rejecter had defeated Imagine Breaker and destroyed Touma's right arm. But as a result, it had in turn unleashed and been defeated by a power beneath Imagine Breaker.

When she heard the last part, Mikoto reacted, "You really got ensnared in another life-or-death situation during dinner time? And you got your arm cut off again?" She was very concerned that someone had come after Touma after she had parted ways with him, but he did seem fine now. So she continued, "Did one of your dragons come out, or was it something else?" If it had gotten so bad that he'd needed to use what was beneath his right arm, then Kamisato had to be a threat on a level equal to or greater than the High Priest.

Touma nervously scratched his head and answered, "It wasn't the dragons, I think it was that invisible thing that appeared during my fights against Fiamma in Russia and against Othinus in Baggage City."

Mikoto leaned against her boyfriend's shoulder and mused, "Hmm, that's interesting. Do you actively choose what comes out, or is it just whatever's strong enough for the situation?"

The boy thought for a bit, before replying, "That might be it. When I went up against you during the Daihasei Festival, I felt like the one dragon wasn't enough, but I didn't consciously decide how many to bring out."

The girl frowned as she thought about just how great her boyfriend's powers were. This just seemed like confirmation of what she'd suspected before, that Touma had something beneath his right arm that could defeat the High Priest. If that power could defeat someone who could easily get rid of Magic Gods, then it was likely strong enough to defeat Magic Gods itself.

Mikoto looked over at the wall and replied, "I see…I'm sorry you had to go through all that right after dealing with the High Priest, and I'm sorry I wasn't there to help." Though she wondered to herself if she really could have been helpful.

Touma reached over and ruffled his girlfriend's hair, saying, "Don't worry, it all ended up working out, and you didn't have to listen to his ridiculous arguments." After a momentary pause, he sighed and continued, "Or at least, I thought it was over. But you know how we had to temporarily transfer to another school, since the High Priest wrecked ours? It turns out that Kamisato goes to that school! And we butted heads all day."

The girl narrowed her eyes and warned him, "Didn't he just try to kill you last night? You should be careful, Touma, he'll probably go after you again."

The boy frowned and muttered, "Yeah, you're probably right." He hoped that he wouldn't have to fight against Kamisato again, but with his luck, it likely wouldn't be that easy. Wanting to change the subject, he turned to Mikoto and asked, "How about you? Are you feeling better after yesterday?"

Mikoto was a little startled by his question, but she was touched that he was looking after her feelings. She smiled and answered, "Yes, a little bit. I talked to Kuroko about it, and that helped a lot."

Touma wrapped his arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze, saying, "That's good, I'm glad!" He had been saddened by how Mikoto's self-esteem had taken a major hit from the High Priest, so he was glad that she also had friends who could help her.

Mikoto kissed him on the cheek and said, "Me too." Now that they had caught up on the previous night's events, she figured it was now a good time to start their task, so she gestured at the laptops on the bed, saying, "Anyway, let's get started with this."

She picked up both laptops and placed one in her own lap, and the other one in Touma's lap. She explained, "I already set this up using the information from the spreadsheet, so it's pretty simple to use. The webpage will show a bunch of images for each type of necklace, and how many Sisters asked for that type. So you just need to click on that number of images and submit, and it'll move on to the next page. There will be a few hundred of these sets for both of us to go through, but I think we'll be able to do it in a few hours."

Touma was very impressed at how well she had prepared everything. He replied, "Woah, did you use your hacking ability, or just your coding skills?" While Mikoto's ability allowed her to control electronics directly, he knew that she was also pretty proficient in multiple different programming languages.

Mikoto gave him a prideful smirk and answered, "I used my ability to create the webpages, by extracting the search results for each of the different types. It is possible to code this up, but it was a lot easier to do it this way. And once we've finished selecting, I'll use my powers to automatically place the order."

The boy nodded, "Sounds good." He glanced over at the spreadsheet on Mikoto's screen, and saw the list of Sisters with their locations. He then asked in a curious tone, "Hmm, where around the world are they generally located?"

Mikoto quickly answered, "Well, they're located where Academy City has cooperative institutions, so mostly in developed countries. There are particularly a lot of them in the United States and in Europe, but there are also some in the rest of the world too. Though there aren't too many of them in Africa or the Middle East."

This information made sense to Touma, since the facilities were more likely to be located in developed countries. He replied, "I see."

The girl then continued, "Interestingly, it seems that a lot of them have gotten really into their host countries' traditions. Many of them want charms related to those countries. Especially the ones in America."

Touma raised his eyebrow and said, "Oh really? Like American flags or bald eagles or guns?" Those were the American symbols that came to his mind the most immediately.

Mikoto brought her hand up to her face and laughed, answering, "You know, it is a stereotype that all Americans are obsessed with guns. But my sisters have all used guns themselves, so some of them do want gun necklaces."

With the small talk out of the way, the two of them scooted back until they were leaning against the bed's headboard, and started their long task. Mikoto had designed the webpages so that the most popular necklace types would show up first. As a result, a bunch of star necklaces appeared on Touma's screen, while a number of different flower necklaces showed up on Mikoto's screen.

Touma saw that he needed to pick about 70 star necklaces out of the 100 shown on the webpage. He looked over at his girlfriend and asked, "Is there any particular way I should pick these out? Should I just choose what looks good?"

Mikoto nodded and told him, "Yeah, that's fine. Don't sweat it too much, my sisters will be happy that we're taking the time to pick out individual necklaces."

Her words reassured Touma, who began selecting from the star necklaces. Interestingly, there were different kinds of stars, such as 4-pointed, 5-pointed, and 6-pointed ones, as well as a few with even more points. Plus, they also came in different colors of metal. Thus, he was able to pick out ones that were all unique from each other and from Misaka 10039's necklace.

Meanwhile, Mikoto was also able to pick from a wide variety of flower designs, especially since they came in even more colors and designs than the stars. Of course, she made sure not to choose another lotus flower necklace like Misaka 13577 already had.

After completing the first selections, both of them moved on to the next ones, and then the ones after that. Mikoto was initially a bit faster, but Touma quickly got into the routine, and they proceeded at around the same pace.

Since it had come up, Touma asked, "You're going to get other presents for them, right? Since a few of your sisters already have necklaces?"

Mikoto nodded and answered, "That's right, I'm planning to get each of them one or two gifts aside from the necklaces."

Touma playfully laid his head on the girl's shoulder and asked, "Oh, what other presents do you have in mind?"

The girl brought a finger up to her chin and mused, "Good question. I'm going to get each of them a metal hair clip, and I was thinking of engraving their numbers on them with some iron sand."

This was a pretty elegant idea, but Mikoto wasn't totally satisfied with it, since it seemed a little too simple and obvious. Touma thought similarly, and replied, "Hmm, maybe you could do something a little more special? Like make a personalized engraved design?"

Mikoto let out a small sigh and muttered, "I guess I could do that, but that would sort of be too similar to the necklaces. The nice thing about the numbers is that I could easily calculate how to engrave lots of them simultaneously."

This fact surprised Touma a bit, but after pondering it for a second, it made sense given his girlfriend's awesome calculation abilities.

She then continued, "Maybe I can put the numbers in binary instead, or write out their prime factorizations. My sisters would probably like that, don't you think?"

Touma chuckled and answered, "Yeah, they would love something nerdy like that." By this point, he had selected a few hundred necklaces, so he took a short break to rest his fingers, asking, "And what were your other ideas?"

Mikoto decided to rest her hands as well, and intertwined one of her hands with his. She explained, "So I was thinking of those sand sculptures I made on the beach in Hawaii, and thought about sculpting clay or metal figures of each of my sisters. But if I did that, I'd like to make them unique, maybe by having them wear different kinds of clothes. And I don't have any information on what they like to wear."

The boy squeezed her hand and reassured her, "I'm sure it would be fine if they're the same, since it is a lot of work to sculpt them. But maybe you can do that for a future gift, once you learn more about them."

Mikoto gave him a smile and replied, "Maybe. Anyways, for the third set of gifts, I'd like to get them some Gekota-themed clothing. They tease me about it, but they do like Gekota. My main concern is keeping the packages small, since it's already going to be a challenge to send out almost 10 thousand of them."

Touma took his hand back and resumed selecting necklaces on his laptop. While doing so, he noted, "Hmm, ugly Christmas sweaters could make nice presents, but depending on how thick they are, they could take up too much space. And some of them live in hot countries, so winter clothing may not be that useful for them."

Mikoto resumed her half of the work, and agreed, "That's true. Maybe something else, like scarfs, or hats, or socks would be better." As she continued picking out necklaces, she sported a fond smile and said, "I wonder how they'll celebrate Christmas."

The boy thought about the kinds of antics the Sisters might get into. He replied, "There are usually multiple of them at each facility, right? So they'll be able to spend it with each other, and maybe with the other researchers. And maybe they'll hold some kind of celebration over the Misaka Network."

The girl let out a giggle, and experienced a warm feeling in her chest. But she said in a slightly regretful tone, "I wish I could see them all in person for the holiday. But the logistics would be tricky, and they have to hide themselves from the world. Maybe in the future, if things change for the better, we could have big meetups, either in Academy City, or in different places around the world."

Touma started to picture such an event in his head, and joked, "Oh, maybe we could have an annual Misaka Convention. We'd get the opportunity to meet them in person, and maybe they could have different booths showing off their hobbies."

Mikoto was also amused by the idea, and suggested, "Maybe they could also have competitions, like in the Daihasei Festival."

By this point, the two of them had selected about a thousand necklaces. Touma placed his laptop on his lower legs and stretched his arms up in the air, exclaiming, "Man, this really is going to take a while, isn't it?"

Mikoto grinned at him and said, "Well, we're about 10% done. Don't worry, we'll get through it." Feeling a little cheeky, she turned on the bed and laid her head down on her boyfriend's lap, stretching her own legs towards the side of the bed.

Her sudden action startled Touma. He questioned, "What are you doing, Biri-Biri?"

The girl started working on her laptop again and said, "I just wanted to switch my position, and lean against something softer than a headboard."

Touma sighed and muttered, "But you're making it harder for me to work." Indeed, he needed to reach over her head to reach his computer. The girl just chuckled in response, so he sighed and combed his fingers through her soft hair, before continuing to select necklaces.

He then asked, "So, are you actually going to be able to get out for Christmas? You'll have to escape from Tokiwadai's forced community service, right?"

Mikoto groaned at being reminded of that obligation. However, she explained, "I am going to try to escape, and hopefully it'll work." She was still a bit uneasy about working together with Shokuhou to do this, but if it allowed her to see her boyfriend for Christmas, she was willing to take the risk.

A certain image came into Touma's mind. He smirked down at her and teased, "Well, I'm really looking forward to it! Maybe I'll get to see you in a miniskirt Santa costume?"

The girl shifted her head in his lap to look at him, and said with raised eyebrows, "Is this really the time to get horny?"

Touma's cheeks reddened in response. He nervously scratched his cheek and conceded, "Maybe not." Though having Mikoto's head moving in his lap was making it a little hard.

To make it a little easier, she shifted a bit so that she was lying a bit forward on his thighs instead. The two of them then continued their work. It took them a couple of hours, including taking breaks and switching positions, but Mikoto and Touma were eventually able to pick out all 9967 necklaces.

Once they finished, Mikoto went to the online store and used her hacking powers to add all of their selections to the cart. She also searched for some simple metal hair clips. She found a listing for 100-packs, so she also added 100 of those packs to her cart. Then, with a few more clicks, she made the purchase. With that complete, they were finally able to close their laptops and put them away.

The girl then stretched out her arms and legs, exclaiming, "Finally, we're done! Thanks Touma!" She gave her boyfriend a kiss on the cheek.

Touma groaned in exhaustion, and promptly slumped against his girlfriend's shoulder. After the constant clicking required to select almost 5000 necklaces, his fingers had started to cramp, and his mind was pretty tired. He closed his eyes and began resting.

Mikoto smiled at him and closed her eyes as well, leaning against his head. She also began to doze off, and Touma wrapped his arm around her waist. They settled into that comfortable position, tired from their hard work, but feeling very satisfied.

Late that night, Mikoto was taking a walk by herself, following alongside a river a short distance from District 7's shopping center. She was glad that she'd gotten to see Touma again and to order the gifts for her sisters. But now that she was back by herself, her thoughts turned back to the incident with the High Priest.

With it only being a day afterwards, there were still visible signs of damage around the city, even if the people of the city had mostly recovered from the sudden evacuation. And in addition, there were also mental scars, at least for her.

Mikoto still wished that she could have been more helpful against the High Priest. And it still felt to her that, at least in terms of power, Touma was at a further stage than her. She knew that he would remain by her side no matter what, but she didn't want to always be the one needing saving. Kuroko had urged her to not give up on getting stronger, but it was easier said than done.

She was the 3rd Ranked Railgun, which put her among the most powerful espers in Academy City. But this status of hers was also a restraint. Even if she continued her esper development, mastered the city's curriculum, and discovered new applications of her control over electromagnetism, she wouldn't even be able to surpass the 1st Ranked Accelerator, let alone approach the same ballpark as a Magic God's power.

But it wasn't like she could just give up on her esper powers and learn magic, either. After all, it was too dangerous, and even if that weren't the case, it wasn't guaranteed that she would become a strong magician.

She wondered to herself, "Did I develop in the wrong direction? Maybe I would have been stronger if I started out as a magician. But then I wouldn't have come to Academy City and met Touma, my friends, or my sisters."

Having followed the river for a while, the girl now walked onto a large bridge. She took a moment to lean her arms on the railing and look down at the water. Mikoto had hoped that the cold air would stimulate her thoughts and give her some sort of idea on how to resolve her problem. But so far, her mind was drawing a blank.

Any further thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps on that solid bridge. When Mikoto looked up, she saw a barefoot girl dressed in translucent raincoats and carrying a heavy sports bag.

The girl seemed to be eating something, though Mikoto couldn't see what it was. In fact, it was a leather paddle. She seemed to be displeased with the taste, and then tore it in two with her bare hands. Upon seeing this, Mikoto knew that the other girl was very dangerous, and her heart started to race.

The dangerous girl slowly approached her and said, "Misaka Mikoto." Hearing her name caused Mikoto to tense up, and the other girl continued, "Yes, you're a much better option than Hamazura Shiage. He's worked with Kamijou Touma, but he's essentially part of a different circle. Attacking him wouldn't do much damage to the Kamijou Faction. But I couldn't find a better target than Kamijou Touma's girlfriend. Once I take you out, the entire house of cards will collapse."

Mikoto stood up to face the other girl and asked, "Who are you?" She felt very tense, not mainly because this person knew her name and was directly threatening her, but because she was being targeted for her relationship to Touma.

The other girl pondered that question and mused, "Hmm, what should I call myself? Should I simply go with Salome? Or should I say that I'm a mass murderer? No wait, since I'm picking a fight with the Kamijou Faction, this is the best way." She picked up the toy pocket watch hanging around her neck and kissed it, before finishing, "You can call me Kamisato Kakeru's little sister! Though we're not blood-related."

Mikoto clenched her fists, recognizing the name of the boy who had gone after Touma the previous night. It seemed like Salome was one of the girls in Kamisato's crazy harem, and since she didn't seem like an esper, Mikoto figured that she was probably a magician.

She tried to push down her fear and narrowed her eyes at Salome, saying, "A mass murderer? Well, I have met a few of those before."

Salome gave her a malicious grin and replied, "Oh that's right, you've met Accelerator, Mugino Shizuri, Kinuhata Saiai, Frenda Seivelun, and Takitsubo Rikou. But even so, don't think that's enough to prepare you against me."

With that, Salome immediately rushed towards Mikoto like a bullet, sticking out her tongue and licking her lips. Mikoto gritted her teeth and reflexively released a burst of lightning from her bangs towards her opponent.

An explosive noise rang out, but Mikoto could immediately tell that her billion volt lightning spear hadn't hit Salome. Her radar told her how Salome was moving, but Mikoto found it hard to believe the results. Instead of running past her or jumping over her, Salome was dancing around, and Mikoto incredulously questioned, "Can human joints really move like that?"

A distorted voice said from behind Mikoto, "Too slow." Mikoto didn't bother turning around. She briefly thought about magnetically pulling on the pocket watch around Salome's neck, but for some reason, she felt that it would be a very bad idea to mess with that item.

So instead, Mikoto gathered some iron sand from her surroundings. She formed it into a vibrating sword and launched it directly behind her. It was one of her most powerful attacks, generally being able to slice through anything. But as the iron sand sword reached Salome, it was mercilessly destroyed.

Mikoto's reliable sensation of that weapon had vanished. It was different from Accelerator's reflection. It was more like Touma's negation ability, though not exactly the same. She turned to face Salome, her jaw dropping in shock.

Salome was smiling, and she spoke once again, "External Offering." At that moment, two violent attacks crossed paths between them. One of them was another lightning spear from Mikoto. The other was a swing of Salome's right hand. This should not have reached Mikoto, but the ground at her feet and the railing of the bridge was torn into. Mikoto leaned back to avoid the attack, but a few strands of her hair were cut away.

Though Salome's attack was invisible, it wasn't some mysterious magical attack. Mikoto recognized it with her ability and realized, "An iron sand sword?"

Salome simply said, "Correct."

Mikoto immediately jumped backwards and launched another iron sand sword at her opponent, but Salome used her invisible sword to interfere with and destroy the original attack. Mikoto deduced, "Your ability isn't just destruction or negation. You can absorb an attack and gain its traits and destructive power!"

Salome clenched and unclenched her hand as she replied, "It's not too shocking. I'm using a Celtic system, but there are similar things all over the world. By destroying a specific weapon and abandoning it at a designated place, it acts as a sacrifice and a prayer for victory. A living sacrifice is just an extreme version of this, but the original form of a sacrifice is to use an object that doesn't require taking a life."

Mikoto carefully listened to her explanation, replying, "So you can absorb any weapon you destroy?"

Salome smirked and answered, "Bingo. But if it's too powerful for me to destroy, or if it doesn't function as a weapon, I can't absorb it."

On hearing this, Mikoto deduced, "So the only attack of mine that won't get absorbed is my lightning spear. But she's already able to dodge that." But there was one thing she still didn't get, so she asked, "How did you destroy my iron sand sword in the first place? That shouldn't be normally possible! Did you use some other magic to do that?"

Her opponent grinned at her and said, "I think I've revealed too much already, but I'll just say that my body is a little different than normal." Salome then immediately charged towards Mikoto and unleashed her invisible iron sand sword.

Mikoto countered again with her own iron sand sword, and the two weapons just cancelled each other out. This went on for a bit, but then Mikoto unleashed a new technique. Since Salome's iron sand sword retained the traits of the original attack, Mikoto was able to use her magnetism to disrupt it and completely cancel it out. Upon doing so, she smirked at Salome and boasted, "Two can play at that game. This isn't the first time someone has copied my abilities!" Indeed, Shundan Kimi had been able to copy her electric attacks and even her railgun.

Salome wasn't fazed by this, and asked, "Are you really just going to use the same attacks over and over again? That won't get you anywhere."

In response to this, Mikoto began to chuckle, saying, "What, and give you even more weapons to use? If you can destroy my iron sand sword with your bare hands, I doubt even my full-powered railgun would do much." This was tough for the prideful girl to admit, but with how many times her signature move had been ineffective, including most recently against the High Priest, there wasn't much choice.

Mikoto then tried to think about what she could try that would actually work. So far, the main threat from Salome was the invisible iron sand sword, since she hadn't demonstrated any original offensive abilities of her own. Her eyes narrowed in on the bag that her opponent was carrying, and she mused, "I have a good guess of what's in that bag." She could tell that there weren't any metal objects in the bag, a testament to how well Salome had prepared for this fight.

The girl sent out another lightning spear towards Salome, who responded by charging in towards Mikoto, while dancing around the electrical attack. Salome was about to launch another attack against her opponent, but she suddenly felt the weight on her shoulder shift.

In fact, while distracting Salome with her electric attack, Mikoto had collected a small, invisible amount of iron sand. She had then used it to slice open Salome's bag. Since Salome was running forward, the contents of the bag spilled backwards onto the ground.

After deflecting Salome's attack, Mikoto could now see that the bag had contained a wide variety of weapons, all made of wood, stone, or other nonmetal materials. She placed a hand against her hip and said with a smirk, "Just like I thought, you brought some spare ammunition just in case I didn't provide you with any weapons." With a flick of her wrist, she used the iron sand to completely eviscerate all those weapons, leaving her opponent unable to use them for her External Offering.

Despite this setback, Salome just gave Mikoto a malicious grin and slowly clapped, saying, "Wow, to be honest, I didn't expect you to figure that out so quickly." She immediately stopped clapping and added, "Though if you think you've beaten me, you're sorely mistaken."

Mikoto replied with another lightning spear. But this time, Salome didn't dance around the attack, or counterattack with an invisible iron sand sword. Instead, she held out her arm to receive the attack.

To Mikoto's shock, though the high voltage bolt slightly scorched the skin of her arm, Salome was essentially unharmed. Mikoto questioned in a confused tone, "What? Why didn't that work?" She could tell that Salome had deliberately taken her attack to demonstrate her invulnerability.

Salome simply answered, "Like I told you before, my body is different from normal. So even if you do land hits on me, you won't defeat me."

She expected Mikoto to be at least a little intimidated by this information. But her opponent's reaction was completely unexpected. Mikoto started laughing, "Heh, heh heh…"

Salome saw a crazed look on Mikoto's face, and demanded, "Why the hell are you laughing?"

Mikoto didn't know what her face looked like, but she didn't want to know. She said out loud, talking more to herself than to Salome, "Of course, of course you would have that sort of magical ability! I came out tonight looking for a stimulus, and here it is just waltzing up to me!" She wondered, but did not want to know, if her eyes were filled with the shadows of a hopelessly dark new moon, or the light of a hopelessly bright full moon.

Salome realized what was happening and said, "I hate dealing with stuff like this. You've gotta be going insane." As an insane mass murderer herself, she could detect the signs.

In reply, Mikoto grinned and exclaimed, "More, give me more! This will definitely take me in the right direction. If I gain more experience fighting against and defeating magicians like you, I can continue to get stronger!"

Salome then muttered, "Ugh, I'm crazy enough to be a mass murderer, but you're going to reach a similar state if you continue in this direction."

Mikoto didn't think her odds were too bad, given that she had cut off Salome's supply of weapons. She would still have to presumably deal with her copied iron sand sword, as well as her durable body, but she had faced tougher opponents before. However, it was still risky, and if she continued the fight, there was a chance she could die. And she definitely did not want to leave Touma, her friends, and her sisters behind.

Fortunately, she didn't have to end up making that choice. For at that moment, another girl interrupted the fight, shouting, "Stop that, Salome! Why would you try to create a super opponent who can keep up with you?"

A glasses-wearing girl had wrapped ivy around the bridge's railing and launched herself onto the bridge next to Mikoto. When Mikoto looked at her, she saw that the girl had giant tropical flowers on either side of her head. She could tell that the new girl was an esper, and was reminded of her friend Uiharu.

Salome said in response, "Claire, I didn't know she would be like this."

The girl named Claire fired back, "Shut up, mass murderer!" She then turned to Mikoto and scolded her as well, "You're lucky that you managed to destroy her weapons before she could get her chain going off. If she absorbs enough weapons, she'd be strong enough to instantly destroy the White House!"

This respite allowed Mikoto to finally take a more rational stock of the situation. Claire's words were confirmed by the wide array of weapons that Salome had had in her sports bag. And they seemed to imply that Salome's chain would break if not refreshed with a new weapon within a certain amount of time. This made Mikoto realize that Salome had possibly lost the ability to use the invisible iron sand sword already. Though in an environment like Academy City with high tech weaponry, Salome remained dangerous even if temporarily disarmed.

As Mikoto pondered these implications, the other two girls got into an argument. Salome and Claire, who Mikoto recalled Touma mentioning earlier, strongly disagreed on whether Kamisato needed any killing done on his behalf. Eventually, both Salome and Claire vanished from the bridge, though Mikoto could deduce from her radar that they were fighting on top of the water.

Now that her mind had caught back up to reality, Mikoto felt chills in her body as she went back over what had just happened. Salome had tried to kill her, and if she had used the weapons in her bag from the start, Mikoto likely would have been toast. Realizing this, she dropped down onto the ground, looking up blankly at the night sky.

Mikoto felt haunted by Salome's last words to her. Was she really going crazy? She didn't want to believe it. After all, there was nothing wrong in her wanting to get stronger to help protect the boy she loved, right? But somehow, she didn't feel convinced by this argument.

But as the girl prepared to stand on unsteady legs, she asked herself, "What am I going to do? If this is going in the wrong direction, am I just supposed to remain normal and stay exactly where I am already?"

Unfortunately, she couldn't properly answer that question, at least not yet. With the cold wind striking her, she finally stopped shaking and stood up on her two legs. It was time for her to head back home.