In the dark of night, you could almost be forgiven for falling for the sparkling façade Academy City presented to the world; glittering swaths of color reflecting off gleaming mechs and chrome-plated windmills. Distant twinkling lights that gave the illusion of starshine that had strayed a step too close to the ground. A twisting, towering pillar of sparkling glass and silver-white metal standing sentinel over every building for miles around, the world's very first fully functional space elevator both a marvel to behold and a symbol of the scientific advancements that made the city-state the envy of every country around the world, putting to shame even the works of the greatest minds housed on the man-made I-Island.

The city's face was glamorous, almost fantastical. Mankind's first true steps into science fiction made reality since the dawn of the age of Quirks.

Anyone could easily be forgiven for falling for it.

Yoshikawa Kikyou did not fall for it, not anymore. Not for a long time.

She knew firsthand, better than most, the cesspit of human suffering the city's glitz and glamor did a fantastic job of hiding. Six years spent working as a researcher here in this city, the crown jewel of the scientific world, had exposed her to so, so much of Academy City's rotting underbelly. It was a miracle that it had taken this long for the city's rancid corruption, that had long since seeped and spread across the works of her hands, to have finally now reversed course.

A religious person might have called it bad karma. A vindictive person might have called it fate's retribution. Kikyou herself thought it the inevitable conclusion to a six year downward spiral of sacrificing her morals, her integrity, any concept of her human decency in the name of research whose benefits had never been remotely worth it.

Tonight of all nights, the worth of all her efforts had never seemed more wasted, more rotten.

Tonight of all nights, she pressed the gas peddle halfway to the floor and held on for dear life. Basic traffic safety laws and proper highway etiquette flew right out of her head. She raced around the sea of twinkling lights and glittery storefronts, weaving in and out between cars and delivery trucks. Ignoring the blaring of angry horns as she careened forward, she twisted dangerously onto the exit ramp she'd been praying to see for the last eight minutes.

"Come on, come on, come on," she chanted, heart hammering as she dared a glance at the clock. 20:11. Their ten minutes were almost up. "Please, please, please-"

What was happening over there?! Had the boy's gamble worked? Was it actually possible for him to stand in for the Incubator, spare the girl her fate? Had he- had he been forced to admit defeat and done as Kikyou had said, and been forced to kill-?

20:12. Less than a minute, now.

Stomach churning, Kikyou reached down to the cupholder to snatch up the phone she hadn't had the nerve to hang up, but had been forced to toss aside to keep both hands on the wheel during her mad dash across town. Settling it in place and smooshing the cheap plastic against her ear with her shoulder, Kikyou could barely focus on slowing her car enough she wouldn't go skidding into a brick wall when she turned finally onto the darker, mercifully emptier streets she needed to.

"Accelerator, please listen to me," she began, tone admirably level as she nearly took a turn too hard and her wheels skidded dangerously for purchase for a moment. "If you can hear me, I am so sorry, but we're out of time here. If you haven't successfully managed to purge the virus, you need to dispose of Last Order, right now. There's nothing else you can do at this point."

No answer. Of course not.

Cursing colorfully, Kikyou pressed the phone even harder against her head until the plastic creaked in protest, the round edges pressing painful divots into her skin. She wished this weren't an outdated burner phone so she could actually turn the volume up high, she wished her stubborn fool of a student hadn't tossed his phone away, she wished she could just hear what was happening-

She shouldn't have been so insistent on abandoning the girl. She should have listened when he told her he could stand in for the Incubator unit to destroy the virus. She should have done her best to help and guide him through the process rather than doubt, refuse him, make him toss his phone aside in frustration.

Should have, should have, should have, always should have, just another list of things she should have done-

A voice, deeper than she'd been expecting, but too garbled and distant to properly make out. Kikyou slowed more for another turn, pulse racing. Who was that? Was Amai still-?

The cheap little speaker cracked with a cacophonous explosion of sound right into her ear. Kikyou dropped the phone with a yelp she could barely hear on one side.

It took a couple of seconds in the trembling, ringing silence for Kikyou to realize that the sound had been a gunshot.

She slammed on the brakes.

Had she still been flying full-tilt down the highway, she certainly would have been crushed. Some distant, lightheaded part of her sincerely regretted that she wasn't.

As it was, she came screeching to a halt on a road she hadn't even realized had been familiar until it came into sudden focus as she stopped. Her GPS, which had kept mercifully silent on this slapdash rush to save the world, chimed to helpfully inform her that she was less than a block away from her destination.

20:13. Relieved, hysterical laughter echoed out of those tinny little speakers.

A man's voice. Not the teenager she'd been hoping for, triumphant in his defiance of his teacher's demands and fate's gamble.

She knew that voice. Amai wouldn't be laughing if her student had succeeded. He wouldn't even be alive.

He'd lost. They'd lost. She'd failed him, this one time she'd had the chance to really help him, to do something right, and she'd failed miserably-

Something cold-hot tingled at the tips of her fingers.

Kikyou's adamantine grip on the steering wheel loosened as she stared blankly at the empty road ahead.

She could barely even begin to comprehend-

If her student had failed to eliminate the virus in time, the Sisters would already be on the move, marching in tune to orders they had no choice but to obey-

A number of Sisters still resided within Academy City, in a certain place in District 7, within spitting distance of the most sophisticated weapons technology in the world.

Once the carnage started, the casualties would reach staggering heights within minutes.

It was all over. Just by remaining within the city, she was likely in immediate danger.

What did it even matter? Her student was either dead or dying, hundreds of millions of innocent people were about to join him, and the man responsible was laughing about it. She almost hoped everything burned down, if only to cook Amai alive along with the rest of them, but there was still the very real chance Academy City's security measures would prevent most of the destruction from truly hitting the city-state.

Tears threatened to blur her vision as Kikyou swallowed harshly against the burn of bile creeping up her throat.

Okay.

Okay, Amai may have succeeded, but nothing was over yet; the little snake could still take advantage of the chaos about to erupt throughout the city and slip away.

That wasn't going to happen. Not while Kikyou was alive and breathing.

Dashing her tears away roughly, Kikyou released one white-knuckled grip from the steering wheel and leaned over to snap open the glovebox, snagging the small pistol inside and bringing it to rest in her lap.

Her hands shook as she clicked the magazine open and double-checked her ammo – still loaded, good – but she did not falter when she popped the door open to climb out of the car. She'd make the rest of the way on foot; if Amai heard the engine he'd definitely flee into the night, and she knew she wasn't a good enough shot to risk a moving target.

She may have proven herself a useless teacher and an even more useless hero tonight, but if the best she could offer was some paltry retribution by unloading her tiny pistol's meager handful of bullets into Amai's laughing face, she'd have to settle for that.

He was still laughing. An ugly, heaving swell of disgust, fury, frustration clawed at her all at once; Kikyou slapped the burner phone closed, cutting off Amai's euphoria, and stumbled out of the car.

She wasn't quite afraid, too tied up in knots to feel much of anything, but six years of her every move being scrutinized under a microscope had taught her to be wary of street cameras; she was shoving the pistol into the pocket of her lab coat before she could even think of it.

The gun thumped against something solid and square. Kikyou paused.

Not a lousy burner, but her actual phone this time.

For a moment, she almost carelessly continued on – it was far too late to call on Anti-Skill or Judgement for assistance, and they would have their hands full dealing with the uprising of Sisters Amai had instigated soon enough, but the hospital-

She bit her lip.

If… If either of the children were still alive where she was going, they'd need medical assistance Kikyou wouldn't be able to offer.

It was, perhaps, foolish to hope either of them were still alive. But.

Gut churning, Kikyou fished her phone out, pressing buttons without really seeing them. She didn't really listen to the emergency dispatcher's professionally detached inquiry for her location and the nature of her emergency, barely heard her own voice when she requested an ambulance to arrive prepared to treat multiple casualties outside the long-abandoned Higuchi Pharmacology Research lab in District 19. Carelessly hung up over the woman's concerned attempt to demand more details, and began her quiet march around the lab's fenced perimeter.

Amai had apparently been hidden around the back, near the delivery entrance, in a small alleyway with only one real way in or out now that the facility's gates were firmly closed.

Accelerator had been right: the panicking rat had stranded himself in the most obvious trap and now had no other option left, aside from clinging on to as many hapless souls as possible, too pitiful to drown by himself.

A coward to the very end, shooting a teenager trying his best to save a child, all so he wouldn't die alone.

A coward to the end…

Marching toward what could very well be her own death, Kikyou contemplated her phone for a moment. Tapped a couple of buttons, grimly regarded the tiny warning message that popped onscreen, before typing out a long sequence of numbers, allowed her thumbprint to be read, then smiled briefly as a facial recognition scan compared her to her staff picture on file.

Finally, one last little cautionary screen appeared, asking her 'Are you sure you wish to send file subject_codename_accelerator0001 to Hospital 4?'

She reread the little message prompt three times.

Yoshikawa Kikyou had always been soft, not kind. Timid, not brave. Six years in this city had long since taught her the difference.

But if tonight was to be her last night on this earth, there was at least one brave kindness that needed doing.

Perhaps this wouldn't be enough to make up for Radio Noise or Level Six Shift – nothing would ever make up for Level Six Shift, not even if she was a saint who fed the poor and lived a hundred thousand years – but at the very least… at the very least, her one student who she may have just gotten killed tonight would not go to his grave anonymous and forgotten.

He had never come to her for advice or reassurance, had disregarded her every time she had attempted to offer it. They had been teacher and student on paper only, but she knew well enough whose fault that really was; working alongside the war criminals calling themselves scientists on Level Six Shift more than justified that distrust.

She never would have been able smile proudly at him on graduation day, not even if he had lived to see it.

She couldn't return innocence or a childhood or a life unlived, unloved, but perhaps...

Perhaps, at the very least, she could give him something.

A chance that someone might remember him, if for no other reason than as a mystery that needed solving rather than family to be mourned.

It was a cruel kindness, the only kind she seemed capable of; his family would certainly never thank her for this. What were you meant to be grateful for, learning that the happiness you'd lived for years was a lie, that a precious puzzle piece had been torn away from your life and you should only discover it when it was far too late to change anything – but they would know now nonetheless.

Without a family to come knocking about a body or a funeral, Academy City would simply set tonight aside as a stumbling footprint on the beach, to be erased completely by the tides, never to bother anyone again.

She couldn't, wouldn't allow that. Not anymore. Not ever again.

Yoshikawa Kikyou was a woman who had allowed far too much, and failed to help even more.

The only thing worse than being ignorant was being a bystander.

The only thing worse than being a bystander was being an accomplice.

Kikyou was tired of being all three.

There's no more time for her doubts or regrets. She hit send.

Kikyou had just set her phone back into her pocket when she rounded the corner, caught sight of Amai's prized sports car crumpled like a discarded soda can not twenty feet away, and paused.

Two voices were arguing, a bit too far away to understand the words, but whatever they were saying didn't matter. Amai was still here. Perfect.

Kikyou breathed in, and said goodbye.

Goodbye to a life of turning the other way, goodbye to a career of sacrificing her integrity, goodbye to the soft smiles she had given those Sisters she had designed and trained and gently sent off to the slaughter.

She said goodbye to a boy whose name she'd never known, would never know, and goodbye to the little girl he'd died attempting to save in defiance of Kikyou's orders to kill her.

Kikyou breathed out. Her hand found her pistol, and she walked forward.


In a certain hospital somewhere, within an empty office, an inactive computer's screensaver trailed rainbow squiggles across a screen that shone brightly in the dark. The computer made a vague little chime, informing it's absent owner that a new email had been received, before it went back to painting a pink-purple-green octagon.


Her hands did not shake this time, not when she pointed her pistol, not even when the cold muzzle of Amai's own gun pressed against her sternum.

For a moment, Yoshikawa Kikyou allowed herself to believe she might be brave.


The last night of summer vacation ended with dual gunshots echoing through a dismal, shadowed street, punctuated by the dull thud of two bodies meeting the asphalt opposite each other, before all faded back to silence.

Far from the center of the city, it would be ten long minutes before the quiet darkness would be interrupted by the piercing wail of sirens and the dizzying flash of emergency lights flooding in to announce the arrival of a pair of ambulances.

In their absence, the woman's body lay on it's side, a puddle dyed crimson slowly spreading beneath the dim light of the moon. Unbidden, skeletal white fingers crawled across the ground to catch the teacher's ankle in a vice-grip. The pool of blood abruptly stopped spreading.


A/N: Happy "shot-in-the-head-iversary", Accelerator! As a present, here's some blood relatives you never expected to meet :)