A Certain Influx of Time Traveling Mishaps

by NeoShadows

Kamijou Touma's tale has ended. A New Magic God has risen in the future, taken over the world, and set its sights to the past for more power. Luckily, or unluckily for one unfortunate high school boy, those who have inherited Imagine Breaker's will have chased after it. When Future meets the Past, a new story is created. All to the misfortune of a certain Kamijou.

14. Those Moved By Intangible Motions

NeoShadows back at it again!

Swear to god, I was already planning on updating last night after working up the energy to go over the final reading but found myself distracted by a notification popping up on my phone.

Ya want someone to blame? Than would WwEpsilonwW and his story Misfortune No One Sees. Never before would I have found myself anticipating a reaction fic of all things after growing out of such a cringy type of story build. Probably has to do with the fact, other than a few pieces he wrote himself, the scenes everyone is reacting to are canon and not made up fantasies by fans. If ya haven't already read it, I do really encourage ya to do so. God knows I was up late at night reading despite having to wake up around 5am to clock into work at 6am.

Plus I had some work related documents that needed my attention before I go through the final proof read; I may even be drunk as we speak thanks to all the beer and Irish coffee I had before I got home from another day of work.

Sleep deprivation and the ever growing threat of alcoholism aside, I got this well cooked slab of a chapter up and ready to serve at last! Been meaning to release this document for some time now but everytime I tried to do so, I found myself too distracted or too tired to go through those final check offs that would allow it to be uploaded. Even now I'm yawning and doing my best to keep my eyes open after another long day of work and guzzling coffee. I can't even bring myself to grind for resources in Genshin Impact or muster the energy to explore Inazuma before the next big update; there are only three islands and I don't even have more than 30% of one island completed, let alone finish the main story quests to face Baal.

Least I finished Neo: The World Ends With You after bing playing it for two weeks at ever opportunity I had. I'm definitely going to be playing the OST while I write. Your Ocean is fucking killer!

But enough of my mundane life. Let's get those reviews out of the way!

DNWorks: Do you expect such an important reality shattering fight to play out so soon? No, no no, that's not how his misfortune works. And you're right about the future Kamijou Touma being a bit of a...I wouldn't say jerk but his actions that have affected his extensive family had caused plenty of troubles. Come the next arc we got coming, you'll all understand more concerning the Kamijou family and the ruined world they escaped.

Anime-ted Life116: Eh, isn't it all in they eyes of the beholder? Good, bad, awesome, disastrous; it's all up to the reader to decide for themselves. I'm just happy to have people reading my fic is all. I'll try to give your own a read too when I can since I'm always on the lookout for another story to keep me excited. Speaking of a certain Fallen Angel Maid Saint's kids, we've got some fun in store for our beachside vacation!

Craytherlay: To me, a child who takes after a Kihara's morbid curiosity and possessing Kamijou's unbreakable resolve and tenacity, is simply terrifying. And Kihara Shinzo is one of the more deadly children to arrive to this new present. Someone as manipulative and knowledgable in the matters of the human hearts is going to have a great deal of impacts on the story's shape. I suppose If Touma ever fully took after that dragon aspect he keeps rejecting than his children would be the same.

Airchampion: If there's anyone who can save a Kihara from themselves than it would have to be Touma. I think that's one of the reasons why Kihara Byouri was weak to Enshuu as she copied after their natural enemy' behavioral patterns and fighting style. Knowing the Kami-yan Disease, if those two actually fought, even that Kihara who was fond of giving up would probably fall for the embodiment of never giving up.

...Shit, why has no one written a fic about this yet?! I need more crackfics in this sect!

TheBiggestLoser: Aw, shucks! Ya make this borderline workaholic/alcoholic/coffeeholic blush. As for donations; eh, I've never really been into the idea of setting something like a or anything similar. I write as a hobby, not because I want to make money off of it. That would just put pressure on me and I feel as if it would ruin my fun if I was given money for this. But if I ever go into writing for doujins or comic panels, I'll let fans like you know for support. As for the One Punch Man and ToAru crossover, I don't think I'd be fit for such a thing. I'm not too involved in One Punch Man; I've read a few chapters and watched the first season but that's about it really. Besides, I've already been working on a few secret projects in my free time that I won't release until I'm satisfied. And due to reasons, alternate future children won't appear. That don't mean new love interests won't appear!

Surya25addanki: ToAru is definitely a series better consumed through both anime and light novels. It's because of this series I even got into reading light novels: it was my first. I know BakuTsuki(I believe?) has both NT and GT available to read for free but OT you would have to buy; unless you decide to read Misfortune No Sees, Until Now by WwEpsilonwW which helps a new fan get a good idea of the story. I've never been grateful to the fan who recommended it to me all those years ago.

Guest: Yeah, we ToAru writers tend to write a ton per chapter. Pfft, MrQuestionMark and WwEpsiolonwW out do me by miles. As for Shinzo that waits to be seen. We've only just begun to scratch the surface of his true intentions and his origins.

Zatil Hidayah Spensa: Good list, good list. But you do have a few wrong; not that I would tell ya~! Ohohohohohohoh! Accelerator's daughter is a shocker for sure! You're just going to have to wait until we start the next arc to find out. The girl with ink green hair is another surprise that I can't wait to release!

TazalTerminals: Misfortune-kun? Don't you mean Misfortune-chan? If concepts had gender, misfortune is a yandere constantly stalking her beloved spiky boy with a creepy crescent moon smile. Seriously, someone write this shit down!

Idharpatangari: Other Leivinia, you got a good read on those mothers. As for the daughter's of Accelerator and Hamazura, well, they both see their odd and misfortunate uncle in strange lights. Without a doubt, he is something of an uncle to them both. Out of all the children, Saten's daughter is definitely the one of the large litter to have taken after their father and his ways. Specifically, his saying of acting on what bothers you. All the others possess certain aspects of that hero but none can be said to have fully followed after his shadow. Just because the apple fell of the tree, don't mean that it'll grow into the same exact tree. Don't worry about your review being too long. I love those lengthy reviews the most!

And that should do it! With the reviews out of the way, we get to the good stuff ahead! Scroll away!

---

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to A Certain Magical Index. All rights are reserved to Kazuma Kamachi.

Too tired for anything else right now. Work is tiring and there is only so much coffee can do. The only thing to keep my spirits up is the thought of rolling for Baal in Genshin Impact. I need my beautifully sexy tyrannical Onee-san with a booba sword to soothe all the aches awaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

---

Chapter 14: Those Moved By Intangible Motions.

Regain_The_SELF.

[-]

Pain.

All he could feel right now was pain.

Aches burned across all his muscles as if the exposed organic fibers had been pecked by a searing orange glowing steel stamp. His lungs were crushed against his rib cage to the point he could hear a disturbing rubber-like groan from inside. Every nerve was crying and begging him to let go of tension he was gathering like a cold spring and charge forward.

Everything hurt. Not even the pain medication Nurse-san and Kamiko-san had given him almost half an hour ago was doing him any good in silencing the raw trauma he was still experiencing.

Droplets of sticky red seeped from his trembling right fist.

The sound of threads snapping from his cursed hand only caused more red to slither in trails of raging crimson.

Kamijou Touma should have been laying back in a hospital bed. He should have been too weak and too tired to so much as step off the mattress without a crutch to help him take even a single step forward. It had already been an eventful day with several visitors stopping by before the clock on the wall struck ten to announce the official visitation hours. Once the morning was almost over, he would be visited by Index and Angela before he was sent off for further surgery to patch up the remaining damage to at least seven bones in his right arm. If all went well, he would be released in two days, so long as he didn't aggravate his injuries any further.

This was a time where he had no need to sit up from his bed.

This was a time where had no need to stand on his worn out feet.

This was a time where his strained muscles should be relaxing.

This was a time where his mangled right had should have never been making a fist.

But the sight of certain P.E. Teacher/Anti-Skill Lieutenant being dragged around like a piece of leaking garbage being taken outside to be thrown out had unleashed churning liquid fire throughout his damaged body.

Anger.

Hatred.

Fear.

A plethora of dark emotions acted as the fuel to start up his damaged engine and create a pulse.

Even if everything did hurt.

How the fuck could he ignore the woman suffering at the hands of a smugly grinning bastard!?

"Are you fucking deaf?"

His voice was deathly low, quivering with raw simmering anger ready to erupt violently in a seething spray.

His muscles screeched at the slightest twitch in reaction to his desire to pummel the cool-faced lab coat-wearing son of bitch standing a few measly feet away from him.

"I said; LET YOMIKAWA-SENSEI GO, YOU PIECE OF SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!"

No more standing around.

No more staring!

If he didn't release the boiling rage churning hatefully in his stomach, he was sure his heart would pop.

Fist wet with blood as his sutures snapped, Touma released a roar from deep within his heart and charged at the cruel boy with the words Dog Life printed on the breast of his shirt.

"Kamijou-san! What do you think you're doing?!"

A hand reached out to take a hold of Touma. Ya-san, the Tokiwadai middle school girl playing nurse under a learning program, tried to stop him from giving in to his anger and attacking.

Small, slender, and soft fingers brushed against his shoulder.

Breaking glass was heard.

Had something unseen been negated? Was the shock of the strange sensation brought on by Ya-san's touch erased the reason she had frozen in disbelief?

Whatever it was, Touma pushed on past the pain to swing his bloody fist at the object of his ire.

The smug and cool grin cutting across Kihara Shinzo had frozen stiff. It was as if every signal being fired off to his brain had been stalled by a lag of sorts. Even as the shadow of a blunt fist swallowed his vision, he couldn't move.

'You piece of shit.'

Piece

Of.

Shit.

Like a simple wrench had been thrown into the gears of his body, Shinzo found he couldn't respond properly after someone, one of the very few people he could honestly say he treasured dearly called him a piece of shit to his face.

Explosive lights bombarded his sight as those red knuckles smashed into the center of his face. A disturbing sound was heard as his head snapped back, the kinetic energy from the ordinary fist striking his entire form with a wave of force.

A disturbing crack was heard by even the stun Kuroko. It did not originate from cool faced boy.

Touma snarled the cry of pain back as the already damaged bones in his right hand were broken.

Because of the wrench stalling his gears, Shinzo found himself skidding back on the heels of his feet as he tried to recover after regaining his senses.

'Oh? Now, now, now! Isn't this interesting! This unexplained twitch! This spasm in my chest! This slicing sensation along the surface of my core!'

His grimacing expression said he registered the pain of the blow that had caused his nose to bleed but Shinzo was far more engrossed in another pain that couldn't be seen by his opponent. He couldn't help but grin excitedly as he cleaned the red trickle from his nose with the back of his right sleeve.

An odd mechanical noise escaped from his wrist as he twisted the joints.

"Now this! This is a romantic development indeed! Even after all the calculations, I had made! Even after all the tests, I had performed! Even after all the reactions, I had hypothesized! Just at the mere utter of a few vulgar words, I was able to note such an interesting and romantic result. I would have never believed such an error could show itself before my eyes!"

The mechanical noise, a sound akin to whirring and clanking metal gears, was heard as Shinzo cracked his neck.

"What else? What other words could possibly cause such a reaction?! What more is needed to trigger a note worthy result that goes against all known scientific research about such a frail organ designed solely for the transport of red cells!?"

Excitement could be heard as Shinzo's face twitched oddly from the various impacts his face had been inflicted with by Yomikawa and Touma. His right hand flexed, clawing to gesture his desire to dig his hands into his next project.

More.

He needed more material!

Whatever it takes, he would unravel those unseen mysteries of the human heart at whatever cost!

"What the hell are you babbling about, you freak?! Unless you want your face caved in, let go of Yomikawa-sensei already! If you don't-!"

"What? You'll punch me again? You'll fight me and shatter my illusions? You'll search for the chink in my armor and tear open the wound responsible for leading me onto this cruel path? You'll soak in all the damage I could possibly inflict upon you, just so you can somehow reach me? All to save some stranger you hardly know? Tell me, haven't you already tried that?"

The knowing grin on Shinzo's face sent a cruel shill down Touma's spine. When the short-cut-haired boy pointed his index finger at Touma in accusation, he found he couldn't take another step.

What the mysterious boy said next squeezed his heart to the point he was sure he would have cried.

"Didn't you try to answer the cries of a lonely Level-0 who was shining in the purple solemn colors of despair not too long ago? Mila Etoile. A lovely French girl who had found herself swallowed by a sea of AIM to become something unnatural in the cruel abyss buried deep underground District 10. Wasn't it that very hand who silenced her cries for someone to save her from her anguish and killed the beautiful soul of an ordinary girl? Compared to me, who's the real piece of shit? A boy who inflicted a few scratches? Or a murderer who has the gall to reach his cursed hand and kill the innocent illusion he can only trample over with a smile on his face. Isn't it in your name, Illusion Killer?"

Ice replaced the once boiling red in his veins and robbed him of his voice.

His insides wriggled like slimy worms churning into a festering rotting mass.

Joints locked up like rusted gears.

A truly disturbing cold sweat caused his hospital gown to stick to his skin.

Even the blood seeping from his tense right fist had grown still.

Touma forgot the most basic human function as he couldn't even breathe at the mention of a terrible and haunting secret just as dark and unforgiving as lying to a silver-haired girl about the death of her beloved friend.

Kamijou Touma was a killer.

A murderer.

A monster.

A sick bastard who promised to save a girl who had been alone for so long, only to slaughter her weak yet bright smile with a supporting hand.

Illusion Killer.

A moniker to his right hand he never understood until he felt the faintly warm shards kissing his face in the scattering wind of a girl he had failed to rescue from the dark pit of loneliness she had stumbled into.

Fear burned his damaged heart. Pathetic as it was, he could no longer muster the strength to confidently or angrily clench his fist at the sight of someone being harmed. He couldn't take another step.

"A-aa-aaahhh..."

No words could be properly processed by the spiky-haired boy who found the memory of a lovely platinum blond-haired girl replaying in his shaken heart. It didn't even matter how the labcoat boy had come to learn of had happened to Mila in the aftermath of Level Eater. Nothing but the sound of a boy who wanted to cry at the filthy red stains caking the bottom of his hands that refused to be removed by even the hardiest of cleaning solutions was heard.

Were those tears forming in the very edge of his red eyes? Was it a frog clamped in his quivering throat an ugly sob he was struggling to swallow whole?

"F-Faaaas-s-s-sccinatying! Tr-tru-trrrruly f-f-fascinating!"

For some reason, Shinzo's voice slurred in a tone reminiscent of a high pitch modem computer. Spasms could be seen on his right hand as he held his face as if to hold something back. Was he in pain? Was he excited? Negative and positive sparks bounced over his twitching expression with a bizarre grin stretching across his face.

"What a truly fascinating result! Kaa-san was right! When introducing such a unique element to the equation, you're left with nothing short of wonderfully bizarre reactions not seen in the boring and stagnant laws of science! Even if the triggers spray back in harmful sparks to my own self! I've only just begun scrapping the service of the illogical secrets and incomprehensible marvels of the heart that have so eluded me!"

The accusatory finger bent into a malicious claw.

The coat of a scientist was tossed aside for one matching that of a cold-blooded hunter.

In his left hand, he dangled the silent and horribly wounded Yomikawa no differently than a worn-out stuffed bear he clung onto childishly when introduced to a new toy.

"I may lack Calculation Breaker, Solomon's Ten Rings, or even any worthwhile combat tech, but these settings should still do. Now show me the true depths and noisy gears of that exposed bloody core of yours, Kamijou Touma!"

Declaration of violence was met with the proper reaction.

Two metal darts slipped through the back of Shinzo's deadly hand.

Extensor tendons.

Tough yet fragile red bands running from the forearm, the wrist, and to the palm of one's hand. The movement of the fingers relied on sending signals through those human cords to reach the brain and act on the body's intention.

"Oh?"

Not even a spurt of blood was released as those simple white hazards smoothly pierced the back of his hand and severed those all-important chords.

No, slip was the wrong word for this.

It was as if those darts had appeared out of thin air between his hand like the frames of a flipbook.

Teleportation.

More importantly, currently the second strongest teleportation power in all of Academy City.

When Shinzo moved his eyes away from the dart teleported in his limp hand, he quickly found two small nurse shoes obscuring his vision. Stamped feet impacted his face with a dry clap of chalkboard erasers smacking into another.

Just what was it about today that had so many interesting people aiming for his face?

His body bent back, head nearly touching the clean white tile floor with a sickening crack. Where human spines suppose to bend like that? For a small girl just barely reaching his collar, the tawny pig-tail nurse-in-training had a hell of a kick!

Painful as it was, Shinzo straightened his deformed back without even a groan of discomfort. Just in time to witness the tawny nurse flip back in the air and land gracefully on her feet.

Directly blocking the line of sight to a certain broken-faced boy.

The same white metal darts placed in the middle of his hand were brandished like the glinting claws of a lioness protecting her cub from a poacher.

"Do not take another step further, scum. Aggravated assault, assault/battery, computer crime, disturbing the peace, harassment; you've collected six charges thus far but I'm sure you've got plenty more ready to be brought up by the time I've slammed you to the ground and cuffed your hands to your waist!"

Kuroko didn't have her Judgment band to flash over her forearm as she was used to, but the authority granted by the measly green accessory didn't diminish in the slightest.

She may have lost her focus when her ability failed to teleport her charge to a safe location, but she wouldn't slip up again!

"A...aaauuuuhhhh...aaaahhhh."

Kuroko bit her lip; she tasted blood.

She had seen it too.

The face of deep grief, despair, guilt, haunting, and remorse marring the boring-faced spiky boy. What could only be fat ugly tears could be seen on the edges of those quivering broken eyes.

District 10.

Mila Etoile.

Murderer.

Illusion Killer.

References to an event she would never be able to understand was said by the cool-faced lab coat teen that had a powerful effect on Kamijou Touma's psyche. Words had become weapons far crueler than any knife or bullet she had ever faced. And those invisible weapons had stabbed into the chest of a boy who couldn't even stand on his two feet without literal crutches. The lack of blood didn't make her feel relieved.

Damage of another sort had nearly crumbled the trembling figure behind her small back.

Three days ago, Kuroko had failed to catch those who were suffering in the streets of District 10 because she was preoccupied with a hacker who strung along various Security Bots and Powered Suits like a puppet master. People like the spiky teen had slipped past her fingers and fell to the hard floor in broken heaps. As a Judgment officer, she couldn't accept the loss, a loss no one would ever hold over her or blame her for.

Teleport.

Her power was the one strongest abilities that allowed her to displace matter through the 11-dimension with the proper calculations. She was a Level-4 who could cross great distances in a matter of a few seconds. She could be just about anywhere at any time. It was a power used for combat but held one of the greatest possibilities to rescue those who were in danger or in pain.

But when people were suffering, crying out in the wake of gunshots, riots, flames, and explosions, her Teleportation had been useless. She hadn't been able to save a single person.

Not again.

The gentleman who was on the brink of crying ugly tears would not be harmed again!

"This is your only warning, scum. Come quietly and I won't have to place something far more dangerous inside your body." she said coldly to the amused criminal.

"Oh? Are you so intent on protecting that boy you hardly know a thing about so passionately? Is this a matter concerning your duties as a figure of justice, or something far more grandeur and unseen in that flat chest of yours?! Can you even properly explain those intangible desires with words? Are those illogical products granting you a buff?! Do they give you purpose?!"

Three metal darts blurred from Kuroko's tightly clenched fist.

Shinzo smoothly jerked his body to the left, grinning broadly as the space his right shoulder had previously been was pierced by the white instruments. Without the desired muscles they sought, the darts fell to the floor with a dull clatter.

"You're surprisingly easy to read, Justice-chan! But tell me; did you forget about that other thing wishing to devour your charge in malice?!"

Kuroko tensed, eyes snapping wide open in alarm as she spun her head back.

Yes, how could she had possibly forgotten the other sinister element patiently laying in wait at their backs?

A blot of ink, thick as tar, and cold as the abyss.

Weird.

Abnormal.

Strange.

Unnatural.

Twisted.

Whatever that mass of darkness void of anything living was, it followed a set of laws she couldn't make head or tails of.

Without further ado, the wriggling mass of darkness snapped its jaws wide open like a ravenous beast.

"Kamijou-san!"

Countless black tethered hooks rushed out of the abyssal darkness. Those hooks resembled bizarre fingers. Far too many latched onto the listless teen to be in the twenties or thirties. For some reason, those eldritch appendages belonging to a malnourished horror stayed clear of his right arm as each sharp digit dug into his body.

Kamijou Touma was swallowed in a frenzy of hooked hands covering every inch of his skin; save his right arm.

Shaken blue eyes didn't seem to register what had taken a hold of him.

Before Kuroko could cross the distance with her teleport and pull the boy out of the hungry maw, the abyss reeled its catch like a famished tongue touching sweet cold dew.

Devouring black tar swallowed Kamijou Touma in one audible gulp.

Like a draining sink, the darkness swirled in itself and imploded into nothing, leaving not a trace of its presence behind in the deathly silent hall.

[-]

Abyss.

A world devoid of anything but a pitch-black void. There were no buildings. No trees. No water. No landmarks of any kind could be seen past the endless horizon touching into infinity. Nothing living resided among this land of darkness.

It was a Black World.

And for reasons Kamijou Touma couldn't understand, he felt a deep sense of dread seated in his heart upon his arrival to a world lacking warmth. He immediately began hyperventilating and found every cell of his body tremble like he was drowning in thick tar. His heart continued to smash into his chest like a boxer was throwing free swings from deep inside. His throat had something lodged inside that wriggled, cutting off his breathing. He was on the verge of collapsing to his knees and clutching his body like he was in pain.

He was terrified to the bone and he couldn't understand why.

What felt like a soft buzzing rooted deep in his right hand's bones further added to his anxiety.

Where was he? Where did everyone go? What happened to Ya-san and Yomikawa-sensei? Was this the work of the labcoat boy with the words Dog Life on his shirt?

Broken dark blue mirrors momentarily regained clarity, tossing aside lament for concern in the face of the sudden development.

That terrible and unsensible terror cracked just enough for him to calm his rapidly beating heart.

A sullen frown made its way to Touma's face as he began walking through the pitch dark landscape. There was nothing else he could do but try and investigate the strange event. Every step felt as if he was walking on a treadmill. No matter how long he walked, no matter how many steps he made, the distance never changed. Seeing as he had nowhere in mind, it made sense he wasn't going anywhere.

Hadn't he been in a place like this before? Was it only three days ago he had found himself in a similar space when he was fighting a french girl broken down into a being of AIM?

Mila Etoile.

A City of Wisps.

The City of Black and White.

He stopped, body locked up in another terrible tremble. His throat was squeezed by something invisible threatening to crush his windpipe with a crunch. A shuddered breath was all he could manage to clear away the dregs of remorse still haunting his scarred heart as he tried to push on ahead.

Similar yet different. The obsidian dirt below his feet felt the same yet possessed a different...energy to it? Explaining the differences was beyond this simple high school boy who could only continue walking without any idea where he was going.

All he knew was that he needed to find an exit.

Yomikawa-sensei and even Ya-san were in danger. An untold number of people as injured as himself were left exposed to the violent spray created in the wake of the lab coat boy. A dangerous element made itself known in a place of healing where malice should have never trickled within its white pristine walls.

No one explained the circumstances leading to some deadly element appearing out of nowhere to attack him. For some reason, Yomikawa-sensei was decked out in her Anti-Skill gear, speaking of being on duty. As if she knew someone like the lab coat bastard would show up at the hospital. Now that he thought about it, Ya-san acted weird at the very end when they had been attacked. Unlike the typical nurse archetype he had a great deal of knowledge of(was the original Kamijou Touma a sophisticated pervert?), the tawny girl hadn't shrieked or been terrified by the cool-faced thug's presence.

For a second, he could have sworn she would have fit better as a Judgment member rather than a nurse-in-training.

People were fighting in the once-safe halls of the hospital this Kamijou Touma had woken up in with no memories of his former self. It was a special place, a unique base that built up this iteration of Kamijou Touma who found purpose in the crumbling smile of a girl who had lost her beloved hero. Even if he had lost everything related to the past fifteen years other than common knowledge as what an apple was or what 1+1 equals, the hospital he had woken up to was the first memory he could call his own.

Red bead slithered down his broken right hand in a world of absolute black.

It didn't matter if he wasn't in any shape to be so much as walking without his crutches or making a fist. As if he was just going to sit around and let some bastard damage that special place void of even his misfortune!

"But seriously, where is the exit around here? I feel like I'm walking in a dark tunnel that goes on endlessly. I wonder if shining a light would do me any good." Not that he could since Index and Angela had his cell.

All he could hear was his own voice speaking to the abyss. Nothing else was heard back.

The abyss had no words, only silence.

But a reaction in that pitch-black was finally discovered.

It may not have been words but it was definitely a sound he found familiar.

Static.

The sound of an old TV being turned on to the picture of black and white static scrambling the images of the signal it was receiving from somewhere far away greeted him and made him stop his endless walking. Obsidian earth below his feet quivered in response to the noise like a small earthquake produced by the shifting tectonic plates deep underground.

From the infinite abyss, Touma noticed an odd gleaming surface rising from ripples along with the obsidian earth. Each slab measured 3 yards in both height and width, their numbers going past the hundreds as he soon found himself in a hall of mirrors. Those surfaces were screens made of the same earth he stood on yet reflected his reflection when he looked at one. Were they actually clear but appeared black because of the Black World? Than again, old southern civilizations in the west were known to use obsidian as mirrors due to their reflective surfaces.

Those obsidian screens lost their clarity and began to play the static black and white scramble he had been hearing recently.

Just where was he exactly? This was unlike the pitch-black endless void of black that had sprouted an unknown but disturbing sense of pure fear in his heart.

It was no longer a Black World.

It was a World of Static.

"Am I supposed to do something here? All this static garble is starting to irritate my ears. And I really don't have time to be standing around watching static until the picture fixes itself! I have to go back and beat that smug bastard's face into a fine black and blue pulp!"

Growing frustrated at this listless atmosphere where only static could be heard, Touma reached his hand out to the closest screen.

Being the longest of his fingers, the middle finger was the first to graze the once obsidian screen devoured by black and white scrambled lines.

"Do not touch the reflections, Kamijou Touma. Otherwise, the shattered shards will cause a widespread reaction due to the close proximity of the other screens and destroy the rest. It would be ill-advised to disrupt the signals before the images become clear."

Only an inch.

He had been only an inch away from touching the closest screen in this World of Static when he had been stopped by a cool, monotone voice.

Just as his voice had before, a new reaction had bloomed in this odd world buzzing with scrambled signals.

Ahead of Touma, countless screens parted down the middle to welcome the voice's arrival.

Mint green eyes.

Skin dark as milk chocolate was hidden beneath a vanilla white shawl long enough to just barely go past her waist.

Wild, unkempt white hair with a sheen similar to a CD's that fell to her bare ankles.

Symbols he had never seen before but that the previous Kamijou Touma's semantic memory tied to the occult world were printed across the person's neck and crawled up to their cheek.

A U-shaped character could be seen below the figure's listless eyelid, reminiscent of a lyre.

The figure was a girl who stood at 5''5. Her skin color spoke of being from a hotter and dryer continent than the island nation of Japan. He would have mistaken her for a middle school girl with her short height. She had a beautiful face free of blemishes other than the occult symbols printed on her skin. But her expression was blank, empty, and listless like that of a porcelain doll.

Most importantly though…

With an utterly blank expression, the strange girl with silver-gray hair with a CD sheen stood perfectly still as a random breeze ruffled her thin shawl.

"Where the hell are your clothes! That shawl is not enough, young lady! This is a mostly empty world, so where did this sudden gust of wind come from?! You're not wearing any underwear, are you? What the hell kind of bullshit physics is playing right now to lift your skinny shawl up to the point I can see your plump C-grade tits?"

Touma slapped his left hand over his eyes but it was too late. The damage had been done. Even with what little blood he had left, the sight of a beautiful girl with a curvy physique below her thin and flimsy shawl and her perky breasts was enough to excite him. An adolescent boy was an adolescent boy no matter the situation.

Middle school girl? With a killer body like that below her very thin shawl, she could have been in high school!

The oblivious girl with a blank expression was unconcerned with the blushing spiky boy who wriggled his stiff hips. She wasn't bothered with having just flashed a stranger, only tilting her head cutely at his strange behavior.

As if he was the weird one!

"Hm? Is this appearance wrong? My creator felt this was enough; is it not? Strange. He always looked out for my well-being and did many great things for my upbringing. If this image was wrong, he would have said so."

"What kind of pervy old man thinks some middle school-sized woman should only wear a skinny thin, almost see-through, paper towel over her naked body?! Where is he? Where is that pervy, skeezy, leering old man so I can shatter his dirty illusions?!"

"He no longer exists."

Touma flinched back at the empty words coming from the listless girl who showed no life, no concern, no sorrow, no longing, for the fate of the person who 'created' her. He frowned solemnly as he noticed the blank woman raise her right hand to caress her temple. Her expression didn't so much as tilt as she spoke softly.

"I do not remember his name, what he looks like, or how he found me. I don't remember anything concerning him other than certain aspects of information disregarding anything that can build a proper image of who that man was. My memories other than my functions...were erased."

For a split second, Touma could clearly make out a flitting emotion in those emerald eyes lacking light.

His teeth scraped together to a painful grind.

Something in his heart was pulled tautly.

"I only possess the knowledge I was feed concerning matters related to his history and my functions. But even those are currently scrambled by his doing. Information is all I have. I do not possess anything more than the memories of someone else."

The silver-gray-haired woman with a sheen of a CD made a face. Was it of pain? Of regret? Of sadness?

No, it was one he knew all too well. The expression she was wearing must have been the same face Touma was making, or at least an attempt of matching him. It was a mirror reflection.

The strange woman was simply copying Touma's own turmoil because she had nothing else to build upon her own feelings concerning her situation.

It was a hollow action of an empty husk.

"Tell me; what is my name?"

A curious child-like question was innocently asked.

'I don't know.'

A spiky-haired boy had woken up to a hospital bed one day. He was covered head to toe in bandages to wounds he didn't recall. No one was there to greet him when he awoke but some frog-faced doctor. For all he knew, he had no friends, no family, no connections other than one made by an old man with a face of regret.

What is my name?

Hadn't that been the first question to come to mind once he came to realize everything in his brain had been blank?

When he had asked that simple question, his entire body trembled as if he were left outside during a chilly December morning without clothes. His voice was raspy, desperate for his plea to be answered. A disturbing emptiness drilled into his chest and made him want to puke.

Who was he? Why was he here? What was this strange feeling of knowing nothing but knowing what a hospital was? Why was he hurting?

Kamijou Touma.

A bittersweet story detailed in a letter. One fit for a modern fairy tale.

The regretful face of a frog-faced doctor who appeared as if he failed again.

Teary green eyes with a beautiful, fragile smile crumbling before his hollow eyes.

An empty boy left behind with only semantic memory concerning worldly knowledge such as colors, state capitols, letters, and words, had been given purpose thanks to someone who saved him from falling into a lonely void.

'I don't know. I don't know what your name is. But I know how empty and scared you must be feeling even if you yourself don't know how to process those strange emotions!'

For just this moment, he forgot about a certain hospital and the deadly lab coat boy who appeared like a wild animal. He swallowed his anxiety and took a step towards that girl who lacked personal memories to express her fear and confusion of being a blank slate.

He wanted to reach out to that colorless girl who found herself all alone.

Touma was reminded about his injuries as he nearly tripped. Anger and hatred had acted as the perfect mixture to create the adrenaline needed to push his battered body to fight. But he was lacking the simmering chemicals to null the hot aches over a majority of his body.

He didn't care.

He had no idea where he was, he wanted to escape and punch the lights out of the bastard who harmed Yomikawa-sensei, and wished to absorb the spray of malice in danger of harming everyone in the hospital but…

The silver-gray-haired girl tilted her head, her emotions blank as she couldn't find anything in her personal memories to express how she felt as she watched a bleeding boy with a desperate expression on his grimacing face run over to her.

His right hand reached out to her-

'Tell me, haven't you already tried that?'

Invisible scars burned terribly and caused that right hand to creak. Those bloody fingers slipped.

And then the world of static clicked.

Static vanished and various images flashed before his eyes by the countless obsidian mirrors.

In the sea of running colorful images he couldn't make out, Touma felt the ground underneath give away. That cursed symbol lacking the courage to take the hand of a lost girl fell away with a listless stare.

Static consumed the world.

'A-ah...'

Before he found himself swallowed in the black and white static snapping its jaws below his feet, the blank woman attempted to mirror his grimacing face etched with despair.

Than there was nothing.

[-]

"What's wrong? Don't tell me this is all it takes to scare you shitless. Are you really scared of confronting this when you've fought that white monster how many times? Stop being a pussy and just touch it already. Even Kaen-chan did it and the brat's how old?"

"Don't compare this %$ #-san with an eight-year-old, #%$ -chan! That's being totally unfair to both of us! And don't think your Tou-san doesn't see you smirking smugly, Kaen-chan! You're not too old enough or high of level to not feel the fatherly sting of your Tou-san's palm on that bottom of yours!"

"Bring it, old man! I'll fucking burn ya alive!"

"What did we say about cursing!? Ten-year-olds should never have to say anything as vulgar as fuck, for Christ's sake!"

"His first threat."

"Oi! Problematic Kaa-san! Don't get all weepy-eyed from your first-born threatening his Tou-san with a villainous gleam in his eye! The last thing I need is my adorable daughter who's not even a few days old growing up believing that she can cutely threaten to slaughter her Tou-san with a giddy grin on her face! I will not be the victim here!"

"Don't get your panties in a twist, ya balding old man."

"Don't get your panties in a twist, ya balding old man."

"I AM NOT BALDING! DO YOU SEE THESE LUSH SPIKES?! HOW IS IT THAT SON AND MOTHER CAN PERFECTLY SYNC WHEN ATTACKING THIS POOR FATHER!? IS THIS THE TERRIFYING POWER OF A FAMILIAL BOND?!"

"...What...what am watching?"

Touma blinked sluggishly as if he had just woken up from a long night bender with friends and plenty of drinks to go around. His head ached. He nearly tripped as his body struggled to regain his sense of balance.

Darkness as pitch and deep as the feared abyss, an endless curtain of obsidian sheet-like mirrors, screens of black and white scrambled lines, the sound of static…

A young woman with silver-gray hair possessing a sheen of a CD, green eyes, dark skin, and no memory of her name…

It was all gone.

Replaced by a new scene he couldn't grasp or make head-or-tails of.

White walls.

A window by the wall on the left so that the occupants could see outside as the sun peeked in on their lives.

A few seats and a coffee table for guests to sit down.

The faint beeping of a monitor displaying vitals.

And a hospital bed Touma had come to familiarize himself with after finding himself laying back in said bed for three times so far in the first month he was 'born'.

Without a doubt, the scene he was observing now was set in a hospital room. An ordinary room you could find anywhere else in a place of healing. The only difference being that it appeared just a bit bigger to accommodate a few more guests. It was as if he had been transported back to his own hospital room in the blink of an eye.

As if everything had been only a dream.

A nightmare.

But he still felt the dregs of adrenaline and fear on his sweaty skin. Blood still stained the fingers of his right hand due to the snapped sutures.

His memories were still intact. He hadn't forgotten what had just transpired moments ago.

Swiveling his head in alarm, he began searching for a way out of whatever this was.

At the moment, he felt himself...standing? Floating? Gliding? He wasn't sure how to properly describe what was happening right now but his feet were touching the ever-familiar white tiled floor. Yet at the same time, he couldn't feel the floor. Numb yet faint. It was an odd ghostly sensation he couldn't explain with the past Kamijou Touma's information.

He stood to the side of the hospital room, away from the occupants' bed, as they spoke with someone standing a few feet away from them with trepidation. Another figure, smaller, walked over to the bed to stare closer at...something that was being held in the occupant's arms.

Family.

For some reason, that simple word popped up in Touma's conscious thoughts.

A sound he had never heard before but the past Kamijou Touma had collected in his semantic memories was heard.

The gentle and soft coo of a newborn child. The pink bundle of blankets the bed's occupant held tenderly with a mother's care was a newborn baby who'd recently been born. A small, precious, beautiful life was gathered around by its family welcoming them into the world with smiles and tears on their glowing faces.

Escaping this scene was important in order to re-enter the nightmare of confusion and unknown malice. If this was an illusion crafted by some mysterious force, natural or artificial means, all he needed to do was smash his fist into the glass screen.

He should have clenched his fist.

But…

"Why...why can't I look away?"

Why was it that his voice couldn't help but quiver with raw emotion at the loving scene he was facing?

Someone answered his question as he couldn't help but take a step closer to the gentle illusion unfolding before his shaken eyes.

"This is a memory. One of many recordings I have been tasked with safekeeping within my being. I have memorized over 103,373 moments such as these, spamming over nearly a hundred years in memory. Each log is tied to different origins, different times, different events. The history of that man's misery and the origin of his ever-present agony are represented in the many scenes etched into my being. These are the lessons he wished to never forget."

103,373 memories.

Over a hundred years worth.

Misery.

Agony.

Lessons.

For some reason, those words terribly yanked at the cords of Touma's heart.

He couldn't see them.

Eyes, nose, eyebrows, mouth, distinct facial markings; the expressions of those individuals found in the memory he was dropped into were blank. No, a blank was the wrong word for it.

Touma held his forehead, grimacing as simply trying to focus on the foggy expressions scrambled his own thoughts. It felt that the longer he stared at those faces, the more his brain was put into some kind of grinder, shredding away any kind of familiarity he may find in those people.

Even Imagine Breaker was useless in restoring the original frames.

But even if he couldn't make out their faces, he knew. Without a single doubt, he knew without being able to clearly see the expressions on those three faces gathered around a small pink bundle cradling a newborn soul, he knew what laid beneath the scrambling fog.

Love.

Tender and sweet.

The atmosphere was rough around the edges but the undertone was one of warmth and pure joy.

Again, he couldn't help but ask.

"Why am I here?" he said softly, his dark blue eyes finding themselves locking on to one of the three figures whose identity he couldn't piece together.

At the left of the tea-colored-haired woman laying back in the hospital bed in a pink hospital gown, stood a dark-haired man with spiky locks. Even without getting a look at his face, for some strange reason, Touma felt as if there was nothing remotely special about the generic man's appearance. Other than being far too old to be rocking the spiky gel haircut, he was just an ordinary father.

The man's dark jeans were normal and were probably bought at a discount store. A few tears could be seen on his worn-out leather jacket better fit for a delinquent, and Touma could see a white hood from the man's hoodie jacket. Red and white sneakers could be seen, suffering some wear as well, similar to Touma's own.

Unlike the spiky-haired tea-colored ten-year-old hovering over the mother and newborn child, the father kept a safe distance away from all three. It was an odd little detail Touma couldn't help but notice.

Once again, the familiar voice of a nameless girl spoke back to him as the small family continued their small talk.

"This is but a fragment of the library of memories I have recorded. Because of the infection from the dreg's instilled in her heart, the files I've safeguarded have begun to twist under cruel malice. Had Kihara Shinzo not interfered and untangled the toxic roots of his magic, the memory you are observing would have been corrupted and fed an even darker and savage plethora of stimuli. I am...a codex; a series of papyrus, tree bark, vellum, and various sheets of ancient paper bound by simple steel rings like a journal. Each of the many unique sheets contains handwritten memories detailing my master's most special memories; going as far back as when he was but a child."

"Codex?"

Testing the name out, Touma couldn't but feel a familiar tingle on his tongue as a certain silver-haired nun popped up in his head.

Was...was she similar to Index then?

"I believe that is my purpose. Or...was. This form is new. I don't believe I was ever supposed to be alive as I am now. But my original self composed of papyrus, tree bark, vellum, and old sheets of paper in the form of a small notebook, was altered after being damaged. I feel a dreadful source of energy reconstructing my pages with twisted language. What you see is but a single fragment of the many sheets that have been torn apart and planted in many individuals for reasons I am not clear of. Like many others, M%&$#o Kamiko has been plagued by a malicious seed but has found said seed altered by an outside source to bloom into something equally as terrifying as the original vile flower she was supposed to be."

Chills stabbed through Touma's chest.

A certain name was said that caused the spiky-teen to ball his fists.

Kamiko.

The face of an eight-year-old girl with dark pig-tails fashioned as antenna's, dark blue eyes, and a sweet smile.

Just the memory of the small girl who had been distraught before his eyes, and failed to comfort due to his shaken heart, caused Touma to bit his lip.

"Kamiko-chan? What does she have to do with any of this? What happened to her?" he shakily asked.

"As stated; I am a codex comprised of papyrus, dead bark, vellum, and old sheets of paper, each etched with an important memory connected to grief and agony. My original self has been compromised by a bizarre force to give me this form as the many sheets of my body have become toxic fragments. Each vile fragment contains the dreg of the infector and can be found laying dormant in the hearts of various individuals scattered around the current world. The once twisted memory you see is but a sheet of vellum describing the day the child known as M&g%# Kamiko was introduced to her father; my master."

An abyss of tar.

Hadn't Kamijou Touma been swallowed earlier by a blot of darkness? Wasn't he swallowed by the snapping jaws of the abyss? Just what exactly had been in control of such a strange and chilling blot? And what did any of this have to do with the sweet girl he had recently met earlier?

Instead of either Touma or the nameless girl with silver-gray hair answering him, his answer came from the small life bundled up in a pink blanket.

Kamiko cooed softly, opening her deeply azure eyes to stare up at the gathered faces welcoming her to a warm world full of sweet smiles.

[-]

There had been no time to react to the alarming scene of ink and tar-colored jaws snapping wide open and swallowing Kamijou Touma in one bite.

Kuroko found herself facing the cold and calculated claws of a cool-faced boy wearing a lab coat not a second later.

"Don't stray your sights, Judgment-chan~! Otherwise, your little heart will be trampled before I can properly dissect it!"

White darts, needles as thin as nails and as long as four inches, were held in the lab coat boy's hands. Her favored weapon of choice was held skillfully and flung with a terrifying degree of accuracy. Those darts were thrown far quicker than an average human could possibly achieve, whistling as their tips were aimed at piercing her eyes.

But before those darts could sink into the gooey retina, her figure vanished in an instant.

Teleportation was her ability. As if she would easily fall to the likes of some arrogant punk!

Even if she had been distracted with her charge being gulped down by a blot of darkness that vanished like water in a swirling drain, she hadn't forgotten about the instigator of everything wrong with the previously peaceful scene. She had already planned out her next course of action just as she noticed her darts were picked up.

In the instant she teleported to evade the needles fired with the force of a bullet, she reappeared from her trip through the 11th dimension overhead of the lab coat boy. Her slim left leg was swung up high, just inches from grazing the ceiling, and revealed a scandalous shot of her skimpy panties. Caution to her modesty was thrown aside as she swung down an ax kick to crack her opponent's skull.

The vicious blow never came as Shinzo reacted just in time to take a step back. A strong breeze washed over his face as the nimble leg fell.

He flexed his right hand despite the unnerving jerks to his fingers due to the tendons being damaged.

Taken by surprise as her surprise attack failed to land, Kuroko's plan to evade was interrupted by a powerful fist barreling into her small chest. Jarring pain disrupted the calculations needed for her ability to work without harmful errors, centered in her rib cage. What felt like a tiny centralized explosion went off where the knuckles landed causing blood to slip out of her gasping mouth.

The blow sent her flying and skidding on her side, creating a distance of ten feet.

No time for pain. Grimacing, she shot back up on feet to send a scathing glare at her attacker as he dashed in to continue the attack.

Calm, she had to be calm. If she allowed the sprout of pain blossoming in her chest to scramble the string of calculations required to enter and exit the 11th dimension, she would suffer even greater damage. There had been rumors of a once talented esper with the same talent, or even greater talent, in teleportation who was severely injured from her teleporting her legs into concrete.

Before Shinzo could swing his barreled fist into her face, she escaped his line of sight and landed directly behind him. Three gleaming darts were clenched in her fist, aimed carefully for the right nerves to temporarily shut down his ability to walk.

Having heard about the rumors of the hospital she was currently fighting within, she believed a certain doctor would be able to repair the snipped lumbar spinal nerves if he treated the criminal in time.

An important subject had been forgotten as she stabbed her darts at the exposed back.

"My, my, my! You seem to be under the impression this simple human lacks eyes on the back of his head. I may not look it but I possess over fifty pairs of eyes, Judgement-chan."

Shinzo grinned as he seemed to predict the action and had already spun his shield around to protect himself.

Hadn't he been lugging around the wounded and injured Yomikawa Aiho around even as he fought?

Displaying his impressive strength, the short-cut-haired lab coat boy swung Yomikawa to play the role of meat shield before the puncturing needles could sink into his flesh.

"You bastard!"

Kuroko acted quickly, sending her darts off so that they landed out of reach of herself or Shinzo. Her main concern had been her weapons harming an Anti-Skill officer. Still moving on momentum, her clenched fist guiltily struck the collar of the blue-haired amazon woman.

Yomikawa revealed no signs of feeling any pain as her body was swung as a blunt weapon to slam into the stun pig-tail esper.

Kuroko held back a shout of pain as the full weight of an adult woman struck her smaller frame. She slammed her feet into the floor, catching herself before the impact knocked her down and away.

'Scum! He's actually using an Anti-Skill officer as a weapon?! What kind of demented cretin would use a living human being as something to harm others!?'

Quicker than even Shinzo could properly react, Kuroko's left hand flashed for her thigh.

Metal as thin and thick as a pencil punctured flesh.

But not the flesh of the coolly smirking boy.

"Gyaaa!"

This time Yomikawa did react as she felt the dart pierce the back of her right hand. Said trembling appendage was placed over Shinzo's left kneecap as a protective piece of armor.

"This is a Level-4 Teleporter? Currently the strongest of all those who possess such a complicated and complex ability? If this is your potential, I can see why that silver-haired NEET favored the traumatized shotacon over the disappointing ojou. Have you even realized how a boy who doesn't even possess a supernatural trick to even the playing field is keeping up? The answer is all around you."

Kuroko glared hatefully at the smug tone dripping off of Shinzo's voice.

Stay calm, she had to stay calm. She had to ignore the sweat beginning to form on her forehead and control her breathing. She had to ignore one of her darts piercing through the back of Yomikawa's hand as the unconscious woman squirmed from the sensation of an object running through flesh, bone, and nerves.

Her small fists were shaken, cautious to reach for her darts again as she noticed Shinzo gesture Yomikawa in preparation to block any more of her attacks.

Just how was some powerless boy countering her moves? Did he actually possess some ability to predict whatever attacks she was in the process of forming? His reaction speed was far too abnormal to be anything else. There had to be a trick to it.

Was it an ability in the eye to carefully monitor the twitches in the muscles?

Did he have some mental ability to peer into her thoughts?

Was he manipulating her own plans to lead her into certain actions?

Could he sense the minuscule air molecules surrounding him to react to any changes in a certain radius of space?

'I may not look it but I possess over fifty pairs of eyes, you slippery assassin.'

Gritting her teeth, Kuroko knew she wouldn't be able to solve the deadly puzzle by scratching her head like an elementary schooler learning division.

The criminal scum was already on the move again.

Ripping the dart off of the Anti-Skill officer to better move her, Shinzo lugged the woman behind him as he ran ahead with a devilish grin. Kuroko grimaced as she stopped herself from teleporting out of harm's way.

Every time she used her ability, the criminal scum would divert the damage onto the Anti-Skill officer or evade it at the very last second. Until she discovered the hidden card in his sleeve allowing him to counter her power, she had to go at this from a different route.

Distasteful as it was, Kuroko had to treat the hostage in Shinzo's hand as a blunt instrument as the woman was bashed at her as if she were a hefty shield. Taking advantage of her petite size, she ducked underneath the ramming meat shield. Crouched down, she reached for the concealed belt of darts strapped to her thighs and spun two of them in preparation to stab. Her sights were set on a selective set of nerves to render Shinzo immobile.

Sensing danger, she abandoned her plan of attack to teleport out of the way as Yomikawa was slammed down onto her small form. She did it out of habit.

Escaping to the nurse's station, she anxiously anticipated the next counter to come.

But nothing.

Shinzo's attack missed. He didn't act on her evasive maneuver and instead focused on picking up the softly groaning blue-haired officer.

'He didn't counter when I escaped? Why? Every other time, he reacted. But when I use my ability to escape harm, he doesn't throw out an attack or appear where I would appear. In fact, he only ever scores a hit when I try to use my Teleport to inflict a crippling blow. I've only ever landed a hit once.'

Kuroko's mind went into overdrive to take advantage of the small bits of information she had collected thus far.

Every esper ability had some kind of tell. A small sign of its activation: be it sound related, gesture, or activation trigger. Even her teleport was accompanied by the faintest whine said to stem from objects and living beings slipping through dimensions to create the unique noise.

"Ah! Are you putting together the pieces that quickly? Now that's a Level-4 for you! Finally, you're showing some promise!"

Shinzo put a damper on her puzzle-solving as the excited teen resumed his straightforward attack.

'Straight...forward?'

Testing her simmering theory was needed.

Instead of either attacking or dodging, Kuroko acted on a different action.

Eyes locked onto the arm lifting Yomikawa for offense and defense, Kuroko's fingers grazed the cheap pen's found on the counter of the nurse's station. Her aim was obvious to the attacking boy. Her eyes said it all.

To sever nerves and ligaments in the arm.

Counter.

To deflect the needles filled with ink, Shinzo maneuvered Yomikawa's body to soak in the damage.

Yet those cheap pens never hit their mark.

What sounded like a faint clatter reached his ears from behind. Taking a quick peek back, he discovered the deadly office weapons bouncing lightly on the floor.

"Weren't you the one who said to keep my sights from straying, you scummy bastard!?"

Shinzo would have clicked his tongue if it weren't for the lithe and slim leg of a Tokiwadai student being slammed down onto his head like an ax to a block of wood. Incredible pain was registered on his face, enough for him to lose the grip of his handy weapon.

Instead of gloating, Kuroko teleported again, appearing within an instant next to Yomikawa as she hit the floor. She moved swiftly to place her hand on the battered woman's back and moved out of the picture.

In this instance, combat would have to be forgotten. What mattered right now was saving the hostage who had been harmed far enough. Judgment was about saving, protecting, and ensuring those they kept behind their backs were able to escape the malice of those who sought violence for their own means. Fighting was never supposed to be their specialty or main priority when on duty.

What mattered above all else was rescuing the innocent; be they, students or adults.

One safe zone came to Kuroko's mind in the span of precious seconds. A single space where the wounded woman like Yomikawa could rest until the chaos was settled.

An ordinary hospital room, one that could be found anywhere else, meant to rest and heal a spiky-haired boy, was her location.

Ten seconds passed.

Face sweating, Kuroko carefully sent Yomikawa's body to land on the soft sheets and pillowy mattress of Kamijou Touma. She couldn't spare to inspect the injuries of the adult who began to struggle in her sleep as if she was aware of everything and wanted to help.

Even with her chest aching from the first blow and her joints creaking from being slammed by a human ramming shield, she vanished to re-enter the battlefield.

As her body exited the 11th dimension, she felt the heavy impact of a swivel chair slammed into the right side of her petite body.

"Gyaaaaaaaaaaah!"

The force of the attack found only in the backyard wrestling sent her crashing into the wall. Slender white darts pierced her forearm; her darts had been stabbed into the wall like a spike trap. She nearly chipped her teeth as she clamped down her jaw to prevent the agonized scream from escaping her. As if she would give the bastard the satisfaction.

"Close to thirty-seconds? Impressive, I suppose. Gauging the teleportation rate entering and exiting the 11th dimension can be quite tedious but the single-digit differences can be rather romantic. I have to wonder if the damage I've inflicted thus far has dampened your ability's speed. Than again, I haven't accounted for any other times you may have used your teleportation within the time frame of those thirty seconds either. If all my systems weren't busy multi-tasking the actions of the other units, and dealing with that lovely Flower-chan's surgery-like efforts to expunge me, I would have been able to see such actions coming."

Swivel chair still in hand as his new weapon, Shinzo stood a few feet away from the grimacing Kuroko with a contemplative expression.

Kuroko didn't move from her position. Even as the darts turned wall spikes remained in her forearm, she focused her sights on the lab coat boy stroking his chin in thought. Her eyes did wander down to his feet.

And she grinned in victory.

"You laid a trap within thirty seconds? You knew where I would be? In fact, you seemed to be able to predict where I would attack with my teleportation when you charged ahead in a straight line. As if you had some kind of future-sight ability?"

Shinzo displayed disappointment in Kuroko's assessment. Scratching his head with a scoff, he regarded the bleeding armed girl with a listless stare.

"What an unromantic hypothesis. And here I thought that gleam of victory would lead to a fun outcome. Let's make this clear, Judgement-chan; I have no ability. Zero. Zilch. None."

"Yeah, I didn't think so either. You're a rather intellectual boy, after all. That lab coat's not just for show. People like you, those talented in various fields of science, can be dangerous in their own right. I've seen that before in the case of Kiyama Hirumi and Therestina Kihara Lifeline. Seems I screwed up badly because I underestimated my opponent for a lack of ability. Honestly, how uncouth of me to do something so idiotic. I can only find solace in the fact Onee-sama isn't around to scold me for my impudence."

It hurt, it really hurt, but Kuroko fought past the pain to push herself off the spike trap created by her own darts. The color red seeped down her left arm and hit the once white floor in audible drips that disgusted her.

Never less, the very darts that once stabbed her arm were removed and spun in her right hand as she glared in determination at the intrigued scumbag.

She was going to continue fighting. Even though she had saved the hostage and taken her to a safe location, for the time being, she still had a reason to not only detain the dangerous element but question him.

She had a sneaking suspicion of how the well-dressed thug was able to counter her ability so smoothly. The truth was found in the hints discerned from his attack patterns and lack of an esper ability. Until her theory was proven, she would have to buy some time until she could deeply sink her fangs into the prick.

What had all this violence originated from? What had been the leading trigger to introduce the lab coat boy's appearance?

Kamijou Touma; the boy who had slipped through the cracks of violence in the streets of District 10.

The boring-faced spiky-teen was missing, swallowed whole by a blot of darkness that had appeared alongside Shinzo. As if the two elements weren't connected in any way.

The claws of a high-class young maiden bearing the title of protector of the peace were bared at the predator.

"We're far from done. Kamijou-san is still missing and you must know where he went. And even if it means having to snap both your wrists like twigs! Bombard you with heavy objects! Turn you into a pincushion of needles! I will rescue Kamijou-san from your clutches! I won't allow him to escape the protection of Judgment again!"

To the passionate words of the maiden fighting for a complete stranger, a Level-0, Shinzo could only respond in kind with an eager grin.

"How utterly romantic! Yes, it's exactly the kind of reaction I was desiring! Words and actions born not from thought, not duty, not anything so feeble or fragile nor corruptible! No, these have to be a product of an organ that is said to only function as a transportation station to deliver red cells to the main highways connected to a living organism! Intangible products, invisible to even the most advanced microscope cable of detailing atoms! Show it to me. Show me the unseen gems spurned by a piece of flesh and blood! Let me witness that ludicrous power up said to be nothing more than a childish phenomenon found only in fantasy! Show me if you have what it takes to be an ignorant hero!"

In the hospital hallway where the nurse's station could be found, the boy and girl resumed their dance of fists and needles.

[-]

Darkness as pitch black as the eldritch abyss beyond human understanding.

Nothing given mass and weight to create hook-like tendrils and jaws of a beast.

A bizarre blot born from the dreg of an equally bizarre being infecting a codex of memories, shattering the stacks of ancient sheets made of papyrus, tree bark, vellum, and paper into fragments.

Each fragment of a codex pertaining to the history of the wielder became a toxic seed to be planted into the hearts of certain individuals. Poison malice would twist, churn, tear, and morph whoever was infected by the dreg so that they would bloom into something terrifying and cruel once the seed matured. Whatever the true purpose for growing such a malicious plant from the corrupted heart of the individual was not known to Touma.

All he understood was that the blot of ink and tar had swallowed him. It had targeted him and only him. Imagine Breaker had failed to negate it.

The abyss was no longer controlled by the manipulative vines of the seed that had sprouted its immature form. An outside force had snipped the vines but left the bizarre sprout alone. Someone else had filled the void of master and reigned the tar blot in.

Touma's shoulders tensed as he heard the soft sound again.

A baby's coo.

Fragile yet sweet.

Faint as a whisper.

Trapped within in a once dark world filled with black and white static, he found himself standing as an observer to a memory centered on the birth of the abyss blot's controller.

Kamiko.

The nine-year-old elementary school girl wearing expensive clothing, dark pig-tails styled like bug antenna's, and dark blue eyes similar to his own.

He had met the young girl just earlier today by chance.

Kamiko had run out of a doctor's office and spotted him as if she had sensed him. The very sight of him had caused her to pause as if she had seen a ghost.

Tears sprung from her eyes.

She tackled him with a sob and called him Papa.

For some reason, Kamijou Touma appeared similar to a man who was most likely in his forties, enough for an elementary school girl to mistake him for her father who appeared to be deceased. Because of how similar Touma and Kamiko's father appeared, the bright-faced girl immediately attached herself to him and continued to call him Papa. With her older brother in tow, she had followed him back to his hospital room as Nurse-san lugged him back with the hopes of talking with him.

The little girl was sweet. She was friendly. She mistook him for a mummy dolled up for Halloween. She had helped him with his pain medicine.

And she had become saddened, troubled, and stricken by grief at the mention of misfortune. The mere mention had swallowed her in a sullen aura.

All it would have taken to cheer the small girl with bug pig-tails was a gentle pat on the head. She would be saved from the trauma created by misfortune if someone offered their hand to clean the forming tears. Anyone could have done something so simple.

But Touma couldn't. His right hand had been shaken at the mere minuscule thought of his cursed hand repeating in its reaping of a girl who was asking to be saved. He had lost faith in his ability to so much as to reach out his broken hand to someone with tears in their quivering eyes. He had been haunted by the memory of a platinum-haired high school girl who had shattered to pieces because he had decided to rescue her from her lonely despair.

Because of the lingering doubt, grief, horror, guilt, and fear of killing an innocent girl, he had become paralyzed when a dangerous element had mentioned to his most ugly and despicable of secrets as the lab coat boy dragged a wounded teacher from his school behind him. The will to fight with his fist had been broken by the mere reminder of what he had done. He had found himself becoming someone utterly pathetic.

A bizarre seed sprouting to birth a blot of the abyss.

A supernatural force gave mass and ever-shifting forms.

Something unnatural and twisted was running through the small body of a girl who despised misfortune. It was feeding off of negative emotions of its victim like vitamins to become something vicious. Without the vines of the infector in place, the abyss blot was following to the whims of a little girl who found her body exuding a terrifying power brimming with malicious thoughts corrupting her own fragile heart. The pieces of information the odd emotionless girl had provided the shivering coward had helped to fill in the blanks to this sudden mystery.

Memory. This was a small piece of a sweet girl's beloved memories involving her family. One she herself would not be able to recall clearly.

"Have you decided on a name yet? If I remember right, I came up with Kaen-chan's name when he was born, so it's only fair you decide this time."

"Fair? I'd say so, considering this is probably the tenth time I've seen you since I told you I was pregnant. Oh, don't give me that painful grimace of regret, dumb-ass. I get it; you don't have to explain yourself again. But that's probably a good reason why Kaen calls you an old man and threatens you with violence."

"I always thought he took after his short-tempered Kaa-san this entire time. Seriously, he even has your terrifying glare down already. He threatened to roast several older kids in the park the last time I visited, simply because they snickered at him as I pushed him on the swing! I'm pretty sure one of them even pissed themselves as Kaen-chan's dark glare reminded them of a scary thug who loiters in back alleys for a chance to rob an old lady's purse! Even those terrified kid's parents were too scared to complain about him when gave them a thuggish sneer!"

"That's my boy; not taking shit from no one."

"Hey! Scary Faced Kaa-san! Stop sniffing proudly at your child's violent behavior! Do you reward him for terrifying strangers with sneers and popping knuckles with candy and toys? You do, don't you? Don't try to look away with an innocent twirl of your hair as if something caught your interest!"

"Eh, I like to think he takes after his parents to a fine T. After all, he mostly fights with his fists despite being a Level-3 at his age. Not to mention his knack for cooking. If it weren't for taking after his thug of a Tou-san, he would be a rather upstanding student with a future in culinary."

"Don't turn this around on me! I-I'm not at fault too...am I? But I'm not a thug! Even after all these years away from home, I'm still plagued by that bullshit title?! Do people still whisper in the back alleys about me as if I'm some kind of bansho who rules over the city like some hidden boss? Do I have to go out and pummel those gossiping idiots spreading false rumors like giddy middle school girls with nothing to do?!"

"See? He doesn't get his hotheadedness from me alone, you jackass. And stop shouting like some frothing mad man. She's starting to look at you in disappointment as she realizes you're her father whether she comes to like it or not."

In front of Touma's eyes, a father and mother were talking to another as the small life held in the mother's arms stared up at the world with wonder. Despite how loud her parents were or how the mother began yanking on the spiky hair of the father for the volume of his ranting, the baby seemed to smile. For some unexplainable reason, he couldn't help but forget about everything in this moment. There was something here in this light-hearted atmosphere that...resonated with a part of Kamijou Touma.

Kamiko's first smile.

It trembled.

A right hand cursed with shattering even the golden miracles capable of saving and healing others.

For some reason, his right hand, smeared with blood from the sutures snapped from his urge to inflict nothing but pain, clenched at his chest.

To Touma's confusion, the pure smile of an innocent soul caused the spiky-haired father to cautiously step back. It was as if he had come across something he had to avoid.

"Are you still scared? She's your daughter, isn't she? So, shouldn't you be leaping with joy and begging me to let you hold her in your arms? She not going to bite...at least, not until her teeth start growing in. Than she might just treat you like that big-tittied nun who still stares at you with lust. Isn't she the archbishop of an entire religion now? How the fuck does a slutty woman with knockers as big as mine become the head of the church?"

A nun with big tits? Weren't those only found in hentai? Index surely wasn't so alluring to create such urges. Nope, nu-uh, no way.

As if such a slim girl with unique silver hair, a sweet smile, milky-white complexion, and lovely face could ever arise such heathenish emotions as lust to a high school boy who had to lock himself in a bathroom every night instead of sharing a bed with such a girl!

No, wait; shit, he forgot about Angela. Now he had two nuns to hide away from in the late hours of the night. And Angela certainly had the potential to become a rather buxom nun with her figure.

...Was he going to hell?

Shaking said alarming thoughts away, Touma was curious about the father's behavior. Not that he thought about it, it was rather odd for the man to not be holding the baby in his arm. From what he could tell this was the father's first meeting with his newborn daughter. It was a joyous occasion any parent would be excited about.

Even if he lacked the memories of the previous Kamijou Touma's experience with his own family, he still felt he knew what to expect at the scene he was observing as an outside party.

The Spiky-Haired Delinquent Father appeared to open his mouth to speak but wound up staring down at his feet. His shoulders were tense and rigged. As if he was holding himself back from reaching for the happiness right in front of his face.

The Scary-Faced Vulgar Mother scoffed softly. She was frustrated but appeared understanding of her spouse's predicament.

"Tell me; how did you know I was giving birth right now? Last I recall, you were in Italy, caught up in some shitty plot to prevent some satanic freak from creating a holy weapon called the Longinus Spear? I still don't understand matters concerning the other side of the world but it seemed like a big deal to you. Weren't you originally there after dealing with a Gemstone sought after by the white-haired monster turned Board Chairman, who could mess tectonic plates? And before that, weren't you on national news during the sudden eruption of a volcano in Hawaii as it was hit by a freaky snowstorm blanketing all of the islands? I would have thought you would be too busy to see me or Kaen, let alone get word of me giving birth."

Such words weren't said scathingly or bitterly by a woman who didn't expect to the man who fathered her children as she delivered their daughter by herself. They were said as casually as if she were asking the stiff man what he wanted to eat for lunch later.

The Scary-Faced Vulgar Mother had come to expect the Delinquent Father wouldn't be around. Just the mere fact he was currently here now was strange.

Touma had to wonder what kind of relationship the two adults shared. Clearly, it was unlike what he would expect from a husband and wife. Or perhaps such titles meant nothing to those two.

A shuddering breath was heard from the stiff shouldered father who began speaking lowly.

"He told me. Somehow, someway, through all the chaos unfolding on the streets of a random street in London, the lucky bastard was able to reach me. No doubt the #1 Chairman had a hand in helping him get in touch with me, but the odds of being able to contact me as I was facing some freak cultist wielding a terrifying holy weapon replicated to kill Saints and Devils were practically zero. But he was able to call me on my cracked screened phone caked in dirt and blood. It wasn't even my phone."

The Delinquent Father's right hand felt his side, just below the ribs where one could find major organs. It was as if he were touching a wound that had yet to fully mend and continued to cause him pain.

"Even though I had such a terrifying spear running through my ribs and nick my lungs, he berated me, scolded me, cursed me for being a shitty father as blood spilled out my lips. 'Your daughter is being born right now, you piece of shit! And you're roaming the streets fighting idiots in broad daylight while the woman who gave birth to your son is giving birth to your second child? Stop acting like some high school punk and start acting like a man! Clean the blood out of your mouth, clench your teeth, knock the bastard out, and go see the birth of your kid, you lousy excuse of a shitty father!'"

Fingers dug into the battered leather jacket, touching a lethal wound that must have been hastily patched up so that he could stand where he stood now. Beyond the veil of fog, Touma felt as if the man wore an agonized expression that had nothing to do with his injury.

Bitterly with amusement, the Delinquent Father chuckled.

"I nearly missed it again, huh. It was just like when Kaen-chan was born too. Even when I'm trying to make it back to the city to even visit you two, something always comes up and drags me along. Trouble always blooms when I'm around; a villain of the day; the end of the world; a random kidnapping; a natural disaster trapping people in rubble; a friend in trouble or on the run from some organization; stumbling onto some illegal plot responsible for the tears on someone's face- No matter what I'm doing at the time or planning on doing, at any moment, my curse will set up the dominoes to fall and force me to react."

"And you can never just turn away and be selfish, can you?"

"I already did that once. I paid the price for deciding to turn my back on others in favor of my own selfish happiness with her. They paid that price and left me to foot the rest of the bill on my own."

A cocktail of regret and sadness was heard in the Delinquent Father's lament. His finger's dug deeper into his leather jacket to the point Touma could hear the material groan.

"I don't want you three to have to suffer because I was being selfish. I can't do that again. Even if it means I have to stay far away from you all as you stroll out in the sun with smiles on your faces without me, I can't risk destroying the blissful world you inhabit because of some ugly desire. But I also refuse to simply abandon you all either. I...I want to see everyone and enjoy that warm light too. Even at the risk of stirring some unseen chaos because my very presence acts as the spark for violence and spraying you all with the harmful shrapnel; I just can't..."

I don't want to be alone.

I don't want to be forgotten.

I don't want to disappear.

Without needing to say those words, Touma felt as if he understood what it was that the older man who was afraid of touching the golden scene in front of him wanted to say.

A sympathetic pang crossed Touma's chest as stared at the father's faintly tremble.

"I've told you before; you don't have to explain yourself or feel like shit either. I was the one who snapped you out of that sorry state you were in as you were about to do something incredibly stupid out of grief. You have your reasons and I've accepted them. Not like I'm the kind of chick who's disappointed in not wearing white or being walked down the aisle. Knowing you, you probably wouldn't have been able to buy a measly ring with a fake diamond if you wanted to; let alone show up to the altar."

The revelation of said parents have never tied the knot in holy matrimony stunned Touma as the tea-colored woman with a crass mouth smiled beneath the scrambling fog. Her eyes strayed to the small bundle she held in her arms and reached out to pat the spiky-tea-colored ten-year-old who had been listening to his parents speak. In an odd way, it was as if she were showing off the two children she currently possessed.

"I never saw myself as someone's wife. You know my past; you're not alone in regrets and skeletons jamming the closet. I was perfectly content with the small family I had with the others. But you gave me something I had long abandoned of attaining with my rap sheet of cruelty: a chance to attain something sweet and kind with my monstrous hands. What I have now is more than anything I could ever deserve. And you gave me that. So, you're fine dropping in whenever you feel like it. A spot is always open for you whenever you're feeling selfish enough to play Papa for the brats or even sleep in the same bed as me and have some nightly fun."

Touma blushed a beet red at the smirking woman's offer as the Delinquent Father couldn't help but scratch the back of his neck in embarrassment. An innocently wide-eyed tea colored boy stared at his parent's interactions, ignorant to the whole picture being said as he rested his chin on his mother's lap.

"Wander the world helping others, fighting idiots, attracting more bitches, and play the tragic hero as long as you want. But at some point, you'll have to explain yourself to the two ankle biters who are left wondering why their bum of a Tou-san isn't there. The last thing you need is your second child greeting you with threats and plots to force you to stay home against your will as some hostage."

At that, the tea-colored spiky-haired ten-year-old grinned devilishly at the sweating father. One could swear the very air around the boy had begun to tremble excitedly.

"Kaen already thinks of you as a thug who roams the world brawling villains and eluding the law due to the many warrants that are keeping you from staying in one place for too long. And I really haven't felt the need to correct him. So, you better explain yourself better to your daughter before she grows up with some weird idea to your constant disappearance in her life."

The soft coo of said daughter brought the Delinquent Father's attention to her just as he was about to open his mouth to argue with said claim.

Again, Touma noticed the hesitation in the adult's frame and the stiffness in his broad shoulders.

But…

Slowly, ever so slowly, the Delinquent Father moved his right hand. Even as said hand was shaking like some aged object about to break apart to pieces, he began to reach out to the warm scene waiting for him to step in.

Another hand began to reach out to him as he did.

The small, frail, smooth hand of a newborn girl moved to touch the hand in her sight. Though the baby had just been brought into this strange new world a matter of hours ago, a part of the little life registered who was trying to greet her. Small it may have been but the heart of the newborn found an incredible warmth and joy at the large hand's shadow.

On the day of her birth, the little girl who would offer a bright smile to a miserable high school boy had been introduced to the man who would come to deliver the greatest gift she could ever ask for.

"Kamiko."

Little Goddess.

The characters of the name were of Incense and Beauty.

A Beautiful Little Goddess With A Fragrant Burning Smoke.

When the Vulgar Mouthed Mother said her daughter's name, the Delinquent Father's trembling index finger touched the reaching hand of his little goddess.

At that very moment, Touma felt as if he was intruding on a moment meant only for that four centered on the memory he was standing in. It was a special moment meant only for the small family and not some high school boy in a hospital gown dirtied by stains of blood. He had no right to wandering into such a loving scene. He felt he was a tainting piece to such a lovely scene.

"This is the last moment my master was able to spend time with his family. It was the first memory of meeting his daughter and the last time he would be able to see the small smile on the infant's face until she reached six months."

The words of the nameless girl who acted as a fragmented codex snapped Touma out of his gazing at the warm golden scene. Those words acted as a bucket of cold water that left him shivering at what they entailed.

Six months?

"Why? Why would he leave for six months when his daughter was just born!? What the hell kind of father would simply disappear for half a year, leaving his family as they're adjusting to the introduction of a newborn, and not be there for them when they need their father to support them?! Doesn't he give a damn about them to forget about whatever the hell he's doing and stay for a lousy few days to take care of the people waiting for him with open arms?!"

Touma didn't understand why but he felt himself erupt in livid anger at the Delinquent Father.

Right in front of the bastard was a family he created! A loving circle of people who cared about him, understood him, and needed him in their lives! People he had history with! No matter how selfish he was, how distant he was, how stupid he was! There, right in front of his damn eyes!

A small world of kindness, happiness, affection, joy, and warmth was standing just a measly step ahead of him and he was abandoning it!

How could anyone do such a fucking thing!?

"&R^$*$U#G&$E$**I$R($G&N$I!E"

Searing malice dug deep into Touma's forehead, splitting straight down his cranium and creating branches of pain to spread to his jaw like the blade of a shovel digging through dirt.

"Ghhrk!"

He swore he blacked out for a split second from the agony rooting in his head.

Was...was that voice? No, it couldn't be. It didn't sound remotely human or anything a living being could ever produce from their vocal cords; human or animal. Alien? Demonic?

Whatever it had been, its very voice(if it could be called that) had been far beyond anything he could comprehend with his human mind. He cradled his face, feeling the wake of the voice left behind shovel blade of pain and branches of agony in his head that caused him to stumble back from the golden illusion.

"I see. While the vines were snipped, they were not destroyed. Yes, such toxins can not be so easily removed even if a boy who manipulated the dreg of such an abyssal being outside of magic and science to damage its control. A corpse will rot; severed fingers are no different."

"W-What? What are you saying? Rot? Fingers? Does any of this have to do with the horrific headache I'm dealing with?" Touma hissed amid a deep grimace.

Calling whatever this pain was a headache was a joke. Pain like this made him physically ill and weak in his knees. How was he even standing considering the wounded state he already was in?

Affected by the abnormal and disturbing voice, the golden illusion he was witnessing began to...glitch? What he was seeing was apparently a recorded experience etched into either papyrus, tree bark, vellum, and old sheets of paper. Everything here had already happened and could not be changed. Similar to a VHS from decades ago, no amount of editing or fancy software tools could alter the set film.

Yet before his squinting eyes, the recording began to shift, scrambled by an interfering signal.

The back of an older spiky-haired, shitty father stayed in place while everything around began to waver. The obscuring fog was effected, providing the smallest peek to the man's identity.

Five o'clock shadow, weary yet bright dark blue eyes, a generic face in general no different than any other man in his early thirties.

Touma did not recognize the man. Nothing about the Delinquent Father rung any bells or struck any familiar chords in even the previous Kamijou Touma's semantic memories. He was nothing but a stranger.

Even if he didn't recognize the man, he could at least recognize the face of the father who chose to distance himself from the lovely illusion.

Love.

"Papa!"

Darkness returned like the shutter of a film.

Warmth was devoured by the bleak cold.

All remaining of the golden illusion was the stiff and broad back of the leather jacket Delinquent Father who began walking on a bright single path stretching into eternity. Below the older spiky man's feet was an illuminated street you could find in any modernized city, revealing nothing of the city's culture, people, time, or fate. Each step from that figure echoed in the dark world like a fading heartbeat that squeezed at Touma's heart.

A little girl's voice tearfully cried out to the man who calmly walked away without glancing back.

Someone ran past the paralyzed high school boy. After meeting her only once, he couldn't but feel as if he would be able to immediately pick her out from a crowd of children playing in the park.

Past a grimace and blinking eyes, he called out to her.

"K-Kamiko-chan?!"

Pressure wrung his beating heart, matching the echoing thuds of a distant father's departure.

Calling the bright's girl's name did nothing in changing her hurried steps after her father. Crystal beads of water tainted by despair flew past the little girl's face she tried to close distance of the figure that mattered the world to her.

Fingers dwarfed by her father's shadow desperately reached out to a back that would not turn back at her cries.

The back of a little girl who called out to her distant father painted a tear-jerking picture.

The context wasn't needed. The fading back and footsteps said it all.

"Stop."

He couldn't accept it. He could feel his heart being wrung of all its blood at the scene.

"Are you deaf?"

This tragic replay. Why did it make him want to tear up with furious tears?

"Can't you see her crying?"

Tears never meant to taint a sweet girl's face who would comfort a stranger who resembled a mummy.

"WHY THE HELL ARE YOU WALKING AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYY!"

What exploded out of Touma's quivering throat was no different than a roar from a dragon infuriated from his slumber.

All he did was roar his displeasure and anger at the back of a man who was nothing short of a pathetic scum bag for leaving behind such a wondrous treasure.

As he launched himself forward to said despicable father, it was not the object of his seething hatred that reacted.

"It's your fault."

Lashing malice.

What felt like lashing leather struck Touma before he could so much as grab the shoulder of the Delinquent Father he was able to reach. His insides groaned and fresh blood spewed from his gasping lips. Like a soccer ball, whatever lashed out kicked him far away. He felt his body bounce on the tar earth like a skipping pebble before he found himself on his back.

Nothing but a blinding white pain was registered as the already heavily wounded gown-clothed boy clutched his stomach and writhed. There wasn't any air in his rasping lungs, the single blow squeezing it out of him like it were condiments in a bottle.

One hit. All it had taken to destroy whatever remained of his stamina had been one measly hit.

He couldn't stand back up and found himself only capable of gingerly sitting up with a wheeze to stare at his attacker.

"It's all your fault. You're the reason Papa isn't here right now."

Black miasma tinted with blue and white like the flames of gas-lit burner.

Hands with disfigured witch-like fingers ranging from two, three, four, and five creaking digits.

Red circles spinning like disks found only in occult manga, a dangerous symbol found in the dead memory of a high school boy.

In the abyss of tar, a lone girl stood in the center of deep darkness. Her eyes had lost their innocence, replaced by a deadly red light from the magic arrays taking over her sight. Like a marionette doll with its strings severed, she stood in the plane of a black world without any motion. Shrouded by the bizarre miasma tinted with blue and white edges like a searing flame, the Small Goddess found herself surrounded by a vile garden of eldritch arms rising from the black tar world. Disturbing clicks were heard by those eldritch abominations hovering protectively over the murderous-faced child, their numbers ranging in dozen after dozen.

Rotting fingers, severed but still vile, corrupted the heart of a lonely girl who missed her father dearly. In this moment, who was the puppet master? The girl infected by the dregs of a malicious thing? Or the eldritch vines tugged by the despair of a lonely doll?

"I-Is this...p-part of the memories?" Touma grunted as he tried to push himself up, crumbling to the ground as his weak arms lacked any strength.

"No. These are the rotting vines of One Who Denies Reality. Space, Time, Law, Physics, Matter, Language: these are the hands that will one day be capable of distorting existence and felling a great hero. Though they are nothing more than sprouts lacking the crucial nutrients to grow into proper plants, they are nonetheless terrible vines capable of shredding the truth of the world at a scrape of a nail."

With the loss of the memory she guarded in her being, the nameless girl with gray-silver hair reappeared in the Black World. In nothing but her skinny and thin shroud, she stood at Touma's side with a new emotion on her black face.

Hatred.

Within that woman who lacked memories of her own history, she felt the pull of utter disgust and fury at the sight of those rotting vines surrounding Kamiko like guard dogs.

"The image you previously witnessed was not from my archives. It belongs to the child centered on the memory. It is a truth shred by the claws you see now. Without truth, only lies can blossom and twist the cognition of a person to an ugly illusion. It's these foul vines that have infected every torn page of my codex in hopes of sowing a despicable flower capable of severing the bond of child and parent!"

What you saw was a lie.

A fabrication of a despicable trickster who desired to create distrust and sought pleasure from the rot created from the false truth.

Fingers with claws glowing with whitish-blue clicked and pointed at their target in accusation. They were the shredders of truth who left lies to bleed from the pus rotting wound.

"Misfortune. It's because of you, because of all the violence, disaster, cruelty, sadness, and pain spread by you that Papa can't stay home. You're to blame, he said so himself! But if misfortune is erased, if I can kill all the sources of the plague, Papa can come back to me. Mama will be happy. Onii-san will be happy. We can all be happy!"

Because of those vines from a bizarre being, some lovely and gentle memory had been infected to turn Kamiko's despair into a deadly desire for bloodshed. All manner of misfortune, the source that lured her father into distancing himself from their family, was amassed in a single point in her eyes. Her pain had manifested into a physical object she could destroy in a hysterical rampage.

Touma looked away from the cold eyes of the twisted girl to stare at his bloody right hand.

Imagine Breaker. A hand that denied the miracles of God and wrought misery. One could say such an ill-boding ability was a magnet for trouble. It was a curse embodying disaster. A reaper of miracles.

In other words…

"Plague."

Deep within the traumatized heart, a single word slipped out in lament.

Familiar and burdened with a lost sorrow.

Led by a lie spurned in the loss of truth, a bright child commanded a garden of eldritch hands to slaughter the plague responsible for her misfortune.

"Die."

Boney clicks and vicious snaps sounded off the bombardment of rain designed to shred reality.

All his strength bled out and he found he couldn't move a single finger at the approaching malice.

[-]

But death never came.

"Are you afraid?"

As Touma opened his tightly shut eyes, he found a surprising sight awaiting him in the downpour of infectious claws.

Just as the branches of a tree failed to break glass, rain of eldritch claws falling onto Touma were stopped by countless obsidian slabs similar to TV screens. Even in the dark work, those slabs gleamed and held back the creaking claws threatening to break free at any moment. The horrible sound of nails raking against a chalkboard snapped him out of his stupor to finally react properly.

With his life in danger, he felt a jolt of adrenaline kick start his weak body to move. He rolled out of the way, evading the eldritch rain as the clawed hands smashed through the obsidian mirrors. The shards of obsidian faded away like sugar dissolving into water and left the malicious arms to sink into the tar earth.

Touma gasped, his heartbeat pounding his chest to the point of discomfort. He grimaced, feeling his still aching wounds throb.

Next to him, the nameless keeper of memories regarded him blankly after saving his life.

"You show hesitation. You're sweating like ice left out in the sun. Your right hand won't stop shaking. Are you not confident in rescuing the sullen girl corrupted by a detestable monster? All you would need to do is touch her and she would be saved. You alone can rescue her."

"I...I-I..."

Touma was a loss of words in response to those dull mint-green orbs that held a childish curiosity. He couldn't help but drop his head in shame as he clutched his broken right wrist.

Just as the nameless girl said, his cursed hand wouldn't stop shaking. The shaking could be felt deep in his bones.

Giving no thought to the Touma or the nameless woman, the deformed arms of tar ripped themselves out of the tar earth. Unlike the earth in the real world, rubble and debris did not trail off the gouging malice. To those clawed arms, it was like they had dug into goo. The eldritch hands returned to their master, standing back and awaiting her orders like a loyal beast.

In the uncertain blue eyes of Kamijou Touma, the many eldritch hands hanging behind the lonely girl's back reminded him of wings.

'Tell

Me

Haven't

You

Already

Tried

That?'

Hadn't he seen a scene like this before? Hadn't it only been three days since he had been dragged into a similar world in a City of Wisps? A girl troubled by the trauma of being abandoned by her parents had been corrupted by the unkind world and turned to violence to find happiness. And what had he done to the lonely star who made a wish for someone to save her? When she had finally gained the ability to smile so innocently, what had he done to mar his lovely face with despair?

Kamijou Touma killed her.

By reaching his hand out, he shattered the budding smile on her face with despair and betrayal. Because of his cursed hand, he single-handedly killed a girl who believed her loneliness would be relieved by the kind boy who fought for her smile. Because he hadn't understood how Imagine Breaker would react to her as her body was consumed by a supernatural power, he had carelessly acted and destroyed her body with a mere touch. He had pounded her fragile body until she had collapsed at the slightest gentle touch.

And because of his failure, because he killed a girl who had only wished for a friend to give her purpose, he had been too terrified to ease the pain of a child, to save a teacher, or reach out to someone who was as empty as he had been.

Guilt was an everlasting scar, one that would remain rooted upon the borrowed heart for as long as he lived. And that scar was burning a devilish red. It was a trauma that caused such a terrible tremble in his right hand to slither and strangle his aching heart.

Deep in the marrow of his cruel arm, he felt something pulsating, wriggling, like a behemoth trapped within a small metal cage, threatening to break free.

Yes, he was scared. Was that so strange? For a normal boy who never desired to involve himself in such a strange and terrifying battlefield fit for those who were blessed with the proper tools, talents, and strengths to arrive at the stage and save the day, to be terrified of the blinding and scathing pressure of the spotlight? Just as a tin can groaned when under pressure, he felt his body let out such a sound.

Branches of the abyss tipped with claws of poison spared little hesitation to his internal dilemma. Those eldritch arms fired off high into the air like stars, their visages blinking in the dark world before plummeting upon the expansive plane of tar like cruiser missiles.

All it had taken was one lashing hand to completely drain his stamina and leave him on his back without the strength to push himself up with his arms.

Countless sinister stars were to crash around him. Even if he avoided a few of them, he would undeniably be speared by one or two. The shock waves alone would kill him without those claws ever scratching him. This was an AOE attack found in the most difficult of video games and he didn't have the stats to so much as surviving with a single HP point.

But before he could flinch as those sinister stars fell to the earth, from the tar, countless obsidian sleets arose. Mirrors of black conjoined to form a layered wall above Touma and the nameless girl, shielding them from the hungry claws. The wall shined magical arrays with symbols, sigils, and text he couldn't make heads or tails of. Whatever those sleets were made of they held strong against the eldritch claws, creaking under the monstrous abominations stabbing motions. The sound of nails raking against a chalkboard created the only sound in this abyssal world of darkness.

It was the nameless girl who held her left hand out, gesturing to being the one to summon those protective walls, who spoke up to the shaken spiky boy who struggled to hold a firm grip of his bloody right hand.

"I see. I may not have the proper references of my own to understand your turmoil or grief but I do possess his experiences to build something up. You remind me of him. Of the master who never meant to possess me but who decided to nurture a strange inanimate stack of various written pages because of the drops of tears and blood staining me. He was a cowardly human too."

Sounds of glass smashed through by the sinister stars tipped with gruesome claws rung out. Not even the bizarre sheets of obsidian could hold them off forever. Every layer of the odd magical array began to crack and shudder as the eldritch claws worked to sheer the truth.

A sense of irritation could be seen in those hands, or was it a human emotion from its master, as those numerous hands gave up their diving tactic. They withdrew and circled the lonely little goddess who furrowed her brow angrily.

"Stop getting in my way! Why are you protecting that thing!? Can't you see it's a monster who deserves to die?! Something like...something so evil doesn't deserve to live!" she childishly cried.

Hands spurned to shred the truth spun their wrists, spearing forward like madly drilling lances. If they could not smash through the shield than they would punch a hole right through.

The nameless woman slammed her arm down, pulling the cracked array down with a thundering bang so that it would intercept those sinister drills. Heated sparks sprayed upon impact, giving birth the slightest embers of warmth in this cold and empty world. A mechanical whine of power drills sheering through hard steel was heard amid the orange sparks kissing the darkness.

"If you're afraid, say it. Those are the words from a man who was far too fearful of his own happiness that he turned his back to those who would always wait for him to gather the courage to step back in and enjoy their warmth. What you're feeling is not evil. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It's okay if it's enough to bring you to your knees and wail."

"Die! Die! Die! Why can't you die!? Please, just fucking die, you ugly monster!"

A new barrage arrived to knock upon the large-scale magical array.

The sinister claws added clenched fists to the shearing drills and smashed against the waning wall. Raking claws followed suit, slashing at the symbols to wear away the truth. It would not be long until their shield was shattered to nothing.

"If you're terrified, petrified, shaken to your core; say it. If you cage it, it will only fester into an ugly wound not even the most skillful doctor can cure nor spell can heal. Doesn't that nasty wriggling in your stomach upset you? Do you truly feel relief in standing back because you're terrified? If this makes you sick, if this irritates you, if you can't stand the disturbing sweat coating your skin as you tremble than speak up. Only when you let it out, speak your fears, and confront that ugly side of yourself head-on, can you smash it to pieces."

Touma grit his teeth from an intense agony at those words.

Speak your fears.

It hurts, doesn't it?

Failing was never a pleasant sensation. No one sane would ever desire such a thing to occur to them over and over, and over, and over, and over again. You'd have to be an utterly tragic human to willingly taste defeat without end. It was perfectly understandable if you grew bitter at your own setbacks and thought twice about trying again. Hesitation was an emotion even bugs had been noted to display when humans were found dangerously close to their squishy bodies.

But fear is not evil. You don't have to hide the pain and keep it to yourself.a

Even if no one was around…

"I...I-I..."

But this was more than just hesitation. There was a deeper core to the remorseful words slipping out of his dry lips.

Even if you were absolutely alone and the words you let out were pathetic…

"I'm scared."

Speak those shameful thoughts freely. Only than can you face your fears.

Obsidian mirrors glowing with occult symbols creaked and crumbled to those sinister branches. Out of all the deadly branches, a single claw snapped forward to tear at the terrified child.

Smeared by blood, Imagine Breaker's shaking stilled and snapped up to meet those sinister claws. He caught the lanky wrist with a tight grip despite the unknown broken bones it possessed.

And in an instant, the eldritch branch shattered like brittle glass.

All at once, the garden of assaulting vines shrieked at the death of one of their one. As if each individual arm was connected along with the bundle of nerves, the mass of claws abandoned their attack and retreated back to their master. Like small animals, they cowered behind the stunned-eyed little goddess shrouded in cruel miasma like fire.

At the same time as the eldritch hands ran away, the immense scale magical array sank into the tar world's surface. Nothing remained to block whatever malice would rain down upon them.

It hurt, it hurt incredibly. None of his injuries remained silent and decided to scream at him. Brandishing his cursed hand invited a hot and rattling pressure in his arm due to the broken bones that have yet to be properly mended.

Kamijou Touma clenched the throbbing hand with a tear slipping from his anguished eyes. His expression was a clash of regret, anger, cowardice, and frustration.

And he spoke through a gut-wrenching sob fit for a brat who had lost their parents.

"I'm scared! Of course, I'm scared! Haven't I done this before?! Didn't I try to save some lonely girl who was abandoned by the world because she failed to be better than those pathetic bastards who couldn't achieve any more than her?! Wasn't it this fucking curse in my right hand that stole her smile and marred her face with anguish moments before her entire body was shattered to pieces?! I wanted to save her! I killed her! There's no one else to blame in her death but me!"

Amid those cries, the eldritch horrors clicked their fingers and moved. They cared not for those weeping eyes.

They shed the truth so malice could bleed and breed falsehoods.

"And I'm afraid simply reaching my hand out to someone with tears on their faces will repeat that failure all over again! Because I've failed to understand this strange ability, because I'm simply a fake who can only lie and take what doesn't belong to me with a despicable smile on my face! What if my reckless violence against that lab coat bastard somehow led to Yomikawa-sensei being further harmed or worse?! What if my cruel right hand only stripped Kamiko-chan of whatever possible miracle she could find in meeting her father or overcoming her grief?! What if my ignorance once again slaughtered some mysterious girl because I lacked the understanding of who or what she was?! If it had been that Kamijou Touma who saved Mila, if it had been that Kamijou Touma who came to Yomikawa-sensei's rescue, if it had been that Kamijou Touma who saw the emptiness in your eyes!"

Cry if it made you feel better. Don't hide the evidence of your grief. Accept it and let it go.

It was a truth not even those strange claws could infect.

"Than they would have all been saved. If I didn't exist...wouldn't they all be smiling?"

He was hurting and that hurt brought him to tears. He was afraid and that fear caused him to hesitate.

But past the blurry vision full of swimming bitter tears, Touma found a glimmer amid his own.

"Please...please just die."

The tears of someone else who was afraid, who was hurting, who was all alone and plagued by something terrifying put an end to the pain in his chest.

Anguish and despair were cracked by those glimmering beads to a child with no smile.

An unbearable and intense pulse was released from his chest.

'...Ahhh...'

An even greater and far more punishing pain struck the sniveling boy.

At some point, without realizing it himself as he lamented his own misfortune, he had turned his back to someone else.

He had focused on his own pain, on his own troubles, complained, whined, cried, made up excuses, and stood back as someone else was suffering right in front of him. He had shunned others and had come up with a despicable argument on why he couldn't save anyone because of one personal tragedy. All while lamenting on how someone else could have stepped up instead of him.

Never before had he felt such a sickly and disturbing sensation form in his stomach that he felt like violently vomitting bile.

Maybe it was because of such a loathsome sensation that he did what he did next.

Touma found his body moving before even his heart could come to grips with the surge of adrenaline pushing him forward. Through the streaking barrage of arms stretching forward like taffy to tear him to bits, he evaded those malicious branches with twists and swinging right punches to destroy those toxic nightmares.

The tears slipped from his eyes and dried up.

Just...just what the hell had he become?

He was terrified; he knew that. He didn't need some strange girl wearing a thin and flimsy shawl to point it out to him! After failing to save one girl who had been suffering by herself for too long, he had become hesitant and thought twice to attempting to so much as lend a hand out to a random girl he just met. Pathetic as it was, and as betraying as it was to the tugs of the heart he was lent by someone far kinder, Touma had held back his own desire to help others because of the risk his right hand carried. Because he lacked the confidence to save anyone.

But so what?!

Did any of that shitty reasoning have anything to do with becoming the kind of high school boy who would grow blind to the tears of someone else?!

"I'm scared to my very core but...but most of all! I'm terrified...terrified that I'll grow into the kind of adult who can't even register when even a little girl is suffering right in front of their eyes! That's not the kind of person I want to be! That's not a normal life I ever want to grow accustomed to! That's not who Kamijou Touma could ever be! I don't want to be afraid! I don't want to second guess myself! I don't want to run away or ask anyone else to step in! I don't...I d-don't...I don't want to accept this shitty misfortune anymoooooooooooooorrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

His cry fell away into a vicious roar originating from his aching chest.

Those wet dark blue mirrors shed away the despair and reaffirmed themselves. Determination burned hotly in the gaze of a boy who blindly charged ahead to clicking eldritch horrors.

Those words were spoken to a high school boy who had been too cowardly to pat a small girl's head as she was lamenting the loss of her father and had been on the verge of tears. He shouted at the idiot who had become too preoccupied with his own grief and hesitated to offer so much as words of comfort to someone who was suffering right in front of his eyes. The bestial roar that would shatter away this illusion was to the terrified child who turned a blind eye to the tears on someone's face. His clenched fist was braced and raced forward to tramble the weakling who had stopped to rescue one of his teachers.

Imagine Breaker, Illusion Killer, or Fantasy Killer, whatever its name was!

That strange power in his hand was clasped tightly and smashed into several branches streaming forward without hesitation. He couldn't help but feel a grin destroy whatever miserable expression he wore moments ago.

A scarred heart regained the spark it had found on that sunny July morning at the sight of a crumbling smile.

A hand said to destroy all miracles and been responsible for the death of a lonely girl was tightly balled to cull the cruel garden of insidious branches.

[-]

Don't be upset at your fear.

Don't be ashamed.

Don't ever forget you're only human.

Embrace that ugly emotion and let it push you forward, not backward. Even if you stop and tremble, don't be afraid to keep walking ahead even if every step quivers and your heart cries.

Against your failures and regrets, shatter the illusion of doubt.

Face your fears.

And let's end this crappy little nightmare!

[-]

Shinzo was excited.

Spinning the various pens and pencils he found scattered in the now wrecked nurses' station, he flung the writing utensils in what appeared to be random spots around their surroundings. A total of seven puncturing needles were planted in carefully selected coordinates.

The mechanical whir and hum of a 90s modem could be heard from the boy's temple.

When Kuroko teleported out of the way of lashing high kick to her temple in their close-quarters fight, he grinned as the tawny girl reappeared a few steps away from the door to the female restroom. A look of deep pain crossed her face as she touched the floor.

One of the darts he carefully set up to function as traps had struck. The teleporter's own weapon stabbed through the middle of her left foot as she slipped into space.

Or it should have.

Instead of what he had expected per his own calculations, the needle trap had slipped in from the very edge of her foot. It was no more than a superficial wound a few stitches could patch up.

He could see the grimace on her face but found a grin of victory devouring the discomfort.

Those victorious dark red eyes were focused on his upper body. It was as if he found countless cross-hairs dancing over him.

What muscles, tendons, or nerves would be struck?

In order for her to slip in those deadly darts, she had to have an idea of where her attacks would appear from the 11th dimension. She couldn't attack blindly. To a teleporter, vision was everything. She had to have an idea of her surroundings to perfectly act out the calculations needed for her power. In order to inflict the proper damage she desired, she had to have knowledge of the human anatomy or risk killing her opponent.

Shinzo knew all that was required to deal with such a unique foe. He was a Kihara. A human who deconstructed every specimen that caught his interest. Every quirk was taken into account and every tick was noted. Even if he was from a future where the two never interacted, he had everything he needed to counter such a deadly esper. Countering calculations simply required equal or higher calculations.

Again, a strange whir of machinery could be heard from the cool-faced boy as he braced himself.

He took note of the three darts held between Kuroko's fist. After going through every move she would make, he narrowed it down to three options and acted on the most likely in the heat of the moment.

Cracking the wrist of his clawed fist, he prepared to deal with the vanishing white darts with a skip to his left.

He deduced she was done aiming for nerves and muscles responsible for movement involving his legs or arms. Frustration was evident on her face. She was aiming to damage him but not mortally wound him. Those needles would appear at some random point on his upper body to make him flinch. But so long as he knew where the attack would come from, he could dodge if he performed the proper evasion.

A normal human would lack such reaction speed. If given a visual aid of where the attack would come from, an ordinary person would fail to complete whatever quick time event would allow them to escape unharmed.

Luckily for him, he had come prepared to handle such limits.

Weaving to the far right, he evaded the three needles appearing out of thin air to slip into his chest or his collar.

Or, they should have.

Instead of the white needles he was familiar with, a pink nurse's shoe popped out in their place. The ordinary object floated in the air for a few seconds before falling to the floor with a soft thud.

Shinzo grew alarmed and spun around-

A small fist struck his spine before he could fully turn around.

He felt three needles break the skin, sever muscles, and snip nerves.

In the time he had been caught by surprise by the change of weapon, the teleporter had attacked from his back with a quick slip through the 11th dimension. She silently slipped her fangs into his back as he tried to think of where the attack was coming from.

In the span of fifteen seconds, she landed her hit.

"Ah, so you've begun to grow wise to my trick?" he spoke calmly as his legs began to quiver.

In response to his words, a total of seven more darts were teleported into crucial points all over his body. Each one was designed to immobilize him. A terrible numbness should have caused him to break out in a cold sweat.

Feeling smug as she pinned down her target, Kuroko haughtily explained.

"I don't know if it's because of some power related to your Personal Reality; maybe it's all simply talent and you're a genius, but you were countering my own calculations. You took note of where my eyes would focus on, guessed between actions related to Attacking or Evasion, thought up of a proper counter to my attacks, and moved with such perfect evasion I would have mistaken you for a clairvoyant. We're fighting in a tight space, leaving my options of where to move limited. I can only attack you physically at certain spots within a limited set of moves. Even if I attacked via my darts slipping into your body, you would only need to think of where I would attack and dodge. Practice-wise, an ordinary human would fail to carry out such counters even if he was told where the attack would come from. But you've been able to make up for such limits and even set up traps."

She vanished, leaving her needles behind.

"Because I wasn't taking you seriously, I let you lead me on. But I'm no longer allowing you to dictate this fight. You're facing a Level-4 Teleporter! A member of Judgment! As if I would lose to some smart-ass who lacks any sort of decency!"

An attack would follow.

Shinzo ran through all the moves available to the high-level teleport esper. The odd noise in his head increased. He stood in the middle of the hall, directly in front of the nurse's station. He took into account all the angles the nimble middle-school girl would strike and what areas on his body she would focus on with those precise darts. Like a supercomputer, he ran through all the available options available to him to deflect or counter those limited cards his opponent had to work with.

His gaze turned above, expecting a physical blow. His calculations would only arrive at one probability after eliminating all others to better focus on executing the successful solution.

But instead of the pig-tail girl's arrival, it was a rain of glinting darts. A scattershot of metal spines.

'Oh...that's troublesome. Her character profile doesn't warrant such a possible lethal move.'

Twenty darts were accounted for and seemed to be ejected from a dimension only a select few could traverse safely. They rained down upon him as if they had been fired from the barrel of a shotgun. And those thin spears showed no regard to whatever vital points they struck in their widespread burst.

Shinzo bent his knees and displayed great reaction speed and strength as he leaped back. The clatter of needles hitting the floor was heard instead of the splash of blood. His leap landed him close to restroom doors.

And a moment later, the men's room was kicked open wide from inside and slammed into his back. An odd-sounding cry of pain was heard from him as the heavy frame sent him falling face-first into the floor.

Following suit, the body of the middle school fake nurse slammed into his aching back. Small knees dug into his spine, pinning him to the ground as his damaged wrist was caught in the tight grip of the teleporter and held back in a restraining hold.

"Just because you got a few hits in, drew some blood, and felt on top of the world, doesn't mean you're some unstoppable threat. I work in traversing the 11th dimension; don't think of me as some simple-minded thug you can take out so easily!"

It was over.

The lab coat boy underneath her had stopped struggling and remained still. He must have been dazed by the hefty door being slammed into him so suddenly. Now that he was restrained, Kuroko could get to the real heart of the matter in hand. She ignored the strange noise of what sounded like mini motors and whirring gears for a much more important matter.

A certain boy was still missing from the picture. The Anti-Skill officer may have been rescued but the person both ladies were fighting to protect was nowhere in sight. For all this to truly be over, Kamijou Touma would have to be returned to the safety of his hospital bed without blood or tears on his person.

Kuroko leaned into the frozen criminal with a harsh whisper.

"Now, tell me where Kamijou-san is. And I promise I won't have to add a few dozen more darts into that beaten body of yours."

To her surprise, Shinzo chuckled.

And rolled the nerve-damaged right wrist as if he were testing the oiled joints.

"It seems my efficiency has fallen below 50%. That Flower-chan truly is a lovely little gem only beginning to shine! How did she do it? How did that seemingly frail flower discover I was using the hospital cameras and security system to my advantage? I suppose this is all this body can do under the limited specs. Its computation power has taken quite a hit as the Shinzo System runs along with the same processor. Seems the delicate little flower has been doing decent damage to the program we're all built upon. Did she even realize that pulling on that one string could unravel the entire network? I suppose that means I'll have to stop with the experiment; I've gleaned all I can within the current parameters, so it's nothing to whine about."

He sounded like a child disappointed to hear his parents were calling him back home from playing in the park. There was no hiding the pout on his bruised face.

All of sudden, the various limbs quivering, weakened by the needles severing muscles and nerves, stopped.

"Pain Receptors: Disengaged. Human Limiters: Disengaged. Returning Muscle Fibers Settings To Their Original Levels."

A cold, mechanical, blank voice escaped Shinzo's lips flexed his right hand's fingers.

Without any care to the crippling hold his hand was in, he yanked his right arm back. A chilling crack was heard.

To Kuroko's horror, the wrist completely twisted from its joint with a sick sound of flesh being stretched amid the bones grating on another. She hadn't meant to keep the hold but the sudden burst of strength caught her off guard. She felt sick to her stomach as she caught beads of red seeping from the torn-off gruesomely dislocated wrist.

Shinzo didn't react to the crippling wound. No emotion was seen on the boy as he pushed himself off the floor and knocked Kuroko off. None of the handicapping wounds bothered him. He had grown as blank as a mannequin.

As if those commonly painful and crippling injuries didn't affect someone like him.

Those lifeless dark blue orbs regarded the sweating Kuroko blankly as he raised his mangled wrist. Not a twitch was seen on his facial features as he twisted the limb back into place with a squelch and boney click.

"Calculation Breaker: Engaged."

Whirring gears were heard as the strange boy aimed his palm at Kuroko.

Kuroko wasn't sure what was coming from the lab coat criminal but she wasn't planning on finding out. Running the appropriate calculations, she planned to escape the path of whatever attack the palm was going to unleash.

Raking rusted nails scraped against a school blackboard. The mental image blared into Kuroko's thoughts as the very sound erupted in her eardrums. She couldn't help but wince and clutch her ears.

"I reserved this application solely for a certain monster but it seems that experiment has run short as well. The network's already noticed its loss, so I might as well switch over the specs into the current unit. I've run my course in this hospital long enough; I'll be flushed out in no time. So, I'll have to take my leave and resort to recordings of my second side quest's ending."

Kuroko squinted her eyes amid the horrific sound scrapping against her eardrums. The sound did not let up and even increased in frequency. Her knees knocked against one another and she felt the muscles in her arms weaken. Something about the raking nails sound had changed.

Even as her vision began to swim and the hallway began to distort, she found herself focused on one important item.

The bloody right hand with needles stabbed into the back of the palm and the torn flesh on the wrist. It was gestured to her as if locking onto a target.

Was that where the terrible noise was coming from?

"Did you know that certain sounds cause interesting effects to the human body? I'll save you the lecture of my study into the various findings pertaining to each reaction and simply tell you this; your ability is useless here. Thanks to the design of this hall, the sound I'm blasting you with is bouncing across the tunnel we're in like hyperactive super balls. The irritating noise being hammered into your ears, scraping away at your eardrums, is designed to hamper whatever calculations you have in mind. Any attempt at teleporting in your current state of mind will result in unsavory ends."

Was this the lab coat boy's ability?

Or was he using some device concealed in the right hand locked onto her like a gun?

The sound of raking rusted nails became overwhelming for Kuroko. Sweat coating her forehead, she felt her weak knees hit the hard floor as her vision blurred. She couldn't think, let alone act on the signals her brain was receiving. She felt as if something was frantically scratching at her left eye from the inside!

Standing but a few steps away from her, her crumbling glare met the disappointed dark blue orbs of the criminal scum.

"I really was hoping to play with you for a bit more. I've yet to record any data on figures of justice and law like yourself and Yomikawa-san, so I was eager to see how you would react when under certain stressful stimuli. But I've already attained the information I was after and gotten a better idea of the dreg that's followed us here. Everything else is extra. So, stop your writhing and let go. Not even a Level-4, let alone a Level-5, can protect that boy."

A new sound ripped through the tunnel of noise.

Shinzo blinked at the sound. It was not one produced by his Calculation Breaker.

A quick look around him and he found the origin of the noise. Multiple metal darts once strapped to leather belts concealed on the tawny girl's small body were nailed all around him. The walls, the floor, the lights, the doors, and the nurse's station. As if a porcupine had burst and unleashed all its quills.

Not a one scratched him. Had the Teleporter attempted to slip those harmful quills into his soft body? Even though she couldn't even think straight or act on her body's commands to stand?

"Ah, a last-ditch effort in taking me down? Did I prick a nerve? Don't worry; Kamijou Touma will be back from his little trip. Bloody, broken, a damaged and cracked figure on the verge of death but alive with a satisfied smile on his bruised face. And if he doesn't? Well, consider that a failure on my part for believing he could save a small child from a nightmare."

Kuroko was on the verge of passing out. Her head was splitting and felt as it would crack down the middle. For some reason, her left eye had grown distorted and hazy. She was lucky her attempt to send the last of her darts into random pockets on the lab coat boy's body didn't deflect back at her in a gruesome injury. She felt her eyes begin to roll back into her head as she grit her teeth.

"Hm?"

Shinzo froze.

Than he felt it.

Searing heat.

"!?"

The searing sensation came from his right hand. He felt what could only be described as liquid flames melt away the skin of his wrist, slice through bones and marrow, and cleanly sever his right hand.

Both Kuroko and Shinzo bore witness to a beam of molten flames from below the shadow of the lab coat boy's right hand. A blazing lance liquefied the floor tiles and continued to travel in a straight line, ascending to the ceiling and continuing its path until the fire slowly died away to scattering embers to die out.

The sound of rusted nails died away to a meaty thud hitting the floor.

[-]

"Did you honestly think you could match up to a Level-5, ya arrogant prick?"

Rolling waves could be seen from the body of the future Level-5 standing in the furnace hot hallway. He was producing an unbelievable amount of heat, enough to flash cook cold cuts if he were to pick them up, and the air was twisted by unseen molecules vibrating at insane speeds. It was a wonder he could even breathe when he was at the center of the blaze.

Kaen was the strongest and most innovative pyromaster in Academy City. Both future and present tense. He was ranked 3rd among the Level-5s who have yet to be born in this world. His power could be said to be simple and boring, holding potential only in destruction and death.

He controlled the vibrations of molecules to produce a byproduct known as flames. He could create fire and explosions by violently buzzing molecules all around him. He could even mold those searing byproducts into various shapes if he wished.

Most importantly, he had fine control of those flames. Of molecules. Of its sources. Of its states.

As if his power simply ended at creating balls of fire or jets of scolding flames.

"How interesting. Even under the tunnel blast of noise from my Calculation Breaker, you overcame the scrambled thoughts and overheated my hand with but a monstrous glare. How did you know?"

Beneath Kaen's sneakers, crushed underneath the cruel foot, Shinzo spoke calmly. Even as the older teen ground his dirty sneaker's into his burned face, he continued talking without any care to the damage he had sustained in their fight.

Their short fight.

A clash that had only lasted a few measly minutes.

"Was there even any need for the floating balls of fire or your smoking fist?"

Shinzo's right hand twitched faintly. Trails of black smoke slithered out of the burnt tears and gaping holes of his arm littered with peppered flames. The skin was blackened like charcoal and even the blood had been boiled to create an unpleasant scent of smoldering copper. It was as if the limb had been blown up by a bomb planted deep in his bones.

An odd odor was produced, mixed finely with the unpleasant smell of skin charred black. It was the smell of scorched metal.

Kaen regarded the defeated Shinzo idly as he let his right hand drop over the lab coat boy's face. In his hand had been one of the floating balls of fire burning as hot as the sun. It had been fired like a bullet and turned into a lance ascending from hell itself to seek the heavens. Faint trails of smoke could be seen on the palm.

"Thermoregulation. That's what gave you away. I'm a pyromaster whose Personal Reality was constructed and based on the laws of heat itself. Though I can vibrate molecules to create various manners of flames, I can also sense the heat produced by the blood circulating organs inside you. Just like the Railgun can sense the invisible bio-electric fields produced by living beings, I can sense and read the heat from all living things originating from blood, organs, and muscles. But unlike everyone else, you lacked the warmth of a human."

The very hand that had launched a lance of molten flames fell upon Shinzo's curious face. Orange light illuminated the bruises and burns on the Kihara's face from the burning palm commanding molecules into a frenzy.

Cold dark blue eyes unlike the monstrous hot flames glared at the bug beneath his foot.

"You may have the face of one, you may sound like one, you may bleed like one, but you're not human. You're a piece of junk who thought it could act as a piece of shit just because you got underneath my skin. Overheating such a shitty clunk like you was simple and not even worth anything flashy. Honestly, what really gave you away as some unfeeling tin-can was your lack of fear once I flashed my fangs. You can make an artificial puppet fake feelings of excitement, curiosity, and sadism. Emotions can be broken down into ones and zeroes. Academy City has the technology and software to program artificial tears. Fear though...that's something only living beings can ever rightfully produce. Even monsters know how to properly show fear when a bigger beast snarls their way."

From the palm glowing with intense heat, a spearhead of condensed flames aimed itself between Shinzo's eyes. The scorching tip of the spear touched the forehead of the freak, searing what looked like skin.

Before Shinzo met his end, he had to ask.

"Where did you send that violent spear of yours?"

Kaen clicked this tongue in annoyance.

And fired.

A violent spray of blood, metal, circuits, and gears, splashed against the legs of his pants. His flame spear easily melted away the artificial skin and false copper scented blood to erupt the metal skull like it were a water balloon. With a grimace of disgust, he lifted his foot off the puppet and turned down the hall. He didn't bother another look at the corpse; could a piece of junk could be called such?

His main priority was Kamiko. All that mattered was his little sister and no one else was worth his time.

He felt something travel up his throat. The red bile was swallowed with a sneer.

'That damn hero of a father is rubbing off on me. I should have known contacting him again would taint my resolve.'

Kaen scratched his scalp furiously in annoyance as he walked away from the scene of dying embers, burnt walls, and a false human.

His ability relied on controlling the vibrations of molecules. He controlled the aspect of heat and played it like some master pianist. He wasn't limited to forms of destruction and death. One of the smaller aspects of his ability was being able to sense the warmth produced by living beings. Using his ability, he decided to search for a unique beacon of warmth in the large body of the hospital, one he had memorized to heart. It was similar to a biometric scanner or better yet, a radiation sensor picking up those unique hot spots.

Firepower was never his focus. The application was what he honed. His monstrous and devilish chords to his ability were simply additional once he had mastered how to play elegant strings with his flames that even Beethoven would weep.

So, once he burnt out the sack of metallic shit, he focused his senses on the scattered embers buried in the concrete structure. Each human ember possessed a unique strength to it, showing something he liked to think of as personality.

If a certain ranked 3rd Level-5 of the present day didn't focus so heavily on her application for violence, perhaps she too could pick out certain individuals in a building based on the weak electrical fields they constantly emitted.

In his scanning, he found an irritating ember. A weak and faint warmth that could never be attributed to a human. The pathetic warmth cornered another ember that had grown soft and vulnerable.

So, he snapped at the inhuman flame. Running the proper calculations, he fired a linear spear that would harmlessly pass any other residents locked away in their rooms and sunk his fangs into his prey from two floors below.

He knew he hadn't killed the...robot? Android? Cyborg? Whatever the metal puppet was categorized as he had only wounded it. In other words, he had only lent his hand to whoever was fighting the metal fuckwad.

Kaen had a different belief than his savior of a father.

People could save themselves. They weren't so pathetic as to need someone to always save them.

The only ones who he would protect were his family. That's where his focus was. And where it would always be.

[-]

Scoured metal. What smelled like human flesh yet...hinted with something synthetic? Was that even blood or some liquid with a similar color and scent as iron?

Kuroko found herself dumbstruck by the searing lance of flames that faded away into nothing. It burned a clean hole through the floor and to the roof like a stream of water designed for diamond cutting. And it had severed Shinzo's hand from the wrist. Her eyes fell to the lifeless appendage laying on the floor in a dark crimson puddle.

Sparks bounced of said human appendage. It twitched several times before curling up like a dead spider.

"...What?"

"How terrifying. I suppose this is the logical conclusion when facing such a monster. But to think he could attack me from such a distance by reading the heat radiated by the false organs, muscles, and blood of this unit like it were a human vessel via thermoregulation? It wasn't even aimed to mortally wound. He was simply aiming to inflict damage and got lucky."

Shinzo regarded his bloody wrist casually, giving it a light shake as tried to cool off the smoking wound.

Kuroko felt both disgust and horror at how nonchalant he treated such a crippling wound. How could he not cry, shout, or scream in pain?

What kind of human would shrug off such a horrific wound?

"Oh well. Though I lack Calculation Breaker, I still possess functionality in my left hand. All I need to do is knock you out in the same fashion I did with Yomikawa-san."

Shinzo flexed his left hand, testing out the tension in the fingers as he moved to finish the job.

He could no longer act so leisurely. It was obvious now that he had to escape before certain individuals caught his activity.

Clawing his fingers, he crossed the short distance between himself and Kuroko with a sudden burst of speed.

And he would have sunk his claws into the vulnerable esper still trying to regain her bearings if it weren't for the small triangular object smacking into the back of his head. Even if he had shut off the pain receptors in his body, he was taken back by surprise by what felt like a baseball pitch attacking him from behind, causing his fingers to sweep the air above Kuroko instead of clamping down on her face.

The small distraction was all Kuroko needed, vanishing from his sights with the use of her ability.

As he felt around the back of his head, he turned his eyes to what had hit him. His eyes found the floor.

On the floor laid a cheap cellphone. Question was: who did it belong to?

"I have no idea what's going. I don't have a single clue as to what kind of event is happening right in front of my eyes. But I do know one thing."

A young teen girl's voice spoke to him. One that could only belong to a child who had been born and raised by a certain spiky-haired man who relied on his fist. It was a familiar one reminiscent of the man he called father. Looking back, he found a dark unruly long-haired high school girl wearing her school's winter uniform despite it being the summer. Her dark blue eyes matched his own but lacked the sharp glint he inherited from his mother. She looked like a nobody no one would be able to pick out from a crowd if it wasn't for her messy hair.

Kamijou Toka squared her shoulders and clenched her right fist, stepping up to the Kihara with nothing but an ordinary fist lacking anything remotely special or bizarre.

"Those callous eyes of yours lacking any kind of human warmth are enough for me to recklessly charge at you with a barreled knuckle. Your presence in this kind and soothing building bothers me. And that's all I need to understand what is it I want to do. You probably even know about adorable half-sister, don't you, ya creepy bastard."

Those bold and fierce eyes were unique. Very few people in this world could ever possess such powerful eyes that held firm when faced with tragedy and malice.

Undoubtedly, the unruly-haired high school girl took after her father more than anyone else.

If Shinzo hadn't cut off settings for his facial features, he would have been grinning excitedly.

Time was of haste, so he would have to tuck such an interesting subject for prodding another time.

Seeping with a dark red liquid, he swung his stump of a cauterized right arm out to dislodge a hidden weapon. Black steel slipped out of what appeared to be bone and metal to reveal a rifle barrel. The ominous firearm aimed itself at the frustrated Toka who recognized she was ill fit for facing such a deadly weapon with only her bare hands.

He didn't want to but if he had to, Shinzo wouldn't hesitate to shot someone who shared half of his DNA. This was more for intimidation. All he wished, for now, was to retreat. He had no plans to waste his time any longer.

Sadly he forgot about the threat of someone who had no problem facing a thug with a gun.

Any plans to so much as fire a warning shot to force Toka back were ruined the second he found a single dart stabbed into the barrel of his hidden rifle. Than another. And another. And three quickly became five and stacked up to twelve darts riddling his entire arm in the span of three seconds.

Before he could properly react to the teleporting needles causing his entire right arm to spasm and spark, he found two small feet planted into the back of his skull. It wasn't pain that caused him to stumble forward but the pure physics of the blow sending forward into the sights of the sprinting Toka and her chambered fist.

'Ah, it seems my processing power has taken a deep hit if I failed to account for Kuroko-san's involvement. I am currently running computations and calculations with one other unit and the worm battling with Uiharu-san's debugging. My systems have taken far more damage than intentionally accounted for. Could it be that the little Judgment Flower's efforts are going as far as to affect my own network due to both systems being tied together?'

Shinzo mulled such thoughts as he clenched his left fist tightly and countered the perfect cross punch with his own.

Two fists passed the other and struck the face of their targets with thick thuds.

Toka flinched but refused to go down so easily. She clenched her teeth, steeled her resolve, and unfurled two of her right hand's fingers. Specifically the index and pinky. Both of which speared into the eyes of the cool-faced Shinzo.

Fighting dirty wasn't beneath a high school girl like herself. If she had a bat on her, she would have fit the typical delinquent archetype she had inherited from her father.

Shinzo found himself blinded by the tactic and stumbled back. He felt no pain but he still reacted to the attack poking at his eyes. His vision grew distorted as if the static was interfering with his ability to see clearly. The sight of Toka rushing towards him was clipped like he was watching from a corrupted screen. He raised his left forearm to guard against the strong straight punch, holding his ground as he began to deflect the barrage of right and left cross punches.

He suddenly ducked, avoiding a horizontal dropkick from the teleporting Kuroko. The fake nurse clicked her teeth and flashed her darts, following along with Toka in a barrage of close quarter combat.

Against a Level-4 and a bottom of the barrel Level-0, at his current specs and damaged state, he knew there was no path to victory.

So long as he fought normally that is.

A Kihara was a beast unlike any other and possessed claws lacking anything gentle.

Deflecting another straight punch and sacrificing his left hand to the stabbing darts in Kuroko's jab, latching onto the stunned tawny's girl's wrist before taking advantage of his superior size and muscles to throw her aside in a spin, Shinzo withdrew a new menacing weapon from his hand.

Small smooth silver metal balls were slipped out of his coat pockets and tossed into the air. There was no dodging or evading the unfolding attack. Blinding white light escaped from the silver balls, blinking rapidly with every flash to disorient their targets and sear their retinas. Twin cries of surprise and pain were all Shinzo needed to confirm his plan had worked.

He spun in the opposite direction as his flash bombs hit the floor and shattered. It was only a small distraction. Once his opponents realized he was escaping, they would ignore their damaged vision and charge at him. He had no plans to stick around and continue fighting any longer. It would be unwise to drag this out any longer.

No sooner did he spin around to run did the lab coat-wearing boy find his windpipe crushed by a whipping bicep smashing into his neck.

"Ghrrk!"

The sudden lariat from a powerful and well-toned set of biceps had taken him by complete surprise. Combined with the attacker's speed and his own momentum as he tried to escape with a burst of speed, the deadly lariat's damage had been amplified. It was similar to whiplash. Blood vessels exploded, bone was crunched, the larynx bent like a straw, and several metallic components gave out. No other cry of pain was heard as his body was thrown back like a sack of rice.

Shinzo's body was not human. His current form was nothing more than a very sophisticated puppet created to appear and act as human as possible. False organs, false blood, false bones; genetic material all cloned from samples he had taken from his own body. All finely melded together with wires, gears, gyros, frames, optics, and good old metal components. Topped off with programming facial and emotional ticks, the android was nothing short of a perfect copy.

Even with his windpipe and larynx heavily damaged, Shinzo stood back up on his feet as false blood dripped from his mouth.

An interesting figure stood with their left bicep lowered and a fierce glare on their bruised and bloodied face. Someone who should have been taken out of the game early on in the story.

"Yomikawa-san? Now isn't this a surprise? I thought you were bedridden with a concussion and a fractured wrist."

"Where is he? Answer now and I won't resort to lethal force again."

Face marred with sweat and blood, bruised by heavy blows, and hair released from its band to stick to her face, the stalwart figure known as Yomikawa Aiho stood tall. She appeared exhausted, she was wounded and she was favoring one leg over the other with darts piercing her body. It didn't appear she had any thought to cleaning her face before rushing off into battle again.

But she stood back on the field with an imposing and terrifying aura.

The tables were flipped.

Beast became prey.

Prey became Beast.

And those who released their claws with firm clicks pounced in a storm of unspoken violence.

[-]

He was far too weak to sprint ahead.

Numerous wounds on his person were buried by gauze and bandages.

His right hand was wet with blood from sutures that had snapped.

His body felt like one giant mass of pulsing aches and sores.

But a surge of adrenaline erupted from his heart, spreading like wildfire to every vein in his body to push him in one simple direction.

Forward.

Once again two separate wills found themselves intersecting on a highway. A boy with spiky hair wearing a summer uniform to some boring high school, covered in bandages with the most prominent found wrapped around his head. And a boy with spiky hair wearing a hospital gown similar to pajamas, covered in bandages with the most prominent found on his bloody right hand.

Something firm and bright was handed over in a place that didn't exist.

An unseen flame.

Don't drop it again.

Those silent words had been spoken by an amused high school boy who continued walking off into the distance with a bittersweet smile.

And that firm and bright flame roared into an inferno.

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The twisted eldritch garden responded in kind to the ferocious bellow.

Thirty branches arose high to the blank dark sky and twisted their wrists. Building velocity, they fell straight down onto the charging spiky boy like drilling spears. Missiles tipped with a deadly poison fatal to the truth rained down and erupted in a carpet bomb pattern.

Touma braced himself in the face of the mass of branches striking the earth. He didn't hesitate. Whatever type of trauma those eldritch things could inflict, he had already seen how weak they were no matter their specs when faced with a simple graze of Imagine Breaker. As the clicking nightmarish claws roared to crush him to paste beneath sinister thorns, he threw his right hand above his body.

The eldritch branches twitched.

And scrambled to avoid the umbrella-like zone he had created to destroy those abominations.

Touma grinned viciously to the parting crushing curtain of clicking claws, "Do you really think I'll just let you run with your tails between your legs, you pieces of shit?!" he roared as he swung his clawed right hand to the wall of black branches rushing to retreat.

Past those retreating branches, a thick whip of tangled arms swung in from his right to break every bone in his bone. The titan-sized trunk dwarfed the small human who would be crushed like an ant.

Bloody fingers dug into the branches and clenched.

An impressive chunk of the mass was erased from existence as if they had imploded with the sound of shattering glass. It was as if the wall of eldritch branches had been hit by an explosive device, forcing it to literally bend back like some writhing creature. Imagine Breaker worked its own unique brand of destruction with no mercy.

He would have erased more of the branches if they hadn't dispersed, scrambling back to their master. Their plan to outright pulverize him with a large-scale attack from above had been easily thwarted. Clicking their odd-numbered claws as some show of hesitation, the twisted garden of rotting black branches awaited their master's next order of attack.

Touma wouldn't allow those deadly branches a moment to strategize and further poison Kamiko's mind. He roared and rushed ahead into the garden of corruption.

Kamiko glared hatefully, eyes illuminated by lazily spinning magic circles.

Clawed branches were fired in random patterns at different angles to gouge their target to pieces. Those deadly appendages arced in the air and maneuvered in confusing patterns to disorient the spiky boy heading to the center of their mass. Each claw took careful aim as they locked on and rushed at the sweating boy.

It had only been a few seconds into the fight and Touma was panting like a dog out in the how summer sun. His body was in no shape for this kind of conflict. His wounds were stinging due to the vast amount of sweat running down his body. At any moment he could trip and fall to a barrage of frenzied claws goring him like a pig for the slaughter.

But he pushed on with his teeth clamped down and a firm glare ahead. All his adrenaline was pushing him forward for this one rush! If he stopped now, if he hesitated now, if he so much as flinched now! Than it was over! He wouldn't show a single hint of hesitation again!

As three of the deadly claws flew in to crush his head into a pulp, Touma leaped forward, escaping the three branches. The simple action caused his legs to buckle and creak. He swore but kept running.

An odd sensation prickled the back of his neck. Relying on instincts born from someone else's experiences, he ducked, never once stopping as he ran. A twisted branch nearly scratched his neck as it attempted to drill him from the back of his skull but missed. Not wanting it to bend its attack, he swung Imagine Breaker at the black licorice. It was erased easily.

From above, a great array of black arms filled the sky like stars. An indiscriminate barrage fell to the world like meteors. Streaks capable of utterly shredding the truth to bleed lies and corruption filled Touma's vision as he braved ahead to cross the downpour. All it would take was one hit to kill him. There was no room for error.

While sprinting through the shower of eldritch branches crashing to the onyx earth, Touma twisted. He ducked. He sidestepped. He rolled. He bulldozed through with his right fist. All with a determined roar on his lips. Though every evasive action caused a part of his heavily wounded body to strain, pop, crack, creak, and bleed…

"Kamiko-chan!"

Not once did he falter.

Not once did he pause.

Not once did he allow pain or fear to dictate what it was he wanted.

He was finished with being the pathetic coward who could only cry about his own terrible circumstances!

"Die."

The downpour of arms wilted. Emotion coursed through those corruptible branches. Raw hatred pulled them along by the strings of their master to throw aside tactics. Retreating back to the beck of the little bug twin-tail girl, the eldritch arms began to weave together like strands of fabric. A wriggling mass of stitched branches was formed overhead in the form of a monstrous hand that quivered like exposed muscle tissue. An odd number of the arms poked out of the newly formed appendage-like roots. It was a five-fingered monstrosity with claws at every tip, bleeding with a vicious white-blue light and strange colored veins popping out of the skin. It towered the very world and hung limply above their master with the occasional twist.

"Die. Die. Die. Die, die, die, die, diediediediediedieidieidieidieidieidieidieidieidie!"

The feverish cries of a young child despaired by the object of her loathing sprinting towards her engulfed the dark world. The very cry would pull at the heart of any human bearing witness to a small girl screaming for the death of some random boy with watered eyes filled with honest despair and sorrow.

The towering eldritch hand reacted, cracking its fingers menacingly and wrung the air.

Once again, Touma felt the oddest tingle in the back of his neck.

Without warning he tossed his body to the left, rolling on the ground with grunts.

Just as the spot he had previously been was staked by an uproar of branches splitting the earth from below. Like a plant breaking out from the street, it sprouted from within deep the earth to spear its prey. Sweat dripped further down Touma's face as he felt faint vibrations below the sleek obsidian earth.

Attack after attacks sprouted all around him, each uprooting bundle of spearing branches viciously exploding from below to score the killing blow. There was no time to gather his breath. From the ground he kicked off, evading several wriggling columns erupting behind him. He kept eyes facing forward, leaping, fist bashing branches to nothing, and rushing straight ahead towards the hateful little girl controlling an abomination.

'Just a little further! I can keep going!'

He couldn't.

Touma's throat quivered as a splash of bile and blood threatened to spill out of his mouth. Vision swaying, he felt his heavy eyelids threaten to slam down and never open again. Each step was accompanied by hoarse pants. Heat burned beneath his sweaty skin and he could no longer feel pain due to a combination of adrenaline and numbness.

No amount of determination or guts would prevent him from collapsing if so much as one of those crushing attacks brushed against him.

But he could keep pushing forward! No matter the amount of excruciating pain or exhaustion he was in, so long as he focused solely on Kamiko, he could-!

The entire floor beneath him rumbled with the force of two tectonic plates shaving against another. A horrific jolt swam up to his legs, knocking his balance off at the worst possible moment. What he just experienced was a warning. One he had no way of evading.

Vile and malicious branches pierced the ground below Touma's feet. A cruel claw-tipped column threatened to skewer him like some pulpy kabob. Before the attack could land, Imagine Breaker was swung down to block the deadly root. Tar-colored branches tipped with seething blue-white claws were reduced to nothing.

Touma grinned in victory, sighing in relief.

The sigh quickly morphed into a choked scream of agony as he felt something incredibly thick and blunt lash at his left side between his waist and ribs.

The attacks from below were nothing more than a distraction. The true attack came in one that lacked a sure-fire-killing blow. It lacked killing intent. It was simply an attack designed to deal whatever damage it could.

The eldritch hand spread its massive hand out, fanning its fingers, and fired a thick cable of branches from its palm and swung them horizontally as Touma had been distracted from the attack below his feet. Like a leather whip, the cables of nightmarish branches lashed out to strike at the most vulnerable part of his body: his left.

One hit.

All it would take was one hit to take down this average and generic high school boy who was already heavily wounded and on crutches.

Blood spewed from Touma's lips as his body was sent flying away like some test dummy. He hit the ground with a hoarse cry. He couldn't move.

Eyes wide in unbearable pain, all he could do was double over and clutch his left side where he felt his ribs threaten to crack. How did one know if they had internal bleeding? Was it possible to bruise your organs? Whatever it was, he was currently hacking up the sickly sticky red from whatever injury he just suffered.

A single blow was all it took to completely drain him of his adrenaline. His body could no longer push on and ignore all his wounds as every nerve fiber in his body sent wave after wave of messages to his brain to register the incredible pain. His sensory receptors were overwhelmed. As he struggled to lift himself up, his limbs trembled and threatened to give out. All he could muster was sitting on one leg and crouching on one knee, his throat sticky with blood and his lips smeared by red.

His blurry vision was filled by a scene straight out of some nightmare.

Kamiko stood an immeasurable distance away, her hateful eyes regarding him like one would an insect that had been crushed yet still twitched with life. The towering hand made of a mass of quivering branch-like arms was gestured to lunge and crush him like a tomato. Surrounding the two were branches rising up like hissing snakes, each hand possessing 2-5 claws on their fingers, all awaiting to follow after the eldritch titan in a barrage of wild attacks.

The eldritch titan gestured a solitary finger at the ready to crumble boy. As if it was sentencing him, placing the blame on all crimes, accusing him of suffering he never even witnessed and readying him for his execution.

A once sweet voice spoke as the owner of that wicked-shaped blade.

"It's your fault."

Touma smiled bitterly with blood dripping down his chin.

"Papa and Mama can't be together if you exist."

Legs shaking, he fought with eyes clenched deeply as he stood back up on his feet. His left hand clutched onto his side and found itself painted in red.

"All you do is spread misery!"

His right arm hung limply at his sides. He tried to make a fist but could only muster a faint twitch from his pinky.

"You're a monster! You shouldn't exist! Everyone would happy if you just died!"

His chest ached and he dropped his head, expression shadowed by his wilting spiky locks.

"So, please! Please, die! Be crushed! Be mangled! Be slaughtered! Disappear!"

At the tip of the strange execution weapon's claw, something gathered.

It sounded like an aluminum can was slowly being crunched until it was left a wafer-thin disk. An intangible matter, a fabric of this world, a piece of this world itself, was being compressed and focused into a fine point. The glob was made of pure black tar, its shell outlined with an unnaturally white tint. Its very presence was heavy, gravity itself collapsing to create a visible distortion to the very air.

Its appearance was of an eclipse; of the moon with the burning white halo of the sun.

Death.

An incarnation of the grim reaper's infamous sickle warbled with a continuous aluminum crunch. Malice and hatred were given form to utterly obliterate whoever stood in its path.

A terrible sense of foreboding struck. His entire body tingled from his toes to his lips. An attack like that would surely kill him. Would Imagine Breaker even phase it?

'Tell me, haven't you already tried this?'

Those words continued to echo inside his thoughts.

"Shut up."

He spat softly at those words responsible for his hesitation and fears. He wouldn't run from them. He would accept them.

"Yeah, I tried this before. And I failed. I screwed up. I tried to save someone and wound up killing them. I'm scared. I'm not so thick-headed to not realize this."

Once broken dark blue orbs hardened and met the warbling manifestation of death head-on with his right fist branded in a wide swing to clear away the remaining dregs of his fears.

"So what? Who cares! What does any of that bullshit have to do with Kamiko-chan's tears?! If I want to bawl my eyes out and moan about my mistakes, lament about how someone else could have done better, I can save that shit for later! For now, though, there's someone else who's in pain! So! Listen closely, Kamiko-chan! Because this idiot's going to do what he should have done this morning!"

He would rescue Yomikawa-sensei once this was all over.

And he would offer his hand to the colorless girl who had saved him.

But first...

No more hesitation. No more tripping up. His hand wouldn't fail to reach someone again.

Touma kicked off the ground at full speed.

The eldritch branch saw it as a sign to let go. Death and malice were fired not with a bang but a gristly screech. It skied along with the obsidian earth with the warbling sound of crunching aluminum.

Its height matched a wrecking ball and completely dwarfed the puny Touma. A part of this world was compressed to the point gravity was distorted. The damage it would produce was a mystery. Would it crush? Would it vaporize? Would it sear? Would it devour? Would it explode? Would it erase?

Time to find out.

Touma threw his right hand back, ignored the blood seeping from his lips, the aches exploding like mini-bombs detonating, and the unpleasant hot sweat on his skin. Even if his body trembled as he threw in all his weight, he delivered the last blow to this sad story.

His fist clashed with a bizarre power.

The bones in his right hand creaked. The skin of his knuckles was torn to shreds. He felt the tiniest of cracks begin on the middle of his knuckles and continue to spread off into branches.

He clenched his teeth as he began to feel the entire weight of the wrecking ball threaten to break his arm off. Amid his clenched teeth, he grinned stubbornly.

The sound of something being continuously shattered was music to his ears. Whatever this strange energy making up the wrecking ball was, it was supernatural in nature. Was it something born under the laws of Science or Magic?

Over the sounds of crunching aluminum and breaking glass, he shouted.

"I don't care if I possess an embodiment of misfortune! I don't care if the very sight of my right hand will make your face pale and your face break out into an ugly grimace! Do you hate misfortune? Do you despise bad luck? Do you think something unseen with cruel probabilities is the reason why your family isn't whole?! So what?! You can blame me. You can shove the weight of your sorrow and despair on me. I don't care; I'll accept it all! But I refuse to let your misfortune be the reason you kill anyone!"

He began to feel the malicious orb push his feet back. Those unseen cracks in his right hand slowly crawled past the wrist to further damage the broken arm. He was in unbearable pain.

But the damage went both ways. The dense darkness in a coat of brilliant blue began to visibly break. From the center of his fist, the damage punctured through the shell with a great whine.

Deafening silence enveloped the world. All sound disappeared as the malicious wrecking ball collapsed into nothing.

Sound returned as Touma negated the powerful attack and rushed ahead with his broken right hand.

Burning white-blue claws sang beautifully as they swept through the air.

A titanic clawed hand belonging to some eldritch horror abandoned reason as its quivering mass charged at the desperate spiky boy.

Its claws would shred the truth of the world with a single scratch. What would bleed from such wounds would be lies that would infect a noxious poison that obscured reason and fact. They were claws that severed bonds and slaughtered innocence.

Touma glared hatefully at the sickly colored claws as he roared.

"I may not know you well. I only just met you this morning and spoke to you for a short time. But I know this isn't you! The sweet little girl who talked to some nobody who couldn't walk without help, smiled his way as if he was her friend, and tried to ease his pain isn't some cruel child who grows giddy at the sight of blood! The bundle of warmth I saw surrounded by a loving family, who reached her small hand out to the fearful and hesitant idiot of a father, didn't grow into such a sinister girl desiring someone's death! Maybe you do have a tragic past, maybe you have a reason to hate misfortune, maybe you have every right to hate someone like me who can only gather misery! But that innocent smile on your face wasn't a lie!"

Vile claws met an ordinary fist.

Just like the wrecking ball of bizarre matter, the titanic branch held its ground but found its body breaking. Not even those deadly claws could pierce through. Its entire body found cracks eating away at the many hands it was made of. A strange substance of unnatural colors bled from its wounds like high pressured gas from a leaking pipe.

"I know you're scared. You're in a dark place. Something ugly wormed itself in your heart. But it's alright. You're not alone! This killing intent and malice is a lie. A pathetic illusion! AND I'M GOING TO CRUSH IT TO FUCKING PIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEECCCCCCCCCCCCCEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS!"

Like brittle glass, those claws shattered. Imagine Breaker crumbled the eldritch branches, plowing straight through as Touma pushed through the broken pieces to obliterate every fragment of that corruptible bundle of branches.

The distance between Touma and Kamiko shrunk. Not even those cowering branches huddled behind the possessed child had the courage to attack him. The ending to this tragic scene was finally in sight.

That bloody right hand, broken and quivering, reached after the frightened girl in a coat of burning miasma.

At the sight of a bloody right hand heading her way, the wrathful eyes glowing with red magic circles flinched. To Kamiko's eyes, it was as if some disgusting, vile, putrid, creature had crawled out of some pile of corpses and lunged straight at her with bile seeping from its lips. She was terrified, trembled, teared up, and tried to step back as the thing lunged at her.

When confronted with something frightening, a child naturally shut their eyes and cried.

"Papa! Mama! Onii-san! Save meeeeeeeee!"

Iron scented fingers abandoned their tight grip.

A large body gently met Kamiko's own as she was embraced.

Like glass, those fearful branches were shattered to nothing.

A hand that once taken the life of another girl who wished to be saved slid down and caught her small back before she could trip back. Said killing tool softly brought her frozen body closer to the chest of the creature that had lunged at her. A forgotten warmth covered up the lonely girl from the oppressive darkness surrounding her.

She wasn't sure how but she felt a smile breaking out on the monster's face.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for being late, Kamiko-chan. But it's alright. Because I won't turn my back on you again, okay?"

This world of blank nothingness painted in the abyss let out an audible creak. A single crack was formed somewhere.

The occult circles in Kamiko's eyes faded away.

Ink-like smoke violently sprayed out of her body, expelled by Imagine Breaker's touch to fade into the black.

Deep within the small chest of the violent goddess, a vicious sprout feeding off negativity shuddered. The vile sprout shrieked and withered away to nothing as its roots crumbled.

A warmth she had thought to have lost to the raging hellfire of yesterday freed her and embraced her once again. Familiar yet different. The arms weren't as strong. The chest wasn't as broad. The body wasn't as big or toned.

Yet the touch was all the same.

"Papa…!"

Blurry eyes swimming in tears saw a figure who could no longer hug her. But these feelings and this warmth were the same. A truth recovered from those horrid claws of an abomination that thought they could easily sever this precious bond. Her body slumped against her father's, allowing herself to give in to the protective blanket of heat he provided.

Whatever had been the root of her hate, her anger, her rage, her murderous intent, no longer seemed to matter. Whatever it had been was squashed beneath a greater emotion.

The love of a daughter for her father.

Touma smiled softly at the little girl crying into his chest. His right hand left Kamiko's back and went for her head.

There was no more hesitation in his actions as he patted her head. What he should have been done long ago in the day was finally done. Even as he bore witness to giant white fissures cutting into all corners of the world, he focused on the small girl whose eyes began to shut and fall asleep in his arms. All with a smile on her tear-stained face.

The battle was over.

But there remained several things he had been too cowardly to do that he needed to accomplish.

[-]

As the once dark world began to shatter and fall apart amid the countless fractures collapsing the space, there remained one figure who had been forgotten in all the action.

She was a young woman with light-dark skin similar in tone to milk chocolate. Her wild hair reached her waist and was colored a strange white-gray reminiscent of a CD disk. Green eyes blank yet full of life as if she wasn't sure what kind of emotions she was supposed to reveal. All she wore was a long crimson shawl over her chest that reached all the way to her thighs. Greek text could be seen tattooed to her skin with the most prominent being the odd letters below her left eye.

A codex composed of numerous forms of ancient paper from animal skin, stone, and papyrus. She was the embodiment of one man's history and was no more than a single sheet of the original codex.

During the ensuing chaos, she had stood aside, recording the events with odd interest in her normally dull eyes. Every word, every action, every sound, every emotion caught in her eyes and ears was taken in, resonating within her chest.

And as the final move had been played, she found herself tilting her head curiously as she held her hand over her heart.

Kamijou Touma.

Such a name held an odd pull to her chest. She wasn't sure why. But those characters etching themselves into memory felt as if they were simply returning home. Her face muscles twitched and reacted to the emotions she didn't understand at the bloody boy who looked back over to her.

Those eyes no longer quivered with fear and despair. They had regained an unnaturally kind spark oblivious to his own agony. And as the world began to fall to shambles and tremble at its core, he held his right hand out. Finger stretched to touch a faraway object.

Was he...attempting to reach her?

"I...I'll..."

Those powerfully kind eyes could no longer see a thing. Darkness swallowed his thoughts as his body shut down in order to properly focus on the new wounds he had collected. Whether he liked it or not, he couldn't take another step or speak another word.

Touma passed out on his feet with a smile on his face and his hand extended to reach someone.

Having no semantic memories to properly organize the new emotions budding in her chest, the silver-haired woman mirrored the expression on the heroic boy.

She smiled as the world was engulfed in earth-shattering quakes.

"Don't worry, we'll meet again, Kamijou-san."

When those two different worlds crossed again, this story would resume.

And she'd be waiting patiently until then even as the world fell apart at the seams.

[-]

A myriad of lines cracked the skin beneath the fingertips, breaking the skin cells to reveal unnaturally bright colors. Psychedelic claws belonging to no existing creature flexed even as their wielder remained silent.

Bizare colors were spread out like a fan, claws seething with a toxic light stretching wide to feel the stagnant air.

The hiss of cutting glass was heard.

And a part of the abyss was sheared.

[-]

These are but the first steps you can call your own in the shadow of another. The road ahead will not be kind.

There may only be one way to travel upon this terribly lonely road. But unlike before, battered gifts of what has come to pass may offer comforts to soothe those ugly seeds in your heart.

Or may only accelerate the bad end to its inevitable conclusion.

Just what kind of adult do you wish to become?

Well that's out of the way with. Meaning we're now moving onto the Epilogue. Thankfully it's already completed and being edited as we speak. I think I've gone over it five times now, far less than this chapter for sure. I just have to find the time to finish the clean up, read it over one final time, and publish away! And than we can finally move onto the Sisters/Family Arc! I've already begun typing it up and hope to publish its first chapter next month.

Maybe.

Eh, what can I say? I'm a very, very busy man as of late, who struggles to find time to sit down and write. I'd like to say work is majorly to blame for leaving me exhausted but a guy's got to relax...and ogle the camera angles of certain games in the privacy of his own room. Blame Genshin Impact, not me. And no, I do not have a problem.

I'd love to say more about this chapter but I think I'll leave the talking for the Epilogue to discuss the purpose of this short arc leading to the one we've all been waiting for. There's plenty to go over at the end of all this but I'm worn out.

Until then, Remember to Read and Review! It's common courtesy.

NeoShadows fading in and out.