Review time! Man, there's a lot more then normal...not that I'm complaining, though~

Fortitude501: So much unexplored content...

VLPURN: The bro code is unbreakable!

5hadowhand: Don't apologize for reading other fanfictions-the more love that we have for Toaru, whether it's towards fan-generated content or not, the better. Got plenty of ideas regarding Kumokawa and Shokuhou, so hopefully those are to your satisfaction. And yeah, always nice to see the bros be bros.

Terrarianium: Thanks for the kind words! Poor Touma's gotta have multiple marathon's under his belt by now...almost makes me feel bad.

MGMM: I'm glad the story has peaked your interest! And not to worry, I won't hit a writer's block-I've got tons and tons of ideas for this story packed away, so I'm not gonna run out of material anytime soon. It'll just be a matter of how fast I can write them while doing other stuff.

Guest: She only sent them after Tsuchimikado. Seeing as Touma was basically left in the dust to run away alone, it was assumed by Shokuhou that Tsuchimikado was nowhere near him. However, when her clique members found Tsuchimikado, he was with Touma; leading them to go after him by association after losing sight of Tsuchimikado.

animeonlywatchrer: Will do!

thekingofdestroynm: Cheers!

alma1988: Fair enough-everyone's got their preferences. Aleister definitely hasn't accounted for the recent incidents, though~

pcmark1: Thanks for being honest-I'm not the greatest at writing fight scenes, so hopefully in the future with more practice I can present something more worth reading.

distinguished-one: She'll appear, but not for a little while.

onlinedoor44: I probably won't be focusing on any Railgun events, because this story is more focused on being a variation of the grand narrative of Index. Sorry about that...

themangatester: There might be cameos a few scenes with her in the future, but I haven't really got anything major planned regarding her. At least no yet...

linuxforallpcs: Cheers!

me-of-my: Kakine will be appearing later on in the story-just not right now.

pringlschips: THERE'S NEVER ENOUGH GUUUUUTTTTTSSSSSS!

twinonsdl: Thank you very much!

libton1980: Indeed they did~

natsukiisthebest: :P

pcusertony: Thanks! In my opinion, the most fundamental thing about fanfiction is to make sure that the characters are, well...in character, so it still feels like the source material. Development can continue differently, of course, but making sure that they still feel like the same character is vital.

benwaggoner: I'm glad you think so highly of it!


Now, before the chapter begins, I'm gonna explain the music thing that I said I would begin including starting with this chapter.

Basically, I'll put the name of the music in it's own little box right at the point of the text at which I would suggest you play it. If you take the name I put and put it into Youtube, it should be the first result to pop up. If there is no timestamp listed with the name of the music, then you can play it from the beginning. If there is a timestamp, you don't necessarily have to play the song from there, that's only the time I would suggest you begin from for the sake of the scene. It'll look like this:


Play: [NAME OF MUSIC] (Timestamp, if there is one)


Of course, you can also not play the music at all. That works perfectly fine, I ain't holdin' a gun to your throats. It's entirely optional and isn't vital to the story or anything, just helps with visualization.

Credit to WwEpsilonwW's story "Misfortune No One Sees, Until Now" and bitbitbit11's story "A Certain After School Secret" for the idea of the music. If you ever happen to read this, you guys are the real MVP's. Keep up the good work!

I do not own the masterpiece that is Toaru Majutsu no Index.


ARC 2: Genesis of the Mirage

Chapter 8: Eccentricity(Odd_Being.)

"Mooooorrnnnningg time!"

The shout of elation, while only coming from a small dorm room, was still loud enough to wake many students in District 7 of Academy City in the early hours of the morning, well before their alarms would've been set to go off.

However, Sogiita Gunha was quite the insensitive person. Thus, he wasn't bothered.

He did not choose to mull over the incessant mumbles of fury that dozens of people were no doubt muttering towards him, who decided to scream at such a volume this early in the morning. Instead, he chose to shoot up out his bed and slam his feet onto the floor, which no doubt resulted in even more violent threats to be uttered under the breath of whatever resident lived beneath him in the dorm building.

"Man, what a great sleep!..." Quickly glancing at the clock on his wall, he saw that it was 5:30 AM. "That was...what, 3 hours and 22 minutes? I scored a new record this time around! At this rate, I can probably make it to an hour by end of the year!"

If anyone else in the building was not still disoriented from being woken up so early, they likely would've thought to themselves of how absurd it was to be setting milestones for oneself based on how much they could shorten the time they slept each day.

However, absurd was definitely a word that described the boy in question quite well.

Grinning, Sogiita bolted across the small dorm room in a full sprint. In doing so, he passed by the odd decorations of said room; these included a toy sword made of plastic lazily taped onto the wall, posters of superhero comic covers, and random articles of clothing strung up on the wall and twisted in odd ways. These included jackets, shirts, and even a pair of snow pants. It was hard to discern their shape at first glance, but upon closer inspection it became clear that the resident of the room had attempted to twist them all into the same sort of form; one that allowed a substantial amount of the cloth to be flowing out backwards, so it would look like a flag in the wind; and at the front, there was always two bunches of cloth tightly huddled together, and held that way by tape, glue, paper clips, or other things. Simply put, they were badly crafted makeshift capes, reminiscent of the jacket he wore on his back in that fashion.

Sogiita ran past all these odd items at high speed, only to miraculously come to a complete halt right at the edge of the wall-which was where his fridge was sitting. He put a hand on the handle and flung it open, slamming the door into the wall with a loud crash as he did so.

However, he did not actually look inside the fridge as he rummaged around-instead, in one swift motion, he had swung his hand through all the contents of the top shelf of the fridge and then brought it out, bringing everything with it.

A clatter resounded across the floor as different kinds of consumables came into sight; cartons of milk, packaged salami, half-torn lettuce leaves, bottles of mustard, loaves of bread covered with plastic wrap-it was the spitting image of what one could expect from the fridge of a student living a school life alone in a dorm.

However, Sogiita showed no aversion to the array of food that he had carelessly pulled out of his fridge. He simply rummaged around the pile, pulling out specific items and plopping them down on the square wooden table in the center of his dorm room.

A few minutes later, the Level 5 was grinning proudly at the unimpressive sight before him. It was quite possibly the most lazily crafted sandwich one could conceive-the lettuce had been cleaned, if it could be said that leaving it under running water for 2 seconds was sufficient cleaning. Ham had been slapped on top of said lettuce unevenly, making it lean off the right side like it was a bad attempt at recreating the Leaning Tower of Pisa. All the mustard had been squirted out into one spot in the center as opposed to evenly across the toppings, and to top it all off, the bread hd not even been toasted-it was simply plain, cold bread.

But this mattered little in the eyes of the one who would be eating.

Sogiita Gunha happily grabbed the affront to cooking that he called a sandwich and stuffed half of it into his mouth in one go. It was the epitome of crude behavior-if he had been dining with anyone, he definitely would've been subject to remarks regarding his crude behavior. But that was merely how the boy operated.

After some chewing, he had shoveled the other half into his mouth, and much like the first he ate it as easily as an average person would eat a cracker. After swallowing, he gave a satisfied nod-and then walked towards the bathroom, the entrance of which was on the other side of the room.

Much like that fridge door, he swung it open with no delicacy whatsoever and stood in front of the counter. A cup stood on the far right of it-and within it, there was a toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste and a razor. Another cup sat next to it. The toilet sat next to the counter, and the pocket of space in which the shower was sat next to that; by all standards, this was the most normal out of any section of the dorm.

In one swift motion, Sogiita had grabbed the toothbrush and tube of toothpaste nested within the first cup, and then the other cup beside it with his other hand. Setting the cup down at the rim of the sink, he then turned on the cold water, and proceeded to fill the cup. Then, he took off the cap of the tube of toothpaste, and after spreading a bit of said toothpaste over the brush, he then closed it and put it away. Putting on a big smile, he then proceeded to feverishly scrub his teeth.

He was, surprisingly enough, quite the hygiene enthusiast; not an impression you would get from first glance.

After a few minutes of intense scrubbing, the bathroom had been closed and the Level 5 walked out of his dorm room, bag in hand as he closed the door behind him. He was ready to start his day in a colorful way.

"WOOOOHOOOOOOO!"

That morning, the early-risers of Academy City's District 7 laid witness to a a spiky-haired boy wearing his jacket like a cape flying through the sky shouting with glee.


"Alright, everyone; that concludes the lesson! The rest of the period may be used to complete your homework; please use it wisely!"

Oyafune Suama called out that last message to the class before stepping away from the blackboard towards her desk.

With that, the unspoken signal had been given to the entire class.

School most often proved to be a battleground for the students, with many different enemies approaching from all directions; pressure to maintain your academics, staying out of trouble, keeping clear of those who clearly spelled trouble, preserving one's social status-there were many things to account for, and it all accumulated itself into one massive obstacle.

However, there was one straightforward way to make all of these burdens easier on oneself. What is it, you may ask?

It was, of course, to maintain a small group of friends.

This was the practice that Kamijou Touma followed himself. Although, admittedly...

"Aogami! Did you see that?! What a magnificent display of Oyafune-sensei's elegance!"

"It was a treasure..."

...he didn't exactly have the most respectable of people to call friends.

Luckily, the aforementioned unspoken signal had taken effect. That is, the signal which referred to a teacher finishing their lesson and saying something akin to "Now, please work diligently for the rest of the period," as such an instruction was normally a green light for the class to then begin breaking out into conversation. And as such, it seemed that no one had heard of the less then moral things the two boys beside him were saying-that, or they did hear but simply didn't care, valuing their own conversations over theirs.

Kamijou sighed as he stared down at his notebook. "Great, only 22 questions to go now..."

Algebra was not his strongest subject-mathematics in general tended to be quite the pain for many teenagers, which would persist all the way into post-secondary education. While there were of course exceptions, Kamijou Touma was not among them. As such, staring down at the numbers on his page and then looking back at the material in the textbook, the boy couldn't help but sniffle a little.

"Numbers have got to be my worst enemy at this point...what other horrific thing could cause such misery in a teenager?..."

The boy had bested several magicians with nothing but a right hand capable of nullifying the supernatural, but that right hand was most definitely not capable of nullifying the very un-supernatural nature of the equations before him-which while seemed to be small on the paper, was like a formidable, towering wall of indestructibility to him.

"K-Kami-yan? What was with that instant mood change from annoyed to depressed? Was there some sad story written into the numbers?!"

The boy just looked despondent. "Yeah, there was...the sad story of how a spiky black-haired boy was going to fail math this semester...and in turn, the Power Curriculum...again..."

"I-I don't remember ever reading something like that! Cheer up, Kami-yan; at least from your seat here at the desk, you can get an eyeful of Kumokawa-senpai! Life's not all that bad, is it?"

It was true. The layout of the classroom was as follows: if looked upon from a birds-eye view, the door to the room was on the upper right, and the table at which Kamijou, Tsuchimikado and Aogami were seated lay in the bottom left corner. Tsuchimikado's chair was facing down towards the back of the class, Aogami's was facing the left at the wall, and Kamijou was seated opposite to Aogami, with his chair facing the right side of the class. Across and to the left of their table slightly from Kamijou's perspective was the table at which Kumokawa Seria was seated, on the bottom right of the class. The Beauty Senpai was idly chatting with a few other girls who were sitting next to her at the table, and Kamijou had a clear view on her. Since his seat was facing that direction, it was a perfect unspoken excuse for always having the girl in eyesight-after all, if he was just "idly" looking the direction at which he was facing, no one could fault him for doing so. Kamijou had a gut feeling that if either of the other two boys had been in this spot, they would've most definitely used it as a prime opportunity to...observe, for lack of a better word. And while he most definitely would not ogle her or anything of the sort, he couldn't deny that the senpai was a very attractive girl and that he wouldn't mind having such a view to subconsciously appreciate.

However, faced with such a severe problem, he could not even bring himself to think of that, much less enjoy it.

"I don't have the time to focus on that right now! My future prospects are in danger! Besides, shouldn't you two be concerned too?! You guys haven't been doing any better then me!"

"We scored 52 and 54 on the last math test, Kami-yan! Didn't you score 41?! You can't be lecturing us about that!"

As Aogami said that, time seemed to stand still for Kamijou. After a few moments of him being completely immobile, he finally turned his head-very, very slowly, to the point where he thought there might've been a creaking sound-and stared at the blue-haired boy with a dead look on his face.

"Is...that true?..."

"Ummm...yes?..." Tsuchimikado then chipped in, albeit uncertainly as he gazed at Kamijou's expression.

"So...my two perverted friends, who are immersed in absolute depravity...even them are doing better then me in algebra...is the world ending?..."

"That's a harsh standard to put us to, you know?! We're not that dumb!"

"Ahem." Tsuchimikado coughed.

"Well...maybe kind of, but not really...and stop giving us that look, Kami-yan! The point is that you shall not pin the blame on us! Have you no honor?!"

"Heh...Aogami talking about having honor...that's rich..."

"I'll have you know I-"

"So, basically, Kamijou sucks at math?"

The final voice did not come from them.

There was actually another person seated at their table. With Aogami seated on the right, Kamijou on the left and Tsuchimikado on the top, there was still one seat unoccupied-the bottom.

Which was occupied by a boy with spiky hair like Kamijou. Quite frankly, the blonde and blue-haired boys both had no idea why the Level 5 had decided to sit with them since he had been put into the class. He had his own assigned seat, but it was obvious that he had no intention of using it, and both Oyafune Sauma and Tsukuyomi Komoe had refrained from correcting him. It was likely that they didn't want to take any chances with the boy, and in turn risk another demolished classroom.

"That was a harsh way of putting it, Sogiita..."

"Maybe...but if it's math that you've got trouble with, then maybe I can help!"

Kamijou blinked. "Help?"

"Yeah! I'm pretty good at doing all those weird numbers and letters!"

"That makes it sound like you don't have any idea how to do it at all!"

All three of the other boys had their eyebrows raised, doubt rolling off them in waves. However, they were promptly ignored by the boy it was directed towards, who was just looking at Kamijou expectantly.

The boy wasn't quite sure how to respond at first. Needless to say, Sogiita was quite the knucklehead; his battle-hungry attitude and general lack of common sense was more then enough of a testament to that. However, on the other hand there was the fact that Kamijou rarely ever was offered support of this kind out of nothing but one's goodwill. The times things like that happened were very few and far between, and as such Kamijou couldn't help but respond the way he did.

"Alright, sure. I'm stuck on this question-number 19. I can't figure out how what the final equation is using the quadratic formula..."

Sogiita then peaked over to his left at Kamijou's notebook.

"Oh, this? Just fill in the b's with 15, replace the a with 7, and c with -12."

He rattled it off as easily as breathing. It had not even taken a second before he responded.

The other three boys stared at him for a moment, then proceeded to look down at their notebooks.

After about a minute of scribbling and writing, all three were now staring at him in awe.

"He's a genius!"

"What intellect!"

"It makes so much more sense now!"

The last comment was from Kamijou, who couldn't believe his eyes. Sogiita was actually competent at math? He knew it sounded like a rude realization in his head, but he genuinely couldn't get over the shock.

"Huh? This is just easy stuff, isn't it?"

"What?! "Easy," my ass! What kind of superhumans do you take us for to do a quadratics question that easily?! How the hell did you do it so fast?!" Aogami spoke with much emotion in his tone-a very rare occurrence for any conversation he was partaking in that did not involve discussion about fetishes.

"Well...I had to do a bunch of studying and stuff when I was still a kid here. Something about "the Level 5" curriculum or something like that. I didn't care much for it, though...fighting was a lot more fun!"

"Level 5 curriculum?" Kamijou voiced in his head.

"Well, I suppose something like that kinda makes sense. After all, Level 5's are supposed to be the ones with the most computationally demanding powers...so I guess even Sogiita would've had to do something like that."

"Unbelievable...is this the true power of Level 5's?! Tsuchimikado, we must harness his power!"

"Agreed! Please pass on your intellect, Sogiita-sensei!"

"Sensei? That sounds kinda fun!" The Level 5 in question just gave a wide grin.

And for the remainder of the class, Kamijou, in addition to his fellow Delta Force members, received algebra tutoring.


Lunch was an odd affair for one main reason.

"They stopped selling the combo meal of soup and mashed potatoes for 300 yen?! Am I going to have to survive the day off of nothing but coffee?!"

Kamijou Touma was staring in absolute dismay at the cafeteria menu.

Dozens of students were lined up at the counter, waiting for their turn to pay and leave with their food. Kamijou, however, had no such luxury; he was instead faced with the worst news he had heard all day.

The lunch combo he always got had been removed-and with it, his main source of sustenance for the school day.

"Kami-yan? What're you standing there looking at the menu for? It's not gonna order for you if you stare at it long enough, you know?" Tsuchimikado had walked up to the unlucky boy from their usual lunch table. Aogami was already seated there, along with Sogiita; who had taken to also sitting with them during lunch times. However, it did not bother the two perverts, as he seemed to care not for their discussions of degeneracy. It was unlikely he even understood what they were referring to whenever they happened, and Kamijou didn't particularly mind either.

"The soup and potatoes, Tsuchimikado! How am I gonna stay alive for the last two periods?! They were like my mid-day life blood!"

"C-Calm down, Kami-yan! Couldn't you just buy a bagel to supplement your carbs?"

"But the lack of vegetables! What am I gonna do about that?! How am I supposed to outrun any street thugs or violent Biri-Biri middle-schoolers without a healthy body?!"

"Those examples only make your lifestyle sound all the more questionable, Kami-yan..."

"I'm not gonna hear anything about questionable lifestyles from you, Siscon Sergeant! Anyways, do you have a bit of spare change or something you can lend me?"

"Afraid I can't help ya, Kami-yan; my lunch today is a bento that Maika made, so I don't need any of that detestable cafeteria food~"

"You're just proving my point, goddamn it! Aogami! What about you? Do you have any spare change?"

The boy in question just shook his head, mouth full of food.

The possibility of having to live every school day off of nothing but coffee was now a reality that was unpleasantly taking form in Kamijou's mind as he cursed under his breath.

"Damnit! What about you, Sogiita?! Please tell me you've got a bit of pocket change or something!"

To an onlooker, he might've looked something like a beggar. However, Kamijou didn't really care-he was far more concerned with his ability to fill his stomach.

"Nope. Can't help you there, Kamijou." Sogiita also shook his head.

"Damn it..."

However, his mouth was not full of food like Aogami. In fact...there was no food in front of him at all. He did not have a lunch.

Aogami had evidently also noticed, because once he swallowed his mouthful of pasta, he turned to Sogiita with a raised eyebrow. "Did you not bring a lunch either?"

"Hm? Oh, nope. I didn't."

Tsuchimikado and Aogami raised their eyebrows. Even Kamijou momentarily halted his tirade to look at him in surprise. "That's the third time this week. Do you just not have food?..."

"Breakfast is enough for me to get through a day. A sandwich or cereal normally cuts it for me."

"Say what?!"

"Say what?!"

"Say what?!"

All three of the boys chanted that at the same time in astonishment.

"He lives off of nothing but one meal a day? Is this guy some sort of god?!..." They shared that thought as well. Although Kamijou had an additonal thought...

"He's like the polar opposite of Index! Maybe I should have Index take lessons from him...that would do wonders for my non-existent budget...sniff..."

As his thoughts slowly turned more and more depressing, Tsuchimikado then called out to the boy. "You should take lessons from him, Kami-yan! Man up and tough out the hunger!"

A vein popped in Kamijou's forehead. "Oh no...no, no no, I'm not the one who should be taking lessons here! I'm not some all-powerful god who can withstand not having a proper lunch! I'd like to see you go without your bento or Aogami going without his pasta for the day!"

A nervous sweat then began to form on both boy's necks. "Uhh...that's beside the point!"

"My ass it is! You think you can go without your precious lunches like me?! Then be my guests!"

"Woah, Kami-yan, what're you getting so close for?! Wait...NO! GET AWAY FROM THE BENTO, YOU MONSTER!"

"HE'S OUT OF CONTROL! WHAT ARE WE GONNA-"

"What's with this commotion?"

At the final voice, all four boys turned to look at it's source.

Which was a newly-arrived Kumokawa Seria, who's eyebrow was raised.

Kamijou's expression was now sheepish, and he awkwardly stood upright.

"Kami-yan's gone insane from hunger! Escape while you can, Kumokawa-senpai, or he's gonna take your lunch too!" Aogami frantically cried while hugging his bowl of pasta to his chest like it was his firstborn child.

However, Kumokawa did not move from where she stood, nor did she put away the plate of fried rice that she was carrying.

The blue-haired boy opened his mouth to speak, but a moment before he could, the older girl spoke herself.

"So, the issue here is that kouhai doesn't have a lunch?" She asked of the three boys who weren't Kamijou.

Evidently confused as to where she was going with this, Tsuchimikado and Aogami nodded. Sogiita just gave an ordinary nod, evidently not very invested in the present issue.

Kumokawa grinned. "Well, that's easy to remedy, then. Kouhai, come here."

Then, to their surprise, she sat down at the table next to them, patting the space next to her.

"Eh?..." Kamijou looked at her confusedly as he made his way over and sat down.

However, contrary to their friend, the blonde and blue-haired boy's faces began to twist-as if realization was dawning upon them.

"Say ahh~"

And at that point, not even Kamijou would be able to confuse what she was doing for anything else.

"W-Wait, senpai, this really isn't necessary! I can feed myself just fine! Actually, forget about the hunger thing! You don't have to-"

"Nonsense," Kumokawa cut in curtly. "I can't in good conscience allow one of my new kouhai's to go starving due to lack of a lunch. Now hurry up and open your mouth!"

"S-Some people are starting to stare, so can we just-"

"Let them stare, it means they have nothing better to do anyway. Now hurry up. The longer you try and reject it, the longer we're gonna be here, you know."

Eventually, Kamijou settled down with a slightly defeated expression as he opened his mouth. Kumokawa then giggled.

"Mmf!"

Kamijou's voice was, evidently, muffled as Kumokawa then began to feed the boy with her spoon.

The next few minutes were agonizingly slow for Kamijou as the older girl slowly fed him spoonful after spoonful. He was very aware of the people watching, the number of which was steadily increasing, but he did not move a muscle. He was frozen in place, much like someone going into shock. He could only continue to chew as he maintained eye-contact with the attractive girl in front of him, who seemed to giggle occasionally as she fed him fried rice.

Eventually, it came to an end. Standing up with her now half-empty plate of fried rice and despite having lost that chunk of her food to another's stomach, Kumokawa Seria seemed to have an oddly satisfied look on her face.

"Please, do let me know if you're having any troubles keeping up a healthy diet again." Her voice was melodic, yet also had a hint of amusement, like she was struggling not to laugh. With that, she walked off into the crowd of spectators, who immediately began to pan out to allow her through. She didn't seem to take notice of any of them, however; she had a faraway look in her eyes as she gazed into nothingness.

Gripping his spoon violently hard, Aogami turned to Kamijou. "So...how much did you enjoy that, Kami-yan?"

The boy said nothing as he just sheepishly looked off to the side, face red.


"Man, school's a weird place..."

Sogiita Gunha absentmindedly spoke into the air to no one in particular as he bounded from rooftop to rooftop.

This was another part of his daily routine. It was a hobby of his to leap around District 7 after school from building to building. What was he looking for, one might ask?

It was incidents. Anything that seemed to be getting out of hand, he would step in, intervene, and take care of anyone acting out of line.

However, while this sounded like a very selfless act on paper, this was not the result of a pure intention such as saving people or protecting the weak.

Sogiita Gunha was no such fairy-tale hero. Instead, he sought out these battles for a different reason.

"?"

But today was different.

There was no battle that drew him in.

The thing that had caught his eye was not an incident that needed resolving. Rather, it was a building.

Well-perhaps a building wasn't completely accurate. It was moreso the people inside it.

Sogiita had impressive eyesight, so it wasn't hard for him to notice. He didn't know what kind of building it was, but he could clearly see that whatever it was, the personnel within were sprawled out on the ground.

While he wasn't known for his common sense, even he couldn't consider such a thing as normal. As such, slowing down his pace, he leaped to the building, which was right next to him.

The building had a glass roof, so it was very easy to have seen inside from his position up in the air. However, no one on the ground or at the height equivalent to an average building would've been able to catch it. If that had been the case, someone would've likely called Anti-Skill to investigate.

But there was no Anti-Skill. Sogiita smirked.

"Looks like this place might be in need of some guts."

Cracking his knuckles, he raised his arm-

-and a second later, brought it crashing into the glass roof.

CRACK!

The broken glass fell to the ground below. The impact had created a big enough hole for him to enter through, so Sogiita jumped in without hesitation.

Wind whipped past his face as he hit the hard, concrete floor. However, he was completely uninjured, despite the fall being about 50 meters down. It was anyone's guess as to how.

Glancing around, he could see the downed personnel clearly now. They all had formal business wear on-suits, ties, jeans, and so on-some also seemed to have earpieces in their ears. A vast array of computers lined the room-many seemed to be turned on, but were also stuck on the access screen, passwords left unwritten. However, none of this information properly registered in Sogiita's mind. His focus was on the sounds coming from down below-based on the muffling, likely on the floor just below him.

SLAM! CRUNCH!

Despite the distance, it was clear that they were the sounds of a struggle.

Eyeing the stairs at the corner of the room opposite to him, he bolted towards them. Perhaps this was the fight he had been looking for.


PLAY: A Certain Scientific Railgun S OST 2: Pressure


As he turned the last few steps into the room, he caught sight of who he had been looking for.

Unlike the room above, the workers of the building on this floor were actually awake-though much too occupied to spare him a glance. A few were knocked out on the ground, but those who were still conscious, which seemed to total around 6, were all focused on the person in the middle of the room.

It was a slim, short girl, maybe slightly younger then him. She wore a fluffy beige sweater dress over her top, long enough to conceal everything at her waistline-which was fitting, considering that her only legwear was a set of striped socks. Her short brown hair was cut into a bob cut.

More importantly, she was also engaged in hand-to-hand combat with 4 of the conscious workers. Expertly, she weaved in and out of her strikes, despite their best efforts to time their attacks together and cut off any ways for her to dodge, she moved with the grace of a professional dancer, countering their strikes while also delivering some of her own. The other two workers who were not in melee range of her seemed to be off to the side, feverishly searching through drawers and backpacks.

After a few moments, one of them, a woman, managed to stand up with a smile on their face-although it was very clear that their was panic etched into it. A pistol was held tightly in their fist.

"SAY GOODNIGHT, BITCH!"

Raising the pistol, the woman screamed a taunt at the girl in the middle of the room as she put her hand on the trigger.

The girl barely spared her a glance-but in the little time she did, she just smirked.

BANG!

The sound of a gunshot rang out throughout the room.

Sogiita's vision snapped towards the girl in the center. He was expecting to see her kneeling over, clutching herself in pain...

...but she wasn't. Instead, she merely stood there, completely unharmed. The smirk was still on her face.

Swiftly punching one of her opponents in the face as they attempted to jump her from behind, she just laughed.

"Sorry, but some random bullet isn't super going to break my Offense Armor," she called out.

The woman who had shot the bullet seemed frozen. Close by, the other person who had been rummaging, a man, had also brought a pistol-however, he had evidently also witnessed the intended recipient of it's bullets shrug it off as if it was nothing.

Sogiita then gave a grin, and he felt energy begin to build up in his arm.

Evidently, he wasn't the only one. The two with the firearms seemed to notice him at the stair case, turning to him with disbelieving expressions on their faces.

"Wait...aren't you..."

They didn't have a chance to finish.

Sogiita had already burst forward right in front of them, fist held aloft.

WHAM!

The woman fell to the floor, completely unconscious from the punch. The man shakily held up his pistol, and he opened his mouth to say somthing-

WHAM!

-but it was too late, for Sogiita had slammed his other fist into the ground-and the shockwave that ensued slammed into the man, causing him to crash into the wall behind him, forcing him to drop the gun. He did not get up again.

Turning to the room's center, he could see that all four of the young girl's attackers were now knocked cold on the ground.

And that the girl was also now walking towards him cautiously, suspicion etched on her face.

"Who the super hell are you?" She called out.

"Huh? Me? Just passing through," he responded.

"That doesn't really tell me much...why did you take out those two who were super gunning for me?" She came to a stop about 10 feet away from him, expression still suspicious.

"Oh, that? I mean, using guns isn't exactly gutsy, is it? It was already 1 vs 6 anyways. Why not make it more fair?" He said simply.

However, it definitely wasn't a simple explanation. The girl's confused look was proof of that.

"What's your name?" She asked cautiously.

"Sogiita Gunha, seventh-ranked Level 5!" He said proudly.

At this, the girl seemed to stop. "The seventh-ranked?!..." She then stopped to think for a moment.

"Well, you certainly seem every bit as weird as the rumors say you are." She said bluntly.

Sogiita just shrugged. "Rumors? Don't really care about them much." His tone certainly implied as much.

The girl gave no response. After a few moments, another question was asked.

"Why are you here?"

"Hm?"

"The front door to this place is locked and the building itself doesn't provide a public service. Anyone who came here would have to have a good reason for doing so. So why are you super here?" She then clarified, her weariness clearly not waning in the slightest.

"Oh. Just looking for a good fight of guts!" He said, mouth widening into a grin.

It was then that the weariness faded away all at once, replaced with a dumbfounded face. She blinked once.

"Pardon?..."

"I've been looking for someone who could match my guts all afternoon, and you look the perfect opponent! I mean, you took on 4 people all by yourself, so I'd say that means something, right?"

That was it.

Sogiita Gunha was not a person who would intervene in an incident out of concern for victims, collateral damage, or righteousness.

He would intervene so as to look for a fight himself; against someone of equal caliber to him.

"What's your name?" He called out excitedly.

The girl seemed to stare at him in confusion for a few more moments before she registered his question. "Why do you super want to know that?..." The confusion from her voice, however, was still evident.

"It's only natural to know the names of who you're fighting, isn't it? Especially if they're a worthy opponent!"

The girl was silent for a few moments, before giving a sigh.

"Kinuhata. Kinuhata Saiai. And I'm sorry to say, but this isn't super a time to be having an arm-wrestling match."


And there we have it; the first chapter of Arc 2, Genesis of the Mirage!

That was also first use of music in a chapter. Again, just to reiterate, following through on it's use is completely optional and there's no requirement to listen to it to enjoy the story. It's just something to help with visualizing the scenes if the text isn't enough for you, especially given that this doesn't have illustrations like the Toaru LN's have. I'll be using music a lot in the future, so just wanna say all this right now.

Hope you all enjoyed the chapter! If you've got any questions, praise, suggestions or criticism for the story, feel free to leave it in a review and it'll be addressed next chapter! I appreciate all feedback you give on the story, as everything helps me write the next chapter better and hopefully improve your reading experience, so everything is appreciated!

Have a great day and stay safe!

-Cloak