Touma walked down the street with the skyscrapers of Academy City towering over him, reaching for the heavens above. As he did so, he recalled the situation they were currently in. Therestina Kihara, a member of the infamous Kihara family, who had escaped a few months ago, had returned and she appears to have brought a number of friends with her. They weren't sure why she had returned, but their best guess was that she was trying to free the other Kiharas that were imprisoned in Academy City. If she managed that, it would be disastrous. They couldn't allow it.
Mikoto had contacted Shirai and Uiharu and asked them to keep an eye on the security cameras around the city and asked her sisters to do the same before leaving to scout out Therestina and her allies. This left Touma with nothing to do except wait for information to come through, so he decided to effectively patrol the city, keeping an eye out for anyone who may have slipped through the defences and perhaps, if someone were found, he may end up closer to them than he would be if he stayed in the apartment, allowing him to get there faster. Of course, he could also end up further away, but he decided to take that chance.
Accelerator had already confirmed that all Kiharas had been accounted for in the special prison they were being kept in, so they were fairly sure Therestina hadn't made her move yet. That was assuming, of course, that was her objective.
Touma decided that he needed a drink and started looking for a convenience store, until he spotted a familiar face in the crowd. Luna was walking towards him looking a little worse for wear, most likely still feeling the aftereffects from the lightning attack she received from Mikoto earlier. Touma made a mental note to remind his girlfriend that not everyone could take as many volts as him or Shirai.
"Hey, Luna!" he called out to her.
"Hey, Kamijou." she called back, lazily putting her hand up as if to wave it but leaving out the waving part. How many volts had Mikoto used anyway?
"Ehm, are you okay? Mikoto really did a number on you, didn't she?"
"Meh, it was worth it."
Touma wasn't sure it should be. He hoped Luna wasn't one of those perverts who loved to be attacked like that. They already had Shirai to deal with, he didn't think he could handle another one.
Touma was alone, talking to a pretty girl on the street. The worst thing that could possibly happen would be for a certain blonde, spiky-haired boy and his blue-haired friend to see this interaction. Even knowing Touma had a girlfriend and that he would never cheat on her, they would still give him hell for this. A hell he was, unfortunately, used to at this point.
As the thought crossed his mind, time seemed to slow down around him, as a speck of blue appeared at the corner of his vision, and next to that a tiny smidge of blonde. Touma started to turn his head in their direction with horror painted over his face as the people he least wanted to run into at that moment, spotted him and, crucially, the red-haired girl in front of him.
At that moment, all hell broke loose.
The two idiots sprinted towards Touma, hands balled into fists, and punched him as hard as they could under his chin, sending Touma flying what felt like a meter into the air. He fell back onto the ground with a crash, but before he could get back up, the two attackers continued their assault, kicking the unfortunate boy that was on the ground whilst spouting some crap about 'Kami disease'.
Luna, deciding maybe she should help him, went to grab the blonde-haired boy before recognising who he was. She then grabbed onto his shoulder and, in a voice that could have come from the devil himself, she said,
"Hello there, you little shit."
Tsuchimikado's neck turned slowly, giving him a proper view of the face of the girl Touma had been talking to. It was a face that screamed 'I'm going to kill you in the slowest, most painful way possible.' It appeared they had history.
The blue-haired boy, Aogami, finally noticed that Tsuchimikado had stopped his assault and looked over to find Tsuchimikado on the ground and the red-haired girl Touma had been talking to standing over him with her arm raised and metal objects from the street such as trash cans and cleaning robots hovering above her.
"That's enough, Luna." came Touma's voice from the ground. "Or would you like Mikoto to know about the chaos you're causing right now. I'm sure she'd love to give you a few more shocks." he threatened despite not too long ago thinking she had gone overboard and hoping that Luna wasn't the masochist he thought she was.
The threat seemed to work as Luna slowly put the metal objects back where they were.
"Fine, but I want to punch him."
"What a coincidence. So do I."
The group ended up sticking together, much to Touma's dismay and were currently in the middle of their third argument but Touma had no idea what it was about as he'd stopped listening approximately five seconds into their first argument, instead deciding to enjoy his drink and try to keep a lookout. They walked seemingly aimlessly down the street without all four of them looking very beat up.
Whatever they were arguing about, though, was interrupted by Luna's phone going off. She looked at the screen and visibly gulped before answering.
"Heeeeeeeeey Shiro. Long-time no see." she said with her face strained and in a tone of someone who was about to get in trouble. Suddenly, a voice came screaming through the phone so loudly, Luna had to keep the phone away from her ear to avoid bursting an eardrum. Whoever it was, they didn't seem happy with Luna.
"Fine, fine. I'll start making my way over now." she paused as she waited for the voice on the other side to finish. "Okay, okay. I'm coming. No need to lose your head. I'll be there soon, make sure everything is ready for me to test. See ya."
She hung up and turned to the three boys.
"You guys want to-"
She stopped when her eyes met Tsuchimikado and decided to alter her question.
"Kamijou, want to see something cool we've been working on at school?" she asked, making sure not to make eye contact with the other two boys.
"Wait, would I even be allowed in? I'm not from the same school as you, am I? I don't think I've seen you around."
"Oh, it'll be fine." Luna dismissed with a wave of her hand. "I don't think a school with you three in it would enter into this thing anyway."
"I feel like the three of us were just insulted."
"Oh, you absolutely were. You wanna see it or not?"
Touma sighed.
"Sure, let's see what you've got."
"Hey, what about us? Are you just gonna leave us out, nyaa?" came the protest from Tsuchimikado.
"Oh, I see. They just want some alone time. She's been infected with the Kami disease. Curse you Kamijou. We won't let you take another cute girl away from the rest of us." continued Aogami.
"Ugh, fine. You guys can come too, even if it's just to stop any stupid rumours reaching Misaka." Luna muttered.
Luna led the group towards her High School. On the way, Touma and Tsuchimikado fell back a little so they could have a conversation in private.
"Have you heard?" asked Touma, quietly.
"About the Kihara wandering about outside the city? Yeah, I heard." replied Tsuchimikado just as quietly.
"Will you be able to help in any way?"
"I dunno man, we're still trying to figure out this Satanic Church business."
"Satanic Church?"
"Yeah, we were attacked in the Arctic by one of them, trying to steal a staff called 'Daemonium Virgam.' We're trying to figure out what it is and why they wanted it, among other things."
"I get the feeling I wasn't supposed to hear that."
"Ahhh, it'll be fine, nyaa. This is your final year of High School. So, you'll be part of the board by this time next year and then you'll be given the information anyway. Besides, with your luck, you'll be stuck in the middle of this mess by next week."
Touma sweat dropped at the mention of his luck and the suggestion that it was going to throw him into yet another deadly situation, even if he was most likely right.
Tsuchimikado's comment on Touma's board position was in reference to Accelerator's Board of Directors. When Accelerator had finally managed to attain the position of Chairperson at the top of the Board of Directors, he opted to get rid of the Board members active at the time. They had mostly been behind a lot of the 'shit' that happened in Academy City, so Accelerator refused to trust them. It had taken a while, but eventually he managed to get rid of them and had started putting together his own Board, made of people he knew would do their best to protect the city and its inhabitants, and by extension a small girl that looked about twelve years old living in said city, but no one said anything about that.
This included the new, or at least newer, Teitoku Kakine, Shizuri Mugino and Misaki Shokuhou who had all accepted the positions immediately. Touma and Mikoto had also been offered positions but had asked to finish High School first, meaning Touma would join next year and Mikoto would join two years after him. However, they still worked closely with the Board and regularly as Honorary members of sorts, as shown by Mikoto's involvement with the Formula AC program and their current situation with Therestina Kihara.
Bringing his thoughts back to the present, Touma realised the group had reached their destination, Habatobi High School, Luna's High School.
Luna led them through to the back of the school where they were greeted with a large set of double doors. She reached into her skirt pocket and fished out a white card. She pressed it against a black panel on the right-hand side of the door, holding it for a few seconds until a soft beep told them the door had been unlocked. Luna opened the door and beckoned the boys inside. She guided them left and round a corner into a large room with lots of control and screens and a massive window taking up half of one of the walls.
On the other side of that window was a single-seater, open cockpit race car that looked like a Formula 1 car. Touma recognised it immediately as it was part of the series his girlfriend was organising, a Formula AC car.
At one of the screens was a tall, scrawny boy, about the same age as them, with long, straight black hair and round glasses. He was wearing a set of dark blue overalls with a single sponsor printed across the middle of it. It was buttoned up to the very top and had a few black stains covering it. This must have been the Shiro person Luna had talked to earlier.
"Luna, may I remind you that we shouldn't be allowing people who might be our competitors to see our car." he said, pushing up his glasses.
"Well, A, we've already gone through pre-season testing, so 'our competitors' have already seen it, and B, we'll be backmarkers this year, why would any of them look to our car for ideas? Oh, and C, there is no way in hell these three are smart enough to go to a school who're also taking part." Luna answered.
"Even so, no one outside of the team should be in here."
"Don't worry so much." Luna said, dismissing his arguments with a wave of her hand. She appeared to lack a care in the world.
"Hey, Luna. How was Paris?" came a new voice from behind them.
"Hey, Narumi. Yeah, it was great. Made some friends including this moron here." she said pointing her thumb at Touma. That was the third time she had called him an idiot since they met on the street, Touma was getting a bit tired of it.
The girl, Narumi, was a little shorter than Touma and had long, wavy blond hair that reached to the middle of her back. She was wearing similar overalls to Shiro, but hers were only buttoned up halfway and she wasn't wearing anything underneath, so she was exposing a small line of her skin. She had black stains similar to Shiro, covering her face and overalls.
'They must have been working on the car' Touma thought, seeing them.
"So, you guys are taking part in the Formula AC this year?" Asked Touma, looking at their creation behind the window.
"Hmm? Yep. That's right. Hopefully we can get a few points on the board by season's end. That's the target for a High School like us. It'll be Academy City's Colleges and Universities that will be aiming for the big prizes." replied Narumi. "Who are you exactly?"
"Oh, right, introductions." Luna cut in. "This is Touma Kamijou, I met him in Paris. The blonde idiot behind him with the stupid green shirt is Motoharu Tsuchimikado," Tsuchimikado winced at his introduction. "And the blue-haired idiot is Aogami Pierce."
"Nice, I'm Narumi Takahashi, the chief mechanic, and the grumpy sod over there is Shiro Yamamoto, our head engineer and you, of course, know our idiot driver, Luna Arikimo."
"I'm sorry. Am I or am I not the highest level esper in this room? And therefore the smartest?" Luna tried to defend herself.
"Academically, you're a genius, I won't argue that. But in terms of street smarts? Ehhhh, you're a bit of an idiot."
Before he could hear Luna's argument, Touma's phone started buzzing and he went to the side to answer it.
"It's Mikoto, get back to the apartment, we've got some planning to do."
A/N Hi everyone. Hope you all had a good week. For this chapter, I went in a different direction than originally planned. I wanted to show off Mikoto's stealth skills when she scouts out Therestina's group, but I just couldn't make it interesting so I decided to leave that in the background and instead introduce a few things and people now.
Firstly, I wanted to introduce Luna's involvement in the Formula AC. I didn't want to get to the arc and say, oh yeah, Luna's part of this too. I think it would be a bit to sudden, so I introduced that and two of her crew here as well.
I also wanted to start to explain the Formula AC. I didn't want to just have an info dump at the start of that arc where I explain everything, so I've started to explain a few things here to lay the groundwork a bit. I'll then go into more depth later.
Now for the comments.
Stryper88: Thank you. I always appreciate the praise and I hope you'll like the rest of the arc as well.
GG Vegito: Yeah, I guess she isn't exactly the most memorable of the Kiharas.
Blanklow: Kind of? She hung out with them in Paris because she didn't have anyone else to go to and she just happens to bump into Touma this chapter, but she does have her own group of friends that she hangs out with more. For the sisters, this story is set 2 years after the start of the series, so I figured they would've gotten better in expressing their emotions by then, even if only a little, so I'm glad you like it.
And there we have it. I hope you enjoyed the chapter and that you all have a good week and chapter 3 will be out next week. Bye.