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THIS CHAPTER IS DARK! THE NEXT ONE IS EVEN DARKER!
I've been stalling for 9 chapters just so that squeamish readers can leave and people can get used to the suffering aspect. This was the limit.
This chapter has a lot of gore and more than earns the M-rating. If you don't want to see Mikoto seriously murderizing everybody and being a total psycho and hypocrite, then... What are you even doing, reading this fic?
I hope you enjoy.
X❖X
Russian Demo — Moscow — IV
X❖X
Artyom was on the warehouse near the damn Monastery. The warehouse was abandoned and the sunlight from the rosy dusk was reaching inside and illuminating the warehouse.
Artyom felt a bit morose for this mission.
His men smoked and took a swing of vodka. A preferred drink of theirs. At times like this it was best to go back to the cliched times. Some in the corner injected some heroin to feel better. Artyom could not blame them for the enemy they had to face was a real monster only told in superhero stories. The news were blasting the footage of her demonstration on loop. With commentators completely in disbelief. A super-power in real life was incongruent with how things worked, with how society worked. How did Academy City ever survive under its own weight, Artyom did not know. But if all Level 5s were like Misaka Mikoto then the world itself was fucked beyond repair. And she was just the third strongest. How strong were the unimaginable monsters even above her.
There was an old TV on the left corner of the warehouse and it just played something. A tropical storm. A typhon was encircling around Okinawa, an island south of Japan. The experts were somewhat concerned but the news again shifted to the Esper. It's all they talked about these days. The Esper. The Esper. The Esper. Artyom was frankly tired of it.
He approached the table and pointed at the map of the plot of land.
"There is an old tunnel built by the Old Patriarch back in the cold war. There are only a few entrances and most of them are located in the monastery. There are reports that there is a monorail underground they can use. There are exit points here, here and here. They are probably taking this one."
Directly east of Moscow, right on a deserted path of land was the hidden exit. There were many dirt roads to be taken there and it was a pretty wide area with low vegetation all around. The reason this exit would most likely be picked was because it was the closest. This monorail was built to be run due east underground. And its length was legendary. If the rumors were correct this hidden monorail could reach even coast of Bering sea on the other side of Russia. A secret escape route for the Patriarch and his closest cronies during the cold war if everything went FUBAR. Of course the new one probably knew of this escape route and would use it.
"Our first strike will be in the inner sanctuary, a group of thirty will play dress-up carrying assault rifles in concealment. The Patriarch will start the service alone and the little Esper will be there on the front row. You shall shoot them with all you've got. Don't worry about collateral, just use everything you have."
Guns, knives and grenades would be carried by this small thirty men group. And if that failed…
"This will most likely fail. It will cause panic on both and they will flee. The Patriarch will probably want to go to the tunnel to escape. You thirty will pursue them. However make them believe they escaped you. I, as well as 70 other soldiers shall lie in wait beneath the tunnel and when both targets sigh in relief, we will gun them down." Artyom outlined the plan. To the crew of the many soldiers from intelligence that were underneath him. They were all prepared for this. "In my signal the thirty who were pursuing will come down to the tunnel. If the Esper survives all that then being sieged by two sides will make her lose concentration."
"If everything else fails." Artyom looked at his two experienced and combat ready right-hands. These two men were his aces-in-the-hole. Men who were almost as experienced in combat and as talented as he was. One was a dark haired man in his late thirties. His name was Boris and the other was a sandy blond man with a dark beard named Slava. "Boris, Slava. You shall lie in wait at the exit point with the rest of the soldiers. Disguised as a biker militant group."
Artyom picked a cigar and lit up. Then he saw the two of his right hand men near him. With the same cigar brand. They emulated his combat style for themselves while altering a bit on what they wielded. But the principle was the same, now they emulated what brands he drank and smoked.
"I can't wait for this mission to be done. The next one is going to be the one where we kill that bitch Sashura, right? I need to avenge my son at all cost."
The one saying this was the dark-haired Boris. He had lost his five-year-old son in the past and most likely Sashura was behind this. After that Boris whole life has been about pursuing retribution against that woman. He had pleased Artyom and Defense Minister Timofey F. Stanislav for an assassination mission but was never answered. However that changed now, Timofey was promising him that they would get rid of that Chairwoman after this. Time would tell for Boris if they held their words or not.
"Calm down, you have to relax first."
The one who answered was Slava, the sandy blond Russian.
He already got out of the military uniform and was putting on a ripped jeans and a brown jacket. Along with his crew. He was famous in the intelligence agency for leading one of the strongest armed militias in Russia. Composed of intelligence agents. Slava's whole job was doing dirty work. And he has been undercover for the past decade or so, with all the members being of the government. A state-sanctioned militia group that kept other groups in check. However recently it became a bit muddled for Slava. He has been doing it for so long he started to forget if he was a criminal who was employed by the government or a government agent trained to be the leader of a criminal organization in Russia.
Well, the truth was that he was a trained agent and had a cushy desk job in the Agency in his early career, but after 24 years old he was selected to become an underling for the legendary soldier Artyom and after a while he was offered a commissioned job to run a state-sanctioned militia group, it was hard to tell where life goes especially when Slava's life was concerned. However Slava did not care, he loved to do his job regardless.
"Hello, I shall lead you to the tunnel, and the inner sanctum. I hope you are ready for tonight."
A nun arrived and bowed. It was a blue-haired woman that blew some soap bubbles. Behind her was a brat of sixteen. They were in the entrance of the warehouse and the soldiers inside did not even notice her arriving. She felt threatening with the orange light of dusk coming in front the entrance.
"Time to do the job."
Artyom prepared his weapons. And a hundred soldiers followed him.
Boris and Slava would remain behind and go to the exit point of the tunnel a few hundred kilometers east from Moscow. Fifty soldiers would be with them.
X❖X
The inner sanctum felt unusually crowded tonight. But who was Mikoto kidding? She hadn't been in this place for long. Perhaps yesterday was just a little light with people.
Vasilisa was not by her side tonight.
The little Patriarch was about to take the helm.
Mikoto languidly took the seat on the wall as the night light shied through. The moon was unusually bright.
It was times like these that Mikoto thought of her beloved sisters. Not just two days separated, and she was already missing them. What would it take? What would it take for her sisters to be accepted, to roam around in the bright daylights and not be judged?
Mikoto just wanted to embrace them and feel their warmth, she felt like the younger sibling, constantly wanting to be around them. However Mikoto was the older sibling. She was responsible for them and needed to act for them to live a normal life, and yet she was ripped away from them for more than a week, right after the whole Level 6 shift incident ended.
Hot summer nights in Moscow.
Languidly resting on a wooden chair in a religious service. Where they chanted and sung words that had no meaning in Mikoto's ears. She looked to the side and stared at the empty bench.
Wherever did Vasilisa-san go?
The red nun had been quite helpful calming down Mikoto's nerves before the demonstration. But now she was gone. Mikoto's tired eyes turned to scanning the place. She felt a feeling she hadn't had for two days, adrenaline and alertness as well as dark excitement was coursing through her.
Something is happing, but what?
Mikoto saw some of the clergymen rise from their seats. They grabbed something beneath the clothes. A metallic sounds and Mikoto instantly rushed towards Patriarch Krans R. Tsarskiy.
The men in the grey robes had drawn assault rifles and showered the altar with bullets by the hundreds and thousands of bullets. A complete hail where even a few grenades were thrown at the targets.
After the hail had ended, they saw a hole in the wall where the Esper and the Patriarch had escaped.
X❖X
Mikoto had dragged the little Patriarch, hugging the little child in the arms as they fled the inner sanctum. She just ran as fast as possible as the highly armed and highly protected soldiers came out of the hole she made and were shooting at them.
"So these are the assassination attempts you have to deal with, huh?"
"N—No, never at this magnitude, what's happening? where are the magicians?"
Magicians? What's he talking about?
Mikoto ignored the child's ramblings to ask for somewhere she could hide the child.
"There's a tunnel my father built back in the cold war. There is a functional monorail there. It leads to three different points accords Russian and in every point there is a nuclear bunker."
"Huh? Your father was well-prepared. I guess the Cold War was pretty serious, huh?" Mikoto was not well-versed in the greater conflict itself. She was born way after it ended so she had no idea of the tension building back then.
Thinking back to it. Academy City was born smack in the middle of the Cold War, between two major superpowers, a tiny little city in the far east was able to achieve supremacy underneath everyone's noses. How did they do that?
Mikoto followed the instructions of the child in her arms as they descended a concrete dark facility with metal stairs and railings.
This place was a complete maze.
Reminds me a lot of a steampunk setting. Academy City is also full of places underground as well. Government oligarchs sure love their underground bunkers and concrete and steel mazes.
She did not realize something so steampunk could exist below a religious monastery of all things. The hail of bullets had grown silent. And it seemed they were still searching up above.
Strange. But I guess the leader of a religion needs some sort of quick getaway. Especially under threat of a nuclear strike from the West. Feels like I'm encroaching on an important part of history without being really invested.
Mikoto opened the red rusty iron door and it led to a vast tunnel with a long corridor and a few metal platforms here and there.
"It's kind of crazy things like these still exists because of the Cold War. I was born a lot later so this doesn't feel real." Mikoto said. There were many things hidden beneath Academy City but seeing layers like these in other countries felt more surreal than she could have imagined.
Mikoto and the Patriarch relaxed in the concrete stairs a bit after the confusion. Mikoto certainly wasn't expecting a hail of bullets from priests but oh well. She didn't know whether it was a good decision to fight back or not. Killing people in front of one of the most powerful political people in Russia would be an apparent mistake on Mikoto's part.
But if they follow me underground, then I cannot be blamed for what happens.
The monorail was still a few kilometers away on foot. Right now there were big water canals and metal platforms and large tunnels of concrete to go before they arrived. This place was exceptionally big and steampunky, something out of a shooting game. With many old iron doors that have rusted over time.
"You don't have to worry about me so much. My robes offer me strong protection. They are classed as pope-level and can survive any attack."
The child was speaking to her as she relaxed on the steps. What kinds of things he had been saying? All that was spewing for his mouth were fantasy-terms. It was not like clothes in real life had RPG-like properties. Fabric was fabric in the end of the day and while Academy City had developed strong material overtime, it was due to the power of the scientific method and understanding how things in the universe actually worked.
"Well, whatever want to—"
Mikoto was about to say something but she stood up in reflex. And that was because she sensed danger. Her reaction was truly magnificent, however the bullet who just passed through her throat, ripping it apart by strands of tissue, with a fountain of blood spewing on the child's expensive robes and her body falling to the ground.
The child saw the dead body of the fourteen-year-old girl and cried. She was here because of the Church and had been caught up in a plan to assassinate him.
"Mikoto, Mikoto, Mikoto—"
The ten-year-old whispered name while being scared and helpless, but Mikoto was dead on the cold stone floor with a half a chunk of her neck ripped out by a sniper rifle.
Then soldiers from the tunnel approached. 70 soldiers in total. 30 soldiers coming from above with the grey robes. They were the ones back at the inner sanctum. There were a total of a 100 soldiers here. The ones that were in grey robes took them off, revealing military outfits.
Artyom arrived behind his soldiers.
In his right hand was a rifle with a bayonet attached. In his left hand was a pistol with another smaller bayonet attached. A modern version of a spear and a dagger. The man used an unusual style of combat. He was here because of the Minister of Defense, to kill the patriarch and the Esper and blame the Elizalina Alliance. To cause an irreparable diplomatic incident with Academy City and engineer the next great war.
Kranz cried with Mikoto dead on his lap.
The blood was staining his robes and yet he kept his defiant stare at everyone. With their assault rifles aimed at him. Gods he was so stupid, he let an innocent girl be caught up in this web of ruthless politics. He was accustomed to it ever since he was born but for Mikoto, a foreign girl who went to school everyday who went to family restaurants and worried about school assignments.
This was the worst.
To Artyom it did not matter that he killed a fourteen-year-old kid.
Artyom had a job to do and if her death brought about the desired outcome then so be it. He did not leave any chances for her to react since he had watched the demonstration and knew of the extreme limits to her power. However a human is still a human, a shot to the neck kills humans all the same. Though he was aiming for her skull instead, her raising her body momentarily out of instinct was something he did not account for and almost gave him a heart attack but the deed was done. The little Esper was surely dead. Now all that remained was to execute the little Patriarch and be done with this job.
The worst had passed.
No… it hadn't.
The worst was coming.
X❖X
Ah, this is what I get for relaxing just a little bit.
Mikoto raised herself from Krans lap, the blood was still sticking to her throat, but the wound had healed. The men around her were surprised but she was surrounded. They shot at her. However the bullets turned into iron dust at the point they reached her skin.
"Gghrgh ghrhg…"
She tried to talk but there was still blood inside of her throat.
Can't talk. My throat is still traumatized after being torn apart.
Since my protections are all conscious based, I need to pay attention to my calculations to protect myself. Accelerator was lucky he had that reflection. It was an unconscious effort on his part. He didn't have to do anything to be invincible. The same can be said for that idiot. Nothing that hits him hurts him. I just don't have that, so I get hit by sniper bullets like these when I'm not paying attention.
The soldiers seemed surprised that 1: she was alive after being shot in the throat. In fact her wound was completely healed. Only the blood spatter was still sticking to her neck like some adherent liquid. And 2: their little assault rifles did nothing to stop her once she was paying attention to her defenses. These soldiers faced innumerable threats on their whole lives but now they faced an almost incalculable threat, an Esper who hasn't revealed her versatile powers. She had only shown her ability of electricity. Nothing more. Everything she was showing now was new.
"Phew…"
Mikoto spit some blood on the dark concrete floor, it was still lodged in her throat and as much as she enjoyed chewing on liquid blood, she wanted it out.
She wasn't allowed to use her magnetism publicly and was expressly forbidden of using the power of the #4 Meltdowner and the Railgun, her signature move. But those powers were usually too quick for her to genuinely enjoy herself, she did not want her enemies to have such an easy death. Now that they were underground and far from viewing eyes of the public. Mikoto could unwind and use her powers over magnetism and iron sand.
"I've been feeling very irritable lately because I am away from my sisters. I am grateful that I have a chance for a stress-relieving session such as this one."
Mikoto had been feeling stressed out and she wanted to stretch herself a bit and some meat sacks have graciously shown themselves to her.
This was great.
Even when the men were shooting and unloading the magazines of their assault rifles at her. Mikoto just stretched her arms back.
Then she opened her right palm and iron sad coalesced into it, forming a long blade. The vibrations on it caused it to slice even the most armored ships in the entire world. It was like an industrial diamond cutter on steroids. Made of every material on every level of Mohs hardness scale. This was so potent and the vibrations so rapid it could even scratch and cut a diamond plate in half in less than a second.
She languidly rushed and sliced off a man by his left shoulder, armpit, his torso until the right waist. Then she twirled and sliced off half his face. Half his cranium was removed and only his mouth remained as half his skull hit the wall, the brain that was cut cleanly fell of his skull, almost as if removing a layer of his sliced cranium while his eyes still looked vivid and his forehead was still making expressions that soon turned to horror.
Mikoto killed the first soldier so incredibly fast that the soldier still felt he was alive for a few seconds. Even in modern times it could be said that Mikoto was quite the swordswoman herself, she could have made a lot of money back in the early medieval times as a knight, if they would even consider a woman as a soldier. Of course when you have a blade like this everything is easy to cut as butter, even an armored truck.
Ah, I genuinely love this.
Mikoto's face was truly full of mirth denoting her extreme sadism.
The men all panicked due to her increased hostility as well as how fast she disposed of one of their comrades while their weapons had no effect once they reached her skin.
The concrete beneath them turned into little tentacles of iron sand with tiny little drills. They dug into their scrotums and then went deep within their stomachs, they ripped apart every single intestinal wall as their bodies were briefly suspended by a few centimeters. Some drills started exploring their bellybuttons, using it like an entrance to the stomach and bleeding their insides. Watching the little tentacle jiggle the bodies around like a dark horror show.
Killing people is so therapeutic, especially those who deserve it.
One soldier tried to throw a grenade and Mikoto stabbed him in the neck, beheading him in a bloody shower.
There are ten soldiers missing from the large pool of a hundred and that Artyom guy isn't here anymore. Guess they ran away while they could. Some people are really smart, aren't they?
Some knew how to cut their losses while they could before the disaster struck. Mikoto had to commend people like that, competent people are great. They were probably even deeper within this large underground preparing more traps for her while running away.
As the comrades died by the dozen by the strange iron tentacles and the artistry and swordsmanship of a little fourteen-year-old.
Some tried to run away, most tried to run away.
However, things were not as simple.
A swarm of iron sand blocked all exits and corridors and formed a wall at all sides. The swarm of iron sand looked like insects at first and felt as gross to look at as one, but they were a heavy wall of sand and minerals.
They thought that fighting an electricity user underground was safe, there was merit to their smart idea, but they did not know a simple fact that she could turn this concrete and iron all around them into ferrous sand. The sand itself did not even need that many magnetically strong particles for Mikoto to manipulate, that's how strong she actually was.
Mikoto was a Level 5 for god's sake, people should learn not to take someone with that title lightly.
Before she even started having her exponential growth in power, she was titled as someone who could face a destroyer ship and win without difficulty. Why did infantry troops want to ever face someone like that? Even if they did not have that information, facing her with normal troops was complete suicide. Did they not watch her demo?
Did they just see all that and think, "yeah, I want to face someone like that." How stupid someone must be?
Is it my age or gender or a combination of both? Do they think I'm that naïve and inexperienced in combat? Does the world underestimate Academy City that much?
Yes, Mikoto was only fourteen-years-old. She had half the age of some of these people in pure combat experience. Some of these soldiers were thirty, thirty-five-years-old and had been in service since eighteen-years-old.
However, Mikoto had been frenetically in combat, day in and out, for over two weeks straight without any rest.
She was not over that high yet, she was still an excitable tiny monster riding on a high.
Nobody in Russia knew she had magnetic powers because the only thing she had shown were her powers over electricity.
How incredibly naïve of them.
They thought that she was a fantasy-land character only limited to electricity. She was a master of electromagnetism, having the potential to generate and manipulate 95% of everything in the whole wide universe.
People who underestimated her versatility were fools.
But sure enough that versatility posed a unique weakness or a little quirk for Mikoto.
Since her powers were so vast and wide, she had a bias to using only one facet of her ability per battle to train that specific tree. This time it was iron sand. When spoiled for choice on how to kill people Mikoto felt like she wanted to see how far a single facet of her ability could take her. Iron sand let her enjoy the suffering of others, especially weak opponents who did not have a measure of defense on them.
The soldiers were faced with the wall of iron sand as they still wanted to run away. They tried to push the wall with their hands, however it acted like quicksand, devouring their arms.
Mikoto closed her fist and their arms that were sunken exploded outwards. She raised the pressure of the sand to crush tissue and bones. Their blood vessels increased their pressure until they popped open. They tried to pull back but then the iron sand wall reached them with tentacles and pulled them towards the wall. Assimilating the bodies and crushing them beneath its weight. Even those close to it that screamed were quickly engulfed beneath their screams.
The iron wall was an impassable maw that crushed humans with pressure. Swallowing their bodies whole.
The rest of the soldiers had only one place to run, towards Mikoto, they were completely locked from every single exit here. Left alone by their leader, Artyom, who had retreated without them even knowing.
A swarm wall that swallowed people and crushed them inside. What a terrifying sweet concept.
Ah, I'm getting a bit hot.
Mikoto rubbed her toned thighs together as she took in the blood on her body. There were pieces of intestines hanging from her little spiraling tentacles of iron sand. Her vibrating sword was clean of blood. It spattered on Mikoto's' body. Her chestnut hair was filled with blood and her forehead was splashed with dark blood. Her clothes were completely soaked at this point, but she wanted more.
I— I want more~ more blood more suffering. I want more blood please give me more blood.
Mikoto became a complete psychopath who reveled in the cruelty she dished out on others. Mikoto was not a normal bright girl anymore even if she acted so on the surface, she was a little monster who reveled in gore.
This was a side-effect of falling in the deepest pits back in Academy City, she had to enjoy it, or she would have crumbled a long time ago.
Her brain physically rewired itself to bring out pleasure to her as she killed others. Killing people was as addictive as masturbation. She felt delight in smelling the innards of others and the metallic scent in the air.
Mikoto was a complete basket case of a person.
She was now in a complete blood frenzy.
This was the time where she would give up on combat to just slaughter helpless enemies.
—Give up on combat? What does that mean in concrete terms?
Iron sand surged from the concrete of the floor and crushed all of the men's foots. They were unable to stand up and were crawling away. All the while screaming.
This was what it meant to give up on combat. Give up on being on their level and put all her effort into her lust for cruelty. This was the part where she tortured and explored people's bodies for her hearts content without any room for fighting back.
The blade of iron turned into something much more personal and closer to her body.
Thin lines below each of her fingers, vibrating slightly.
Ten little scalpels beneath her fingers.
Mikoto, the human named Misaka Mikoto left no room for fighting back, any bullets that were thrown at her were turned into iron sand when it reached her skin. Any grenade was swallowed by a ball of iron sand and the explosion contained within.
All that waited them was death.
One might think that she would be a hypocrite for wanting to kill people so cruelly, that she was no different than Accelerator who killed her sisters like this all the time. However Mikoto would only spit in the face of someone who said that to her.
She was not a hypocrite for one reason alone. She viewed her sisters and the rest of humanity as different things.
When you view someone you love as human and the rest of the world as something less, then you start realizing that Mikoto was truly insane.
All human are equals was something that was inherently false in Mikoto's mind.
The Level Upper incident showed her the truth of the matter. Mikoto was painfully shown the truth and the suffering of others and that made her realize that the world was inherently cold-hearted. Mikoto does not put the lives of humans and the lives of her sisters in the same standing.
It's like comparing lives of ants to puppies.
People get outraged when there are abuse cases of cute animals, but the same people step on ants every day of their lives. It was the same thing here except she treated her sisters as cute little toddlers and the rest of humanity as ants. No matter how many people she kills, she inherently believes that she is not a hypocrite.
That was one of the many factors in Mikoto's mental illness.
However she did not realize that in the end, she was still a hypocrite, because Accelerator also viewed her sisters as being less than human.
Again, another factor in her mental illness.
Mikoto extended her little fingers and excavated the man's spine. Pulling it in the middle back and forth like a rubber band until she excavated the man's tail bone from the body. Inside of his hips was the beginning of the colon of the large intestine. She pulled on it as sanguine liquid bathed her hands. The organ was squishy and there was a moist fat covering her palms. Then she started excavating for more organs.
The other soldier, she removed his eyes and made some rounded holes on the bone as she dug down behind his face and dug deep into the nose, putting her index finger in the cavity, and going on the length until she reached behind his tongue and scoped the tongue from the eye socket. Her index finger was covered in moist mucous as she drew her finger back doing corkscrew motions making wider moist holes in his cranium. Then she dug again and pulled his tongue from behind. He probably felt his tongue no longer there as he tried moving it around, but it was quite empty in his mouth filled with plasma and he felt anxious, screaming was quite a pleasure to hear but it was quite distorted since Mikoto had removed his tongue from his eyes. He felt a burning sensation in his mouth as the blood drizzled back and he started coughing in a mouth that no longer had a tongue. The blood also pooled inside of his cranium and soon he had dirt in his face from the hard concrete floor. He tried speaking for her to kill him, but he could not as the dark liquid blocked his throat and he didn't have a tongue.
"You know, I am quite strong physically. Enough to punch holes in steel walls and I run faster than sound. What do you think happens when I press my knee on your armpit?"
She turned one of the soldiers to the side and pressed under his armpit. The muscles started shifting and then the nerves started painfully popping. Then the whole soldier displaced as she continued pressing her knee to his armpit. The clavicula got out of place and she continued, the ribs were broken and the started pressing painfully into the pulpy and air filled lungs. The man screamed but he could barely move. He tried fighting back, but it was fruitless, no matter how hard he pushed Mikoto away, she would not budge. A fully-fledged soldier could not push a 5'3" tall girl away. The armpit caved in as twice as deep as the other one. And Mikoto let him go as the arm she was holding flopped like a jellyfish, he was still alive but now there were holes in his lung and there was organ damage to his heart. He was pitifully crying in the ground, breathing shallow until he died.
In an RPG speed and strength were separated. However in real-life they were dependent on each other. Speed was power and power was speed.
With their foot broken they could barely crawl away from her. However they were locked here, there were swarms of iron sands forming walls in otherwise open corridors. They swarmed and coalesced like hordes of insects and it was quite creepy to see, especially in the darkness of this underground.
However the rest of the soldiers touched the swarm and were engulfed, and their bodies crushed by it. They rather die than be alive for Mikoto's deranged sadistic experiments with the human body.
Mikoto was filled from top to bottom with moist blood and there were still a piece of spine on her hands. Her palms had fat, gastric juices, and spinal fluids.
Mikoto threw the spine violently on the floor. She looked at the child and started walking towards him.
Patriarch Krans was looking at her from beginning to end. Still crouched down on the entrance. All he saw was a dark blur in the darkness of the tunnel just killing and torturing people, he just heard the screams of them dying. Then he saw the shadowy form approaching. With the silhouette of an athletic and slender girl.
"It was a mistake. I needed to save people while using Bioelectricity on their brains. It wasn't an area that I've studied prior, so I started experimenting on worms and rats. Then I experimented on my own body. I've recklessly ravaged my own body while studying to save those affected by the Level Upper incident and the Poltergeist incident. I went too far with my recklessness. And as all things it came with consequences. My body faced the consequences of meddling with my own internal Bioelectricity. I broke down hard and became a complete cripple one day in a dark alley where nobody could help me. Then to reverse that I stumbled upon the biggest consequence of it all."
With her beautiful chestnut hair covering in dry blood and the rest also covered in the crimson liquid. She looked like a monster. Then she used the back of her hand to clean her cheeks and lips, but it just smeared the blood all over her face and she smiled with pretty eyes full of life, as if she just passed by a touristic destination and took amazing photos, that kind of glee.
"I became what's called a quasi-immortal. I cannot die normally. I'll probably be living forever at this rate. Ah, don't worry about cancer and other diseases, that has been taken care of as well. I became quite good at Bioelectricity as a result. It was an honest mistake but what can you do? The only way I can be killed is though freak accidents, things like the sun expanding, rogue black holes appearing, planets colliding, those sorts of freak accidents. Perhaps a large atomic bomb to the face will do the trick. The question comes if I can regenerate faster than the bomb can erase me or not. And I don't want to test that."
To the girl this has just been a normal day. As if she was entrenched in sadism and violence and thrived in that environment. As if her brain had been hardwired to see this as completely normal.
"Here, Krans-san, let's go after them! There are some soldiers still alive you know."
Mikoto said so with such a cheery voice, as if she was walking on a mall with her friends. She reached with her dirty palm full of liquids from inside the bodies of soldiers she has been playing around with. Krans did not want to take that filthy palm, not on his life. But Mikoto was an overbearing person and just grabbed his delicate and still clean hand. Smearing it with death that she had wroth forth tonight. And she still was not satisfied, she wanted to hunt the others who had escaped.
"That soldier called Artyom-san was quite the expert sniper, I need to reward him for a job well done. Not many people can catch me off guard."
She pulled him forward as the iron swarm coalesced by her feet and liberated the tunnel.
"Hahahaha."
She just kept giggling.
The girl named Misaka Mikoto just kept giggling as she walked over the corpses she had just killed while dragging a reluctant ten-year-old over all this death.
Krans could only follow her lead, any traces of the innocent Mikoto that they shared dinner with and talked so much was gone. She was still exceedingly kind to him but it all seemed too creepy. Everything about this was distorted. And there was some unconscious force that made Krans still like her, as if she were made for children to like her.
Just like Touma was extremely good with the opposite sex.
Mikoto was extremely good with children… just not on a romantic sense.
There was an unconscious charisma drawing them to her and even the responsible and mature Krans was affected by it.
X❖X
This guy is insane, he's using a sniper rifle at point blank range as a spear.
Mikoto dodged the bayonet made from animal bone and walked in the railings of the metal bridge as the man fled from the scene. Artyom used grenades to slow her down and then shot at her again. The bullet becoming iron sand upon hitting her skin. Then he swung the massive sniper rifle as if swinging a blade. At the end of the gun was a bayonet, then he swung his little pistol near her feet as well. She lost her balance and fell form the bridge as she avoided both bayonets.
The man was using his sniper rifle as a spear and using his pistol as a short blade. This was something unbelievable, how much arm strength you must have to use these things as spear and blade, she felt like she was fighting a modern version of Guan Yu.
He's surprisingly good for a normal person. This Artyom guy. He's not even an ability user but still making me work for his death.
Before Mikoto could fall into the river she used her iron sand as a rope to stick to the bridge above and was swinging herself back up.
"Our Anti-Skill could use someone like you. But you'd thrive in that city's darkness wouldn't you Artyom-san?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about. Now die."
Artyom had thrown a grenade at her direction and then shot at it with his sniper rifle without even looking in the scope. This guy was good indeed. She was occupied with swinging back up and this was the optimal time for attacking her. However conventional methods were far below her to matter anymore. She used iron sand of the river and dragged the grenade into a ball of iron sand before it could explode, and it was contained by the ball of iron sand. Then that ball became innumerable spikes that struck from below the bridge and pierced Artyom's left heel.
A piece of torn flesh and a white little gummy support was ripped off from his heel. The blood pooled his boots. However he continued running despite the pain leaving Mikoto in the room alone.
"Keep running Artyom-san, you'll soon realize that no matter how many times you draw paper it can never beat scissors. Just like paper can never beat scissors, soldiers cannot beat someone like me, no matter how hard they try."
Artyom was an extremely strong soldier.
His experience was legendary, and he probably survived and thrived many situations before. However Mikoto's powers were the literal anti-thesis to any weapons made from metal. Artyom was quite innovative and ingenious for changing his bayonet to animal bone, however it still contained traces of iron. His method of fighting was quite unorthodox, and he has probably killed many before this, but in the end, bullets and grenades were petty distractions.
Artyom continued to be alive because Mikoto was toying with him as well as training herself on his level.
But still I never saw someone shooting a sniper at point-blank range with one arm, he's quite tough for a normal soldier that's for sure.
Any normal soldier would have bruises and possible sprain their arm or their shoulder while doing such a dangerous thing. But Mikoto sighed, anything that was in existence in the outside world was behind 30 years in the past. She knew that there were assassins back in Academy City who were even more dangerous than Artyom could ever be. Even that city's darkness was more advanced than the rest of the world.
This was just a walk in the playground.
A fun distraction.
Is the outside world this boring?
Krans later joined her. And they went in pursuit of Artyom and the last ten men that were alive.
X❖X
"So the Church has these Espers as well? You've betrayed us, nun!"
Artyom yelled at the people in front of him.
A woman with blue hair and soap bubbles. And near her were the last of his men, they were all frozen up in pillars of frosty and spiky ice. Artyom has never been this furious, everything about this mission went wrong on the moment a sniper bullet shot to the throat did not kill a human as it was supposed to. There were still fail safes to the plan, but they were getting slimmer and slimmer by the second.
"Do not compare us to those faithless heretics, unlike Espers our powers are from God himself. They come from our righteous faith." Erica said.
"Same difference, Timofey wanted to give Russia a way for it to prosper, and it cannot stand now that Elizalina threatens our economy and our way of life. Your actions reflect on the failings of the Church and will destroy Russia's chances of recovering in the global stage."
"It's people like Timofey and Vasilisa who will make our country crumble. You shouldn't talk as if you know how things really work. Bishop Lazar shall take the helms of the Church and with it, our political power back. We will become the leaders of the new Russia."
"It's you who don't know anything! All you're doing is flailing around without any plan!" Artyom condemned.
"And what of your plan? Cause another great war by doing stupid shit under Timofey. That old ghoul is already past his expiration date. Don't you know intimately how many Russians he killed?!"
"Comrade Timofey has been particularly good for the soldiers of this country. He is the hidden Commander-in-chief that has kept us afloat during the dark times of the Cold War. No matter how you may criticize him, if it weren't for the man, Russia would not exist today!"
"All lies, we can thank that Russia exist today because of the old Patriarch! Yours is just an old angry man who abuses his family and thinks strongly of himself while he rots inside. Timofey has done nothing for this country or its people, he just causes misery. It was our intention all along to betray him and his soldiers, that means you. Don't worry, I'll personally send that ghoul after you before tonight is over." Erica responded.
Artyom pointed his sniper at the nun. "Damn nun you don't get to—"
Before Artyom could finish, he was stabbed in the back with a vibrating blade of iron sand.
Artyom screamed in bloody pain while Erica was surprised but attentive.
"I'm getting a bit jealous. You did not think you could escape me and then have a nice little talk with someone else, did you Artyom-san? I told you I would personally kill you, don't get killed by someone else you old man."
Mikoto whispered behind him while digging her nails onto his biceps and removing his biceps along with the skin while the blade slowly raised itself to cut his head in half. Mikoto kissed the muscle she had just retrieved with her nails, then picked up half the brain from the opened head and tossed it to the ground.
Both halves of Artyom fell sideways revealing a bloody Mikoto with a smile as the darkness of the underground shadowed her expression.
In front of her were twenty robed clergymen and women plus a blue-haired nun.
"I'm Misaka Mikoto, just your usual Esper, who are you?"
"My name is Erica, no last name. Unlike you, little heretic, I have no parents to speak of." Erica responded, deadly serious while soap bubbles coalesced and surrounded Erica.
Runes of a strange language drawn by the people in the grey robes started illuminating in a wintry frosty blue.
"The step-mother made the girl eat a bar of soap and sent her into the frozen woods. The little girl walked through the forest, she returned to the snow, she trudged through the snow as tree splinters speared her arms and legs. She prayed for her benevolent father and cruel step-mother, but no help came, her eyes and lips turned to blue as she prayed and finally, she found a living being. The King Frost had arrived. He posed a question 'Will you want your hands frozen or your feet frozen?' the little lady chose both and died beneath the frost and so I call…Be frozen by King Frost for an eternity and so I pray."
Soap bubbles expanded massively to be the size of elephants. Each bubble bounced off each other like billiards and then popped into a chain reaction. And from the core of each popped soap bubble a construct of ice surged forwards, with spikes as deadly as iron blades the ice manifested and hunted down the little Esper called Mikoto, just one spear of ice would be enough to turn Mikoto into frost.
The battle between Mikoto and Erica was now starting.
X❖X
In a dark red chapel. With the moonlight shining upon a stone tablet. A man stood. He was dark-haired and had a large black beard. Bishop Lazar K. Rostya was the mastermind behind this incident along with the Minister of Defense Timofey F. Stanislav. There were no lights upon this chapel except the moonlight. The wooden seats were darkened and the walls as well as the artistry upon them was not able to be seen by the naked eye. The golden chandeliers were not lit.
Yet in that darkness two humans were there.
The bishop who was upon the altar in front of the stone tablet.
And arriving vigorously and without worry was a woman wearing a red habit. A red nun. A nun with wavy blond hair and azure eyes. A monster in human skin. The vilest of vile women to ever grace Russia. There were two of them alive today. And she was one of the two.
The leader of Annihilatus, the branch that acted with magic and acted on behalf the bishops and the Patriarch. To resolve conflicts of the supernatural roaming their lands. Vasilisa was the leader of this branch and was a master of magic. Like Erica, she was a powerful woman to be feared. However she had not displayed her power yet to the larger Russian Orthodoxy, all that was known was that any defector perished and was executed before her without even the knowledge of what her power even was. It was said that she was tutored by the old Patriarch but no knowledge of what was happening behind the scenes was available.
"So you've heard of the attack and left the Patriarch alone. Exactly as I envisioned you to be. And now you're here to take care of the biggest threat to your rule. Isn't that right Vasilisa?"
"Oh~? I did not leave the child alone. Instead I left him with a very capable young girl. She reminds me of when I was young~. Though she's admittedly lacking in a few areas compared to when I was her age."
Vasilisa squished her breasts together to demonstrate what areas Mikoto was lacking.
"Surely you know that we have prepared for her power. She shall be dead in the underground of this Church before long." Lazar faced her with scorn.
"Ohhh~ those handsome eyes on that handsome face. It's a pity that I must kill such a handsome man. Please avert your handsome eyes Lazar." Vasilisa said panting.
"Flattery will get you nowhere here. You shall die for your crimes Vasilisa."
"Oh? You want to kill little old me, but for what? I have done an excellent job as the leader of Annihilatus, didn't I, Lazar?"
"If excellent job meaning the death of thousands of innocent civilians you had a problem with, then the measure for excellence has been disgraced entirely. Russian lives were sacrificed for your lust for death. No more Vasilisa. No more shall the Church abide by your insane rules. Vasilisa. You are all that's wrong with this Church and I, Lazar, the new Patriarch will not let this pass!"
"So serious, so handsome. You make me swoon~."
"We come here prepared for war. We come here prepared for death. By the eleventh circle of the greed and the wrath I summon your power. I shall rule the connections so believe in me and thus my prayers will be realized."
After he finished his chant the wrath squished the third dimension near Vasilisa's armpits. And then her left arm was squished like paste. The wrinkles of her arm as it was pancaked by two different invisible mirrors colliding into each other. Invisible mirrors that squished matter. This was Bishop Lazar's magic.
Her arm was removed from its socket. It could not hang onto the little strands of muscle. The bones were flattened to one centimeter of thickness. Her whole left arm fell to the ground of the red chapel. Yet Vasilisa was still smiling.
Vasilisa was still laughing.
Lazar was furious.
"Our conventions in Christianity was only realized because of our father, the Saint Vladimir the Great. Let his blood flow through our souls as we change with him at the endless march towards Novgorod. Let us bathe in the blood of traitors of the Kievan' Rus and purify our origins so we can achieve the greatest labor. And so my prayers are heard on the Russian Slavonic language that our father has introduced. The blood of Saints is sacred and denotes the blood of the Son of God. Now let us partake in His grace and conquer in His Name and so I call Saint Vladimir."
The tablet exploded with golden light and invaded Lazar's body with its light. His robes were removed showing his muscles bulging and his magic becoming even stronger. His black hair grew and became wild. His face was becoming even more handsome in Vasilisa's eyes.
X❖X
"Instead of science they use faith as their primary source. I did not want to reveal this to an Esper, but they are called magicians. Our sect uses the Church Slavonic language derived from the bible, translated roughly back in the tenth century. Our founder was a Saint by the name of Vladimir the Great. He was the one who introduced Christianity to the Kievan' Rus. His family was legendary and has produced a lineage of Saints, more than any family in the world. However his line is over. They are using his tablet where he put his mandates for the Church as to boost their magic and physical skill."
Krans whispered nonsense into Mikoto's ears. Mikoto was running away towards a place where she could hide the child, but Erica was following her pretty closely while blowing fast bubbles. They expanded massively over the corridors, hitting each other like pool balls. Inside each core of the soap bubbles was ice. It ripped the bubbles and the ice expanded like a dragon searching its prey and spearing even the rubble and the concrete of the underground. Erica followed them almost as fast as sound while blowing bubbles underneath her breath while being boosted by the powers of a Saint.
"Erica is unbelievably strong, and she is now being boosted by the powers of Saint Vladimir. Her body can't manage it all, so she sticks to subsonic speeds. If she tries any harder, her organs will shift out of place and she will die by her own hubris. Saints all have this problem only in hypersonic scale. They have to worry about shifting their bodies in all the correct positions or they won't survive their own speeds when they twist and turn their bodies."
"So these Saints are Gemstones with a strength-enhancing ability. We have someone close to that in our city. I never met him personally but he's a Level 5 like me. I also know of a Level 4 that can boost her physical strength but never to this scale."
"You talk like you don't know how it all works but you are running even faster than Erica. She's getting left behind."
It was true. Mikoto had copied Rampage Dress and made it her own. If a Level 4 could break walls and go faster than a human could react. Then what about the third strongest Esper? Mikoto was already at the level where she could break the sound barrier and crack the earth with her footsteps if she so wished. The 'consequence' of meddling with Bioelectricity was that she became quasi-immortal. She could only die of freak accidents or perhaps something that disintegrated her whole body at once. Her cell division was exponentially above what normal humans had and she could theoretically regenerate from a single piece of tissue.
However once her brain was erased and she regenerated it. Would Mikoto be Mikoto still?
Mikoto would never be willing to test that theory. Not on her life.
Mikoto lost Erica in the tunnels of this place. Mikoto put Patriarch Krans R. Tsarskiy in a little hidey hole fit for his size and used her powers over Bioelectricity sensing and Electromagnetic sensing to locate Erica in this deep underground maze.
She was itching for a good fight. Artyom gave her one despite being a normal human. Erica as a Russian woman with powers was interesting to say the least. Mikoto did not know that other countries had ability users.
While Krans had told her a good story about fantasy-land magic, Mikoto did not believe that for a second.
Everything could be explained using science, even Esper powers and these ridiculous powers, they just used their faith and religion as crutches, and it was pathetic.
Magic? C'mon, she was young but not stupid.
Mikoto hid herself and as Erica passed. Mikoto attacked with a whip of iron sand. However bubbles appeared again, and they were popped, a barrier of ice counteracted the serrated whip and even as the whip kept vibrating, ice kept expanding faster than it could cut it. Tentacles with drills of iron sand appeared from the ground and attacked Erica, however the ice was sentient as well, and carefully protected her. Even raising her body from the ground by forming a platform of ice for her to stand on.
"You need to do better than that if you want to kill me, little Mikoto."
"You truly do not give up, do you Erica-san?"
"I carry the weight of all my friends. I shall bring back the Church that I adored. Where we are not manipulated by that vile woman Vasilisa. You just don't understand Mikoto." Erica looked at the bloodied Mikoto. "But then again, looking at your state of dress, you aren't much better than Vasilisa in the monster department. You are evil and need to be dealt with as well."
"Oh? But you killed Artyom-san's comrades right in front of him. As I recall you guys were working together. You might not be a champion of all that is good as you think you are, Erica-san."
"Silence, that man works for a despicable devil that has plagued this country since the Cold War. Timofey F. Stanislav deserves death just as much as Lenin and later Stalin. Vasilisa, Timofey, Stalin, Lenin… All names that need to be erased if this country wishes to move forward. They deserved their deaths."
Erica arrived on an open room with many different layers of metal bridges, the ceiling was exceedingly high, Almost forty stories high. A monster of ice resembling a king of frost started climbing the stories. Mikoto who was above caused a tsunami of iron and surfed the monster's scales of ice and then flipped in the air and struck at Erica with a blade of iron, however the bubbles again blocked her.
These bubbles are annoying. I need to pass them to— huh?
Mikoto was disbelieving. That was because Erica's fist was approaching Mikoto. Erica who was 'blessed with the powers of a Saint' whatever that meant, was willing to punch Mikoto in the face.
Well, you made the last mistake of your life.
Mikoto's world slowed to a crawl as she saw the sub-sonic fist approach her temple.
So this is how this enjoyable fight ends? The world really is a boring place.
Mikoto felt languid. The world was filled with cold hard facts and systematic rules. Even enjoyable fights like these ended suddenly when an enemy made a mistake they didn't even realize. They were having such a great conversation too.
What would be a mistake when fighting Mikoto?
The answer was quite simple, touching her.
The fist hit Mikoto's face and her head cracked like a tomato as she flew off. But she flipped in the sky and landed. Mikoto's head was already healed.
As for Erica, a billion volts passed through her body in less than a fraction of a second. And then another billion volts passed again and again and again and again.
And again and again and again. And again and again and again. And again and again and again. And again and again and again. And again and again and again. And again and again and again. And again and again and again. And again and again and again. And again and again and again. And again and again and again. And again and again and again. And again and again and again. And again and again and again. And again and again and again. And again and again and again.
For as long as the fist had touched Mikoto's head, lightning hit Erica's body in a loop.
Erica said that she was 'blessed with the powers of a Saint' and that was realized in a strong body that could move almost as fast as sound. But lightning moved a third of the speed of light.
If you wanted to beat Mikoto with bare hands you needed to have some degree of protection or immunity against lightning. Touching Mikoto was the worst mistake you could do in a battle.
"Not even last words. The world is truly boring."
Erica had died standing, with a charred body. The last of the bubbles popped without any ice coming out of them.
Fights ended so quickly in real life, sometimes in one or two moves. This was a world of cold hard facts and systematic rules. People that were stronger than Mikoto like Accelerator and Touma could end Mikoto with a touch. People below Mikoto could not even offer a fight. Could it be there were no prolonged fights like in action comics where the heroes have multiple chapters of backstory, the villains have different forms and they all keep beating each other for an entire volume?
At all levels of power, fights ended with one or two moves.
And when Mikoto finally found someone who could keep up with her, the enemy made such a basic mistake. Erica probably hadn't realized that touching Mikoto was a deathtrap, Erica probably was assured that her fist could kill Mikoto with its strength and speed.
Mikoto put a hand on her face and closed her eyes as she landed on the ground and laid down on the cold concrete floor as the ice constructs all crumbled and disappeared.
Mikoto was really upset about this.
Almost as upset as a child being told that Santa isn't real.
This really killed Mikoto's happy mood.
And when Mikoto was moody, bad things happened.
X❖X
Lazar picked up his ripped golden robes and adorned them like a cape. He was wearing a form fitting social pants and a black leather belt. He now had the powers of a Saint, or at least a fraction of it. Erica should have received the blessing as well.
Two mirrors closed in on Vasilisa's stomach and pancaked the stomach of hers in a neat little rectangular hole that left just a thin paste in the middle while the blood rushed from the rectangular hole.
Four mirrors approached her leg and did the same. Making her fall to the stumps that were her thighs. She was dismembered from all limbs but her right arm. And yet she was still smiling.
Lazar rushed with incredible speed and grabbed her by the neck. She was just a torso of a woman now. With both her legs cleanly cut and her stomach with a rectangular hole. "Nothing to say after all this, let me have a little satisfaction from your death. It has been a long time coming, right Vasilisa?"
He felt the power of Saint Vladimir filling his body. It was not nearly at the feet of his power, but Lazar with just a fraction of it was now very powerful physically, able to crack the stone of this chapel with his feet and effortlessly run as fast as sound itself.
He jumped three meters and then slammed Vasilisa's torso to the floor. Breaking it apart in a crater as many wooden seats were thrown to the walls all around them. Lazar moved his hand while holding her body so fast it caused a wind whiplash as he started pressing his hand on her throat. Choking her.
The stumps were bleeding. Vasilisa was without any organs in her abdomen and she was pale. She was at deaths door.
"Tell me, you came here when you were only eight. You were an orphan Ukrainian were you not? There were many more children just as talented, but you were chosen to be tutored by the Patriarch himself. There were many magicians who had given their life for Annihilatus way before you were born and yet at twelve you were put as the leader of Annihilatus, without even doing a single mission for them. How did this happen?"
Even without the other limbs, she used her right hand to caress Lazar's cheeks. "It's quite simple, dear Lazar~ I—" she was whispering in his ear. "I controlled him. Then I killed him."
"Wha—"
"Did you not hear me. I killed him~"
Her smile turned to madness and her face darkened. Sensing danger Lazar threw the limbless body to the side where it fell in a bloody mess.
Vasilisa used her right limb to raise herself, using the stumps that were her thighs to balance herself on the floor.
"I used the old Patriarch, manipulated him. Used poison in his twilight years as he fell ill. Then I positioned myself as the mentor of his child. And when it was time for him to die, he elected his child as the new Patriarch. Ignoring due process. All due to my brainwashing. Patriarch Krans is in his position today because of me and me alone. I was the one who controlled the old Patriarch in his twilight years. He made me his apprentice due to me brainwashing him, he made me leader of Annihilatus due to me brainwashing him, he made his son the next Patriarch, due to me brainwashing him. Understand? I am the leader of the Church and I own Russia."
"You, you are more evil than I realized. To do such a thing to the revered Patriarch! You vile woman!"
"I killed him in his deathbed, and I've used his son ever since. The Russian Orthodox Church and its 200 million followers all belong to me. Russia belongs to me. No matter how the other players might flail about, the overall winner will be me in the long run. Not the President, not the Prime Minster, not the Minister of Defense, not the Chairwoman. Me."
Vasilisa laughed. She was only eighteen years old today. She must have been even younger than nine when she thought of this insane plan. Infiltrating a church that held her in good graces because she was a starving orphan and stabbing them in the back like this. Everything went to absolute shit in the Church when she arrived And there was actually a concrete reason. She was not a symbol of misfortune.
She had engineered it all to be this way.
"I was right. You are the symbol of evil in this Church. My actions are truly righteous. For a moment I thought there might have been some mistake to go after you and that child, but I was right. Erica was right. Do not worry Vasilisa, I shall become a righteous man in the leadership of the Church of Russia. We shall fix the mistakes of this country and get rid of the things that make it fester. Starting with you."
"Hahahahahahaahaahahahahahahahahahahahahaha."
"Why do you laugh. You still laugh at our efforts?!"
"No matter how handsome you are, you are not a player in this game Lazar. You don't get to decide. The game for Russia has many players above your station. You are just a little insect not knowing how pathetic your attempts are."
Four invisible mirrors closed in on Vasilisa's head.
Yet an explosion of flames so bright made even the mirrors that crushed space be blown apart. Wings of fire appeared behind her as she raised herself. The stump's of her legs were covered in fire making flaming legs that soon regenerated real flesh. And she was there, brand new as if she had not been injured in the slightest. The only notions that she had been injured were the torn fabric of her red nun robes.
"Your mirror magic is quite interesting. And you have been boosted by Saint Vladimir's, our founder's, power. However if you really want to challenge me, bring a real Saint. Having just a fraction of his might won't be enough."
"You—"
"You see dear Lazar, there is simply nothing you can do in the presence of the phoenix."
Vasilisa smiled creepily and then a sea of flames hotter than the sun blasted the Chapel. Vanquishing even the mighty Lazar to nothingness.
Beneath the rubble a body rose, throwing the pieces of stone around.
Vasilisa raised herself and smiled into the night.
"You were not even a player in this game Lazar. You learned that lesson too little too late."
Vasilisa cleaned the fabric of her clothes of dust.
"But I did not expect Timofey, who was one of the big players, to act so rashly. Perhaps I overestimated him severely. The old ghoul doesn't even realize that magic is real."
The tablet was torn apart. Nobody would be able to use the power of the Saint anymore with this tablet. However there were many legendary items left behind by that family of Saints.
"And so the Russian Orthodox Church remains mine. I am free to indulge myself as much as possible. Pity, you were really handsome, Lazar. Unfortunately once you burn them, humans become the same thing, charred pieces of ugliness."
Russia belonged to the Church after the Cold War. And since Vasilisa was the hidden leader of the Church, manipulating Krans to her heart's content. Vasilisa was essentially the owner of Russia itself.
Vasilisa would never loosen the stranglehold she had over the Patriarch's position.
X❖X
Mikoto arrived on the room the so-called magicians were situated in. After Erica had faced her. Mikoto was carrying half the head of Artyom in her belt and the charred head of Erica with frazzled blue-hair on some parts of the burned scalp, also in her belt. The two heads bounced off each other. Hinting that even through their differences they were the same after they died. Just two mangled heads bouncing like balls, being carried by an insane sadist.
"…Erica… Erica… Erica…"
There was a sixteen year old in the forefront of the scared clergy body that were now cornered by an insane murderer. While Krans watched it all unfold.
"Oh, were you close to Erica-san?"
Mikoto asked as if she was asking for the weather, totally normal, everyday life tone of voice. It did not matter that Erica's head was tied on her hips like some sort of trophy.
"She always hated new technology, always believing those conspiracy videos, but it was more of a front. She always got involved with the younger generation and was a paragon of light in this Church. She wanted to do it right! She wanted to do it right by us! Why did you have to die Erica! We still needed you Erica!"
The boy was screaming at his mentor. All while tears fell down his face. He looked apocalyptic at Mikoto.
"Even so, what did you want me to do…? All I cared for was Artyom-san and his men, you could have walked the other way and not be involved in my hunt and I would have let you, as well as Erica-san, live. However she attacked me, saying things like 'I don't want to be a coward anymore' or 'Die you heretic!' stuff like that."
Mikoto mocked the twenty surviving ability users that were cornered and surrounded by a lone and tiny little Esper. From the point that Erica had killed those men the situation became grim.
"In a place where there is only death, death rules."
Mikoto stated with a look of scorn.
Erica was not an antagonist that would have surrendered by just a beatdown. It was too late for that the moment she started killing, once you kill people you needed to expect people to do the same things to you, anything less was unfair to the world. Mikoto was ready and willing to cause death and mayhem and she knew in the future she would get her comeuppance; Mikoto knew that a fate worse than death awaited her. For Erica and these clergymen and women present to not expect the same for them was insanity.
"Don't think you are all innocent in this battle. I might be the biggest villain here, but you guys are pretty bad. Wanting to kill a ten-year-old child. Betraying the soldiers who helped you. Attacking a foreigner just because of what she represents. If you think you guys are the good guys here, then you're delusional."
"Vasilisa gave us no choice. You don't understand how evil she is and can be." The sixteen-year-old magician stated still gritting his teeth.
"Vasilisa is my friend, if I criticize any of her actions then I would be an irredeemable hypocrite myself." Mikoto said. "You're being delusional again, why are you trying to reason with a monster like me?"
"Wha—"
"All that's left here is the moment where I kill you."
Mikoto stabbed the boy in the back with a tentacle of iron sand. Then the iron inside that was introduced spiked out like a sea urchin. Making countless holes of spikes surging from inside his body. The spikes retracted to the ball of iron inside of him and spiked again in different positions. A ball of iron spikes.
The clergy body fell to the ground as the apprentice of Erica died just like that.
"Let's wrap this up fast. I am getting tired of all this and I still need to find the mastermind and kill them as well."
These Russian ability users used pyromancy and hydromancy to manipulate fire and water to attack her, but they barely registered as Level 3 Espers in the grand scheme of things. Quite the disappointing group really.
The only ones here that could be even registered as competent fighters were Artyom and Erica and even they died due to stupid mistakes.
Mikoto created a sword of iron again and it expanded like a fast whip vibrating faster than sound itself. And it was chasing their biosignatures this time. The vibrations were so strong it created heat and the iron whip became a flaming sword that split apart their necks. Their heads flied off their bodies exceptionally fast, Hitting the ceiling while hot blood spilled out of their neck sockets like some sort of dark geyser show.
X❖X
Mikoto and Krans boarded the old monorail and they were off. A little over a hundred miles east of Moscow was the first stop.
After this battle concluded in the deep underground. Mikoto only used iron sand to attack her enemies. This was one of her quirks or one of her patterns in battle. She only used the equivalent of one or two different abilities. That was because she was young and inexperienced in battle with her large and versatile pool of abilities.
So she wanted to focus on one specific thing and see how she can use it as the fight goes on. Using a part of her power in different ways she could gleam what her ability could do and could not do. Its strengths and weaknesses and see what could be improved.
Mikoto observed that her iron sand was poor against enemies with automatic and continuous defenses like Erica. In fact, Mikoto marveled over Erica's defenses of ice. So many people in her life had some form of protection or invulnerability. Touma and Accelerator were beasts that could be considered quasi-invincible to others. Erica had an unconscious defense like Accelerator had, acting without the input from the user. An automatic form of defense. Of course, Accelerator had a reflection of all things harmful. While Erica produced infinite ice to hopefully stop the attack before reaching her.
The point is that there were many people she met that she had difficulty harming. And Mikoto was left behind, sure she had quasi-immortality, never being really able to die. But getting shot at when she wasn't paying attention really hurt.
One little thing derived from her technology manipulation was the ability to inject a computer code to run a program. It worked on whatever had an electromagnetic current passing through it. Be it waves or electricity. She could use them to invade and inject code into whatever object was connected. Mikoto was so smart she could write codes into her brain and compile it to be run in other things that had electricity. So if she used this principle, she could theoretically inject a program into the iron sand, right?
She controlled the iron sand due to her electromagnetic currents passing through it. It was a bit reaching, but everything was a computer to her if she tried hard enough. Computers are the 1s and 0s being lit up by electricity after all. Even sand could become a primitive computer that had just a small function in Mikoto's hands. A basic machine learning algorithm that learned from the real world and had one primitive function. Protect her from harming threats. It worked with a filter and the iron sand around her would raise itself to protect her even without Mikoto's input.
It was a primitive solution and was still the beginning of her forays into invincibility. But it was a start. Mikoto instantaneously thought of a formula and applied it to her powers over iron sand. From now on her iron sand would protect her without even her input. An unconscious protection against threats along with her quasi-immortality. She was getting really powerful, but this was just the beginning. Mikoto was a Level 5 and the advertised strongest Electromaster, if she could not do something so simple, she was undeserving of the title.
The answer to quasi-invincibility was not this answer but more tied to her Bioelectricity. However, she was still not strong enough to make it happen. She had the basic formula but not enough power to put it into practice. But Mikoto would be getting closer and closer to the level where that invincible idiot was.
But still the application of code through electromagnetism of inanimate objects. Every time Mikoto reached a solution to one problem she had, she opened up a whole new dimension of powers and versatility for her to explore. Sometimes Mikoto thought that her powers were too versatile for their own good, at times it was hard to keep track of it all. But this was her power, Mikoto was proud of her powers and the pinnacles it could achieve.
Krans had been tired of this for a while now, the poor boy has been through a lot.
Poor boy, he's had to deal with these assassinations for so long in his short life.
Mikoto did not know that he was tired because of her instead. Assassins he could deal with. Sadist monsters that killed and killed and killed with delight and then offered their bloody hands with kind smiles were terrifying to the poor boy. It was even more stressful to know that the monster was on his side. He passed all night afraid that Mikoto's fury would turn on him, but it never did. Mikoto stayed kind and generous towards him this entire night. Krans could not figure Mikoto out, she was too insane and unpredictable for his young heart to handle. So he was sleeping as they sat on the cart as the train went to the destination.
All the while his head leaned on Mikoto's shoulders that had dried blood in them. Mikoto stroked his blond hair as he slept.
Mikoto was particularly good with children.
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Slava cried as he approached the location where the monorail was supposed to stop, a bunker in deserted dirt roads east of Moscow. He was crying due to Boris betraying them for someone else and thirty soldiers going with Boris and betraying Slava.
Slava and the remaining twenty men who were loyal to Artyom were only left alive due to Boris mercy.
"Damn, Boris, what the hell happened to you?"
Artyom was not responding his calls either and the sun was already rising from the east. Morning was already here and there were no communication from him. Slava viewed Artyom as his mentor and father in this whole thing. And now Boris, his brother-in-arms, has betrayed him.
"Damn… Damn… Boris… what the hell…"
Slava let some tears out as he rode with his remaining soldiers, disguised as a militia biker gang. One of the jobs he has been doing for the government for the past decade. He's been doing this for so long he did not remember if he was a biker gang leader employed by the government or an agent disguised as one who controlled the underground. But Slava was loyal to Artyom, always. The man who wielded both his sniper rifle on his right hand and his pistol on his left, both with bayonets in the end.
Slava was in charge of the underground groups.
Boris had been in charge of the military contractors.
Artyom controlled the secret agencies.
Timofey controlled the military of Russia and controlled all three underlings.
This spread of power over the armed forces of Russia was what gave Russia its stability and how it survived the end of the Cold War without completely imploding. And now Boris had completely broken that chain of power that kept Russia safe.
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Mikoto banged the exit hatch of the bunker and raised her tiny little head like a mole. Dirt and dirt roads. Mikoto sighed.
She was about to bring Krans up with her, however, she noticed a gang of bikers. Twenty men wearing those hard brown leather coats with their symbol behind them. Artyom's head and Erica's head were still there tied to her belt.
"You… Youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu…."
The main man arriving on the heavy bike was a man with sandy blond hair and was tanned. He had quite a large build and was wielding a military-style shotgun with a bayonet at the end.
Very similar to the fighting style of Artyom-san. But this guy has throwing axes instead of the pistol on his left hand.
With the bike roaring, he approached and blasted his shotgun at her while raising dust from the dirt road. Two, three, five shots were fired as he rode past and went the other way. The man noticed very quickly that his bullets were blocked by a wall of iron sand. Mikoto smiled, she didn't have to do anything this time. And the bullets? They became iron sand to feed the beast as well, being crushed to its bare components.
Mikoto picked up Artyom's half head and Erica's charred one and threw them on the floor. Not caring which was which. Then she squelched both of them with her dainty little feet while cracking the earth.
Just like Saint Vladimir the Great has done in the past.
"I haaate youuuuu… You killed Artyom you blyaaaaat…"
"Am I supposed to care about who you are and how you feel? Stop with the screaming and crying." Mikoto replied while her eyes turned to indifference.
The man threw his throwing axes very accurately, if she were just a normal human then she would be dead, but she had that iron protection. The other twenty soldiers all circled her with their bikes while shooting her with their automatic rifles. All seemed to have military training, they were soldiers disguised as delinquents, how disgusting.
"No matter how many times you throw out paper, it can never beat scissors. Don't bring metal into a fight with an Electromaster. How many times do I need to state this?" Mikoto said.
Mikoto pointed her finger up and the chassis of the bikes around her moved. The metal of the chassis moved by her will. The bike itself that has been their companion for all this time bent upwards.
Making a triangular blade of metal that went through their asses until their stomach.
Slashing their genitals in exactly half as it tore their insides fully.
It cut them in half until the upper stomach and stopped before the sternum bone. The metal was made from the chassis of the bike they so loved. They were speeding so fast and suddenly they lost all balance. The blade went cleanly through their pelvis as they flew with opened crotches until their bodies hit the dirt road and bounced off with one leg going higher than possible. That was because Mikoto had torn them from genitals and assholes until the sternum bone. The legs stretched much farther than usual.
Suffice to say you cannot survive having your body cut in half until your sternum bone. Too much blood spurted out from both sides of the clean-cut. The speed and crashes only made it worse for them.
Don't bring a sword into a gunfight?
Don't bring metal into a fight against an Electromaster.
People don't seem to understand that basic principle.
The sandy blond was still alive. He had sensed danger and leaped out; however, his leg was still sliced clean off.
The man could barely breathe. Pathetic.
"Artyom was a better warrior than you. I don't even care enough to ask for your name."
"Ahh… Ahhh… Ahhhhhhhhhh…"
The man only screamed in pain due to the stump of his leg.
Mikoto swiped her feet and decapitated the man with her leg. Due to the strength and speed of her strike with the copied Rampage Dress. It was like seeing a watermelon blow apart.
Mikoto picked up her smartphone and saw that there was a signal here finally.
She used her technology manipulation to collect information. Something that she has been wanting to do since the attack on the underground. She traced any information with Artyom and found something.
A call log between Artyom and a man by the name of Timofey F. Stanislav.
Mikoto had met him as well as other leaders of state when she arrived in Russia, it was before she was carted off to make that 60-minute interview. And then after that, she was taken to the monastery with Krans-san and Vasilisa-san. When she met the old ghoul, her first instinct screamed at her to kill him. He was the type of man to send his underlings to kill her. Mikoto knew his type intimately, but Mikoto had refrained then because there were so many politically powerful people there in the meeting. The President and Prime Minister being there as well as the ones who reigned over the legislative body like the Chairwoman.
Then she found reports of the secret agency detailing the attack at the inner sanctum tonight. All was put in a neat little bow. Programmed to become a legible little chart PDF on her phone for ease of reading. She loved manipulating technology.
"So the one who ordered this was that old ghoul. Time to pay you a visit. Timofey-san."
Mikoto put her phone over her mouth and her eyes smiled again. She might finally be able to recover her mood from that fight against Erica-san.
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Review Corner
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GlassyHades
I hope you keep enjoying this fanfiction of mine.
CodeTalker69
I got out the chapter by Christmas. I was out of it for two weeks sick. Not covid btw. So I used the app on my phone to write the next chapter and only now I completed the arc. I love writing worldbuilding and I want the concepts I write to be used by the fandom in general. I wanted to explore the child error concept that Kamachi had in his novels further and really highlight how fucked up their situation they're in can be when they are literally orphans abandoned in a huge city. Of course the author himself explored that concept in GT3.
Aminadab Brulle
The one who's paying an early visit to the story is the woman with a beige robe. Hint, it's someone with freakishly long hair and likes bathtubs. There is many reasons why she's visiting in early. And none of them are good.
She cannot become disabled and I answered why in this chapter. She is quasi-immortal. She's Deadpool and cannot die normally. She accidentally became this way by messing with her own internal bioelectricity and messing up her body as a consequence. She became a cripple abandoned in an alleyway and needed to heal herself in a trial by fire type-situation. However it is possible to disable her immortality. Imagine Breaker being in contact with her being one of the ways. Accelerator and his vector control could also disable her immortality and kill her. Othinus could erase her with a thought, immortality be damned. All the top tiers can very easily disable her immortality if they want to.
Fortitude501
Really? I am happy that you liked it. I was going for the hopelessness aspect of life in that intermission chapter and this chapter was straight up unrepentant violence. As for the fanfic "A New ROAD of Misfortune" by Ithereal. I think its amazing. This fandom has been blessed with so many high quality fanfics that I'm amazed. This fandom is really dedicated and I'm proud to be a part of it now.
YoLO1992
I'll answer this now. Kuroko won't ever become a Level 5. There will be no more Level 5s added, only subtracted from the equation. I'm going by canon on this one. Level 5 is a sacred place that needs to be kept sacred, if I just keep adding and adding the title loses its meaning.
That doesn't mean that powerful Level 4s that were candidates to become a Level 5 or have the destructive power of a Level 5 won't appear. Because they will appear. However if Kamachi ever adds another Esper to Level 5, then I'll also add him or her.
Guest
Nope. I think we need more suffering. Everything was already planned. The whole intermission was on the premise of 'what would happen if a child died in front of Misaka's friends and they could do nothing about it?'. The whole chapter was planned around that idea. This has dark in the title of the fanfiction, if you aren't prepared for characters suffering then what are you doing even reading this?
TM
Mikoto is going to bully Misaki a lot. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) I am also thinking of Mikoto becoming more of an enthusiastic and clumsy dom once she gets used to having sex with Touma and gets rid of her embarrassment.
DualEquinox
As for your first thought. How did you guess that plot point already? Yes, Mikoto's going to have a lot of words for Touma once he starts seriously hitting on her sisters, especially Worst, that girl will want to sleep with Touma just to annoy Mikoto, she'll be such a little shit.
As for Misaka Misuzu, well to put it into words. Touma will be indebted to Misuzu because she will be his mother's best friend and will even welcome Touma's mother to her house after the events of Angel's fall(where her husband dies) and then Daihasei Festival(where Shiina visits her son to stave off her depressed thoughts) where Misuzu and Shiina they meet. Even if Touma gets horny from Misuzu's antics, he'll remember his debt to both Misuzu and Tabigake for helping his mother out of their own goodwill. That doesn't mean that Mikoto won't misunderstand Touma's relationship with his mother though, he's quite unlucky.
Endymion will be here. The events of Road to Endymion will also be here. I would not miss the chance to write about Ureapaddy and Shutaura, arguably two of the hottest female characters in the series.
As for Touma. Yes, he will be a hentai protagonist but the ones leveraging the full weight of his faction will not be him but others like Leivinia Birdway. Shokuhou Misaki and Kumokawa Seria. Touma won't even know his faction exists until Kamisato barges into the story and points it out to him. But others in his faction will use the faction's strength to their advantage. Be it blackmail and threats, be it manipulating fighters inside of the faction like Mikoto to do the fighting for them. The ones who will use the Kamijou faction's power will be the chess masters inside the faction itself. Very interesting approach, no?
Don't forget to leave your review on the latest chapter if you want questions answered or engagement with the author on the next chapter.
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Author's notes
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The development where she gets squeamish about her first kill and has psychological problems has already happened way before the story started. I'll only explore that aspect, maybe in a flashback, where I compete the Sisters arc start to finish instead of starting right at the end.
Don't forget, Mikoto hunted down 400 people back in Academy City. So she doesn't feel sick killing people, in fact, she feels quite happy. The overall point of this story is having Mikoto go through character development so the events of this chapter and the next chapter don't happen. She starts this fic in a bad place mentally, doesn't die like she planned to and goes on living, goes to an even worse place mentally and then starts slowly healing and slowly coming to terms with herself. That's what this story is about, but first we gotta go through the bad stuff first and leave the moral disasters of her action to later on.
Mikoto had been explicitly told they were using magic against her but Krans explanation went from one ear to the other without being computed. She thinks they are ability users, Espers or Gemstones. Mikoto is a woman of science and she is quite close-minded in that aspect and will need to be exposed to more and more magic until she slowly comes to accept it.
Everything was building up to here. This chapter and the next are the results of the three chapter buildup of this arc if you don't count the intermission. Poor little Erica. As you can see, this arc is full of red-shirt characters(characters that are introduced just to be killed off) and there will be a lot of them in my fanfic.
So I hope you're ready because the dark ride starts here and only ends in the final chapter of my version of Old Testament. Old Testament is made to be specifically edgy by design with a lot of suffering while New Testament and Genesis Testaments are designed to be much more mature.
Old testament is a wild ride of pulpy horror, gore and suffering galore. Hope you're ready.
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