Agitate Halation and Revolution A/O
Those_Behind_The_Curtain_Move_Their_Pieces
Laughter echoes within the room in a certain hospital. This room was the one place where Yakumi Hisako could feel at ease and plot out her designs surrounding the Agitate Halation project. Her assisstant, Rensa, cocks her head in confusion over Yakumi's overzealous hilarity.
"An error has occurred in the experiment."
"Hahahaha! That's fine! Tsuchimikado couldn't see through his true enemy and sent an unneeded ball over to Kaizumi. Even with the appearance of a random ping pong ball on the billiards table, I have still managed to survive!"
Rensa, or at least the 29th of 40 candidates that pilots the cybernetic body known as such, couldn't quite get her fixation with her billiards metaphors but it wasn't her place to question such oddities so she lets Yakumi go on as she always does.
"Ping pong ball? You mean Kumagawa Misogi?"
Yakumi walks over to the white board and traces her finger over a spot on the chart labled, 'Revolution A/O'.
"But of course. He's an element that can't be predicted or tracked by normal means. Thus, referring to him as a ping pong ball is appropriate for him."
"That's even more reason why I can't understand you involving someone like him in this project intentionally. Besides the fact that he ought to know about his inclusion from Kaizumi's papers."
"Aaaaaah yes. But also no. What Kaizumi-san had on the project was before I had decided to involve Kumagawa-san so he shouldn't know about that much yet. But as far as to what you're talking about with my intent to use him in fine tuning Agitate Halation...hmmm. To put it simply, while he's not one to have his actions predicted, he is still capable of being manipulated."
"How could that be? We may not have any information on it currently but it should surely be evident in the fact that Kumokawa Seria was beaten, that Kumagawa Misogi isn't such a person to be manipulated."
Yakumi turns around to Rensa and smiles crookedly.
"That's because she didn't have all the information necessary to do so."
"You speak of the information provided by that Kihara."
"Yes, yes, yeeees. Which is why I need you to eliminate him."
"But you haven't-"
"Don't you worry about that. Just trust me when I say that you are perfect for destroying his hope for being a hero in all this. Now, is everything else in place?"
"Yes. The leverage point, Fremea Seivelun, is within the accepted parameters according to the reports given by that Kihara. The counterbalance, Kuroyoru Umidori, has been primed for her part in the experiment. Her disposition isn't of the standard but it has been theorized that an opposite can still be affected in a way."
"Good, good. Now carry on as planned Rensa. Go and make the dream for a world without heroes a reality."
With that, Rensa leaves the room and Yakumi turns back to the board.
Revolution A/O. This was the codename assigned to Kumagawa's part in the Agitate Halation project. As soon as he had appeared and made himself known to AC, Yakumi had seen that he could be used differently than Fremea but achieve the same results as she could.
His nature that causes everyone to hate him.
The fact that he can crush any foe's will even if he actually loses.
The fact that he can befriend anyone and make even his enemies into the sort of friends that would give their lives for him.
He could be used to fine tune Agitate Halation. It's standard use causes too many variables. Everyone comes with their own values, motivations, and methods for fighting for someone. Adding Kumagawa into the equation forces the Hero's sights onto him as a target of hate no matter what. Though, of course, as much as she wished her project to be a perfect way to completely eradicate the trait known as heroism, it is impossible a task to accomplish. No matter what, heroes will still rise up from random spots in the populace. Even if they can be controlled to a degree, it's still possible for some to escape the net that Agitate Halation throws out.
That's where Kumagawa's role as a hero repurposing machine comes into play as the project's Revolution A/O. His personality is one that is constantly at odds with itself.
Despicable yet lovable. Cruel yet kind. Evil yet good.
These traits make him the sort that could hit it off well with virtually anyone regardless of their disposition, race, religion, gender, or any other differing variables. With that in mind, he can fine tune Agitate Halation's power over heroes by allowing for the ones in charge to program Kumagawa to truly control the heroes they capture. If they require their will intact, Kumagwa can befriend, corrupt, them. If their will isn't needed, Kumagawa can shatter that. He had the capability to become the birdcage that would keep their protection target and all those that would seek to save her trapped within his influence.
All in all, he can improve efficiency in the project as a whole. By suppressing some aspects of him with a Testament machine to rewrite his mental processes a bit, he can be made to do what they want. That aspect appealed greatly to the ones that were still on the fence about the Agitate Halation project.
But that is only a cover, just as the rest of the Agitate Halation project is.
His true purpose, is to be a hard counter against the heroes and to allow Rensa the opportunity to kill Fremea Seivelun for the purpose of allowing Yakumi to, by utilizing the Shading Computer that used the AIM diffusion fields as a medium, transfer her consciousness into the AIM diffusion fields of the city and become a AIM thought being like the mysterious DRAGON and Kazakiri Hyouka. Though, her goal lay even beyond that by having the system use other fluids like the winds and oceans.
Her true goal was functional immortality.
Granted, Kumagawa isn't the sort to really allow for the weak and defenseless, like Fremea, to die for something like this but at the same time his unique perspective on what is weak allows for some leeway in manipulation. After all, it's going to be Rensa against every hero in the city.
Can Kumagawa really close his eyes to someone whose existence is nearly unanimously opposed by the raving mobs of heroes?
But at the same time, can he really allow for a mere child to be sacrificed for someone else's selfish curiosity?
It's not something that could be easily decided upon. No matter which path he chooses, the guilt of the one he leaves to die will weigh heavily on him for the rest of his life. Such a situation puts the slimiest of grins upon Yakumi's face.
"I was a bit put off by the idea of including him into this just to cover for my weakness of overlooking details buuuut, I have to say, Yuuitsu-san, this is truly a fantastic moment to be a part of. Well, I suppose I should stop now. If I continue to savor this anymore, I may miss out on my own role in this."
Kumagawa traverses the rooftops by way of pseudo-teleportation as he races for the apartment where the cornerstone of the Agitate Halation project, Fremea Seivelun, lived.
He had split up with Touma after learning of the whereabouts of the mastermind behind the project, Yakumi Hisako, and Fremea. They figured they hadn't the time to spare on converging on one person over the other so they went their separate ways to simultaneously protect and attack.
It would be nice and simple if that was the mutual conclusion reached by the two but things are never nice or simple.
Originally, the roles of offense and defense were to be switched around but Kumagawa had insisted that they played rock, paper, scissors for it. Kumagawa, in standard fashion, cheated when instead of throwing any of the three possible moves to use in the game, he threw screws. About a dozen of them in fact. By the time Touma could stand still long enough to catch his breath from having to dodge the projectiles, Kumagawa had run off for Fremea's apartment, yelling that he needed to recharge his waning energy by teasing little, blonde girls. Touma was concerned but there was no way for him to catch up to that monster of a pervert once he had his mind set on something so he just sighed and went for the other target.
[Now that I think about it, I probably should have let Touma-kun go to save Fremea-chan. He was pretty pissed off at that old guy from before so he might just go overboard and murder that chick. Well, that's his decision to make I guess. Considering I'm already near old enough for wizardhood, I should start acting in true irresponsibility for my actions!]
And with a shrug of it's weary shoulders, the angel on his shoulder gives up it's futile efforts to get it's ward to do the right thing as Kumagawa nears his destination. A desperate scream from close by reaches his ears. The source was the prone body of a battered Kuroyoru Umidori from street level as someone else before her was pierced by countless white stakes coming from the wings sprouting from the back of what looked like a nurse.
[Hellooooo nurse! Sorry Fremea-chan but I gotta make a slight detour for someone like that!]
He jumps from the roof of the 15 story building with the intent to do one of those cool superhero landings often seen in various movies. But in the darkness, he had neglected to see the jutting pole used for drying clothes hanging out over one of the balconies. His body catches on that and sends him spinning down into a parked car below. Both the nurse and Umidori look on at his unmoving body before All Fiction corrects his mistake from the annals of causality.
[Totally meant to do that! ...Come on now, if no one laughs then I'm gonna start to feel pretty embarrassed over here.]
He scratches the back of his head as a frail sounding voice calls from the ground before him.
"Kuma...gawa..."
[Hmm?]
He had been in his usual jovial mood up until this point. But on recognizing the one that had been attacked by the wings of the nurse, all of that playfulness drains from his face. Kumagawa tries to think of something to say but the sight of his friend, Hamazura, being so badly hurt wipes out his thought processes.
"Kumagawa...you need to take her and run from here. Just-"
"I don't need to hear anymore of that shit so stop wasting your energy with it, Zura-chan."
Kumagawa walks over to Hamazura with an eye on the nurse. The nurse in question merely stands there, seemingly content on waiting for him to finish his business with the others. Such an act wasn't something that he appreciated in the slightest. In fact, her emotionless, devil-may-care attitude was getting under his skin more than what she has done already.
"She's too strong...just take Kuroyou and get away from here."
"Haaaah. Hey, Umi-chan."
He turns away from Hamazura and looks over at the cyborg girl. She doesn't reply but with how she stares at him, she is clearly paying attention. Though that may be from shear hate but nonetheless.
"As soon as you're able, take Zura-chan and get out of here. I'll handle this."
A sharp tapping sound draws his attention to the bloodied words written by Umidori's disembodied arm. Cyborg. That was all he saw before he turned away.
"Thanks for the warning but it really doesn't matter how strong she is at this point. I'm just going to wipe her face off onto every inch of pavement on this street."
The nurse approaches Kumagawa with slow, calculated movements.
"Secondary target, Revolution A/O, located. You may have been able to overpower 4 of the Level 5s with those powers that exist outside of the Curriculum but-"
Rensa's words stop short as she throws herself out of the storm of screws that came down above her. Kumagawa takes a few steps forward, putting himself between her and the others behind him.
"Seriously Umi-chan. Take him and go. I'm not going to be able to promise that you both won't get caught up in the carnage otherwise."
He doesn't bother to look but the sounds of pained grunts and something being dragged away from the scene satisfied his worries.
"Now then it's just me and you, nurse-chan. Go ahead and start your long-winded explanation of just what you meant by referring to me as this Revolution A/O so you can boost my motivation to end Yakumi-chan before Touma-kun can even reach her."
Rensa eyes Kumagawa with caution before responding.
"...That name was given as a means of covering up your true purpose in the completion of the project. I wasn't given anything to go off of as to what you are supposed to be used for but the doctor assured me that it would come to me once we met. That much hasn't come to me but I will have it figured out once I've subdued you as part of the original plan."
Rather than fueling his anger, the explanation only served to confuse him.
"Huh. Your boss...is really lackadaisical about your safety huh."
Rensa tilts her head at his words.
"Considering I'm having to be the target of all the heroes that are brought out by the effects of Agitate Halation, having to deal with one more isn't too much. Why are you so worried about the one who tried to kill your friend?"
Kumagawa's haggard eyes narrow as he scoffs.
"You know, I was wondering that myself."
Screws begin to hang in the air behind him as a giant flower blooms out from Rensa's back. The moment it returns within her, the screws fly out to her. Just before contact, several of them rebound back to where Kumagawa was but he sidesteps them as he grabs onto one and runs with it in his tightened right hand.
"You aren't using All Fiction for those screws. That's slightly unexpected."
Kumagawa's screw was swinging for her head but she paid his attack no mind. Her eyes dart to the corners of her left.
"But creating an illusion just so you could make a sneak attack, that is expected of you."
Her fist lightly knocks into Kumagawa's chest, the redirected force being enough to shatter the majority of his ribcage as he is sent crashing through a building. Another flower blooms. Green orbs float around Rensa before they fire into the building with impunity. Screws fly from the cloud of debris but she simply shoots those down while continuing her assault. Between it all, a dark blur flies out at her.
"Another method of misdirection is within expectations."
All of the orbs converge their high-speed electron beams onto the blur before it can get close. A sudden attack from the corner of her right eye causes her to swing her body back wildly to avoid it, forcing her concentration to falter as a single screw makes it through the green gauntlet as it pierces her right arm, severing it with the shear force. To Rensa's side was a jacket-less, sneering Kumagawa.
"And I suppose that too is within expectations, huh?"
He could her screaming in front of him and see the sparks that flew from the wound but somehow, he could also hear the same voice, at the exact same time, whisper behind him as the woman in front of him disappears with the noise of many things being pulled out of something.
"Yes, perfectly within expectations."
Kumagawa whirls to the source but the flower had already retracted itself into Rensa. Two white wings impale his frail body and hang him up above the street for a moment before tearing his body in two. The two meaty halves of his corpse smack against the buildings before hitting the ground. Rensa stares at the remains as the blood trails off the wings and drips onto the ground but even after nearly three minutes, nothing happened. Her guard remained up nonetheless as she drops the remote she had been using as a vector for Mental Out's power.
"I already know you have some method of escaping any manner of death. I've already used each of the abilities of the Level 5s you have fought with so far, perhaps bringing out the 6th's would suffice in taking you down. Either way, you cannot expect me to ignore such an obvious tra-"
Rensa's body was designed to be as innocuous as possible. She was meant to be a hard counter to Level 5s after all so if there was an obvious, uniform design choice, the 7 Level 5s may all just simply go after the Rensas on sight for their own piece of mind, if nothing else. So her design was made with the possibility of being able to blend into a crowd. This way, those Level 5s could never know where the attacks may come from. As such, they all are designed to look and act as human as possible.
To get to the point, blinking is a part of appearing human and in that split second she took to do so, the body disappeared.
The flower explodes out from her back as she switches gears but she was both too late as well as too instinctive in her actions. In the fraction of a second that it takes for the flower of her inner clockwork to expand out to rewire itself, Kumagawa had driven a screw right in the center of it all before planting his foot against the head of the screw and kicking against it with all he had. Her body flew down the street, the mechanisms of the flower snapping against the asphalt. Kumagawa sighs loudly at the aftermath of the whole affair.
"Goddamnit. You made me sacrifice my jacket. I could bring it back but I'm really just too tired of all this shit to do so at the moment. Maybe later when my mood has improved. Still though, why?"
He walks toward Rensa's twitching body that lay on it's side, as the mechanisms from her back prevented her from laying on her back. The damage he had done to her body's systems was critical and as a result, much of her framework was spazzing out from multiple system failures and various malfunctions. The ones that commanded speech were apparently fine however.
"What do you mean? Why I attacked knowing that you would destroy me no matter what I did?"
"I guess I do want to know that too but you can replicate powers, right? Why didn't you replicate my Skills?"
"Because my system is founded on the power system developed by the Curriculum. The development of this body had no such considerations for powers outside of the system."
Kumagawa sits on a nearby curb facing the side of Rensa that had her face to him.
"Well, it wouldn't have mattered either way. Your lack of talent at using those powers may be able to translate into being able to control Minuses but you still had enough to hold me off for as long as you had so I doubt my Minuses would help you. Well that and I have already prepared for the eventuality of needing to use something besides my own Skills. But I'm rambling. Why would you go this far for some woman that is basically feeding your life into her idiotic curiosity?"
"She saved me before. I don't know if you are familiar with the term but I was a Child Error. Someone that has been abandoned by their parents to the whims of Academy City. Those scientists performed a great number of experiments on my body before the doctor came to me. She offered me a final experiment that would release me from the pain of that lab. I accepted gladly. That's all there is to it."
"...You would even be fine with dying here? Even though she clearly is just using you to be thrown away once she has no use for you?"
Rensa's normally expressionless face breaks into a slight smile.
"I had never expected to be given a happy ending so if my life is indeed used up for the doctor's sake, then I can die happily."
She was genuinely satisfied with that. Rensa had seen Yakumi as being such a savior to her that even if she know full well that she was nothing more than a resource to her and that more than just Rensa would die in the pursuit of Yakumi's wishes, she would be pleased to just have been of use to her. Such a desire was pure and simple enough for most to understand immediately, even if it was disagreeable.
But for Kumagawa, that just made him hate her all the more. He hated people that would just resign themselves to their fate because of someone else's will. It'd be the same even if Yakumi's goal was a noble one. No matter the reason if her life isn't being sacrificed for her own sake, then it's nothing more than a displacement of responsibility when it comes to the lives she ruins in the process.
"...So what. Do you expect that to excuse you for trying to kill my friends?"
"No. I don't care about what happens to anyone else. I just want the doctor to succeed."
Kumagawa sits there, staring into Rensa's eyes for the next few minutes. Then his expression goes slack with eyes wide at some unknown realization before seamlessly transitioning into a smile that nearly split his face in half.
[Oho. I see how it is now. You aren't even going to allow me the chance to try my hand at being an actual hero, huh?]
"What?"
The screw, as well as the injuries sustained in her fight, disappear as Kumagawa props her upright and holds her face in his hands.
[Hey, hey! Nurse-chan! I never got your name.]
"Why are-"
[Whyare ain't no name I ever heard of. Tell me your name.]
"...Rensa."
[Rensa. Rensa-chan huh? It's a good name. Well Rensa-chan since you have fate pitting you against this whole city, that means you are in the category of the weak. As such, I am now your ally!]
"Ally? But-"
[Yeah you tried to kill me and my friends, yadda, yadda, yadda! So has everyone else! It's fine now that I've gotten my anger out of the way! Or I guess it would be more accurate to say it has been redirected but anyway, I'm going to help you kill Fremea!]
Rensa narrows her eyes in suspicion but Kumagawa shakes his head rapidly as if to shake off the doubt being sent his way.
[No, no, no! When I say kill her, I mean we're going to meet the requirements for 'killing Fremea' that is needed for that doctor of yours to finish what she wants. We're going to take another path to that than just crudely going about it in the boring, standard sense of murder that your good doctor wants!]
"...And how do you expect to do that?"
[Well for starters, I'm going to need you take another one of these!]
On the last syllable of that sentence, Kumagawa had stabbed Rensa in the chest with a Bookmaker screw. As she loses consciousness with the fading of her hair's color, Kumagawa picks her up into his arms.
[Sorry but we don't have time to be sleeping on the job. But since we're friends now, I'll just gently carry you off to our destination and let you nap a bit. You'll need every bit of rest before the main event starts!]
"Damn it!"
A chorus of violence drove Kamijou Touma to pump his even faster to reach his target. He had no idea of who was on the other side but he was sure that at least one of them was Yakumi Hisako. There was no real telling as to the level of battle that was taking place but no matter what, he wished earnestly to keep to what he had told Kumagawa a short while ago.
That everyone involved could return home happily and live their lives as they had before.
However he wasn't entirely sure if that would include Yakumi. Or even if he wanted to include her.
"Why couldn't you have taken this one, Kumagawa? Isn't this sort of thing what would make you happy? Or are you testing me some more? ….No. I shouldn't think like that. He told me he just wanted to watch some anime that's about to come on. If there's anything he wouldn't lie about, it'd be something as trivial as that!"
He rounds the corner and begins to doubt Kumagawa once more. Not because of an ulterior motive like getting more information about how Touma fights or whatever. That thought is long gone. The motive that he suspects Kumagawa of having in avoiding Yakumi lays before Touma's eyes.
Stretching as far as he could see were swarms of cockroaches. The road was so rank with them that they were clearly crawling on top of each other for several inches above where the ground ought to be.
"...Kumagawa. I don't care what you say about it. I'm going to punch you for this on principal alone."
He looks over to the two lone figures in that mass of glittering chitin. One, a small girl wearing what appeared to be a cross between a sweater and a dress, was wading through the bugs and swatting great swaths in her path. The other, a woman in a lab coat, was standing suspiciously clear of the roaches that seemed to ignore her completely.
"That's her. She seems to be controlling those bugs somehow. That other girl is using an esper power to fight them...that might hold some sort of key to breaking that control. Either way, I better see if that girl will help me out here. Ugh. Why did it have to roaches?"
With that sardonic sigh of defeat, he runs up to a nearby car and climbs on top of it.
"Hey! Exterminator girl!"
The girl stops and slowly turns her head to Touma with look of pure loathing on her face.
"I don't know what's weirder here. The fact that you just super mocked me or that your super dumb enough to get super close to all of this super nastiness. And it's Kinuhata-san to you."
"...Well, it's pretty weird that you don't seem all that affected by this super nastiness."
Now the girl, Kinuhata Saiai, raises her eyebrows in surprise for a moment. Then she nods her head as though affirming something for herself before picking up a cluster of the roaches and readying her arm to chuck them at Touma.
"HEY, HEY, HEY! DON'T EVEN JOKE ABOUT THAT KINUHATA-SAMA! PLEASE! I'M SO SORRY! I SHOULDN'T HAVE MOCKED THE GREAT KINUHATA-SAMA IN SUCH A DISGRACEFUL MANNER!"
She drops the bugs by letting go of them before turning back to Yakumi.
"As long as you super get it, you can drop the sama. Why are you super here, super weirdo?"
He wasn't sure at this point if she was doing it to get him to remark on it so she could make good on committing murder by roaches but Touma has never liked to so boldly spit in fate's face like Kumagawa does without good reason. Quirks of speech not being one in the slightest.
"Is that Yakumi Hisako?"
"Yep."
Touma jumps carefully from parked car to parked car along the sidewalk until he gets close enough to Saiai for them to lower their voices.
"She's trying to have a girl killed and I want to stop her before that happens."
"Fremea?"
"You know her?"
"Yeah. Guess we can super help each other out in that case."
"Do you have a plan?"
Saiai gestures at Yakumi, who stands off a distance, content to watch her opponents struggle against her attack.
"She's super controlling the roaches like I said before. She had apparently super messed with their brains so that they'll eat through super anything in their way. That includes these cars so super keep an eye out."
"What about you? Will you-"
"My Offense Armor creates a super layer of compressed nitrogen around my body. They super can't touch me. Yet. If we super don't get to her soon, she'll super think of a way to get to me. Oh and I'm super sorry but my power doesn't super stretch far enough to protect you."
Touma waves his right hand as a way of explanation as well as saying that her worries are unnecessary.
"Ah that's fine. It wouldn't do any good anyway since my hand can just negate esper powers anyway. On the off chance that it's the case-"
"No such luck. The control method super isn't anything esper related as far as I can super tell. I think it super may have to do with something super chemical.
"Guess I'd be more disturbed at such a stroke of good luck but well that's enough of that."
He turns around this way and that as both a way of seeing what he can work with and seeing how far the bugs had gotten on eating their way through the truck he stands on. So far, their progress was slow moving. Sure the possibility of them being capable of eating through metal exists but such a material takes time for them to get through. Regardless, they were slowly sinking the utility truck second by second. In front of him, attached to the front of the truck bed where the cabin met with the back end, was a metal toolbox that was thankfully unlocked. He swings it open and smiles.
"Now I can be officially disturbed."
"Huh?"
"Does that Offense Armor of your have any other applications?"
"Well it does super let me have super enhanced strength but it's sorta limited."
"How about this truck? Can you push me over to Yakumi, there?"
"I guess but super what are you planning?"
"One look and you should get the gist of it."
Saiai raises an eyebrow at first but, as Touma shows what he had grabbed to her, both eyebrows go up.
"Well you were super right about that. Let's super beat that hag."
She wades over to the back corner of the truck and begins to heave it towards the middle of the road. Yakumi's grin widens at the development.
"Hm, hm, hmmmmm? And just what do you think you're doing there boy? Trying to hit me with that? All it takes is but a second for me to make the roaches work in earnest to get at you."
Her words would make average men drop to their knees to beg for forgiveness but Touma wasn't listening to that in the first place. He just climbs to the top of the truck's cabin, his feet firmly placed so that the toes of his shoes were stuck under the railings around the top, and stares her down.
"Are you the one that drove Tsuchimikado into a corner?"
"Hm?"
"Were you the one that targeted Maika?"
"Well yes but to be fair he came my way first. It's not my fault that he decided to jump the gun. Nor is it my fault he was so blind in his rage that he couldn't see the forest for the trees."
He had been clenching his fists so tightly that a small bit of blood had pooled around where his nails dug into the palms of his hands but with her declaration, Touma relaxed.
"I see. That settles it then."
"Oh? What exactly is settled?"
Touma shakes his head despondently. The truck was being turned so that it would point straight for Yakumi. Roaches gnawed furiously at the trucks materials, taking another several inches since the conversation began.
"I wanted everyone to go home happy after tonight. I wanted to save everyone."
"Ahhh. So you're sad over the fact that you'll have to kill me?"
"No. You aren't even human at this point. I pity anyone that would actually miss a waste of space like you….that's how I need to think about you but the fact is that you are human. No matter how much I hate you, that fact won't change. But neither will the situation. The bugs will get to me soon and Fremea is still in danger. You've forced me to have to consider you as being something less than human just to cope with the situation."
"Aha...ahahahahahahaAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! SO THINGS HAVE MADE IT SO EVEN HEROES LIKE YOU WILL HAVE THEIR MOTIVES CORRUPTED! I MAY NOT HAVE NEEDED-"
"If that's what you want to think then I don't care anymore. Fact is that if I actually had a choice then no matter what, I'd save you. But I can't."
He shakes his head furiously now.
"I can't! I can't! I can't! I can't! I can't! I can't! I can't! Why did you make it so I can't save you no matter what!? Why did you try so hard to be someone that can't be dealt with unless they were dead!? Why did you have to push me this far just to save my friends from the mess you had sucked them into!? Why!?"
There wasn't even the slightest trace of remorse in her eyes. Just madness.
"Hehehehe...my words will never reach a hero like you."
Her words drip with smug, self-satisfaction.
"Just as my words will never reach a villain like you."
His words seethe with sarcastic, self-loathing.
The truck was now aligned. Touma readies himself. So does Yakumi. They stand in their respective positions with their respective ideals poised to clash until one or the other won out. As soon as the noise of the car dropping it's chassis onto hundreds of bugs reverberated in his head, Touma turns his head back to Saiai.
"NOW!"
Saiai pushes against the truck with all her might. The multitude of dead bug carcasses under and in front of the truck allowed for it to propel even faster than what Saiai was capable of but Yakumi moves something in her pocket, the roaches reacting to her will as they eat even faster through the truck and begin to crawl their way up to Touma. He doesn't move yet, though he does nervously eye the insect's movements. They come close to Yakumi just as the roaches are nearly upon him when Touma leans his body almost all the way back as Saiai plants her feet into the ground to stop the truck. It's stop isn't immediate but regardless the sudden change in movement causes the wave of roaches from the front to crest and begin to topple toward Yakumi. She tries to run and use her controlling method in her pocket to avoid them but before she could, Touma springs back up using the sudden braking of the car coupled with the toes of his shoes being wedged into the railings. Yakumi looks up over the truck and wave of bugs at Touma as he sprays her down with the fire extinguisher, a moment later the bugs crash down on her.
The method she had used to control the roaches utilized the plasmagene they use to gain a resistance to insecticides. She had familiarized them with the control chemical and then prepared microscopic scent capsules that used artificial pollen. With one to gather them and another to disperse them, she had created a simple yet nigh perfect method for controlling the roaches.
Touma and Saiai hadn't known as much but they had thought the method to be based on scent. The fire extinguisher wasn't by any means special in terms of it's chemical make-up. The city certainly has more advanced extinguishers but this one was cheaper. It wasn't because it was some cheapo fire extinguisher bought by a guy that couldn't be bothered to get better for a higher price but the fact that the extinguishing mechanisms of how the chemicals would interact that created errors within Yakumi's network of scents that caused the insects to now devour her flesh. Saiai could use her ability to control nitrogen around her to accomplish the same task but not with that same level of speed.
The roaches that had been crawling up to Touma had been signaled by the ones close by that they had found food and began to scurry off in Yakumi's direction. But he paid them no mind. All he could see was the smiling face of the woman that was being eaten alive by a horde of cockroaches.
"...You're actually happy with this."
"Heeheehahahahahahaha! Of course I am! My death was what was needed to move my plan into it's final phase!"
"...I see. Bye then."
The roaches had already moved away from the back of the truck toward Yakumi so Touma walked that way and jumped off to stand beside a bug gut coated Saiai.
"Do you know where Fremea is now?"
"Um, that lady is super still talking back there. Don't you super want to-"
"No. I refuse to indulge someone as far gone as her. Besides we save Fremea, we stop whatever else that woman had up her sleeve."
From his side pocket, Touma's phone rings.
"Hello?"
[Geebus rice Touma-kun, you sound like someone announced another pachinko game instead of another season for your favorite anime.]
"..."
[Damn, you really are fucked up right now huh? Fine, fine. Skipping to business then. Can't find Fremea here and there's no sign of where she went sooooo…]
Saiai, apparently overhearing the conversation, brings her phone up to show the GPS tracking app she had.
"Fremea is super there. Tell that super idiotic pervert where she is."
Touma chuckles nervously on the outside but on the inside he seriously questions the extent of how far Kumagawa's quest for sexual harassment went. Regardless of internal dilemma, he sends Kumagawa the location.
[Learning Core huh? Alrighty that's a big 10 4 good buddy! Good luck on your end with that frisky dingo but don't let the mothball's oddities get to that hellraising pinhead of yours, eh? Hindi Dye will meet you there. Hindi Dye out.]
Touma stares at his phone for awhile before Saiai says something that could halfway be an explanation.
"So he was super talking about Hellraiser Pinhead and super not the insult. Huh. Didn't think he'd be into something super obscure like that but whatever."
"Uh can the great Kinuhata-sama translate for Kamijou-kun?"
"Well that 10 4 deal is something that super comes up in movies for when they want to seem super intelligent about how guys talk on the radio when super all they're doing is saying I understood your last message. It's super stupid but anyway, he super meant you when he said pinhead and I super think he was calling me a mothball. Super don't quite get the rest though."
"...That was probably just gibberish though."
"Oh I super know. But I'm almost positive that he was super talking about the Hellraiser movies there. It's just super interesting is all."
"I don't mind talking while we run but we should hurry up. He went after Fremea to, and I quote, 'recharge his energy by teasing little, blonde girls.'"
"...If he does, I'll super cave his face in hard enough that it'll super stay no matter how many super times he uses All Fiction on himself."
Level 0 and Level 4 join forces to save a mutual friend before bolting off.
On a rooftop near the Learning Core, Kumagawa ends his phone call with Touma.
[And with that, I have total plausible deniability here!]
"Did you really have to go so far when I'm already using the #2s ability to control where the protection target goes?"
[But of course! Touma-kun may kinda trust me now but he's not an idiot like me. If I were to just show up without any kind of excuse for how I tracked Fremea-chan here, then he would likely push the strangeness of it to the back of his head for a bit but eventually it would rush to the front again just before I stab him in the back. This way, I can set things up here so we can have a decent edge against him and whoever he brings with him! We may be allies on the long term but when it comes to these part-time antagonist roles, I can't afford to not be too cautious about how I approach a situation with him in it.]
Rensa nods her head slightly.
"I see. Then why did you strike me with, what was it, Bookmaker? As far as I can tell, I haven't been granted anything unique like a Skill."
[True but you're starting to become unable to use many of the esper powers in your arsenal right?]
"Yes, I have been curious about that."
[I have some theories about it but let's wait until the main force I had called comes in here with those other fabricated heroes.]
"You seem to have them separated into different categories but are you really sure that they won't just get trapped in Agitate Halation's influence?"
[Nah, they won't. That's my posse you're talking about. If I've done anything right by them, it's to show them just how useless the concept of heroes and villains are outside of manga.]
I feel bad about taking so much time to post chapters but traveling across the country for the holidays as well as work crap has taken up WAY too much of my time. Although that's not even all that great of an excuse when I could have just put down my phone and not had random YouTube vids in the background. That Chinese Index mobile game is dangerously fun. But moving on, this is something to hopefully satisfy everyone that has been following my story until I'm finished with the ending to the Agitate Halation arc. Originally, I was just going to post the whole, fuckhuge thing but I think it's better this way. At least it's something in case I lose motivation again. I don't know. I've just never really liked this arc in NT and not just because of how Fremea's character annoys me. It feels like such an awkward break in the storyline, especially when it stops before Othinus becomes a Magic God. Though I can't talk much when I'm going to have another arc after this before I get into all that. I just want to cement more of an actual story of own to this than to just have Kumagawa running around doing whatever. The next update WILL end this arc and reveal some of the motivations behind the actions of the masterminds behind the screen. That should be done here soonish as I just have the fight with Rensa and some epilogue sort of stuff to throw in. Oh and I've just tried posting updates to the past chapters so that they'll have actual names to them but it seems that this site hates me as it has shifted the top portion over so that it's off center. I'll try to fix it but I'm having enough trouble in posting this chapter as it is so that might have to wait until FanFiction stops messing with me.