Part 1

The mission started promptly at 6 am.

Passing into the country's borders and entering the target area's perimeters from international waters took thirteen minutes.

In the sprawling urban landscape below, the city was still waking up in the autumn morning twilight.

Through the use of satellite telemetry and supercomputers able to calculate the varying movements of the Earth in its position in the Solar System, based on archived data of continuous observations for many decades, the sunrise was scheduled for 06:38:52:21.

That is, sunrise and promptly afterwards general activity in the city below would begin in six hours, thirty-eight minutes, fifty-two seconds and twenty-one milliseconds past midnight (local time).

That was currently twenty-one minutes from now.

Such calculations were not an impossibility or even difficulty for elements related to Academy City.

Such measures were especially prioritized for the use for "special operations".

As members of a secretive organization, such special operations that were determined "Black", meaning that they were too unappealing for discussion in open conversation and diplomacy was handled by them, and not the general police and military forces of Anti-Skill.

Unlike the commercial supersonic planes that were designed around passenger comfort, the HsB-02 supersonic stealth bomber that the "Black Operations" team was currently aboard was designed around mission capability and stealth.

While as a bomber the HsB-02 was capable of widespread damage or pinpoint attacks using its "Earth Blade", as a group of them displayed to the world in Avignon, France in the suppression of riots there, the stealth bomber was currently used primarily as a transport plane.

Within the stealth bomber, the group that was to take part in the operation met one last time before the active portion of the mission was to begin.

"Here is your mission…"

A grizzled-looking support organization member began. Wearing a well fitting all black uniform, unshaven stubble had begun to grow on the man's face and chin while the hardened stare and healed scars of previous wounds dotted his forehead and cheeks.

"You will have fifteen minutes to locate the target and destroy it. Upon confirmation of the target's destruction, light yourself up with the diode strobe to be teleported back onto the plane. Is that understood, sir?"

The grizzled-looking support organization member was speaking mostly to the smaller and comparatively waif-like teen. With a face that elder Japanese people would definitely be fond of, the teenager did not look at all like he belonged in such a dangerous situation.

Standing next to the teen was a girl wearing the jacket of her high school uniform draped over her shoulders while wearing a pink crop top and a very short pleated skirt.

Getting only a nod in reply to the quick briefing, the grizzled-looking man sent a "thumbs up" signal to the door hatch operator.

The creak of metal and intense winds entered the cavernous interior of the cabin, roaring as the difference in pressures sought to pull anyone who hadn't managed to tether to a seat or find a strong hold outside the plane and into the open sky.

Like a vacuous aquarium window, a wide view of the still darkened city became an astounding sight. Especially at the altitude that they were flying in, it was the sort of mesmerizing thing one saw should they look down while crossing a gorge via a perilous wooden suspension bridge.

Even with the use of a radio head-set provided to everyone involved in the mission, the grizzled-looking man had to holler over the roaring winds that were characteristic of high altitude pressure change between the open sky and the previously pressurized area of the plane.

"Synchronize watches on my mark…mark!"

The three people clicked on their digital devices and were now linked.

All of their watches had now begun counting down from 00:15:00:00, that is, fifteen minutes exactly.

"Alright!" The grizzled man continued. "Three! Two! One—GO!"

In the moment of a blink, the brown haired teen was no longer standing on the edge of the open plane door overlooking the still dark city below and found his surroundings change to that of the interior of a building.

While it was possible to do so, the time it would take to glide or parachute from the plane toward the building like Special Forces had traditionally done in the past would have eaten too much time from the mission. Also, to ensure maximum cover, it was necessary to keep from damaging the building structure as much as possible.

Which meant that the instantaneous movement made possible by teleportation was the only option.

A wide labyrinthine office space of two meter tall cubical walls and desks, to be exact; at the far reaches of three of the sides of the 300 meter square room were floor to ceiling glass windows while the fourth was a wall.

It was the magician's goal to head toward the computer mainframes, where there were banks of five foot tall computers that most likely were in charge of operating the system that the building was based on.

His goal then, was to head to the floor just above where he was because of several reasons:

The fear of flooding immediately ruled out travel all the way down to the basement.

Also, in order to lessen the bandwidth necessary and increase overall speed of the network, the computers had to be physically close to the floor that the office where he currently was.

Therefore, Mitsuki Unabara (or actually, a magician disguised as a brown-haired teen named Mitsuki Unabara) determined, he was in-between the 50th and 54th floors of the 60 floor building, where the cooler air at that height would reduce the necessary output of an air conditioning system to cool down the computers.

Since the office itself would be on the floor directly under the computer floor, direct access would be limited by those who had access to the secure elevator that led to this floor, as the general elevator schematics for the building showed that they actually skipped the computer floors.

Unabara stepped forward carefully, unable to see as his eyes were unadjusted to the much darker conditions within the building than they had been in the plane.

Every step had to be made with a purpose. He could not risk tripping on an unforeseen object to both minimize the time it took to reach the computer mainframes as well as to keep away from the embarrassment of such a thing from happening.

The Aztec magician was unable to see 1.5 meters ahead of him, barely able to avoid colliding into the labyrinth that was formed from the cubicles of the office space.

Feeling the soft small fiber rug under his feet, Unabara took special care not to trip as he moved toward the opposite side of the room, where the stairs to the all important computer mainframe room.

He had made it all the way to the middle of the office space when a voice happily called out in the darkness.

"It's about time Academy City showed up!"

Defying his wariness, a zip of air flew cut his right cheek from behind and caused the wall ahead of him to implode from a sudden force.

Immediately taking action, Unabara spun around while running to the nearest pillar just two meters away, aiming his spear of Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli to fire at the first thing he noticed: a bulletin board on the opposite wall, which succeeded in creating hesitation in his attacker while he disappeared behind the pillar.

Without saying anything further, his attacker sent out several more shots that bit out pieces of the concrete pillar like it was wet cardboard.

Unable to stay safe any longer, Unabara rolled to his right, barely avoiding a shot that flew a few meters over him and shattered a glass window.

Staying low under the 2 meter high cubicle walls, the brown haired boy sought to catch his attacker during the sudden pause in attacks from a new angle.

However, the projectile attacks started again with ferocious accuracy.

Dodging and scrambling from behind the cubicle walls, the disguised magician found it very strange how he was out of breath by the time the attacks paused again, despite on a previous occasion being able to calmly and coolly destroy a rebellious underground faction from within before they could invite mercenaries into Academy City.

He had even fought against a surprisingly good opponent of a fellow Aztec magician acquaintance, who had snuck in and disguised herself as an ESPer girl in order to assassinate him.

'How are they tracking me?' Peering over the top edge of the wall, he dropped down as soon as a projectile had been shot at him without a moment's warning.

'More importantly, how are they still managing to attack me?' He wondered with apprehension at the thought.

Determining from the results of the attack, one would think that a gun of some sort was being used.

However, there were no initial sounds of gunpowder being set off like that of a traditional firearm, as even the use of a suppressor would not completely "silence" a gun but narrow the sound of a gun's blast to make it sound like a laser as the concussion of air was lengthened.

If anything, the signal of an incoming attack resembled more like a bolt from a crossbow slicing through the air, though even then there was no mechanical sound from the device that fired those explosive projectiles.

It was as though knives or darts had been thrown fast enough to pierce through the wood and cloth material of the office cubicle walls then suddenly exploded.

While Academy City was known to be on the cutting edge of all sorts of technologies, it would only make sense in this case that the enemy was either in possession of such a weapon that was probably thirty years ahead in sophistication to anything possible in the outside world, or that the enemy had somehow managed to create an Academy City-like weapon.

Scuffling along the floor now to prepare a quick counter attack Unabara readied his Spear of Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli just as a projectile once again blasted through the cover that was supposed to have hidden him from view.

"Shit!"

He cursed out loud, only to find three more projectiles aimed where he was because of his outburst.

Because of sheer luck, he managed to avoid being skewered when he rolled forward.

Using his momentum, the Aztec magician took to his feet to concentrate a blast at the pair he could now see as a result of his eyes adjusting to the low level of light on the opposite side of the office space.

For the first time in the last few seconds Unabara saw them dodge to avoid a sudden explosion as the result of his Spear's attack, which reflected the light of Venus onto a single target to utterly destroy it.

As the conditions of his replica of the Spear of Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli presented themselves, he was restricted to depending on the direct light of the planet Venus to shine onto his obsidian knife.

As a result, Unabara was prohibited from pursuing any farther to push his opponent's pause lest he lose his proximity to the windows that opened to the night sky.

Realizing his hesitation, the soundless projectiles restarted and exploded the ceiling above Unabara, forcing him to move to the right in order to stay behind the cubicle walls. As he ran, he managed to aim his own shot just to the right of a figure that barely disappeared behind a far off cubicle.

While this sort of shoot-out was perfect for Unabara in any other situation while creating a surefire strategy to defeat his opponents, he was unfortunately pressed for time because of his mission.

It was because of his mission that he was not against "enemies" that he had to utterly destroy but was put against "obstacles" that prevented his accomplishing his mission before time was up.

"It's already been 10 minutes! Geez, what's taking you so long?" a voice screamed impatiently in Unabara's ear as zips of air shredded through the cubicle walls haphazardly.

"Well…" the boy sighed in a light manner, prompting the girl on the other side of the radio to exhale derisively. "It appears that our attempt at stealthily destroying the computer mainframes have come to a halt."

"What's that supposed to mean? You didn't get caught by some security guard, did you? Spit it out already!"

If he had simply been detected by a part-time employed night time security guard like the voice accusingly asked, Unabara would never had a problem with dispatching with such a person. Or at least, knocking out or even disabling a non-threat like a security guard would have been all that was necessary.

"ESPers."

"Tsk…" the voice clicked her tongue as she said something away from the radio. "Well it's not like we don't already have a foothold on their beach head…"

Within a moment, several explosions shook the building and sections of the glass window that spanned a side of the office space exploded inwards from a sudden attack as a red haired girl quickly zip lined into the room, using the shards as a makeshift fragmentation grenade to spread all throughout the space to cover her entrance.

What happened could be made akin to an artillery barrage sending covering fire for the cavalry reinforcements speeding in to attack the enemy's flank.

As quickly and suddenly as she appeared, the tether she rode in on disengaged and fell uselessly over the bottom edge of the floor above.

While it was possible to burst through the office window, the previous attacks sought to break through the side of the computer mainframe room only to find the side of the building reinforced.

Such a tactic was considered last minute as the primary desire of the mission was to be as stealthy and unnoticed by the target as possible. All of that changed when it was discovered that there were enemies lying in wait for Unabara's appearance.

Still unadjusted to the light, Musujime gripped the military flashlight in her hand tightly, and kept ready for the projectiles that she heard about from Unabara over the radio.

The recent arrival to the battle, Musujime Awaki, had a power called "Move Point", a sort of teleportation skill.

It was using Move Point that Unabara had first managed to appear within the office building when it was still thought that they hadn't been detected.

Rather than using a similar teleporting method of entering the battle, the twin-tailed Musujime decided to use a zip line for two reasons.

The first, which was the only one that she would openly admit to, was because as a result of the battle between the unknown number of enemies, the space was surely changed from what the schematics would have described, which led into the reason that the teleporter would angrily deny and lash out in a violent manner in order not to discuss.

As a result of a past accident, Musujime had many problems and hesitations in teleporting herself, on account to how gruesome the injury she had sustained was. While she would rather not, Musujime was still capable of teleporting herself when absolutely necessary, but the changed battle space of the office surely created a predicament that became a higher priority than the speedy accomplishment of their mission.

Several shots from the still inaudible projectile stuck out in response to the girl's sudden appearance, but its sporadic nature lessened the accuracy and sought to suppress more than take out its intended targets.

"If it's just the two of them, then I'll just—"

The light of the star-illuminated sky filtered more readily in because of the bombardment that impacted the walls and glass of the building, allowing more light to be sent into the area around the edges of the battle. It was only at the other side of the floor where the targeted entrance to the floor above was that the light still failed to reach.

Using this to her benefit, the teleporter prepared to wave her flashlight to send a heavy desk against her barely more visible enemy when suddenly Musujime hesitated. As she looked across the darkened battle space and retreating from her boisterous attitude, the red-headed girl ducked behind the cover of the cubical walls.

"Hmm?" Unabara glanced over at the other GROUP member with an arched brow.

Noticing his glance, Musujime growled at the accusatory look. "Shut up! I…I just wasn't ready, alright?"

"…?"

Part 2

Unlike her enemies, Ishida Setsuko's sight was never hampered by the darkness.

In fact, she was much better off in the dark because of the nature of her eyes.

A type of clairvoyant, Ishida had the distinct honor of being able to see AIM fields.

AIM stood for "An Involuntary Movement".

It is a type of energy that all ESPers unconsciously emit.

From the weakest Level 1 to any of the seven Level 5s, each and every ESPer has a unique AIM signature, like a fingerprint that related to their particular power and personal reality.

Whole fields of study have been created and entire facilities devoted their resources to study the phenomenon and learn the mechanics and reasons behind its existence.

While an invisible kind of radiation to the human eye, machines and devices have been invented in Academy City in order to observe AIM.

Ishida Setsuko's very ESPer power however allowed her to see AIM without the use of such machines or devices.

She called it "Arc Channel".

As a Child Error abandoned because of her perceived blindness, it was quickly found that Setsuko's eyes were in actuality completely overwhelmed by the amount of AIM radiated by the 20,000 ESPers that resided in Academy City.

It was only when she was taken away from Academy City and brought to an outside research firm that Setsuko had regained her sight and learned how to use her powers.

She was able to see beautiful streams of light, of a multitude of colors that streamed from the few other ESPers that belonged to the outside research firm that had taken her and the others in.

These streams of light that AIM took form in her sight varied depending on the type of power and the level of the ESPer.

The weakest sort of AIM looked like insignificant static pulses that danced about around a person while an impressive power in use could light up a room or as in manifested in her current fight, become a single tendril of light that revealed the desired coordinates of the enemy teleporter's attack.

Thus, it was for this research firm that was now under attack by Academy City that she fought to protect those people who had saved her and essentially gave her a new chance at life.

Her unique abilities had expedited the research into AIM that was necessary for several new technologies that had come out, all of which was independent of Academy City's creation and/or development.

So with the use of special goggles or scopes, others were able to see the same sort of AIM manifestations that she did naturally.

It was obvious to her that this was one of the many reasons that Academy City was now attacking them in such an open manner.

Her eyes followed the path that a tendril of red light took, which was a manifestation of the AIM that came from the teleporter girl, which extended just over her own head. Knowing the meaning behind this sight, Setsuko called out "Target at zero; forward fire!"

This meant that the attack would come right on top of them, if one would imagine the field as a giant four quadrant grid with their position set as the origin point. Determining that there was not going to be any movement on the enemies' part, Setsuko ordered her partner Ogiue to fire again on their current position.

As Setsuko stepped quickly to her right, a large office desk appeared just over where she stood and dropped with a heavy thud and crash. At the same time, Ogiue took aim with the plastic-looking rifle and fired.

What could be technically called a rifle did not look like any traditional sort available outside of Academy City. In fact, even the barrel was not exactly a barrel as it looked more akin to a vacuum with a wide and thin mouth.

The type of shots fired by this special rifle was not able to be seen in the visible light spectrum.

As a form of radiation that followed along a designated track of AIM, the projectiles that the high-tech weapon produced were unimaginably precise when dealing with ESPers.

The tracking device used by both the scope and the targeting software were developed using research on Setsuko's abilities.

In order to keep the prototype rifle AIMTR-143X a practical size and weight, the battery cartridges loaded into it became the sole power plant, powering the scope, targeting software, firing mechanism and acted as the ammunition at once.

As a result, each individual battery lasted optimally for seven high powered shots, fifteen low power shots, or five hours without firing.

By this point in time, Setsuko's partner had gone through ten of their twelve available battery cartridges.

"Three left." The boy referred to the shots left in the current battery cartridge, which was the eleventh one.

"…" With a sigh, the blond-haired girl whispered to the boy next to her. "You should be able to do well enough against that teleporter with that sight, so I'll track down that other ESPer with the weird weapon."

She was referring to the first attacker from Academy City that who through the initial exchange of fire had an absurd look to his AIM field.

Rather than being emitted, the energy that Setsuko's "Arc Channel" ability noticed from the enemy was collected from some unknown source, like a chemical cold pack that absorbed rather than released heat.

"We're going radio silent."

"Alright." He agreed with the plan and they split up.

Part 3

As their eyes had since adjusted to the low light, the two members of GROUP saw the obstacles to their mission split up, as the girl left probably to flank them while the rifleman stayed in place and continued to take potshots instead of using suppressive fire tactics as before.

Still, it was slightly a good thing since things were now moving along as they had so far been able to avoid the teleported projectiles that Musujime had sent without displacing thus far.

"Geez…" Musujime glanced at the digital clock on her wrist.

A moment after sending a vicious glare at the magician nearby, the twin-tailed girl waved the mag-light in her hand in a bored manner in order to summon yet another desk that blocked the path of the whirring incoming projectile. "I'm taking your paycheck for this mission, got it?"

"If I fail to accomplish my objective, by all means…" Mitsuki more than seemed like he entertained the thought with a superficial smile.

As though to punctuate his underlying sarcasm he peeked out from behind his covered and aimed the tip of his spear at the pillar where the blonde-haired ESPer girl was hiding and quickly disintegrated it.

While both members of GROUP, neither Musujime nor Unabara felt compelled to work as a team.

On the contrary, all four members of GROUP were more or less united in the fact that they were essentially blackmailed into their current positions. Each had someone who they fought for.

This meant that while they all generally had the same goal to accomplish their assigned mission their differing goals kept them from fully investing in the complete success of their blackmailer, which was Academy City itself, much less one another.

This meant that they were able to separate to defeat who they needed to defeat without needing to worry about the others. If they failed and died, that meant they were not able to see through protecting who they wanted to protect.

It did meant that they were all individuals set on not interfering with the other.

The boy ESPer, at first caught off guard from Musujime's attack, scrambled for safety behind another pillar as shards of the glass window fell from the ceiling where he just was after Unabara's attack.

"Since they're splitting up we might as well do the same, should've we?" the brown haired Aztec also known as Mitsuki Unabara suggested.

"Tsk…fine…" Musujime quickly responded. "Then I'll…uh…take care of that brat…"

With a sort of impatience the teleporter quickly rushed up and left the other GROUP member behind to confront her designated target.

Barely able to suppress her excitement at this point, Musujime proceeded forward in an almost reckless manner, throwing out desk after desk in order to flush out her prey.

At the same time, she had to take care to find cover after every few shots completely tore through the cubicle walls or pillars that she hid behind.

"Ohhhhh…you're only making me want you even more, cutie…" she whispered to herself as she approached ever closer.

Part 4

There was about a five minutes' pause in the fight.

The two sides had split into two groups, each a one versus one battle in the darkened office space.

The boy was now on his last cartridge, haven spent through his shots quickly in a growingly futile attempt to hold back the teleporter encroaching on his position.

Since going into radio silence a few moments ago, a sudden shake of the building above him confused him as to how his partner Setsuko was doing.

Still, it was his responsibility to keep the teleporter out of his partner's fight before they could regroup and finish off the enemy from Academy City.

"Hey…I, uh…lost him…" he now heard the girl from behind him, when she should have been off fighting the other Academy City attacker.

Turning around, he could only watch as his ally glanced at him coldly and wordlessly produced a black sharpened crystal.

He recognized the strange object and realized too late that the person standing before him wasn't Setsuko.

The scope of the rifle spiked at the now registered AIM waves that irregularly moved in an inward fashion and which were entirely different patterns than his partner's.

A pieces of the ceiling fluttered down onto his shoulder as the boy realized that a hole had been bored through each floor aimed directly for a specific point in the sky, as a single spot of light settled on his arm and in an instant, a searing pain exploded as red blood splashed on his face and the surrounding area.

The shock of the attack unsettled his balance as his limb could no longer be felt, and the ESPer tumbled to the ground with widened eyes and mouth left agape.

"Uh….ugh…" He panted, staring at the shattered threads of his sleeve and the pouring red liquid where his arm once was.

In a single moment, he felt both numbness and an excruciating heat, as though boiling metal was pouring through the veins of his left arm. However, he was unable to grasp at where he felt the devastatingly painful torture and only the stub of his shoulder to stem the blood flow.

"I've already taken care of the target." The blonde Setsuko looked away and spoke in an unfamiliar male voice. Smiling all the while, the girl moved to peel off a portion of her skin from her left arm, which caused her to morph back into the second attacker from Academy City whom the real Setsuko had sought to split away from the teleporter girl.

Through his hazy thoughts, the boy held back the gruesome thoughts that surrounded the realization that the patch of skin came from Setsuko.

The brown haired teen moved to pull on a chord that activated a diode to alert the stealth bomber flying overhead that their mission was a success.

However the teleporter who would have pulled him back onto the plane was with him in the office building.

"Aww, don't cry, little boy."

Through his teary eyes, Ogiue glanced up from his spot on the floor toward the approaching girl who wore a grimly entertained smirk on her otherwise pretty face.

He could only clench his teeth, unable to respond lest he groan out in pain and further stimulate this enemy standing before him. Instead, he slowly sniffled back the tears that continued to flow from his eyes.

Crouching very close to the ESPer boy, who looked no older than 11 or 12 years old, Musujime arched her eyebrows upwards at the piteous sight before her.

"I promise I'll take care of that nasty looking boo-boo for you…" she stroked her hand through his hair in a caring manner, lightly brushing her nails along his sweat-soaked scalp. "…but first," she continued and brought her hand down to pinch his chin to keep his face directly aimed toward hers. "Because of all the trouble you caused…your big sister Musujime has to dole out your punishment, okay?"

Softly pressing her palm on the young trembling ESPer's cheek, her smile turned predatory as she licked her lips.

Author's Note:

Haven recovered from my wisdom tooth operation (left side only, aru!) that took place a few weeks ago, I've been beset by things such as summer trips, work, summer biology class, everyday distractions and full-on writer's block. In addition my thursday evenings are devoted to karate as I try to go for grading for 1st kyu this or next month. I know exactly where I want the story to go and generally what I want to happen, but to actually write it out has been quite challenging considering how lethargic I historically get over the summer.

Add to how my daily routine has been totally ruined by my operation and subsequent period of recovery and my motivation has totally taken a hit.

I literally made 5-6 rewrites of this chapter. As in after fully writing it, I more or less "scrapped" it and used some portions of previous versions into the newer one (or left out, depending). Within each rewrite I would let the chapter sit until I figured out exactly what I wanted to write, so...this has been a long one coming!

On top of all that, I decided to actually split chapter 5 into two chapters as

1) I've long been due for a new chapter and didn't want to hold up an update for too much longer

2) Because of the long time since posting, I wanted to make it up to you readers by providing more content instead of the shorter progression toward the end of the fic (yes, it's coming soonish) I originally had planned.

I decided to pit two Original Characters, Ishida Setsuko and Ogiue against Musujime Awaki and Unabara Mitsuki (Etzali), a strange enough duo I've yet to see happen in the novels (I'm up to volume 20) or other fanfics. I'll let Setsuko and Ogiue's fates stay ambiguous, since it's better that way (Alas, I barely knew them!).

It was a bit of a challenge to figure out how to develop the two OCs (originally it was planned to be a whole GROUP vs other ESPers battle but I scrapped that for a much, MUCH more delicious idea later on in the story) as well as what the powers/abilities of Setsuko and Ogiue would be.

Next up: We'll see what Touma does with an unconscious Sister (for real, this time)

- All characters not otherwise stated as Original Characters belong to Kazama Kamachi and Kiyotaka Haimura as author and illustrator, respectively.

- Thanks to fellow To Aru Majutsu no Index writers and their works for inspiring me with drive to continue whenever I hit a wall.