EVEN FROM THE STRANGE, Dante could see the orange and gray pillar of smoke. Cerberus was lying outside the door of Virgil's abode as Dante returned from District 7 just an hour before sunrise. Dante scratched the dog's head, and he awoke and wagged his tail. He applied a magnetic force on the door bolt and it unlocked. Cerberus followed him inside. The apartment was dark, but Dante could navigate the room based on the electric field vectors rising from the ground. A stray ray of moonlight landed on an ashtray that sat on the kitchen counter. Five cigarette butts was all it took for the smoke to overwhelm the air freshener that Virgil had sprayed in here earlier that day.

Downstairs, the basement was lit by a single dim lamp on a nightstand in the far corner. Beside it, Virgil was stretched out across the couch and breathing easy. The walls looked otherworldly in its rusty glow. Dante made his way to the wine cabinet, poured a glass of bourbon, and held it up to Cerberus's nose. He sniffed it and quickly lost interest.

"Yer' back," croaked Virgil. "And ya smell like smoke."

"Yeah, your entire apartment smells like smoke."

"This smoke's different." He paused. "Ya did it?"

"It'll be on the news in an hour, I'm sure. You can find out what happened then." Dante took a sip of the liquid heat and mellowed out on the armchair across from Virgil. Cerberus claimed a spot by his feet and coiled up there. Virgil sat up as if he were doing Dante a favor and lit a cigarette that came from nowhere.

"Oh…," he managed. "Anyone follow ya?"

Dante shook his head. Virgil sighed and dragged on his cigarette. "If they did..."

"No one followed me," Dante reassured as he took another sip of the alcohol.

"And the headaches. Any better?"

"We'll see, won't we?"

Virgil took a long drag and slowly exhaled the smoke as if it contained a week's worth of nightmares and cold sweat. Cerberus was already asleep.

"Lock the door on yer' way out," said Virgil. He smothered the rest of his cigarette in an ashtray on the armrest of the couch and returned to his slumber.

The light was brighter now, and the silence louder. Dante fumbled through his thoughts as the magnetic field lines in the room slowly grew thicker. The sun was rising. The lamp flickered with every wave of drowsiness that washed upon him, and a clock somewhere in the shadows ticked to his breaths in a perfect litany. Cerberus breathed in and out, in and out, in and out. It would be an hour before Dante finally fell asleep.

TŌMA DID NOT STRUGGLE as he dropped from the sky and landed in the water. It was deep enough so that it cushioned his fall entirely but shallow enough so that it only reached his knees when he stood up. He rubbed his eyes and found himself at the center of an ocean. Everything was tranquil. The water at his feet was limpid, but the further he looked, the murkier it became, and it extended to infinite isotropy. The sky was covered in every direction by a sheet of clouds that looked like industrial smog. It met the water at a horizon so fine that he could crumble it with his fingers. The thundering silence pounded on his eardrums.

What misfortune, he thought.

He took a directionless step, and the air sloshed past his face without inertia. His legs felt light, and the liquid parted without argument. Tōma couldn't decide whether he was cold or hot; his body simply refused to tell him. He didn't feel thirsty, but for curiosity's sake, he scooped up a handful of water and poured it into his mouth. Tōma was disappointed. He expected this mystic fluid to taste salty or even sweet, but the water tasted only like water.

He began to tread through the ocean, unsure of what he was looking for. After a thousand or a million or a billion paces, he could hear cawing. From the blankness, a colossal black tower revealed itself. It stood in the water like a lone tree in the desert that caravans would recognize as a landmark. Four ebony turrets sprouted from each corner of a square wall that boxed in a center minaret that rose to meet the firmament. Ravens that roosted on the battlements squawked in staggered syncopation. The walls were black and ageless. Tōma rubbed his eyes and the tower was still there. He entertained the idea that perhaps the tower materialized out of thin air. After all, if it had been there all along, then certainly he would have seen it from farther away. But then again, in a world where one can walk a billion paces without feeling hungry or tired, one would do best not to speculate. He moved his legs, and the water gave way.

When he arrived at the base of the tower, he was greeted by two gigantic wooden doors. They stood at the top of a flight of marble steps above the waterline. As soon as he climbed up from the water, it began to move. The ocean had gotten itself into a hurry, and currents quickly formed amidst the fresh whitewater. They circled around the walls and sloshed against the elevated tower base. Tōma squatted down on the marble and dipped his hand into the stream, and the whitewater dissolved as abruptly as it had formed. Within seconds, the entire ocean had calmed. He pulled his hand out, and the water was reinvigorated. Strange, he thought as he turned to climb the rest of the steps.

The doors were rotten, and Tōma opened them easily despite how massive they were. He stepped in, and the doors closed themselves behind him. When his eyes adjusted, he saw he was inside a single large chamber supported by stone columns. The floor was smooth and reminded him of some high school roof. A cool, ancient fog pervaded the space and hid the walls. Tōma could not see the ceiling, but he assumed the tower reached to the sky. The air was damp and fetid. The only sources of light came from torches perched on the columns. Time had forgotten about this place.

He made his way through the thick fog and after a while, came upon a lanky man sitting crossed-legged on the floor. He had crusty hair and pale skin. His face looked familiar. Perhaps he'd seen him once before in a previous life, passed by him in a crowd and then traveled in opposite directions. He rose and slowly approached Tōma and greeted him with a flat hello.

"Who are you?"

He frowned. "My name's Dante. We met only yesterday and now you've forgotten?"

"You're the one who took her powers," said Tōma. Dante nodded.

Tōma jerked forward without restraint and launched a fist at him. Dante intercepted it.

"Where is she?"

Dante released his grip and diverted his gaze. "When you wake up, you'll be in a hospital. It'll be about two o'clock in the afternoon, and the walls will be green and paper-thin. She'll be napping in a chair by your bed."

"How do you know that?"

"You could call it a hunch," he said. "When I borrowed her powers, I saw a place for you in her subconscious."

"Don't fuck with me!"

He lunged at him. This time, Dante thrust a fist into his stomach, and Tōma fell clumsily to the ground. This all seemed so familiar.

"She'll be alright. Just don't get in my way," he warned. "I'm not trying to hurt anyone."

"I don't believe that for a second."

"That's fine," he said, "as long as you believe that I believe it."

Dante came off as reckless to Tōma when they clashed yesterday, but now he realized that nothing had ever been in doubt. That frown he carried was locked in place by his muscles, which themselves had been locked in place by habit. It hid his strength. To be a high level esper in Academy City was not considered a privilege but an accomplishment. There was no shame in showing off; rather, it was encouraged as inspiration for lower level espers. Tōma had not encountered a shred of modesty from a level 5 esper since he arrived in Academy City, and especially not from Misaka Mikoto. Dante's frown did not flaunt anything just as how Tōma could not flaunt his Imagine Breaker. Yet behind that mask of modesty, Dante could summon a lightning storm and vaporize Academy City. He could use the electric abilities more skillfully than the person he borrowed them from. Tōma knew this somehow. Call it a hunch, he supposed.

He glanced up at Dante, who wore a neutral expression on his lips, the closest thing to a smile that he could manage. It almost looked like the corners of his mouth were puckered up. Perhaps he still possessed some residue of telekinesis that he was using to penetrate Tōma's thoughts. If not, how could this meeting have taken place?

"Who is she to you?" asked Dante. "You never answered that."

Tōma stood up and heard his joints pop as he brushed himself off. His stomach throbbed. The sound of running water had grown to a steady roar.

"Just a girl," he replied.

"Do you love her?"

Tōma formed half a grin to absorb the abruptness of that question. "I adore her."

"Then don't let her go. You may not realize it now, but she adores you more than you adore her. But she won't say it. Even level 5 espers can be idiots when it comes to romance. And I can see it in your eyes. You don't believe me. You think I'm just making this up, don't you? Even if that's the case, you've heard my words, so remember them."

Tōma shook his head and chuckled to himself. "This is absurd. The person who knocked me unconscious has now invaded my dreams and is dispensing love advice."

Dante cocked his head and folded his arms.

"Has anyone told you how your Imagine Breaker works?"

"What?"

"I said, 'has anyone told you how your Imagine Breaker works?'"

"No."

"But you do know that espers draw their power from the flow of dark energy, right?"

Yes, at least that came clearly to Tōma. He remembered the library, the lush red curtains and the smell of old books like corn chips. He remembered Mikoto telling him something strange: that dark energy was the answer to the problem of the first law of thermodynamics, that all espers had this strange energy flowing through them, and that it was all a matter of channeling this energy into reality.

"Kamijō-san," he continued, "when something flows, there's always a gradient. Heat flows from hot to cold, objects fall from high to low. That's the zeroth law of thermodynamics. Your ability breaks this flow of dark energy from imagination to reality. The Imagine Breaker."

"That's sure dandy as hell, but why are you telling me this?"

"Do you know where you are?"

Now that he thought about it, Tōma realized that he had no idea what this place was. He had assumed that it was his dreamscape, but it was still peculiar. Why, he asked himself, would his brain construct a world like this? His usual dreams consisted of buying eggs at 75% off or just eating lots and lots of food. Now he was curious. Tōma told him that he had no idea where he was.

"This is the 'Imagine' in your Imagine Breaker," he said. "Dark energy flows through the water and ends up in this place. As long as you touch the water, the energy cannot flow."

Tōma allowed Dante's words to properly settle. "Then this is…"

"…Misaka-san's source of power. That's right." he finished. "But as you can see, she's not here right now."

"You still didn't answer my question. Why are you telling me this?" asked Tōma.

"Your Imagine Breaker trumps my ability borrowing power," he answered. "You're something special."

"And you, Dante? Are you supposed to be something special?"

"No, but it looks that way, doesn't it?"

Tōma mopped a handful of sweat from his forehead. The air had grown sultrier, and the temperature had crept up on him. As he reached for another breath, the chamber began to quake. Loose rocks and dust rained down from the columns. The ground turned warm. The fog that had occupied the room thinned out to reveal stretches of mossy, stone walls. Dante turned and sighed.

"Here it comes."

"Here what comes?"

Dante said something, but the rumbling overpowered his words. The chamber pillars began to crumble, and a red-orange glow swept across the floor. Tōma's feet began to sizzle. Panic seized him. It was too hot to breathe. He thought he might die of asphyxiation before he died of shock. The walls burst into flames. He scrambled for a column, perhaps to climb away from the floor, but it was red-hot already. Tōma relinquished control of his body to reflex and instinct. He covered his head and swallowed fire with each inhalation. Dante stood unflinching amidst the blaze like a bodhisattva. "See you." His words barely penetrated the thick air.

Tōma's knees buckled. His body surrendered and was claimed by the heat.

Darkness.

When Tōma woke up, he had a bitter taste in his mouth. His jaw complained about something awful, and his stomach felt droopy and raw. What an odd dream, he thought. The cloudy veil that covered his vision slowly vanished, and he could make out a blanket covering his body, the greenish, telltale walls of a hospital, and a row of windows to the left that framed the afternoon sun. Tōma sat up and stretched. He felt like a python that had just swallowed a zebra. Mikoto was asleep in a chair next to his bed. Her face looked tired but placid. Tōma brushed back her hair and lifted her chin.

"Mikoto," he whispered, and she slowly rolled up her eyelids. "Tōma…."

She jumped out of her chair and wrapped her arms around him in an uncompromising embrace. "You're okay…. You're okay…."

"I'm okay, I'm okay," assured Tōma. "What about you?"

"I'm a bit tired, but I'm fine. Don't worry about it." Her voice sounded as fragile as a paper butterfly.

Tōma placed his hands on her shoulders and smiled. "You'll be okay."

"You dummy. I know that!"

"Not too loud," whispered Tōma. "The walls here are thin."

"How would you know?"

"You could call it a hunch."