False Conduct

by Lacien

Unlike his famous younger sister Mikoto, Masaya Misaka is no level-5. Left behind and trapped as an underpowered level-3 esper, Masaya lives tormented by both his harrowing past involving Mikoto, as well as his powerful foes in the present—until a miraculous gift turns Masaya's world on its head, and invites him down a much more exciting, yet much more dangerous path.

6. Part 1 - Chapter 6 (Blackout)

A Certain Magical Index PLUS: [FALSE CONDUCT]

PART 1, CHAPTER 6

-[1]-

It had been a short while since that lively foundation pit had fallen silent.

Six battered youths now occupied a secluded spot in the far corner of the dormant construction site, loitering between a pair of currently-unoccupied mobile office trailers.

"Hold still. You're still bleeding, Kuno." said a large boy as he pressed another tissue onto the blood-streak–reddened face of another boy in a matching school uniform.

"Ow! Oti! Be careful where you jab that thing! I can barely see as is." snapped the other boy in response.

His name was Kauro Kuno.

He sat on the small platform at the top of one set of trailer office steps with something of a pained stiffness. His short, dirty-blond–dyed hair now sat viciously ruffled, soaked with sweat and furthermore caked with grimy sand. His once-pristine cream Ikubokatan High School uniform now sat soiled by dirt and the spots of blood that continued to fall in drops from his chin every now and then. Sweat and blood had made even more a mess of his face. His bloodshot leaky faucet of a right eye didn't know whether it wanted to remain open or closed, for both stung considerably. Red-stained tissues held in place dominated the general vicinity of his left eye.

Overall, he was in something of a rough state.

He sat there atop those steps, quietly sucking through his teeth as he rode head-on through waves of sharp, stinging pain that thundered on past every 10-20 seconds or so. His heavily-compromised vision only seemed to heighten his other senses, urging him to look inward. He could feel and identify the sources of each and every pang and ache that rang out through his body like they were the individual musicians of an orchestra, and the overall pain was a low and droning, but attention-grabbing melody.

Oh, it's that feeling again.

A sudden hyper-awareness of existing within the exact present had seemed to creep up on him out of nowhere, like it usually did. He didn't have a name for it or anything, but it often struck him shortly after especially exciting, or dangerous, experiences. This time was no different.

It was like a reminder that now was a fine time to feel truly alive.

Despite the singing of his pain, Kuno decided to do just that.

He stewed silently in the feeling for a short while as a cool spring wind current whisked past him. He indulged in deep, slow breaths to catch what of that freshness he could.

He couldn't tell whether he was actually enjoying this experience or not—all he knew was that he was unlikely to forget such a lively cocktail of well-earned pain and peaceful reprieve any time soon.

Despite his partial blindness, he could feel the presence of his friends, each sitting about that small area, emanating a similar silent meditative radiance. Were they feeling the same vibe of life he was right now? He liked to think so.

Everyone here had certainly earned it.

They had all fought quite hard today.

Zemonata had gone out of his comfort zone and faced an opponent who was probably much too fast for him to land any good hits on. He had no doubt realised this while watching the preliminary brawl. Despite that, he had put in a good effort, even if he had been the first to go down in the great melee. He would no doubt learn a lot from today.

Oti had done a good job at putting his opponent on the back foot. With an esper ability like his, this was what he did best. It was just unfortunate that the opponent was willing to stoop to such quite literally dirty tactics. Oti probably could have really worn that rat out otherwise.

Sano probably wasn't feeling too terribly happy about his performance today. He had fallen for an especially devious trick before even getting to showcase his ability, which he had no-doubt been looking forward to. Like Kuno, he wanted to develop his hand-to-hand skills so that he didn't need to over-rely on his power, but unlike Kuno, he was taken out of the fight in one fell swoop and thus never got the opportunity to turn the fight around with an ability reveal. Sano was rather proud of his ability, so today's outcome must have stung for him. At the very least, he was more or less able to walk off that twelve foot fall after a short while.

And then there was the star of today's event—the one who had made it all possible today.

Kuzan Arono.

Kuno peered through a half-opened right eye to where that boy currently was. He wasn't sitting slumped over somewhere, nor was he leaning his back against anything; he laid flat on his back atop the sandy ground—not unconscious, just exhaustedly marinating in the present. He held his inner elbow over his eyes, as though any sort of bright light would ruin his attempt at peace and quiet. He certainly needed it right now.

Rest well, Arono. You've earned it today.

The newcomer to the group had finally earned his stripes.

Kuno thought back to how this whole crazy sequence of events had begun.

The Kuzan Arono that Kuno knew from as recently as this morning was a fool and a coward. He talked a lot of attitude for someone who had never taken a solid hit to the face before. Something about that had come off as rather entertaining to Kuno and the others, so they had allowed him to stick around with the group from time to time. He was more or less a clown, but a pretty good one.

After today's grand events, how much of that clown would remain? How much of a man would come to stand in its place?

Kuno didn't doubt that these were going to be especially interesting times in the life of one Kuzan Arono.

Another crisp gust of fresh spring air cut through that quiet corridor between the two trailers. It was followed by another sound, growing closer and closer.

They were footsteps, crunching through the crust of the sand.

Well it's about time.

Indeed, someone had been missing from this scene.

There was one other person who didn't get to fight today.

Those resting boys began turning their heads in the direction of their approaching friend.

He was Aureson Waterleiner, back from his side quest as the most currently able-bodied of the group.

"How are we holding up?" he asked to no one person in particular. In one hand, he held an unassuming plastic bag; in the other, a bag of ice, enough to fill a small cooler box. He dropped the plastic bag onto the sand and then gently flopped the ice bag directly onto the skyward face of Arono.

"Oooooooooooooooohhhhhhh…" came the muffled groan of Arono in chilly relief beneath the ice—he sounded like he really needed that.

Waterleiner pulled from the plastic bag a bundled clump of additional plastic bags, and dropped them next to Arono.

"If anyone else wants an ice pack, for instance, then feel free to make as many as you need." he announced to the group, before picking up the primary bag filled with other supplies and approaching Kuno on the trailer steps.

"You been a good boy, not cryin', son?" he asked Kuno in English with something resembling an exaggerated cowboy accent. Kuno could just about comprehend the words, but was completely lost on whatever this foreigner was actually trying to communicate. Waterleiner's Japanese was so perfectly fluent and natural that his occasional jumps to other languages (of which he apparently knew a good few) often came as quite the surprise more often than not.

Waterleiner reached into bag and pulled out a small squeeze bottle with complicated words on it.

'Chin up. Eye open."

Kuno did as instructed while Waterleiner hovered the eye dropper bottle above his scratched and irritated right eye. A few drops landed on target, providing swift but fleeting relief from the consistent stinging.

"That's the good antibacterial stuff. Deliver two drops every few hours until you're all fixed." directed Waterleiner as he placed the still slightly cold bottle into Kuno's hand. "Now…" he continued, "Let's get a look at the real problem."

Kuno slowly removed the tissues from his face while Waterleiner removed some additional items from the bag. It seemed as though the bleeding had more or less finished by now. Waterleiner then came close to evaluate the damage. His face devolved into a mild grimace.

"Are you sure you don't want to go see a doctor for this?"

"Wait. How bad does it actually look? You got a mirror?"

"No, but you have a phone, for instance."

While Waterleiner was preparing the first aid supplies, Kuno, with his now much-improved vision, pulled his phone from his pocket and activated the camera mode.

And then he switched on the front camera.

"Damn, that's not pretty." he remarked at the sight of the not-inconsiderable bloody cut through his left eyebrow. "Another centimetre or two lower and that lunatic would've fucked my eye for good."

"You think you would've still stood a chance at winning if he had nailed both of your eyes back there, for instance?" Waterleiner asked as he removed the cap from a bottle of antiseptic ointment.

"Uhh… Probably fucking not."

"Then it was a pretty good plan on his part." Waterleiner smirked as he pressed another tissue over Kuno's left eye to wipe away the excess smeared blood. He then held Kuno's head back while he dripped the ointment onto the wound, and then again over the smaller scratch below the eye from the other missed shot. After covering up the wounds with bandaids, Waterleiner's job as combat field nurse was more or less complete for now.

Kuno, feeling marginally better and able to see much better, stood up from his spot on the steps and turned to approach his other friends. Zemonata had helped himself to a makeshift ice bag which he, like Arono, was content to just settle over his upturned face like some kind of sad circus seal with a deflated ball.

Seated near that bunch was Sano, who was pressing an ice bag onto his lower back. When he saw Kuno approaching, a wry smile grew across his face.

"What's so funny?" Kuno ventured with narrowed eyes. "If I recall correctly, weren't you the dumbass who was defeated by a little falling sand?"

That didn't dissuade Sano one bit. His smile spread wider.

"Oh man, you oughtta see your face right now."

This guy.

Sano sure had some nerve right now. Kuno had only ended up looking this rough because everyone else had already been so quickly and effortless defeated by the psychotic middle schooler. They were not in any state to be passing judgement at the current point in time.

Zemonata lifted his ice pack to get a look at what all the fuss was about.

Once he saw what was up, it didn't take him too long to align with Sano. A chuckle crept out of his mouth.

Kuno's head snapped towards the source of that audacious mirth.

"What're you laughin' at, Mister Bruisenose?"

"Pfft! Hehehehe."

And then, before Kuno knew it, yet another giggling chucklehead had joined the party.

"You too, Arono?" Kuno was now at a loss. "What's so fucken funny?!"

"Take a look in the mirror, pal!" laughed Sano.

"I don't wanna hear that fr—!"

"Just do it already!"

The three of them were now laughing like idiots. Even Oti soon joined in and began leaking giggles when he landed a good look at him.

Kuno just stood there in a daze for a few seconds, then whipped out his phone and turned the front camera on—just to make sure they weren't screwing with him.

That was when he saw it.

"Waterleiner!" came an infernal growl from that hardest-core of high school boys—with a face currently plastered with little-kiddy bandaids with frog mascots all over them. "Gekota bandaids?! Seriously?!"

Waterleiner merely returned Kuno's stare, accompanied with a solid effort at a poker face. The corners of his mouth just barely twitched once or twice.

"They were cheap." he uttered without cutting his steadfast eye contact. "They all work the same, so who cares?"

"Yeah, but couldn't you have gotten ones that don't make me look like a total pansy?!" Kuno cringed.

"Is that a beggar figuring himself more of a chooser I hear? Would you rather I rip them off and have you go back to looking like a claymore went off in your face, for instance?" Waterleiner asked with narrowed eyes. He was definitely getting a rise out of this, even if he rarely showed it in much of any outward manner.

Kuno quickly realised that arguing about something as minor as this wasn't worth the hassle—especially against Waterleiner.

"Eh, forget it. I'll swap them with something better when I get home."

Uhhh… Ah shit.

Kuno was soon struck with a flush of guilt and embarrassment about becoming so unreasonably irritated at Waterleiner, who had gone to the effort of retrieving first aid for everyone who had fought, all out of his own pocket, while also managing to simultaneously lift the beaten group's spirits with a little harmless prank. It made him feel like a much smaller man in that moment.

Another split-second later, he realised his own recognition of that guilt. It was like he had caught himself growing as a person in real time. It was an odd feeling; the sudden awareness of the easy pliability of his own personality was a somewhat unpleasant epiphany for Kuno.

He tried to shake away that uneasy mind-space, which clung to him like an atmosphere held to him by a personal gravitational field.

He directed his attention to something else.

"Really, it's actually that psycho middle-schooler's fault for trying to blind me for life like that, all over a little street brawl."

The others, resting ice bags over their beaten and bruised bodies and faces, nodded in agreement.

"Like, seriously, what the fuck was that kid's problem?" Kuno pushed.

Masaya Misaka: the scourge of Tatenkara.

In his time getting into fights over the past few years, Kuno had not met an opponent as devious and feral as that younger boy he'd first met only about an hour ago. It was almost like the kid was dedicating his everything in that fight to fulfil a divine will, or something. The behaviour was unsettling, to say the least.

Waterleiner stepped past Kuno and the others, directing their attention towards the far side of the stepped platform that Kuno had just been seated on.

Lying in that hidden corner was another collapsed figure.

"Well then," he began his address to Kuno's mostly rhetorical question, "If you want to know so badly, then why don't we ask him?—if he ever wakes up, of course."

-[2]-

There were voices.

Were they voices? They were something—the first something to seep through that nowhere void and give it reference.

The voices became clearer, but the words, if they were indeed words, held no meaning. Comprehension of anything like that was still too big to ask for.

And then there was light.

The light meant nothing. Was it even light? Even recalling what light was was too much.

And then there was dark again.

And then the light returned.

Ah?...

Whose voice had that been?

W…what…?

Something was wrong.

Ahh?

Something felt very wrong.

But what?

The light disappeared again—and then returned.

Light?—Eyes?

Wasn't that where light went through?

There was an entire world outside of that void.

The voices were back, and clearer now.

"Oh shit, is he conscious again? His eyes are open."

Were those words supposed to mean something?

"It's about damn time." came another voice.

Yes. The voices were distinct, each from different sources—from other entities.

Entities like me? I am me?

As that existence slowly came to rediscover his own sentience, the world he inhabited also became more definite. First came his understanding of space—then orientation. He soon realised that he was lying with his cheek on a soft but gritty surface.

"Hey, Mr Scourge of Tatenkara, get your ass up already." demanded one of the other entities.

Those words were beginning to make a little bit more sense. There was indeed meaning attached to them.

Scourge of Tatenkara?

That line of address felt familiar. Was that one used to refer to him?

To whom did him refer?

"Up!" shouted a voice, accompanied by a foot jabbed into his gut.

Masaya Misaka sucked in a sharp breath and squirmed to rise from his collapsed position—but he couldn't. He fell right back down into that same spot.

Right! Masaya Misaka! I'm Masaya Misaka!

That realisation aside, Masaya, now with notably better visual comprehension and control, threw his gaze about to find out what was restricting him to the ground. His sight settled upon the fabric something-or-other that lay across his chest. It took him a few additional seconds to realise that his right arm was currently constrained within it and therefore useless.

Ah. Right.

But there were more pressing matters to focus on right now.

"There we go. That's a bit more like it." came one of those voices from high above him.

Masaya turned his gaze to its source. He felt as though he could almost recognise that bashed-up face—and that other one, and that one too, and him.

Four older boys loomed over Masaya. They seemed familiar, but from where?

"Alright, you little psycho-shit… You'd best be aware that you've got yourself a ticket to the pain train and we're here to punch it." muttered the most bruised up of the group while cracking his knuckles. "Non-refundable, of course."

It appeared that some sort of predicament was currently at play. Masaya recalled next to nothing about the current situation. He could, however, tell that it was probably not a terribly good one.

"Eh?" his vocal cords managed to squeeze out.

He next tried gently wiggling his limbs about, as though trying to recall how to use them properly. He was beginning to think more consciously now, steadily unlocking his higher brain functions.

How… did I… get here?

His internal monologue was also beginning to operate with a bit more cognition behind it.

"What… happened?"

…As was his external one.

That aggressive boy paused his knuckle-cracking (as though he hadn't already cracked them all the first time) and raised an eyebrow.

"You tell me, you lunatic son of a bitch." came a voice—but not from among those four standing above him.

It had come from off to the side. Masaya turned his creaky neck towards the source. The additional ache from the movement reminded him that the pains he was currently feeling throughout his body were in fact not supposed to be the default state—something violent must have recently happened.

Masaya watched on as that figure stepped in from the side. He took a seat on the edge of a nearby small platform connected to a door of some kind, next to another boy who was already leaning on the railing higher up—a foreigner by the looks.

If it weren't for the short dyed hair, Masaya would have had considerable difficultly recognising the seated blond older boy who had spoken just then. The bruising and green things on his face probably weren't helping.

"Who… huh? Where do I remember you from?"

The block making up the other four people became animated by that response.

"Jeez, Kuno. You sure you didn't seriously concuss the shit outta him or something?" asked one.

Concuss?

"Maybe you bashed him so hard he got amnesia." ventured another.

I don't think I've got that. I know I'm Masaya—at least—right?

That was tentative evidence at best. All in all, Masaya was only becoming more confused.

He raised his left hand out before him—a "hold it one sec" kind of gesture.

"Wa—wait just a… What am I—why am I here? What's actually going on right now?"

The other boys exchanged looks and began tossing accusations between each other, mostly towards the blond. Masaya could make out the odd exchange of "what the hell did you do?" or "you musta fucken broke his head or something" amongst the noise.

Broke my head?

What kind of situation would Masaya Misaka end up in that'd give him a broken head?

The fifth older boy, sat upon that raised spot, addressed Masaya directly.

"Masaya Misaka."

"Huh? What?"

"Well at least he knows who he is." the blonde boy with something on his face confirmed to his associates.

"Hey kid, what else do you remember?" asked a rather tall and rotund boy. "What school do you go to?"

Ah. Good question.

Masaya got to work trying to recall it.

Wait. What was it again? Starts with—with—t-t-Ta—Oh, right!

"Tatenkara Middle School."

The details about his life were beginning to come back now.

"What's your girlfriend's name?" asked another, eliciting a chuckle from one or two of the others for some reason.

Oh, eas—… Wait a minute.

Masaya was drawing a blank.

He tried again.

My girlfriend's name is… Uhmm… Uhhh… A real beautyyy…yose? Oh wait! Something there sounds familiar! Beau—Boo?—Foo—Ah! Fukiyose! Seiri-chan! My gorgeous grumpy smoking hot ex-girlfriend!... Wait a minute… Ex-girlfriend… Ah, right. That fizzled out ages ago. Am I currently dating someone? Apparently? Why can't I remember her?

Masaya was back to square one, but at least with the benefit of rediscovering how the flow of time worked. After another solid effort of 'umm'ing and 'uhh'ing, Masaya figured that he was done bothering with that question for now.

"Next question." he declared nonchalantly.

"Ooh, that's rough, twin-tail river-girl." winced the messy pompadour boy under his breath.

"What is your esper ability, and how does it work?" asked the blond boy with something green on his face.

"That's a good one." commented the shorter one. "Yeah, kid. Surely you remember that." he scoffed.

"Ohm Sight." Masaya instantly recalled aloud. "Level-3."

I can't remember my own girlfriend's name, but at least I know my ability. Sorry love. I'll make it up to you somehow—once I remember who the hell you are.

"How does it work?" prompted the blond boy once more.

The explanation began spilling from Masaya's mouth like a faucet.

"It's a spatial awareness ability that detects differences in electrical conductivity quotients within a local environment to construct a mental matrix of those conductivity values which can be structured and interpreted as an omni-directional volumetric point cloud unimpeded by visual barriers or lines of sight and entirely un-reliant on any part of the electromagnetic spectrum or any sort of sensory organs in order to detect and chart the surrounding environment with a fidelity consistent with a exponential inverse relative to distance from the user."

Masaya had given that explanation word-by-word enough times that he didn't even need to hunt through the right words or even do any active memory-searching for it. The automatic explanation actually served to jog his memory a bit.

Oh yeah, me, that actually sounds really useful. Why haven't I turned it on already?

Masaya quickly recalled the calculations he needed to perform and reactivated his ability. The volumetric world of conductivity variations came into view—all views. The process felt about as taxing as a light jog through a series of automatically-opening doors; the entirely straightforward nature of exerting the effort of the calculations made the effort feel effortless. Having such an ability active during most waking hours certainly helped the 'muscle memory' of the procedure, even if there were no actual muscles at work here.

"In plain Japanese, idiot." demanded the messy pompadour boy. An explanation like that apparently wasn't cutting it for him.

"… 3D clairvoyance, to grossly oversimplify."

That was also something of an automatic explanation for Masaya. He didn't particularly enjoy giving this one, though, despite its elegant brevity. It didn't do his ability any justice, but it was close enough for most purposes. It was like when you had to pretend to not see the takeaway worker misspell your name for your order because correcting them would be petty and not worth the effort.

Upon hearing it like that, the other boys fell silent. The blond boy pinched the bridge of his nose with a deep exhale.

And then he spoke.

"So, you're telling me…"

He left his seat and approached Masaya, kneeling down and seizing him by the collar.

"…That the toughest fight we've had in ages was against a single middle school shit-wipe with 3D fucking clairvoyance?! That's it?!"

Masaya couldn't tell if this boy was impressed or disgusted—perhaps both.

Now that he was a lot closer, Masaya got a good look at his face. His right eye was reddened and damp, and his face in general was covered with a thin layer of grime which was probably improperly wiped-off blood mixed with sweat, judging by the rusty smell. Ohm Sight detected some notable gashes hidden under bandaids above and below his left eye.

Had Masaya done all that?

Something else caught his attention, though.

"…Are those Gekota bandaids?"

That mascot was a household name, but something about its image clicked with Masaya harder than he expected, like there was some major nostalgia attached to that icon.

"What's it to you, you bastard?" deflected the bloody blond boy.

What's it to me?

That was no-doubt meant to be taken as a rhetorical question, but Masaya's brain got to work piecing together the connections. Masaya had some sort of major connection to that chibi frog mascot, or at least someone close to him did.

Someone close to m—Oh!... OH!

That had been the key. Not just to the Gekota mystery, but to everything.

Her! That… That… Her! What she did! Why I'm stuck like this! Like what? Like this! What is this? Overtaken! Trapped! Stagnated! Powerless! It's her fault! How? I-I should've been a level-4 by now—not her! Why did she get the good power and not me?! Why was I stuck with the shit one that doesn't even make me any stronger?! Why did I get stuck with the power that won't even help me stand up to the assholes all around me?! WHY DID I GET THE ONE THAT WON'T EVEN LET ME TRY TO DEVELOP IT ANY FURTHER?! THE ONE THAT INEXORABLY SCREWS ME OVER WHENEVER I TRY TO PUSH IT HAR…der…

Masaya dropped everything else in that moment. The other boys might as well have not existed right now.

Everything about the current situation slotted into place in that moment.

Masaya's brow furrowed.

Surely that hasn't happened again.

No. It must've.

Masaya felt as though his blood had been replaced with cold seawater.

Those other boys were saying something. Masaya could not care less.

A cold sweat began to attack him as he traced his now-restored memory forward to the last moment he could recall before awakening.

He remembered everything now—including that moment when he tried to make that miracle shot to defeat his first level-4. When he had the audacity to think for even a moment that he could blow past that hard ceiling consequence-free.

Everything fell silent for Masaya Misaka.

In that moment, something snapped inside of him.

"… FUCK!" he screamed out of nowhere. He was shaking now. "FUCK! AAAAHHH!"

Those other boys were taken quite aback by the sudden outburst; the blond boy even leapt back a bit, ceasing his grip on Masaya's collar. They certainly had not been expecting to have to deal with something like this today.

All they could do was stand there and watch as the middle schooler thrashed around and pounded the sand—and cried his lungs out.

"GOD FUCKING DAMMIT! I WAS SO CLOSE! FATE REFUSES TO LET ME HAVE EVEN A SINGLE WIIIIIIN IN MY STUPID FUCKING LIIIIIIIFE!"

It was like his one chance at making things go better had been so cruelly snatched from right under him…

…By that.

A blackout—specifically an Ohm Sight blackout.

In especially extreme cases, an esper might pass out from exhaustion after over-using their ability.

This was nothing like that.

This was a different phenomenon entirely—and the sole victim of this outrageous condition was Masaya Misaka.

Only Masaya Misaka.

Nobody else had been affected by a condition like this—ever.

And nobody could understand what caused it—or how to fix it.

"WHY DO I HAVE TO BE STUCK LIKE THIS?! IT'S NOT FAIR!"

Every time he thought he could go just a little bit further. Every time he tried. Every single time—it happened.

His consciousness would be snatched from him in an instant; he'd be left a convulsing mess on the floor; he'd awaken in God-knows what situation with a fried mind… and he'd have no idea why.

Every single time.

It was as though any sort of order and functionality within his brain would be unrecognisably scrambled and ruined in quicker than the blink of an eye.

"WHY DO I HAVE TO BE THE UNFIXABLE ONE?! HOW IS THAT FAIR AT ALL?!" he cried into the void. He could no longer see through the welling tears; Ohm Sight had also become blinded by the grief.

Even the finest doctors, psychologists, brain surgeons, and radiologists, who had all shown such initial enthusiasm at getting to investigate a completely unprecedented condition, had all been left scratching their heads by the end. The extra allowance Masaya had been given from the city as thanks for helping to participate in the research of a never-before-seen ailment was like a disgusting insult to him, but the fact that they seemed to be working hard trying to help him eased the hurting somewhat. Eventually, when it became clear that any progress in the research was looking less and less likely, even that had come to an end, and Masaya had been left out to dry. It was only proof that is wellbeing had never even been the priority in the first place.

That had really hurt.

Even his ever-reliable personal physician, Heaven Canceller, had been relegated to focusing on working to prevent further blackouts, rather than curing them. That really did wonders for whatever the opposite of rapturous optimism was.

Just how much grief had those blackouts caused him at this point?

Even that whole issue with Mikoto appeared merely secondary in comparison.

As a matter of fact, hadn't the onset of the blackouts had been the inciting incident to that problem as well?

Hadn't they spawned an increasingly-gnawing frustration within Masaya that had eventually brought him to the point of initiating that vicious dispute with her that day—the one that had changed everything back then?

Had the vitriol of that day only been his projection? Was he mad at her solely because her development had been progressing full-speed ahead without a hitch? Spiteful envy?

Did any of that matter anymore?

"AHH. AGH. DJGJROFGRBW." Masaya's cries continued, but without any sort of sense to them. The heaving in his chest prevented any discernable words from being made. Tears ran down his face like aqueducts had just been installed there.

What did matter was that, from a certain point of view, everything that had gone wrong in Masaya's life over the past year or so could all be traced back to the appearance of that first blackout.

The first of many.

With that first incident, approximately a year ago now, his smooth and happy esper ability growth had been brought to an abrupt and unfair end in an instant. He had tragically been forbidden from growing his ability any further. He would be punished severely for even trying.

This was nothing like a typical esper reaching the natural limit for their ability growth. Masaya knew he had the capacity to go further; there was still calculation potential not being put to use yet. He yearned to fulfil that potential—but the blackouts didn't care. They would beat him down every time he even thought of that possibility, to go just a bit further—that maybe this time, this time, it would work out—that he wouldn't be stuck in this hellish spirit-spoiling stagnation for too much longer.

But no—it would never work out that nicely for Masaya Misaka.

Because, of course, that just would've been too goddamn easy.

It seemed so unnecessarily cruel and disproportionate. It was like jingling keys in front of a toddler and then punching them in the face for reaching out to grab them—even as some sort of sick lesson, how was that fair?

Masaya had come face-to-face with a glass ceiling of esper development that stabbed him with its shards despite being unbreakable.

It was as though fate simply got a kick from punishing Masaya for no real reason.

Every day, Masaya Misaka would wake up to that nigh-undeniable truth of the world.

What could he possibly have done to deserve this?

Whether he deserved it or not, such was the fate of this middling esper.

-[3]-

After a couple of minutes of begrieved wailing and whimpering, unrestrained and unstopping, Masaya managed to restore enough composure to become at least somewhat conscious of the current impression he would have been giving off. All of those masks he wore about his daily life were shattered and gone now and, rather ignominiously for Masaya, his unspoken desire to not be seen in his current pathetic state was to be left entirely unfulfilled.

Here he was, reduced to a blubbering mess upon realising that he'd been struck once more by the true invisible and undefeatable villain of his life—all while a band of six inhospitable high-school boys watched on like his personal drama theatre audience. It had been a good while since he'd ever found himself in such a degrading situation.

They stared down upon him with no apparent intention to do anything at the present moment—of course, that also eliminated the possibility of any comfort or sympathy coming from them—as expected.

It probably looked as though Masaya was just a regular middle schooler who'd received a beating to remember from some regular high schoolers. In reality, it was anything but, but it might as well have been at this point.

Even something like that would have been less humiliating.

Masaya tried desperately to contain his blubbering, his shaking, his tears. He stared wide and wet-eyed at the sandy tear-cratered ground as he worked to regulate his breathing, to pull all of that pain and grief back into that vault where it all belonged.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

In.

Out.

He walked his way through those calming exercises he'd been taught by his doctor until, eventually, the tears stopped flowing, his breathing normalised, his mind cleared, Ohm Sight returned.

Shit. That was a bit much.

Masaya let out a massive sigh.

He was exhausted. What a day he'd been through.

Alas, that hellish gauntlet-trial of a day was not yet over.

"You done yet?" came a voice.

It was Kuno.

Masaya raised his head to send his tired gaze towards that older boy. The look in his eyes was not a particularly friendly one.

"Now what?" questioned Masaya. "You gonna kick me while I'm down now? Do you really think you can make me suffer more than I just have?"

Now that he had managed to calm himself, the realisation had reached him that his emotional outburst had refreshed his stoicism somewhat—almost like a system reboot after a computer crash. It was like a piece of his confidence and fortitude had suddenly returned to him.

Masaya knew that he was about as close to rock bottom as it got right now.

It wasn't like things could get any worse.

"I don't think I care enough to do that at this point." said Kuno. He turned to the boy with the especially tenderised face. "Arono, has this outcome satisfied your desire to restore your brother's honour?"

Kuzan Arono thought about it for a second.

Unfortunately for Masaya, no smile appeared across his face.

"As good as the bitching and moaning was, it was all about his own fucking problems." he noted with apparent displeasure. "He was all like 'Wahh! Woe is me! I hate my life! Why do I suck?!' and not 'Wahh! I'm sorry for beating up Danbei! Please forgive me, I'll do anything!'—that was what I wanted, not the shit about being an unfixable shitass loser—I already knew that." he chuffed.

"I don't think the little baby has any tears left in him at this point." commented Zemonata. "If you start kicking him now, he'll probably just go silent. Sorry Arono, you're probably not getting a teary apology out of him today."

"Besides," added Oti, "You two had an agreement about the fight, that you'd drop the issue of your brother if you lost—and you lost. Fair and square."

"Yeah Arono. Today's win belongs to Kuno. Not you." prompted Sano. "However… There's no need to be so down about it. His victory today was over restoring your honour, remember?" he poked a finger towards his friend. "He took on scars to win that back for you. Don't dishonour that by saying that it wasn't enough."

"I—I guess you're right about that." conceded Arono.

Does that mean it's finally over? Masaya pleaded internally.

What was to happen next? Was everyone just going to walk away?

Could it possibly be that easy?

"It's great that you feel that way, Arono..." a voice called to Kuzan Arono.

Masaya recognised that voice, and its source. He turned his head to that other high-school boy leaning over that stairway platform railing to his right.

He was the foreigner, Waterleiner.

He really had been keeping himself out of the clash for the most part thus far—but no longer.

As he turned his gaze to look Masaya dead in the eye with an unmoving, non-emotive slate-grey stare, he completed his statement—with a declaration.

"…because the one who has claimed the privilege of finishing this little roach off, is none other than me."

Well fuck my life.

Of course, being allowed to get up and walk away at this point just would have been too easy.

When did it ever end up going the easy way?

Masaya was seriously not allowed to catch even a single break today.

"Ah yeah, that's right. You did call dibs on that, didn't you?" Kuno corroborated Waterleiner's claim.

"You guys all got to show off today, so now it's my turn." reasoned the foreigner.

"I didn't get a chance to show off my ability either, you know." appealed Sano.

"Then you might want to claim the rights to the finisher next time, for instance." Waterleiner recommended. "But, don't you forget, the finisher is my specialty." he smirked.

The westerner leapt over the railing he was leaning upon, landing only feet before Masaya, who was still sat upon the grimy sand. He approached closer and closer. The expression of well-hidden concentration on his face indicated a sense of sniper-like focus and commitment. It instilled a strangely nebulous and primal unease within Masaya that felt as though it had arrived too late to be of any real help.

This guy was supposedly the one whose ability could supposedly do instant knockouts if he so wished.

With a power that strong, what else was he capable of?

Masaya was in no state to be fighting back right now.

Was he going to be slammed into the ground at mach speed? Was he going to have his mind crushed by torturous simulated agony? Was he going to thrown into a tree by a giant sand fist?

A strange feeling began to assault Masaya—like he'd been locked down by a million microscopic harpoons.

Something was telling Masaya that he absolutely needed to escape.

It was now or never.

Masaya scrambled to spring to his feet, but Waterleiner simply uttered a single word in response.

"Eureka."

That was the last thing that Masaya heard before his consciousness was robbed from him and the world disappeared—again.

-[4]-

It felt slightly colder now.

Masaya awoke with a start.

He was still in that exact same spot—but now he was alone.

That space between the two portable office trailers now felt a whole lot bigger.

Masaya quickly restored his Ohm Sight to scout the immediate area. It looked as though the place really was empty beside him.

That foreigner really wasn't lying—he had absolutely knocked Masaya out in an instant.

But what had happened afterwards, while he was unconscious? Masaya checked over himself with both his eyes and Ohm Sight. He didn't think he felt any additional pains that he didn't already have, and he still had all of his clothes, which was never guaranteed in situations like this. Soon enough, he did detect something that was something different now, however.

Oh… Well that goes without saying.

Masaya didn't carry a wallet with him most times, due to Ohm Sight's unparalleled ability to locate dropped change, which would have bulked up a wallet too much after a while. That meant that being relieved of his wallet was a non-issue. Despite that, Masaya's pockets did in fact feel a little bit lighter.

That wasn't too much of an issue; he could probably make half of that amount back on his walk home quite easily. It wasn't like his change jars (yes, multiple) were running short by any means.

On top of that, his phone remained safely in his pocket, as expected. The high schoolers all had their own phones, so why would they have bothered with taking Masaya's? Mobile phone security features were good enough here that you'd need an extremely skilled technician to be able to jailbreak a stolen phone for resale, even in Academy City. Those thugs from that fancy high school were unlikely to have any such connections, so Masaya's phone being spared the looting was no surprise.

As a sidenote, most mobile devices sold to students in Academy City were actually only marginally more advanced than imported models, due to the frequent occurrences of students bringing them along when they ventured outside the city for whatever reason. Most of the interesting hyper-advanced tech was actually in the exclusive services that Academy City offered for them (at least the services themselves couldn't leave the city). Imported phone brands were actually just as common here as local models, often due to sheer brand power, but they were often slightly modified for the local market in order to be able to use these exclusive services.

It appeared that Masaya was left more or less untouched after he was knocked out by Waterleiner's ability.

Unless…

Masaya whipped out his phone and turned on its front camera—just to check.

And it was a good thing that he did.

How mature.

This kind of thing was more often seen as a typically immature middle-schooler move, but as it turned out, apparently even high schoolers weren't above scribbling phallic imagery onto unconscious people's faces.

Masaya licked his fingers and did his best to rub away that mark of disgrace from his cheek. He checked again with his phone and confirmed that it was indeed smearing off—and not drawn in permanent marker. A few more wipes later, and it was no longer recognisable as the masterful anatomical rendition its artist intended. As relieving as that was, Masaya wouldn't have been surprised if there was photo evidence of that in one of those boys' phones.

If that was true, then that was no doubt just waiting to bite him in the rear at some point in the future.

He walked around to the other side of the building lot where he had set down his book bag when he arrived. Luckily, it was still there, and it didn't seem like anything had been taken from it. This was especially fortunate, as Masaya could still use the small bottle of hand sanitiser and a couple of tissues to remove what remained of the facial graffiti.

And so, at last, he was able to begin making his way home.

Today was really nothing but one disaster after the next. First there was his painful moment with Fuikiyose, then his unlawful arrest at the hands of Amine. Following that was the nightmarish counselling session where Masaya had been trapped at the mercy of Mr Narohoshi and his bull-in-a-china-shop approach to therapy.

And then, after all of that, just when Masaya thought he might have been in the clear for the day, he'd been challenged to a duel with an unwinnable second round, which he miraculously might have actually won if not for the fact that God definitely hated him—he had used the worst possible moment to remind Masaya of that truth.

All in all, Masaya had ended up having two major mental breakdowns within the span of a single day.

Surprisingly, that wasn't even a record, at least if he counted last year in his metrics as well.

Dusk was now approaching. Masaya walked through the streets as the shine of golden hour shone through the buildings here and there. Most of that light was not going to reach the ground due to the density of tall buildings in the area, so the air was especially cool down where Masaya was.

After about a twenty-five minute walk (and approximately 650 yen of lost change appropriated), Masaya entered the home stretch of his journey as his dorm building entered his view. After such an adventurous (and painful) saga of a day, it felt like forever since he was last at home, even though he was there last night, though those two nights away at the hospital might have been skewing his perspective of time somewhat also.

And so, finally, Masaya entered the grounds of his dorm building and rode the elevator up to his floor—the fourth. A short walk down the corridor of his floor and, finally, Masaya stood before the door to his dorm room—his home.

As he took his keys from his pocket to unlock his door, something made him pause.

Surely not.

Something was wrong with this picture. Nobody else would have noticed the issue by this point, as the problem could only be seen with Ohm Sight.

He reached out his hand to confirm it—and opened his already unlocked door.

Had he actually left it unlocked all day?

No, absolutely not.

He had definitely locked his dormitory door this morning.

So, if he hadn't left it unlocked…

…Then who had unlocked it?

Masaya's mind got to work immediately.

Those high schoolers didn't take my keys, so it can't have been them. No wait, maybe they made imprints of my keys while I was out. Would they have had the necessary supplies for that? I was out for over half an hour, so they could have gone to get them. How would they have known where I lived? Kuzan Arono might have known through Danbei. Wait! Shit! The Arono brothers both have object duplication abilities! Those guys could have easily gotten my keys and known where I lived. So it was them! It has to be!

It seemed that, even now, as the sun was setting, Masaya's day of trouble was not yet over.

Without even setting a single foot inside his dorm, Masaya got to work comprehensively scanning the interior with Ohm Sight, making sure that no stone was to be left unturned. Had he been robbed? Had a trap been set up for him—or an ambush?

To his surprise, none of that was actually looking to be the case.

His dorm was the same as it ever was.

Nothing appeared to have been touched.

Still as cautious as ever, Masaya took one apprehensive step into his dorm, and then another. He carefully closed the door behind him—but didn't lock it, just in case something bad really was inside and he needed to get out of there fast.

Due to Ohm Sight detecting differences in electrical conductivity, it meant that electrical systems and wires stuck out like a sore thumb to Masaya. If there was something dangerous maliciously wired up to his electrics, no matter how well hidden, he'd know about it in an instant.

Detecting nothing out of the ordinary—that no sticks of dynamite had been hooked up to his switches or anything ridiculous like that—he turned on the lights.

Just like that, his regular old dorm appeared, with all of its quirks untouched. There was his bed in the corner, and his comfy one-seater couch, and the small study desk between them with his laptop atop it, and his coffee table/kotatsu, all atop a fluffy black rug. There were his guitars, and his old keyboard stored upright beside the TV unit with his game console and modest flat-screen. There was his shelf of books, and his wardrobe, and his balcony. Everything in the main space was all there, undisturbed since he was last there this morning. Ohm Sight was telling him that the kitchen and bathroom were similarly unchanged, but he went to check them both anyway.

At the end of the thorough look-over, Masaya was just about convinced that nothing was out of the ordinary.

So why the hell was my door unlocked?

Had the dorm manager done it to search for contraband or something? He definitely had the keys to all the rooms.

That was unlikely. Everything was too untouched.

Masaya continued to run through hypothesis after hypothesis—and was left stumped.

Even with zero signs of immediate danger or meddling being found, Masaya could be quite the paranoid type—and justifiably so.

Still...There really is nothing wrong here, apart from the door.

It seemed almost safe to brush off the issue of the already-unlocked door as one of life's strange little mysteries—almost safe. All Masaya really wanted right now was at last let himself relax after such an unpleasantly eventful day. The only thing preventing him from doing so was that disconcerting discovery about his front door.

Well, there was one other thing—the fact that he was currently absolutely filthy from all that rolling around in the dirt.

Masaya gave his uniform a look-over.

Yeah, I'm not sitting down anywhere with this much filth on me.

At least that was an issue that could be dealt with easily.

However, to wash his clothes and take a shower now would also mean to greatly lower his guard. At least with Ohm Sight, he could see any attacker coming from ages away.

Eventually, Masaya relented that cleaning himself up now was probably an acceptable risk to take at this juncture.

So that's just what he did.

After putting a load of dirty clothes into the washing machine along with his uniform, Masaya took a very thorough shower with his Ohm Sight focused outside the entire time. He couldn't bring his sling into the shower, so he needed to be careful with how he used his right arm in there. Other than that, however, no danger came to Masaya while he was in such a vulnerable state. After putting on a plain t-shirt, tracksuit pants, and a new sling, a simpler one for comfortable wearing at home, he found himself to be even more exhausted than he had been before. He absolutely needed to sit down somewhere comfortable and relax for even a little while or he'd probably just pass out on the floor before too long.

But even then, he had yet to completely lower his guard. He laid himself down atop his bed and watched the environment around his dorm using Ohm Sight. If someone was planning to launch a strike against him, he'd be ready.

…Or so he thought.

Masaya Misaka was asleep within the span of five minutes.

-[5]-

After some unknown stretch of time, a strange sensation brought Masaya back from the world of naps. In that haze of half-sleep, he was not in any state to be identifying what it was right away.

There it was again! What could it have possibly been?

Masaya's consciousness was pulled further into lucidity.

What kind of feeling was it? What kind of sensation?

Masaya breathed in and caught some more of it.

Was it a sensation of the nose? A smell?

Masaya sniffed the air.

Ah.

It was indeed a smell of sorts.

Without making a single movement or opening his eyes, Masaya sniffed the air again.

What is that?

There was something about it. He knew not this smell.

No, wait.

Masaya was beginning to pick up something else too.

It was a sound.

It sounds something like static, but more organic.

As a surprise considering his especially torpid mind, Masaya came to a genius conclusion.

The sound and the smell probably have something to do with each other.

Without bothering to move an inch or even open his eyes, Masaya sniffed the air again, sharpened his auricular focus.

The smell had a spicy profile to it. The sound also possessed a sort of liquid tonality to it.

Oh shit. Someone's cookin'!

But who? Which one of his neighbours would it have been? Was it his neighbour behind the door to the right of his in the walkway? Could it have been the neighbour past the left door, perhaps? Maybe it was the guy directly above him on the next floor above—or maybe the one below? Could it even be some guy at a diagonal from his dorm—or possibly even from the next building over?

As a resident of a large dorm building, Masaya had quite a few neighbours.

He sniffed again. Perhaps he'd be able to judge the direction that nice smell was coming from.

Dogs do it all the time; it can't be that hard. Masaya's reasoning was (probably) flawless.

He drew in a deep breath through his nose, trying to gather as much of that smell as he could.

Somehow, it had actually worked.

It's coming from my left. What?

The sizzling sound seemed to also be coming from there. He probably should have started with the sound, actually.

But that couldn't have been right. The only thing in that direction was…his own kitchen.

No, the sound and the smell were both definitely coming from there.

Did my fridge catch fire or something?

Unlikely.

Did I leave something in the microwave which somehow turned itself on through a power surge caused by a solar flare or something?

Ridiculous—apart from the accidentally leaving food in the microwave part—Masaya actually did that semi-often due to getting distracted while playing guitar (his recent appreciation of longer instrumental-focused works wasn't helping that one bit).

Did that home intruder who unlocked my door come back to stealth-cook while I was asleep or something? Perhaps they broke in because they didn't have a kitchen of their own, realised that they didn't have any food to cook, so they left again, came back a while later to find me back home but asleep, and then take on the challenge of making their own dinner without waking me up and receiving an ass-whooping… Nah, surely not.

Ridiculous theories aside, something weird was going on in his kitchen, and Masaya was just lying there on his bed only metres away with his eyes still closed for some reason, trying to figure out what was going on instead of actually getting up to check. If he simply opened his eyes and looked towards his kitchen, he'd have a clear line of sight and would solve this mystery in an instant.

But this was Masaya Misaka. He had something even better than a line of sight—he had every single line of sight possible—he had Ohm Sight.

He began performing the calculations to record the conductivity values and their positions that made up the world around him. The structure of his dorm came into clear form. First his bed came into view with him atop it, then the rest of the main area, his bathroom, then the laundry area, entryway, his kitchen, and that person standing in it.

Wait, what?!

Masaya's eyes flitted open in an instantly, and he sprung up into a seated position as though he were spring-loaded, throwing his gaze towards his kitchen.

"Yo-ho!" called out the familiar woman standing there by the stovetop. "I was wondering when you'd wake up from your nap, Masaya-kun. Dinner's almost ready."

"Oh, it's just you, mom." responded Masaya.

False alarm. All good.

And so, with the potential danger identified and confirmed to be benign, Masaya fell back onto his bed and closed his eyes once again.

His relaxation would be allowed to continue once more.

Everything was fine.

…Hold it!

Masaya shot back up for a second time.

"Wait a minute—you don't live here!"

Masaya Misaka was a middle school student living in a dorm in the middle of Academy City; of course he didn't live with his mother.

Misuzu Misaka was a woman of thirty-something who shockingly could have passed for twenty-and-nothing. Her shoulder-length chestnut hair, model-like proportions, and brightly-gleaming youthful eyes made her look like that one convenience-store part-timer you occasionally saw who made you question why they were there and not on a fashion runway. On top of that, she was, as a matter of fact, currently enrolled at a university. She really wouldn't have looked out of place as the most popular girl of a student dormitory building—not one bit.

But her being in Masaya's student dormitory was a different story entirely.

She didn't even live in Academy City.

"Why are you here?"

"Am I not allowed to check up on my baby boy every once in a while?" she said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"No, what's the actual reason. Why are you here?" That kind of mom-logic wasn't going to fly when she'd just broken into Masaya's place without any sort of prior warning. His tone was rather terse for a conversation with his own mother.

"…Well, Masaya-kun, I was intending to come see you while you were in the hospital, but I didn't get the opportunity before you were discharged. However, as it so happened, I received a call from Narohoshi-sensei."

Oh, so mom and Narohoshi are totally chums now?!

His mother continued.

"Anyway, he informed me that you were in a quite vulnerable and pained state today, so I dropped everything to come over and see you today and give you some much-needed mama-love." She ended her story with an (at least seemingly) enthusiastic little fist pump.

An important detail immediately arose to prominence in Masaya's mind. His quizzically-raised eyebrow quickly became a furrowed one.

"Wait just a sec! I'm not happy with you!" Masaya began to grouch to his mother. He tried to fold his arms in defiant display, but quickly remembered that he physically couldn't. "You're the one who leaked my personal circumstances and medical history to that hack of a guidance counsellor, who then proceeded to bash my head in with it. The breakdown I had today was pretty much all your fault." he accused.

Misuzu was left in silence for a few seconds, as though finding something to be very off.

"He didn't already have access to that information? Isn't Narohoshi-sensei one of the specialists you saw?"

"Absolutely not! He has zero special qualifications beyond a general teaching licence. He's the school guidance counsellor! That's it!"

His mother was given pause.

"He's not even a doctor?" she eventually enquired. "He referred to himself as your personal psychological specialist."

"He's a lying fraud." Masaya immediately responded. "This is Academy City. Anyone with good youth psychology qualifications under their belt will be spoiled for choice when it comes to job opportunities here. Guess which job they're never going to pick."

"…Ah." Misuzu quickly conceded. Her usual glimmer was gone the moment she had realised her colossal error which had put her son's mental wellbeing at risk.

"Don't answer his calls anymore." ordered Masaya. "Nothing good could possibly come from it."

Misuzu stared her son straight in the eyes from her spot in the kitchen.

"Me getting to come and see you came from it… Isn't that a good thing?"

From his spot on his bed, Masaya turned his gaze away from her.

"That has yet to be seen."

Misuzu's eyes went downcast; she let out a silent sigh.

Several seconds passed

Eventually, a new vigour appeared to fall over her. Her gaze rose, and she spoke with a kind of vibrance that gently flavoured her mildly-husky voice. The corners of her mouth were playfully pulled up a bit.

"Well then" she began, "If you're going to keep being a grumpy-pants even though I came all the way here to make you all better, than I'm just going to have to endlessly shower you in good old mama's love until I see my son smiling again."

It appeared that even now, Masaya's day of trials was still not yet over.

-[6]-

"What is this?" asked Masaya as though the thing he was looking at was something from another planet.

"It's a tagine; it's used in traditional Moroccan cooking." responded his mother as she placed the decorated conical ceramic pot down atop the main room's coffee table.

"That's all well and good, but why are you into Moroccan cooking all of a sudden."

Misuzu placed down the rest of the plates, cutlery and whatnot.

"I've been having fun with international cuisines for the past six months or so. You might have already known that if you called me more often."

"…You know I had my reasons." muttered Masaya.

"They were terrible reasons, but I do understand. I'm just glad that you're mostly all better on that front now."

The conversation had suddenly taken a turn that was far from ideal dinner discussion. Masaya quickly corrected course to avoid delving deeper into that rather unpleasant topic.

"Did you seriously bring that cone-pot all the way from Kanagawa?"

"Masaya-kun, to put it nicely, you cook just like your father. One look in your freezer only further confirmed that you're eating like a caveman. It's about time you learned to appreciate proper world cuisine."

"How is my food caveman cooking? Caveman cooking is stabbing slabs of meat on a stick and holding them over an open fire that you make yourself on the ground."

"And you'd absolutely cook like that if you didn't live in a dormitory. I've caught your father charring food just like that in the yard before."

That does actually sound pretty awesome. Dad knows what's up.

His mother had just about hit the nail on the head there.

But that was beside the point.

"Okay, but how is my cooking anything like that?"

"My son, I looked in your pantry. What use could you possibly have for that many packets of taco seasoning? Surely, you're not only cooking Mexican food."

With that one specific question, the time had come for Masaya to showcase his staggering culinary ingenuity.

"It's the perfect general-purpose seasoning combination. It's my secret ingredient. You can put it on just about anything. Chilli, nachos, savoury mince, chicken and rice, beef and rice, steak marinades, you can even add it to pasta sauce to make one hell of a spaghetti-bolognese."

"Masaya-kun, you cook like a caveman." his mother repeated with prejudice. "If you told any Italian person that you make spaghetti-bolognese with taco seasoning, they would cry."

"Then they are fools who know not the ways of good spice."

Misuzu Misaka narrowed her eyes. She placed her hand atop the apex of the tagine's conical lid.

"My darling son, allow me to reveal the true fool who 'knows not the ways of good spice'." she announced with a smirk.

And then, she removed the lid.

Whoa. Masaya could not help but think as a cloud of steam erupted from the tagine. What's more, that steamy blast-front carried with it a shockwave of exciting exotic aromas which felt ready to burn deep into Masaya's nostrils. He drew in a deep whiff through his nose while his mother attentively observed his reaction.

Damn. Well holy shit! What the hell is this flavour? It's loaded with chill, ginger, and honey, and plenty of garlic, and what the hell is going on with that citrus? Ooooh, God-damn, that smells good.

A quick and unceremonious "Ooh." was the only part of that internal reaction that actually left Masaya's mouth.

"Ta-da! It's authentic tagine-style Moroccan chicken! It's one of the best things you can have to turn a bad day around." Misuzu declared before beginning to plate up the dish.

Masaya just about couldn't wait to get some of that into his mouth.

But unfortunately for him, he was going to have to.

"Ooh! Almost forgot. Masaya-kun's arm is still healing up, so mama's gonna have to cut up his chicken for him first—it's like he's that little baby boy all over again. Fufufu." she said cheerfully (as though Masaya wasn't only sitting with an especially unamused face mere feet across from her), before getting to work dividing the bone-in chicken thighs into chunks more manageable for a one-armed diner.

Once she was done, there was another thing Misuzu realised she needed to do.

"Oh! Can't forget about beverages!" She quickly stood up from beside the coffee table and strode into the kitchen to rummage through a paper bag. "For Masaya-kun, we've got minty lemonade—the culturally-proper choice for regional cuisine." she declared as she pulled out a plastic bottle, "Albeit the imported bottled stuff—not the real homemade stuff." she appended with a quiet grumble.

She poured the beverage into a branded cola glass, before returning to the paper bag.

"And for the mama, something a little bit more cheeky." she said as she pulled out a whole bottle of red wine.

Uh, mom? Did you just bring alcohol into a middle-schooler's dorm?

Masaya had detected that bottle earlier with Ohm Sight, but there were limitations to his ability that had prevented him from noticing the fact that there was indeed alcohol in his home. For one, Ohm Sight detected things volumetrically, which meant that while he could detect the bottle and the liquid inside of it, reading the label on the bottle was simply not going to happen. For two, the electrical conductivity quotients of organically-derived liquids tended to overlap a lot. Before the bottle was revealed to be red wine, Masaya was pretty sure it was just some fancy brand of olive oil or vinegar judging by the shape of the bottle, and had thus just brushed it off as such.

Mom and alcohol—uh oh.

What's more, even before she had started pouring, the bottle was already less than full—it looked as though she'd already had a go with it at some point.

Masaya watched on as his mother poured the wine into a second cola glass—which happened to be notably larger than the typical wine glass which a middle schooler like Masaya would have had no business owning. She filled it up to the same level as the mint lemonade—that was to say, completely—before returning to the table with drinks in hand.

Immediately after giving Masaya his glass, she took a considerable sip of wine from her own.

"Ah, that's better. Alright, now we can eat."

The two of them dug into their meal.

Oooohhhh that's good.

Masaya was wasting no time in getting that food into his mouth. The taste of the tagine chicken matched Masaya's expectations based on the initial aroma—only it was much more powerful. Frankly, he couldn't get enough of it.

That lemon really brings it together. The spices alone would have been great, but the sourness adds an opposing force that really balances the whole thing.

Meanwhile, his mother was likewise looking to be quite enthusiastic about her cooking (and the wine).

"So, what do you think?" Misuzu was also eager for a verdict on her work.

"Quite good. Not a flavour combination I'm too used to, but it's working together rather nicely." Masaya's range of ratings was to a one to ten scale what visible light was to the electromagnetic spectrum—the higher and lower ends of the scale were very scarcely seen—the typical display of performative teenage apathy. Masaya was pretty sure that his mother knew well enough that 'quite good' was especially high praise coming from him. It was certainly better than 'good' or especially 'hm'.

"Fufu, You're not used to it because you always cook with the same ingredients." she clarified for him. "I went on a big shop after seeing that you had basically nothing usable for this dish, so now's about the time to say thaaaank youuuuuuuu." she continued with pursed lips and a tilt of the head and at the end.

Those words sent gears spinning within Masaya's head. Something wasn't right about it.

And then it clicked.

"So it was you who left my front door unlocked!"

Misuzu Misaka sucked in her lips.

"Ooh— Guilty. I thought I'd be back quick enough that it wouldn't be a problem."

As lousy as that reasoning was, it only served to elicit further questions.

"And how did you even unlock the door in the first place?"

"I proved my identity to your dorm supervisor and he let me in."

"And why would he let you in from that alone?"

"Masaya-kun, whose name exactly is on all of the paperwork that was completed in order for you to live here?"

"Fair point."

"Besides, with this being Academy City, checking a simple Japanese driver's licence isn't gonna cut it. They also require DNA sequence matching to a database, additional biometrics, and a matching reason on my city entry pass. It's not like they'll just let anyone into your room to steal your taco seasoning, Masaya-kun."

Misuzu took a long sip of her wine, before continuing.

"Bah, all that identity proving took forever, but now that I'm here, I've got my baby all to myself again. Yay!"

That wine might have been starting to get to her.

-[7]-

The meal was completely demolished in short order. Unlike the standard practice for Masaya, there would be no leftovers for him this time. The mint lemonade had also been surprisingly good, and Masaya could definitely see himself drinking that again if he came across it at a reasonable price.

"Ooh, that was good. Fufu, I may have outdone myself this time. Bweh."

Misuzu seemed to have also enjoyed her drink, going by how she had kept giving herself refills. That bottle of wine was now less than half full.

Even now, it appeared that she was not yet done with it.

"Hoohoo. Maybe one more for Misuzu-chaaan."

"Hey, don't you think you've had enough of that?" her son protested.

"Whyyy? It's not like I'm going anywhere toniiight. I'm staying with Masaya-kuuuun. He needs mama-love."

"Why?" it took Masaya longer than he would have liked for the words to process. "Wait! You're staying here?!"

"Yep!" she blurbled through her glass of wine as if it were a microphone.

"…Do you have to?"

Misuzu clacked her glass down upon the table.

"My shon is so ruuude. Mama didn't raise such a mean young man… did sheeee?"

She was well and truly drunk by this point.

"He doeshn't say thank you, he doeshn't let his mama stay over afther such a lovelee dinner. He looks so much like his papa, but he's like the eeevil version becaush he's sho mean to Misuzu-chaaan." Something in the corner of the room caught her eye. "Ooh! Bad boy! Masaya-kuun doesn't eeven play with his keyboard anymore—the one his mama gave to him when he still smaaaall. It'sh all covered in dust now. Mashaya-kun only wants to play with his cool guitarsh to impresh the pretty young girls—when instead he could play his mama's old keyboard that she gayve to him becaush she loves him so much—that would impress this pretty young girl hehe. He should play it right nooow."

Misuzu rose unsteadily and lumbered over to where the keyboard was stored upright in the corner of the room. During this time, Masaya took the opportunity to hide the wine bottle while his mother's back was turned. By the time he returned to the table, Misuzu was already waddling back with the chunky instrument. Instead of properly trying to set up the stand, she simply sat on the edge of Masaya's bed with the keyboard on her lap.

"Mashaya-kun. It's broken! Why'sh it not making any noish? How could you break it?!"

"It's not plugged into anything, you goof."

"Oh yeah, fufu. Then do that. I want Masaya-music."

"Too bad. We can't go playing loud music in here after 9pm."

Masaya knew that fact well. He'd been taught it the hard way more than once. It also made for a good excuse to avoid being forced along with his mother's drunken whims.

Or did it?

Masaya redirected his gaze, just to check.

His eyes locked onto that digital clock on the small desk beside his bed.

8.33pm.

Damn.

Masaya's earlier nap had wrecked his sense of time somewhat. On top of that, digital clocks were something of a weakness for Ohm Sight. He could technically read them, but only if he effectively pressed one against his head to get the required microscopic fidelity. Analogue clocks were child's play for Ohm Sight in comparison—probably a worthwhile future investment.

Misuzu had also seen it.

"Fufu Mashaya-kun. We still have a whole one hour and twenty-seven minutes to play. See? I'm not too drunk to do the math."

She evidently was too drunk to do the math.

Even so, Masaya had just lost his excuse.

"Play." his mother demanded.

"What about my arm?"

"Plaaay!"

Masaya could do nothing but let out a quick cringe and concede to her drunken whims. Hopefully, she wouldn't be demanding any Beethoven tonight.

After setting up the keyboard's stand properly, hooking up the required cables, and making sure the thing was on (and not going to be too loud), it was ready. As he sat down on the bed beside his mother, Masaya crunched the data regarding which songs could potentially be playable with one hand. The number turned out surprisingly high, especially in comparison to songs playable on guitar one-handed—which was zero.

Before Masaya managed to reach a choice of song, his mother had already made one—and began trying to play it. Naturally, in her current condition, she wasn't all that good.

"What song is that supposed to be?"

"Tubular Wells."

"That sounds absolutely nothing like Tubular Wells."

"Yesh it does."

Were she sober, Misuzu Misaka may have actually done a good job here; she had been the original owner of this keyboard after all, and she was no doubt very familiar with playing it. She was good enough that managing such a difficult song was certainly within her (sober) capabilities.

Right now, however, she was anything but sober.

But that wasn't going to stop her.

Her focus tightened, her motions became more locked-down, and her playing sped up some.

However, she was still missing a good few keys, and her overall speed was well below the actual tempo of the song.

Before too long, her tempo gradually declined again, her playing became even sloppier, and eventually, her playing ground to a halt.

"Bweh. That last dwink is getting to me."

Good effort, but maybe lay off the wine next time.

Perhaps it was from the alcohol, or perhaps it was from the alcohol telling her to be a drama queen, but Misuzu Misaka flopped her head forwards onto the keyboard, resulting in quite the sound being produced. It seemed she still had some energy left in her, as her head popped right back up, and turned straight towards Masaya.

"Now you play it."

"You want me to play Tubular Wells with one hand?"

"Yesh. Do it."

"It's not physically possible—at least if you want the actual song and not just the melody."

"I didn't raise no baby. Playyy."

That's exactly what you raised.

It was clear that she wasn't going to budge, even if she was being entirely unreasonable. Masaya had little option but to reach his left hand out and begin tapping out the melody. It was a bit unusual using his left hand to play on the right side of the keyboard, where all of the higher notes were, but luckily, Masaya had Ohm Sight on his side to make certain that he was always going to hit the right notes.

Ohm Sight was quite the advantage when it came to playing music. Masaya had gotten very good at using it to ensure that he would never miss a note or play a wrong one. After developing it to a certain point, it became good enough that playing his keyboard ceased to be any sort of challenge for him, even at some rather ridiculous tempos, due to the simplicity of the mechanics of playing it. This was why he was playing his guitars more often nowadays, since there was a lot more that could be done with them to produce more unique sounds—on that note, he was currently gravitating more towards finger picking.

Even though he was only playing the higher-pitched half of the performance, Masaya accidentally got caught up in the rhythm and ended up playing the whole 20 minute song—much to his mother's drunken enjoyment.

She needed to stop trying to affectionately latch onto his one usable arm when he was trying to play, though.

-[8]-

"Uweehhh. That's better." Misuzu sighed in satisfaction as she stepped out from the bathroom following a not-so quick shower.

She was wearing a set of yellow pyjamas consisting of a collared silken button-up shirt, along with matching (slightly too short) silken sleeping shorts. She looked as though she could have been the source of fan-service in any college-based TV drama. Were he any other 14 year-old boy, Masaya would have had his eyes shamelessly glued to that sight, but as the son of that woman showing too much leg in his usually-lonely dorm, the view (rightfully) did nothing for him. Her current appearance would not win her any mercy should she keep drunkenly misbehaving.

"Sobered up yet?" he asked her.

"Not really. Fufu."

During Misuzu's time in the bathroom, Masaya had used the time to put away the keyboard and clean up the dishes as best he could one-handed. He wasn't too fond of messiness or clutter in his dorm, especially with guests around. He was currently pulling out a spare futon to roll across the floor.

Who exactly was supposed to be the parent or the child here?

"Masaya-kuuuuun…" Misuzu cooed out of nowhere.

"What?" responded Masaya deadpan as he rolled the futon open across the floor.

"Are we really going to bed already? It's only half-past-nine."

"Well I had a very long and rotten day today, so I'm pretty exhausted."

Misuzu said nothing.

She stayed silent standing there for a good moment. Masaya gave it little mind as he finished rolling open the futon.

And then, Misuzu stepped forward. She strode forth with something resembling an energy of directed purpose—then dropped to her knees atop that futon—and embraced her son tightly from behind.

Masaya had seen her approach with Ohm Sight, yet even he was caught off guard by it.

"Uh—where did this come from?"

His mother only mumbled something incoherent with her face pressed into the back of his neck.

As a 14 year-old boy with somewhat delinquent tendencies, Masaya was definitely of the disposition that he should probably have more or less grown out of being giddy to receive close motherly affection.

Even so, the words of protest he wanted to unleash—that he would usually unleash—never came.

That scene remained unchanged for perhaps five minutes; nobody was counting.

How long had it been since she had held him so tightly, with such warmth, intimacy and affection—how long since he had let her?

It had to have been since before that incident—the one that had also impacted his mother so harshly by proxy, even though she had had no part in the quarrel—or the fallout.

None of it had been her fault—yet she had been so horribly punished for it.

Luckily, in recent times, that punishment had more or less come to an end for Misuzu Misaka.

Through repeated consultations, psychotherapy sessions, hypnosis, and whatever else, Masaya's subconscious was no longer equating his mother's face with hers. The distress that came with seeing it had likewise dissipated.

That was certainly progress—but it had taken the better part of a year to reach the point where a moment like this one could have been made possible.

Of course, the issue as a whole was still far from over—but a small victory was still a victory.

At last, Misuzu Misaka broke that reluctantly comfortable silence.

"I've… I've missed this—when we could all be like this." she whispered with joyous satisfaction. "Just so you know, Masaya-kun, she misses this too."

The peaceful atmosphere of affection was crushed underfoot by a rising dread that caused Masaya's stomach to plummet instantly.

He had been anything but ready for that. His mother wasn't the type of person to deliberately lower his guard only to distress him by bringing up her other child. Intentional or not, the effect was the same.

Masaya felt himself growing colder, such that his mother's body heat would not be enough to fully counter it.

Please… Please don't ask that of me. I can't.

Masaya felt himself shaking slightly.

With her arms wrapped tightly around her son, Misuzu could feel him tensing up even within her embrace.

That was more than enough for her to understand his unspoken response.

"I know I'm pushing it. You've only just learned how to be comfortable looking at your own mother again." She chuckled gently with a flavour of melancholy, "I'll save you that lecture this time, but I trust you already know what the next step is."

She removed her arms from around Masaya, instead placing them on his shoulders and guiding him to turn to face her. She stared him straight in the eyes with a gaze overflowing with parental love.

"I'll do anything I can to help you take that step, Masaya-kun. I might even be a bit overbearing about it…but…" she raised her right hand to gently stroke her son's cheek, "… But what else would you expect from a mama who just wants her happy family back?" she smiled.

Masaya could see the pain behind that smile clear as day.

-[9]-

Masaya awoke in the dark of that quiet dorm. He awkwardly leaned his head to view the digital clock atop the desk beside his bed.

1:12am.

At long, long last, Masaya Misaka's disastrous odyssey of a Thursday had come to an end.

As he tried to readjust his position in the bed for better comfort, he realised something.

As it turned out, it seemed as though the spare futon would be going unused tonight. That woman currently occupying his bed with him was difficult evidence to ignore.

When did she…?

Masaya's bed was not large enough for two people to have all that much room to themselves—but that apparently was not a requirement for his mother. With her body pressed against Masaya's back and one arm wrapped around his waist, the necessitated closeness seemed to have been to her tastes tonight.

Masaya tried to remove that intrusive arm. With only his left arm available for the job, he needed to turn around in place to reach it.

Wrong choice.

The sleeping woman stirred like a hibernating mother bear, and Masaya found himself caught even tighter in her grasp. He now had both of her arms wrapped tightly about him—and his head pressed into her chest.

It was like he was his three or four-year-old self after a bad dream all over again.

Masaya never expected he'd end up in such a position again after his fifth birthday.

"Mmmm…" Misuzu mumbled in her sleep. The minty smell in her breath couldn't quite cover up that of the wine. "Tabigake-kuuun…" she squeezed Masaya even closer, "Did we…make the right choice?... Sending our children away…to that place?"

Masaya found himself wondering the same thing.

-[10]-

Friday morning.

Misuzu Misaka found herself visiting a convenience store for a quick brunch to enjoy before taking the trip back home to Kanagawa.

She recalled the how that morning had begun.

After being awoken by the movements of her son trying to wriggle free of her vice-grip embrace, Misuzu lingered around in his dorm for a little while, enjoying a simple breakfast with him, readying herself for the day, and of course showering that troubled boy with affection until he fully understood the idea that he was indeed loved by his family.

Since Masaya had needed to leave for school by a certain time that morning, Misuzu had left with him, and accompanied him part of the way to his school—but not so far as to potentially embarrass him in front of his classmates. They had agreed to part ways once they felt the density of commuting Tatenkara students beginning to rise past a certain threshold, as determined by Masaya.

That number, apparently, was one.

Barely five minutes from the dorm, Masaya had found himself excitedly approached by a younger girl in a similarly grey uniform. Upon noticing Misuzu there, and learning (much to her surprise) that she was in the presence of Masaya's mother, the girl quickly introduced herself as Rika Sagara—Masaya's girlfriend.

Her son had vetoed that label just about immediately.

Misuzu, not wanting to spoil her son's chances of socialising with his friend, had agreed that the time to part was upon them. He appeared to be in good company.

Now, after all of that, Misuzu sat upon a bench, having quickly devoured the bento she had just bought.

She pulled out her phone and made a call.

"Hello, dear…"

"[…]"

"Yes, I'm aware time is tight for you right now, but I'm calling anyway."

"[…]"

"Yes I was just there. He was having a rough time, so I drowned him in mama-love. He seems to be doing a little better now."

"[…]"

"Yes, that part of it seems to be behind him now, thank goodness."

"[…]"

"It is great progress, but we can't rush him with the rest. I can tell he doesn't feel ready for that just yet. Slow and steady wins the race."

"[…]"

"It doesn't matter how long it takes, I will have my family back in one piece. Don't think that doesn't include you too, Mikoto-chan."

AFTERWORD

Hello again, dear reader.

Welcome back to a new chapter of the story.

This chapter makes up what was initially supposed to be the second half of chapter five. This was a wise decision, as even this half stretched out to a solid 15k words. Last chapter was primarily the action portion; this chapter is much more character-focused.

This chapter deals with the aftermath of the clash on top of Masaya's day as a whole.

I kept it a bit misleading as to who actually won the fight at first. This way I got to explore the perspectives of the other side a bit, including how they see one another as friends (or as clowns turned friends). Strictly speaking, the way the fight ended was unusual enough that who actually won isn't actually the clearest call to make, so the confusion of the situation from both sides was fun to play with.

I teased the existence of the blackouts back in chapter 4, but now we finally see why they're such a big deal that even Heaven Canceller doesn't know how to deal with them. The fight was ended instantly when Masaya's victory was robbed of him by his true archnemesis: the blackouts which mysteriously afflict only him. They screwed up his head hard enough that the different parts of his brain couldn't even wake up all at the same time. I had fun turning Waterleiner's harmless prank into the indirect cause of Masaya's breakdown—it was an interesting chain of cause and effect that ended up causing a lot of pain to the wrong target, but that's fate for you.

At last, after six chapters, we see Masaya actually going home, and surprise surprise, guess who's here unannounced. Masaya being Mikoto's brother means that he's also family to Misuzu and Tabigake, so it would've been a wasted opportunity not to explore his relationships with them too. Misuzu's mostly similar to how she is in canon, but with some minor differences that come from Masaya's existence and the troubles attached to him. I don't think she's ever been connected to music in canon, but since Mikoto canonically plays violin, I felt that Masaya should probably play something too, and of course they'd have to receive their musical inclinations from someone, so I chose Misuzu for that. Misuzu giving her son her keyboard when he was younger is a cute bit of history for them.

Since Toaru often does punny knock-off names for real-world brands, I chose to do the same for the music in this world too, kinda like localised JoJo stand names. 'Tubular Wells' is a nice easy one to catch, but there will probably be some sneakier ones in the future. Try to see if you can catch them.

Misuzu made quite the show in Index SS1, so writing her drunk was pretty fun, and I had a good scene to use as reference, but I also felt her inebriation necessary for breaking down her facades to allow for tender moments between her and her son. She's still a bit apprehensive after Masaya's unfortunate ordeal and the way it has hurt her by proxy, so maybe she brought the alcohol specifically because she unconsciously knew she needed the confidence and strength for that evening. Who knows?

I made sure to show the deep affection (if a bit one-sided at the moment) between them, but was extra careful not to make any Oedipal connotations here despite the intimacy—this isn't that kind of fanfic. Masaya is a Misaka though, so there's naturally a little bit of tsundere energy here, even though it's done with regards to familial love in this case. That will be fun to play with some more in the future.

Through Misuzu's words, we also got a little tease at Mikoto's attitude towards the tenuous family situation. Do keep in mind that Misuzu doesn't see her children too often, so her perspective isn't all-seeing, but it is hopeful nonetheless.

Next chapter is the big one. I'll try my best not to split it up this time, so you can enjoy the big twist. It's taken me longer than expected to reach this point in the story, but the big revelation promised in the blurb is almost upon us. I don't blame readers if they feel the plot has felt a bit meandering thus far, perhaps like a dark comedy without enough comedy—but that changes next chapter. I may retroactively add little teases to the big twist into earlier chapters, just so new readers don't feel like the story is too aimless, but we'll see if they're really needed. I'll be sure to let you know if I do change anything.

I think I'll keep my responses to the comments at the end of chapters from now on, since many of the answers to the questions you guys are asking are in the following chapters themselves.

Let's get into them. A lot of fanfic writers don't include the comments they're responding to which can make understanding them difficult, so I'll include them quoted here going forward.

idyllic123 says:

"Epic fight scene, im guessing Masaya just had a breakthrough and is gonna have a great showing at his next System Scan, looking forward to it!"

I'm glad you thought the fight was epic. Masaya definitely broke through some kind of limit, just a more unfortunate kind that only seems to affect him. Next chapter will have the system scan, so look forward to his performance there.

olatudoberm says:

"Seriously, who thought giving powers to teenagers would be a good idea?
I'm impressed, against all odds he managed to defeat most of the NPC's, amazing.
But to be honest, Masaya has horrible luck.
Will we get glimpses of Mikoto in the next chapter? Now I'm looking forward to it!
Author-san, who is your favorite character from To Aru?"

They certainly get up to a lot of trouble. I feel like Academy City is culturally in a sort of 'wild west' phase currently where stronger abilities have only recently become more common, and the 'meta' regarding them hasn't fully solidified yet, so everyone's still throwing their might around at each other seeing where they stand in the food chain, so to speak. It results in a lot of outrageous things happening, but it's certainly an exciting time and place to be in if you're there.

Masaya certainly pushed himself to the limit this time. I personally really like Toaru's science-side power scaling in that some abilities can dominate abilities of one type, yet fall short against others. Ohm Sight doesn't grant Masaya any additional strength, causing him to fall short against many ability types, but it does give him exclusive access to useful information that he can put to work in fights to great effect.

Even better, we get Misuzu! (Mikoto will be debuting soon though)

I'm generally very pro-Touma. I'm also quite fond of the Sisters, the Kongou trio, Thor, and more recently Transcendents like Aradia and Mut Thebes to name a few.

Kelk says:

"Another great one. I enjoyed the use of the pit in this fight, goes to show how important location is and how it can impact the outcome. This chapter reinforces how competent of a brawler Masaya is after watching him get pushed around for the last chapter or so in and out of fights. Had no clue where you were going with the Arono fight until he started talking about a big brother's pride then it clicked lol. Anyway, great chapter as always can't wait to see the next one and see the aftermath and its ramifications."

Glad you liked it. I feel like Location, local geometry, and terrain are sometimes glossed over as important factors in Toaru fights (what the hell was JC Staff thinking with that Touma vs Fiamma fight?!), so it was fun centring a whole fight around it. Masaya's only been able to push as far as he has by using his physical prowess to make up for the lack of a strong ability, and oftentimes even that's not enough to keep him in the clear.

I felt like I was being a bit heavy-handed with the brother stuff in the Arono fight, but in hindsight I sorta see it as fate indirectly harassing Masaya with the concept, in a kind of dark comedy way. He got really annoyed by it but wasn't in any state of mind to actually think about why.

Thanks everyone for your comments. I'm always glad to see them.

In the next chapter, we will finally get to the System Scan, and the crazy aftermath which leads to the big twist. I hope you'll look forward to it.

-Lacien