Bonus: The Grave Dilemma②

Turning points in fate are often lying around in the most unexpected places.

Every time someone unknowingly steps on such a point, the flow of destiny shifts. The more players involved, the higher the frequency of these shifts, and as a result, fate undergoes biological-like changes, almost as if fighting over a TV remote.

For example—Kamijou Touma versus Kihara Gensei.

What seemed like nothing more than a clash could, in its aftershocks, bring about unforeseen twists in destiny.

"…So you're saying we should just slack off on kidnapping Ryoko Kuriba?"

Frenda Seivelun strolled lazily down the night road, looking bored.

Academy City’s night, long past final dismissal, was devoid of human presence. The only living being nearby was the boy walking beside her, a lower-ranked member of their organization—Hamagami Shiage.

"In the end, if we bump into Mugino on duty, we’re toast. Even if we don’t, we’ll look suspicious later when there’s a gap in our movements. So we still need to put together some kind of alibi."

"At first, I thought maybe I’d head over to District 21 and have Bisai hide me for a bit," Frenda said casually.

Shiage had no idea who this “Bisai” was, but considering her ridiculously wide social circle, it was probably one of her many strange connections. Despite her cruelty when on the job, Frenda was surprisingly friendly and, whether in the light or the shadows, always seemed to have bizarre networks of acquaintances.

"So, what do we do then? Do we at least check in on Ryoko Kuriba’s place?"

"Uuun, if we don’t go, people will start asking, ‘why didn’t you even go near her?’ But if we go straight there, we’ll end up stuck having to actually kidnap Ryoko Kuriba. That’s just how it’ll play out."

With her slender index finger pressed against her lips in a thinking gesture, Frenda hummed and groaned dramatically.

Shiage stared blankly at her profile when suddenly—

"That’s it!!!!"

"Whoa! The hell—don’t just scream like that outta nowhere!"

"If we get ourselves caught up in a different incident instead, everything’s fine!"

"……Huh?"

Shiage could only respond with more question marks as Frenda declared her idea with full confidence.

But however nonsensical it sounded, it clearly made perfect sense in her head. Even under his obvious skepticism, she didn’t seem the least bit bothered.

"We want to slack off on the job Mugino gave us. But if we ditch it without a reason, what’s waiting is Mugino’s punishment. Right?"

"Punishment? More like straight-up execution, if you ask me. How the hell do you stay so optimistic about Mugino’s penalties…? You’re always the one getting beaten to a pulp."

"That’s why I thought of this! If we’re gonna get chewed out for skipping without a reason, then we just make up the reason ourselves!"

"You can’t just… make one up. What, you think some convenient incident’s just gonna happen to—"

Shiage was mid-sentence when—

BOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!

The roar was so overwhelming that its source and even its distance couldn’t be gauged. It shook the night sky of Academy City, and instinctively Shiage dropped into a crouch—only to be yanked down hard to the ground by Frenda, who had already dived into cover.

"Guuh—agh!?"

"Idiot! If you just crouch down in the open like that, you’re basically begging the enemy to kill you! You trying to die!?"

Groaning, Shiage raised his head.

"W…what the hell? What just happened…?"

"Dunno. But chunks of rubble are falling over here, so something with a hell of a lot of firepower just got blasted. …By the way, Shiage-kun. Mind repeating what you were just about to say?"

"…I said, ‘This city never lets you get bored, huh.’ That’s what I said!"

"On that point, I couldn’t agree more!"

With a grin, Frenda dragged along the exasperated Shiage and started moving toward the source of the blast.

Not that she was stupid enough to just walk straight down the road. In Frenda’s case—

"…What are you doing?"

It looked like she was scribbling graffiti on the wall of a nearby abandoned factory.

"Mm, covert work. You know, this city doesn’t actually have that many places to hide. Walking around like this, at busy hours it’s one thing, but right now we’d just stick out like sore thumbs. So, we’ll slip inside nice and smart with a little unlawful entry."

"You just keep racking up petty crimes like it’s nothing…"

Using something like white chalk, she drew a rectangular outline big enough for two people to pass through on the factory’s outer wall. Then, standing beside it, she pressed a pen-shaped device against the line.

The white outline was made of powdered explosives, and by sending an electric signal from the pen-shaped device, she could ‘ignite’ it. Normally she used it as a fuse to detonate her planted bombs, but against a simple building wall, using a bit extra was more than enough to burn straight through.

Sparks flew—Zubachii!!—and the concrete wall was sharply burned through. Pointing at the wobbling wall, Frenda muttered:

"So, all that’s left is to give this a kick and we’re through."

With a rather loud gakon, the concrete wall was hollowed out.

Under normal circumstances, such a noise at night would raise eyebrows—but unfortunately, this ‘gakon’ was already insignificant compared to the racket surrounding them. Tomorrow, Academy City would probably be swamped with news reports. Compared to that, demolishing a single building might not even be a big deal.

"Now, now… hmm, lucky or unlucky? Shiage, looks like the source of all this noise is ‘over there’."

At her words, Shiage focused his attention on Frenda.

Where she was grinning and pointing her thumb…

On the other side of the fitted windows of a house—

‘What a pain in the ass. If I’m gonna get taken down anyway, might as well go all out and unleash an “Angel”-class strike right here.’

Kihara Gensei was self-destructing.

Chapter 3 — A Soul’s Worth Is Worthless　Double(Square)_Faith.
Extra: A Serious Dilemma >>>>>> Second District 21 Ryoko Souba Capture Battle ②

"Gyah, gyah, gyawaa────!!!!"

"Idiot idiot idiot idiot!! And wait, that was Nurikae Onorei, right!? The same guy who got reverse-dumped by his fiancée, the one from Jagged Edge, and then got busted for corruption!!! Why the hell is he out of holding!?"

As you know, the explosion itself had its damage minimized thanks to Reisia’s intervention, but that doesn’t mean there were zero aftereffects.
It wasn’t on the level of an “Angel”-class incident, but the shockwave was at least equivalent to setting off regular dynamite — blasting through the surrounding area, especially in Frenda and Hamazura’s direction.
If Hamazura hadn’t yanked Frenda down in that instant, the two of them would’ve been showered in glass shards, drenched head to toe in red, dressed up like walking blood-drenched mannequins.

Having barely avoided the brunt of the blast, the two of them scrambled into cover, crawling on hands and knees to hide in the shadows. They needed to avoid any possible follow-up attack (even though, technically, the earlier self-detonation wasn’t aimed at them) and also take a moment to check whether they’d suffered any injuries from the blast.

"Haa… haa… Th-thanks. You saved me there."

"Don’t thank me for something this small, it’s creepy. More importantly, who the hell was that guy…?"

"No idea…"

Frenda and Hamazura kept tossing words back and forth casually, but then both of them stopped breathing almost at the same time.
The reason was simple — they heard footsteps echoing inside the very building they were hiding in.

Given the situation, there was only one person it could be.

The escaped convict who just blew himself up — Nurikae Onorei.

(Damn it!? Today’s cursed or something, huh!? And now the footsteps are getting closer…!!)

"──Hmmm. For now, I’ve managed to keep it suppressed, but I’d say my time limit is… about three hours, give or take."

The voice was completely unlike the panicked, frantic tone Hamazura remembered hearing on talk shows; instead, it carried a sly, almost seasoned weight to it — calm, deliberate, and strangely composed.

Apparently, Nurikae was preoccupied with something happening to his own body and hadn’t noticed Frenda and Hamazura hiding in the shadows. Careless.

He walked deeper into the abandoned factory, muttering more information to himself.

"If the stability of the 『Vessel』 could improve, I could probably push the output further, but…"

And with those words fading into the hollow air, Nurikae disappeared into the depths of the abandoned factory.
His voice was lost amidst the echoing of his footsteps, but Frenda and Hamazura remained motionless, holding their breaths as they cautiously glanced at each other.

(Wh… what the hell was that just now!? And wait — didn’t it look like his hands were cracked!? That wasn’t normal, right!?)

(How the hell would I know!? But judging from what he just said… sounds like if things keep going like this, his body’s gonna… self-destruct? Or something.)

(Which means he’s probably trying to find a way to stop it, huh… Hmph, so in the end, things are finally starting to make sense.)

Frenda stood up as she said that.

The echoes of footsteps had already faded. Her expression brimmed with confidence — her mind made up.

"We’re going after him. …I mean, anyone who can unleash that kind of insane firepower in the middle of the city — well, around this abandoned factory, but still — is way too dangerous to leave roaming free! If we let him go, Academy City’s in trouble! And besides, we were attacked right in front of our faces, weren’t we!? That’s more than enough reason to hit back!"

"His motive’s probably some grudge against Academy City for arresting him… I dunno the full story, but even if we’re crooks, if innocent civilians start getting dragged into this mess… we can’t exactly sit on our asses and ignore it, can we?"

…It was a laughably shameless thing to say, but unfortunately, there was no sensible person here to point that out.

The two petty criminals exchanged matching, nasty little grins.

"…Tch. Fine, fine, Mr. Hero. But try thinking about the poor sap who’s gotta tag along, will ya?"

"Quit whining, delinquent boy. Like it or not, we’re the only ones who can deal with this, so better accept it now — it’ll make things easier later."

With overly theatrical lines — or rather, indulging themselves in a cheap stage play pretending to be noble warriors of justice — the two small-time crooks bumped their fists together.

Of course, the act carried a heavy dose of self-deprecating irony, since neither of them actually believed in any heroic ideals… but even so────

"…Alright, let’s move. If we manage to snag Nurikae, we could use him as a bargaining chip with Reisia. Hell, Mugino might even be pleased."

"Two Level 0 nobodies, taking on some freak who can make explosions like that? …Yeah, sounds real realistic…"

Grumbling all the while, the two idiots slipped out into the night.

Their target — Nurikae Onorei.