Chapter 115: The Iron Bloom Unfurling on My Back

"────!!!!"

The woman before me. Mugino Shizuri’s refined features twisted into a smile that looked as though her lips were being torn apart.

From both her shoulders, twin arms of lightning burst forth, swinging down with a creaking roar.

In the fleeting interval stretched thinner than a blade, I exchanged a glance with Misaka-san, wordlessly sharing intent.

(Misaka-san! We’ll head toward Nurikae-san!)

(Got it!!)

Immediately after.
With a tremor that made it feel as though the whole mountain had been shaken, a massive sand-iron "dragon" rose up behind Misaka-san.

Its full length—easily over ten meters. The wingspan, perhaps fifty meters from end to end. It was so imposing, it looked like it had gathered every last grain of sand iron in this mountain. The sheer spectacle drew Mugino-san’s attention away.

She sneered, mocking such a petty ploy, flaunting her own superiority in response.

"What the hell…? Nobody called for you, Third Rank!!"

The dragon of sand iron itself was swiftly overpowered by the two "giant arms."

But from the beginning, Misaka-san hadn’t intended to oppose her head-on.

With a deafening DOOOOON!!
The instant Mugino-san struck the dragon, the massive body detonated. Of course, this wasn’t from the force of her blow. Misaka-san had been manipulating the sand iron that way from the start.

Thus, the storm of scattered sand iron temporarily erased all vision in the area. For everyone—except us, who had already mapped out the surroundings beforehand with aero-scan!!

"────Tch, damn, you trying to run, you fake Fourth, Another Four!?"

"Your forfeited win is fine by us, Pro-vis-ion-al Fifth Rank. If you’d like, why not go ahead and call yourself the Fourth instead! O-ho-ho-ho-ho!"

On her way out.
As she darted past Mugino-san at high speed, Reicia-chan spat out a taunt that struck right at Mugino-san’s deepest sore spot.

"────────!!!!!! You little shitttttttttttttttttttttttttt!!!!!!!!"

"Ahhh, she really hasn’t changed in that regard, has she…? Still, with the Third Rank standing right in front of you, that opening… could prove fatal, Fourth Rank."

With a thunderous BOOOOM!! a colossal sand-iron arm, unleashed as if in reprisal for Mugino-san’s humiliation, was barely held back by Kinuhata-san.

Watching this out of the corner of my eye, we soared through the air, chasing after Gensei-san.

…Still, though. Mugino-san and Kinuhata-san at once, and she’s holding her ground without faltering—that’s Academy City’s Third Rank for you. Unshakable.

Chapter 3 – The Worth of a Soul Is Worthless: Double(Square)_Faith
Chapter 95: The Iron Bloom Unfurling on My Back #i.

After leaving the mountaintop to Misaka-san and flying off, barely a dozen seconds had passed.

We’d gone maybe a few hundred meters north when we were forced to halt in midair. …No, it would be more accurate to say we had no choice but to stop.

"Hah-haahh!! Do it, you puppet husk—blast that wannabe angel out of the sky!!"

"You’ve gotten your hands on some pretty entertaining science toys yourself, haven’t you—!!"

──Amata-san, or rather, the other Kuriba, was clashing with Gensei-san.

The two collided in the sky, scattering sparks of some kind I couldn’t quite identify. Flying straight into their battlefield would have been plain suicide.

We landed on a forested slope below, lowering our passengers—Touma-san, Hokaze-san, and Iruka-san—onto the ground.

"I’ll draw Kuriba-san away. Touma-san, you deal with Gensei-san. Hokaze-san and Iruka-san, handle Amata-san."

"Two against that gentleman? Isn’t that a little excessive? Wouldn’t it be better to reinforce Misaka-sama?"

"With a Level 5 and a Level 4 powerhouse, Misaka can shut things down just fine. The real problem is Kihara Amata. He’s the kind of monster even two Level 4s might not be able to beat. …Drop your guard, and he’ll take your legs right out from under you, Yumiarrows-san."

"…Understood."

It’s not that I’m underestimating Hokaze-san or Iruka-san. Far from it.

But honestly, Amata-san is an opponent we’d need to go all-out against ourselves. Truth is, even with two-on-one, I doubt they could actually beat him. At best, they can buy us the time we need until our plan is complete. Even that much is enough to make our job drastically easier.

"…Everyone, may fortune be with you!"

Calling out to Touma-san and the others, we beat the air with the wings of "Fissures," weaving between the trees as we closed in on Gensei-san and his foe.

High above, Gensei-san was swinging what looked like a giant blade made of plasma-like light. And right above his head──something like an angel’s halo was beginning to form.

『This is bad…』

The voice crackled in at my ear. It was Adabana-san.

"Adabana-san? You’re already good to go?"

『I told you from the start I could keep fighting. You’re the one who dragged me back because you didn’t like how indecently exposed I looked.』

Adabana-san grumbled in clear dissatisfaction, then added,

『…Baba left a number of his robots hidden throughout the forest. They’re useless in a fight, but at least they give us some situational awareness. The problem is… Nurikae’s spirit. I can already see the soul transformation is progressing dangerously far.』

"What did you say?"

…T-transformation!?

"You can even tell something like that!?"

『Of course it’s not my specialty. Keep in mind this isn’t precise data. But I am still a professional magician. With your own connections to the Magic Side, you should know what I mean if I say "magic relating to the dead," yes? Even outside my field, I can at least judge whether a soul is still close to human.』

Which means…
Possession. …Soul… transformation.

"Double-Personality, Square Faith…! And it’s already on the verge of collapsing!!!!"

If I remembered right, Adabana-san once said in our case it could even reach up to a Magic God.

Then why is Gensei-san’s current "angel-level" output so weak? It doesn’t add up. If there’s a way to make sense of it, the most likely explanation is that his "Double-Personality, Square Faith" is incomplete—and that failure is dragging him down!

Come to think of it, even Kakine-san, who was relying on Gensei-san’s so-called "Legacy," nearly ruined Ringo-chan in the process. If even Gensei-san himself mishandled the source knowledge and ended up in the same mess… well, that only made sense.

"──I see an opening—"

At that moment, the battle in the skies shifted.

Looking up at the voice, I saw Gensei-san looming directly above the other Kuriba, who had frozen for an instant to deal with the multiple, ripple-like layers of "blades of light."

"You’ve put up a decent fight, but this was always just checkmate. Sorry, but I’m going to crush that bothersome ‘inside’ of yours flat."

With a resounding THUUUUDDDDD!!!!, a massive "stake of light" manifested over Gensei-san’s entire right arm, slamming down to engulf the other Kuriba.

"Shi—!!"

Of course, the aftermath didn’t end there.

An angel’s strike had been slammed into the mountain. Even by conservative measure, it should’ve caused a landslide. With Touma-san and the others we’d just dropped off in mind, we rushed down to shore up the slope using "Fissures"—but that’s when we noticed it.

If a "stake" of angelic output had really been driven into the mountainside, there should’ve been a "ground-sweeping shockwave" spreading out.

But there wasn’t.

No, wait.

The stakes haven’t even reached the mountain slope in the first place.

"What… is that…?"

"…Good grief. To think I’d be fitted with such a troublesome function."

At that moment—when the exchange of ‘something’ like beams of light or shockwaves briefly halted—I was finally able to clearly see the other Kuriba-san.

She looked like a celestial maiden.

The feathered robe she wore, seemingly made from some kind of white plant-like material, would never make anyone believe she was a machine. Her brown skin, her white hair—those simply gave the impression of a different kind of lifeform. Nothing more, nothing less. It all felt utterly natural… except for one thing.

The back of the other Kuriba-san was ‘in bloom.’

It was like giant metallic petals. A massive metallic-red flower, with numerous silver rods jutting out like stamens and pistils.

The impression was so biological that it looked like some part of a living organism, yet considering that the other Kuriba-san’s essence was mechanical, there was another way to describe the function:

It looked like a parabolic antenna, built to receive ‘something.’

《No way…! At this stage already…!?》

We—we knew what that function was.

And if so, it would explain how Kuriba-san was able to overwhelm Gensei-san, who wielded power on the level of an ‘angel.’

Because.

The other Kuriba-san, carrying the wide-spread petals on her back, was radiating purple lightning across her entire body.

《…The Misaka Network…》

Reicia-chan muttered in a pained voice.

《Amata Kihara! That mad scientist took Rensa’s technology as a stepping stone and seized control of the Misaka Network!!》

…As terrifying as it was, I had to admit—I mostly agreed!!

A human built one hundred percent out of machinery. When I first heard that phrase, somewhere in my mind I’d already linked it to ‘that technology.’ An esper cyborg, with everything except the brainstem replaced by machines. By altering the internal structure of their own body, they could redirect the ‘emission point’ of an esper ability into themselves, allowing them to hijack abilities from across Academy City.

Amata-san must have remodeled the other Kuriba-san, retrofitting her with that very function.

Of course, it couldn’t be a perfect reproduction of Rensa-san’s version. Given the timeline, it’s doubtful such a level of technology even existed yet. But if it were a downgraded version?

A cyborg technology restricted to only the Third Rank would be more than feasible, and Gensei-san had already proven during the Daihaseisai that tapping into the Misaka Network through the Third Rank could yield massive power output. And since it didn’t rely on Misaka Mikoto’s will, there was no need to wrest control from Mental Out!!

If the function was simply to borrow abilities, then yes—this was completely achievable within existing technology…!

At the Daihaseisai, Mikoto-san’s output had been strong enough to push back even Gensei-san’s ‘angel’-class power without seeming out of place. And now, since Gensei-san was gradually crumbling away, our estimate of his remaining ‘time’ might be far shorter than we’d originally thought…!

And if the other Kuriba-san really was wielding Mikoto-san’s ability at that same output—

………………!

We immediately soared into the sky.

──The difference was obvious.

The Fourth Rank versus a Level 4 powerful esper.

A battle fought both up close and at range could indeed give them the advantage against most enemies. But when their “Extinction Light” was deflected by a shield of purple lightning, and their nitrogen-based melee was countered by iron-sand arms with equal or greater force, the two attackers simply lacked the necessary “volume” of strikes against the Third Rank’s ability.

"Phew…! You really are overwhelming, you know that!? Can’t you fight in a bit more of a refreshing way!?"

"Shut the hell up, brat!! Don’t you go getting cocky just because you twisted my attack trajectories a little!! Fight me seriously!! Or are you too scared to lose, huh!?"

"Uh, yeah, no. Obviously I’m not gonna challenge someone like you in a contest of raw firepower…"

Twisting another one of those Meltdowner beams, Mikoto tried to take advantage of the gap in Mugino’s guard by sending an iron-sand whip at her back—

"…Gah!?"

But at that moment, she was struck by an unbearable headache, and all of her powers were forcibly canceled.

The blank in her ability use lasted only for the blink of an eye. Mikoto immediately applied magnetism to fling herself out of the combat zone and reset her stance. But of course, the enemy would never commit the folly of overlooking such a momentary anomaly.

"My, my. What’s the matter, Third Rank? You look like you’re really hurting there."

"It’s nothing…! You two are just so pitifully weak that I got sleepy and slipped up on my control, that’s all…!"

"Oh, is that so. Then let’s wake you up with THIS!!!!"

The bluff was transparent. Mugino didn’t bother clinging to Mikoto’s taunt—instead interpreting the situation favorably, assuming that Mikoto had reached the limits of her calculation capacity under the pressure of her and Kinuhata’s pincer assault.

She swung down her twin arms of Meltdowner beams.

In that fleeting instant, Mikoto tried to devise a plan—

(This headache…! In this condition, I can’t dodge that attack using magnetism…!? Then iron sand—No, impossible! There’s no way it can hold out! If I try to shove her back with the iron sand, the targeting… No! She’s keeping the air manipulator close as her guard! …Damn it!!)

Dodging with her ability was out of the question. Recognizing that fact instantly, Mikoto staked everything on parrying the Meltdowner with every shred of her power, while relying only on her body to run and escape the kill zone by even the smallest margin.

"Ahahahaha!! What the hell is that pathetic sight!! Go on, shake your ass and beg me for mercy! Maybe I’ll even spare your life if I’m in the mood!?"

Utterly merciless.

Mugino swung down her twin arms of light like the blades of a guillotine—

"…Looks like we made it just in time."

But under the descending arms of extinction, the wounded Third Rank was nowhere to be found.

Instead, above.

A young lady with black-and-white wings on her back was cradling Mikoto in a princess carry.

"…That was close. Thanks, Shiren, Reicia."

"We’re already aware of the trick behind your condition, but let’s leave that for later."

Reicia lowered Mikoto to the ground, then turned her eyes toward their greatest threat.

"I’ll handle the Fourth Rank. Can I trust you with the other one?"

"Seriously, what an insult. Even injured, I can still deal with someone of that level."

"Talk about underestimating. An arrogant, injured Level 5? Super easy to take down."

"Well, well. Looks like you’re back again, ‘Another Four.’"

Faced with Mugino’s combative grin, Reicia calmly folded her arms and locked eyes with her opponent.

Battle was inevitable. By this point, Reicia had steeled herself as well—for nothing less than a decisive, final clash with the Fourth Rank.

"Sorry to keep you waiting. Now, shall we have our rematch, Fourth Rank?"

The Fourth Rank, and the so-called “Another Four.”

A pure collision between two espers, stripped of any impurities, was about to begin.