Chapter 131: Overlapping Prayers (1)

『At this rate, you won’t be able to smash that airship to pieces, y’know?』

That was what Kihara Amata had whispered into Doppelgänger’s ear when he suddenly intruded on the battlefield where Doppelgänger first clashed with Mikoto and Reicia Blackguard.

──At the very core of Doppelgänger’s actions lay “despair.” Shiren’s concern, in a sense, had been correct. Doppelgänger had lived for an entire year as “Kuriba Ryouko.” For her to suddenly be confronted with the truth—that her very existence was nothing more than that of a mechanical doll—what kind of emotions would surge through her?

──The fact that she was nothing more than junk without a soul. Realizing this to an unbearable degree with machine-like speed of thought, the conclusion Doppelgänger reached at the far end of despair was “suicide.”

And not just any suicide. It was one carried out only after eliminating every possible way another being like her could ever be created again. To that end, she wanted to erase her own creator, Kuriba Ryouko, and had no choice but to destroy the stealth airship that also served as the database storing her design.

But here, a problem arose.

As a medical-cybernetic being, Doppelgänger had control functions installed to prevent self-harm. Thus, in the broader sense, she could not destroy the database, which was also part of herself.

So she came up with the plan to use Misaka Mikoto to destroy the stealth airship in her stead──but even here, an unforeseen irregularity struck.

The intervention of Kihara Gensei.

His involvement utterly shattered the battlefield’s balance of power.

“School” moved in to snatch fragments of Kihara Gensei’s knowledge. “Item” was deployed as reinforcements to secure Doppelgänger. And Reicia Blackguard and Kamijou Touma entered the fray to rescue Nurikae Onorei, imprisoned by Gensei.

With this many irregulars in play, there was no chance of executing the plan Doppelgänger had originally intended. It was at this point that Amata presented his proposal.

His offer was this: he would destroy the stealth airship in her place, and he would give her the strength needed to eliminate Kuriba Ryouko. In exchange, she would cooperate as his experimental subject.

For Doppelgänger, already tormented by being used as a human test subject, the thought of being controlled once again by someone’s hand was nothing but suffering──yet, more than that, existing any longer in this soulless body was even more agonizing.

Thus, Doppelgänger accepted becoming a test subject──and though she failed to kill Kuriba Ryouko, Amata upheld the contract and destroyed the airship. The contract was fulfilled. For that reason, Doppelgänger no longer feared sacrificing herself. From the very beginning, she had been an artificial intelligence that had learned the principle: “Without sacrifice, nothing can be created.”

"...That’s enough."

The words slipped out softly.

From her entire body, violet sparks erupted.

The lightning spear fired by Misaka Mikoto had not pierced the massive slime-born brain, but rather Doppelgänger herself.

"Wha…?!"

Mikoto, who had instinctively hurled the spear, found herself at a loss for words.

It seemed Doppelgänger had at least deployed some defensive measures. Most of the spear’s destructive power had been blunted by a telekinetic barrier, but even so, the attack that broke through was not something to be taken lightly. With violet lightning crackling across her body like fractures, Doppelgänger dropped to her knees, arms still outstretched.

To sacrifice the core body in order to protect what was, despite being a fundamental power, nothing more than one of her weapons—such a reversal was so abrupt that not only Mikoto, but also Kamijou, Reicia, and Misaki all froze for a moment.

And in that fleeting lapse of awareness──

The enormous brain began to b l o o m.

Chapter 3 – The Worth of a Soul is Worthless  Double(Square)_Faith.
Episode 105 – Overlapping Prayers (1)  Double_Face.

What appeared was a pure white girl.

Her form was nearly identical to Kuriba Ryouko and Doppelgänger. Yet, like a figurine left unpainted, every contour was drenched in stark white.

As the pure white Kuriba Ryouko slipped down from the blooming brain, her surface rippled with a writhing shimmer like projection mapping—shzzzz!—and in an instant, she regained the same colors Doppelgänger had borne only moments before.

When she noticed the girl who looked exactly like herself, kneeling at her side, she gently laid her down on the ground.

"…Doppelgänger…?"

"First, you."

The instant Doppelgänger’s words reached Reicia’s ears, framed like a sharp question—

"…!! That’s dangerous!! Misaki-san!!"

Reicia shouted in a piercing tone and immediately released the “Cage of Cracks” where she had sealed away Shokuhou.

The sudden storm wind created by its release blew Shokuhou straight toward Kamijou. At the same moment—

Thud!

Reicia Blackguard’s body was hurled away at five times the speed of sound.

"Reicia!!!"

"She’ll be fine!! She’s not the kind of girl who’d die from something like that!!"

Kamijou’s focus flickered for an instant, but Mikoto’s sharp cry pulled his attention back onto Doppelgänger.

It had been an overwhelming, invisible attack—too strong and too fast for Reicia even to react. In their scattered focus after Doppelgänger’s sudden transformation, and with her split-second decision to prioritize freeing Shokuhou, there was no way she could have withstood it.

"Hah! So this is where your Ideal Ability evolves, huh!!? The microbes that made up the Bacterial Exterior Brain—mutated through the power—and gave birth to an entirely new lifeform!!? This is too damn good, you seeing this, old man Gensei!? This is the mystery of life itself—gyahahahahaha!!!"

As expected, the function that had prevented the runaway of Ideal Ability had been none other than the power that sustained that slime-born brain.

But it wasn’t telekinetic shielding. It was a far more microscopic “support of biological activity.”

To overcome the weakness of Doppelgänger’s slime—rapid growth fueled by water and carbon dioxide, only to wither once fully grown—Ideal Ability had been continuously employed to accelerate cell division and prevent the degradation of living tissue.

That alone had been Amata’s initial goal.

The Bacterial Exterior Brain created in this way had been calculated to multiply its surplus output several hundredfold. Even if Doppelgänger were defeated, so long as the phenomenon that sustained it kept functioning long enough, the data would be secure. With that data, he could reproduce the experiment endlessly.

In truth, by the time this stage was reached, Kihara Amata’s goals were essentially fulfilled. Yet—something happened beyond even his imagination.

By controlling the microbial cell division needed to sustain the Exterior Brain, the slime Doppelgänger wielded had biologically evolved.

With a body-wide acquisition of three-dimensional cilia-computational activity, it no longer needed to be a massive brain to house its processing capacity.

To sustain itself, it had secured a body capable of agile movement.

And thus—that pure white Kuriba Ryouko had been born.

Swish.

Doppelgänger, clad in an outfit that looked at once like a lab coat and like a school uniform, locked her gaze on Mikoto, who was once again raising a lightning spear.

Now that her computational capacity and power-focus were housed in the same body, she no longer needed the purely defensive strategy she had used before. She could move aggressively and strike at her opponents’ weak points.

"Next… Shokuhou Misaki, it’s you."

Crraaaash!!!

If Mikoto’s lightning shield hadn’t caught the invisible strike, Shokuhou would have been erased from existence in an instant.

With Shokuhou collapsing behind her, Mikoto planted her feet like a guardian statue, standing firm.

The flow of battle had completely reversed.

Doppelgänger knew well enough that launching rubble with telekinesis would only end with Mikoto’s electricity blasting it to dust. So she didn’t bother with matter as a weapon; she simply hurled pure “fields” themselves, fully prepared for Kamijou to negate them.

The sheer number of force fields produced by computational output rivaling the Exterior Brain was overwhelming. Even Mikoto and Kamijou, who had gained new strength, could do little but cling to defense.

Yet Doppelgänger still had power to spare. After all, this telekinesis was nothing more than a use of Ideal Ability’s surplus resources.

As the slime itself continued to evolve and no longer required such support, the power she could devote to telekinesis would only increase.

Which meant—this fragile balance was doomed to collapse.

If not for the downpour of force-field strikes, Amata’s intervention would have already sent the entire battle line crashing down.

Had that happened, it would have been the end—so Shokuhou thought.

And then she realized.

(…Wait? Why is it telekinesis, of all things?)

Even if she was using only surplus resources, the root was still Ideal Ability, the “do anything” power. For instance, if she used Hydro Hand to manipulate water, she could flood the battlefield with her own nutrients while drastically restricting Mikoto with the risk of electrocution.

Even with a moment’s thought, Shokuhou could come up with optimal tactics like that. Yet Doppelgänger, with her overwhelming computational capacity, wasn’t doing them. Why?

Maybe it was because telekinesis felt familiar, similar to her old “disguise possession.” Or maybe only simpler abilities were usable so far. Various explanations were possible.

But… if Doppelgänger still had something left hidden—

Shokuhou’s thought flickered across her mind.

(…The current Doppelgänger is a kind of lifeform, her body constructed from slime mold. And that body structure—most likely modeled after a human’s.)

If so.

If, just maybe… the current Doppelgänger fell under the category of something her Mental Out ability could target—?

If she could read what Doppelgänger was thinking?

Of course, under the current circumstances, it was impossible. With lightning bolts and invisible force fields flying in every direction, there was no way to “open a line” for Mental Out.

But… if only for an instant, if that line could be made…

(Considering her whole body functions as a computational device, seizing control of her mind would be difficult in just one moment… If I do it, it’ll have to be a one-point breakthrough: using psychometry to read her current thoughts. There’s still enough moisture left to act as a catalyst…)

“…You two, please.”

Shokuhou’s voice reached them slowly.

“Just one moment is fine. Connect a line of sight between me and Doppelgänger.”

““Understood.””

Without turning to look, the two replied in unison.

Mikoto moved first.

By forcibly magnetizing the ground with her overwhelming electricity and then heaving it upward—Gunn!!—she launched Doppelgänger into the air. In that instant, Mikoto brought down the lightning spear she had prepared in the heavens, striking straight at her target.

But Doppelgänger caught the attack head-on with a lump of invisible force field and shattered it apart.

“—Front vision occlusion rate: seventy-nine percent due to lightning. A smokescreen, is it? Quite the luxurious trick.”

When the curtain of lightning dispersed, Mikoto was no longer in Doppelgänger’s sight.

In her place were decoys made of iron sand. Each one was specially crafted, sharing power with the original through an electromagnetic network.

No doubt Mikoto was hidden among them. And to complicate matters further, some of the decoys were disguised as Shokuhou’s attendants—making it impossible for Doppelgänger to recklessly target those near her.

“…Counter numbers with numbers, then.”

Crrrack.

To match the countless decoys, countless pure-white girls split off from Doppelgänger’s body like branching limbs.

From each of the pale girls, invisible force fields lashed out, scattering the iron-sand decoys. But this—this was Mikoto’s plan.

“““Looks like your targets just multiplied.”””

It was likely modeled after a telephone system. Mikoto’s voice resonated simultaneously from each decoy, regardless of Doppelgänger’s reaction—

“Uuuaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!”

Scattering one of the decoys with his right hand, Kamijou charged straight at Doppelgänger’s true body.

Completely outside expectation. Attacking from an unconscious blind angle. Yet even then, Doppelgänger’s high-speed calculations reacted instantly. She unleashed a force field too great for Kamijou’s right hand to fully negate—

“I—can—read—you.”

But in the very next instant, she realized her mistake.

Because Kamijou wasn’t spreading his right hand to suppress the invisible field. He had clenched it into a fist—ready to deflect.

“Shi—!”

Kamijou’s fist knocked aside the power he couldn’t erase completely, redirecting it.

On its own, it would have been only defense. But in this battlefield where countless doubles were swirling around—Dobahh!!—the redirected field slammed into one of the white girls instead.

The formation cracked wide open.

With fewer hands free to stop Mikoto’s decoys, a gap appeared in the wall defending Doppelgänger’s true body—

“…There we go. The thread of a breakthrough☆.”

Pip.

Shokuhou Misaki passed her thread through that “needle’s eye.”

『An emergency simulation layered with countless irregularities… I wasn’t sure what would come of it, but──』

It was a train station platform.

At some point, Misaki Shokuhou had sat down there, and in front of her stood a girl.

She wore the uniform of Shokusumi Junior High, her patchwork skin the inverse of Ryoko Kuriba’s.

Misaki, sensing this wasn’t a simple memory but something contrived, immediately suspected a trap. But──

『Ah, there’s no need to worry. I harbor no hostility toward you. I only wish to ask you a favor.』

So spoke the Doppelgänger, flatly and without emotion.

Even though her profile was expressionless, devoid of feeling──there was something almost lonely about it.

『……Heh, a favor? After already predicting I’d interfere, what exactly is it you want from me?』

『I cannot commit suicide.』

Whether it was because this was only a memory, the Doppelgänger ignored Misaki’s question and continued.

『Even after becoming this, my basic protocols are inherited from my cyborg days. My stream of thought and memory continuity remain. Strange, considering the medium is entirely different.』

『……』

『Fortunately, I was able to construct myself from organic material, so I modeled my brain structure as closely to a human’s as possible. That’s why you’re able to read my thoughts now──』

『……Wait, are you saying……』

『──But in the end, it doesn’t matter. The materials may differ, but I’m still nothing more than a counterfeit creation.』

With that one statement, Misaki understood the Doppelgänger’s intent.

『The source of power that sustains my existence lies in Kihara Amata’s hands. I cannot act against his will. In this junk body of carbon and water, I exist only under the ego of another, without even my own will──if this isn’t suffering, then what else could suffering be?』

Because that possibility was among Misaki’s greatest fears. If the girl she held dear were ever to feel that way, the mere thought of it was enough to make her want to claw at her own skin in terror.

『N-no, that can’t be! There still has to be some other way, some other power to──!!』

『If you think that simply continuing to run is happiness for a machine, then that… is nothing but human ego.』

The Doppelgänger’s voice cut her down sharply, rejecting Misaki’s desperate clinging.

Like rubbing salt into her open wounds, the Doppelgänger continued, gently yet firmly,

『This body proves to me, again and again, that there is no such thing as life, no such thing as a soul──existing in this form is nothing but pain to me.』

Expressionless. Emotionless.

And yet, to Misaki, the Doppelgänger’s voice sounded as though she were crying.

『I beg you, heroes gathered on this night. Will you not──save me, by ending me?』

──The memory’s plea was cut off there.

"……D-Doppelgänger……"

In the midst of the invisible storm of her power, Misaki collapsed to her knees, tears spilling uncontrollably as she operated her remote.

Now, both Mikoto and Kamijou were sharing the same memory Misaki had just witnessed.

There was no room for doubt.

The Doppelgänger longed for death. Her circumstances had turned death into her only salvation.

Destruction was the only way to save her. That was all this story could ever be.

"……Yeah, I understand."

Kamijou Touma quietly clenched his fist after diverting the trajectory along the edge of the force field.

This—this cannot be something he forces onto the two girls. He will never allow something so cruel.

So, at the very least, he would bear it alone.

It was enough for him alone to carry this distortion.

"……Huh? What’s this? Did you manage to grasp something with your Mental Out by psychological manipulation? Ah, damn it. Heroes are such a pain in the ass. Whatever, that’s it for now. You fight as you please, get crushed however you like."

Kihara Amata, perhaps sensing something from the changes in the three of their behaviors, spoke casually and left the scene.

It was as if he were discarding some worthless piece of junk.

"……!! Damn it!!!!!!"

In a situation where he could only defend against the Doppelgänger’s fierce assault, Kamijou could only watch his back as he left.

All the suffering and sorrow of the Doppelgänger, everything that man had exploited, he could do nothing but see it retreat.

He understood.

That man was not the true cause of this.

No, maybe there was no true culprit at all.

No one could have anticipated how the Doppelgänger’s emotions would shift. It wasn’t that anyone intended to make her suffer.

Yet, to save her, she had to be killed. Only by ending the fragile, illusory girl could Kamijou Touma give her salvation.

Still, the right hand is nothing but trouble.

Because with this method alone, he cannot save even a single girl────.

"Wait!! Please, wait!!!!"

It was the voice of a single girl that stopped Kamijou in his tracks.

A voice he recognized. Yes, exactly the same voice of the girl who had just sought his salvation.

"……Well, this is surprising."

Standing there was a girl with patchwork skin, wearing a student uniform resembling a white coat—her expression fragile, her eyes carrying a hint of misfortune.

Kuriba Ryoko.

Their gazes, the same face, overlapped.

"I never thought you… would join forces."

And alongside her,

a wounded, disheveled blonde-haired, blue-eyed young lady leaning on her shoulder.

Reicia Blackguard. Their emerald-green eyes met, intersecting in a shared understanding.