Bonus: The Dark Matter Boy’s Impressions

The first thing that felt off was Yuzuriha’s way of fighting.

(…Strange. When it counts, she can’t finish the attack. Is her control incomplete, letting Ringo’s own aversion to combat seep through?)

Spreading his three pairs of wings, Kakine Teitoku pondered quietly.

Standing before him was a young girl. A former test subject of the Dark May Project, an esper conditioned to carry the obsession with Accelerator. Her camisole was disheveled from the fierce battle, but even after clashing with the Number Two, she bore virtually no physical damage.

Kakine’s gaze flicked further back.

There stood a brown-haired boy—Kihara Souji—watching the clash between Yuzuriha and Kakine intently. He had set up DA Arrows’ grunts as a living shield and further deployed multiple UAVs, a flawless defensive formation.

That too struck Kakine as odd.

Kihara Souji’s goal was to modify the Dark May Project’s subjects to create a “replacement for Accelerator” and, through that, to “cheer up” Kihara Amata. Their battle was meant as a field test to verify those specs. Naturally, it made sense to bring a minimal “shield” along. But if he truly believed he had produced a specimen equal to “the Number One in theory,” his defenses should have been far thinner.

This wasn’t a matter of logic. It was a matter of pride—the pride of a “Kihara” who always bore absolute confidence in his own research. And judging from his behavior up until now, Souji was not a man lacking that pride.

(Does he have some hidden objective?)

That possibility… was the line.

If Souji had “something” beyond simply throwing Yuzuriha at him, then this weak-kneed stance began to make sense. It made sense, but…

“…I don’t like it. I’m done.”

With that, Kakine abruptly ended the high-speed maneuvers he had been maintaining.

Yuzuriha lunged regardless, but he blew her away with a single sweep of his wings. As a side note, the gust he produced with just that casual swing already far outstripped the full strength of the underground Fourth, Another Four.

“What do you think you’re doing? The experiment isn’t finished yet.”

“You’re not serious.”

When Kakine said it, Kihara Souji fell silent, his pasted-on smile unmoving.

“You thought I wouldn’t notice? I can see it plain as day in how much effort you’re putting in. If this really was your ace-in-the-hole, the experimental subject you were so confident in, you’d be showing a hell of a lot more fire. So what’s with this half-baked retreat? Your lack of willpower is written all over your face.”

“…!!”

Bull’s-eye, apparently.

Souji let his smile slip away and put on an awkward, guilty look. It was the expression of someone sincerely feeling remorse.

“…Ahaha, so you did figure it out.”

As he spoke, he diverted Kakine’s latest burst of Dark Matter phenomena with a meat shield and went on.

“It’s true, I was working with the goal of making a ‘replacement’ for Accelerator. But it’s not like I cared about matching Accelerator’s performance specs or anything like that~.”

Yuzuriha descended in front of him. Unlike her earlier rampage, her movements now seemed calmer, at least on the surface.

“What mattered was creating a substitute for Amata-san’s favorite, Accelerator.”

“The way you say it, sounds like you’ve got another way of making a ‘replacement’ besides just copying his powers.”

“Ehh~. It hasn’t gone public yet, though.”

Ssshh—

Souji stepped back.

“Jagged Edge the Black-and-White Sawblade. Soon to make their debut as a new Level 5 esper.”

That was the signal.

The DA Arrows grunts began a mass retreat, and Souji’s figure disappeared, swallowed by the human tide. When the wave passed, only Yuzuriha and the UAVs remained.

From the UAVs, Souji’s voice came through.

『Ahh, really sorry! I never imagined Kakine-san would call me out on my attitude toward the experiment. You’re right—going into a test halfheartedly, with no real will and no intent to break anything, is an insult to the test subject. If Amata-san finds out, he’ll be furious with me. I’ll reflect on this, promise!』

“…Are you making a fool out of me?”

『No, no, not at all! As compensation, I’ll hand over Psychokinetic Chime: Concealed Vice. With the data stored in this UAV, you should be able to get at least the basic information on the Dark May Project. Useful to you too, right, Kakine-san?』

“……”

To be blunt, Kakine felt mocked enough that the next time they met he wouldn’t mind blowing off an arm or two without a word of warning. Yet with that, Kihara Souji seemed to relinquish control of the UAV. Judging from the situation, it would be difficult to track his location via signal and mount a pursuit.

And in the first place, Kakine’s objective wasn’t some petty crook like Kihara Souji. He wasn’t foolish enough to mistake his priorities.

“…Tch. Homura, Homura. We’re pulling out. I’m taking Ringo back with me. Get ready to run data analysis.”

From there, events moved quickly.

With Kihara Souji—the greatest immediate threat—making a hasty retreat, Kakine was able to push forward the analysis of Yuzuriha’s data sooner than in the “official history.” And then—

“An organ shut-down command, under specific conditions? …This is wrong! This section alone is completely irrational! The formula itself deviates from the core programming principles Souji uses!!”

“…Ah, I get it now. That’s what felt off. The target wasn’t Ringo at all—it was me.”

BUAATSSHHH!!!!

From his back, three pairs of pure white wings burst open.

“But they’re underestimating me. ‘The girl I got close to ends up dying in some evil scheme’—is that it?”

The angelic wings gently scooped over Yuzuriha’s body, brushing across her like a caress.

At that alone, her entire body was enveloped in a transparent crystalline substance.

“Ka…kine…?”

“Don’t worry.”

Every one of her organs was shutting down, her body right on the verge of death. Yet Kakine didn’t so much as break a sweat as he spoke.

“Your so-called fate of death doesn’t mean a damn thing to me. My Dark Matter doesn’t obey common sense. …When you wake up next, all you need to think about is what you want to eat.”

“…Then… I… wa…nt… ga…le…”

Before she could finish, Ringo Yuzuriha’s body was sealed completely within crystal, her vital functions entirely suspended.

But—it wasn’t death. Like a tardigrade entering suspended animation to survive in extreme conditions, she had merely paused her life functions to avert the worst possible end. Kakine had used his Dark Matter to artificially reproduce that phenomenon within the human body.

“…You already ate galette, you idiot.”

From that day onward, School had gained one more member.

She would never speak, never join in missions, and of course would never be counted in any official roster. And yet—recognized by everyone in School—there was now one more girl among them.

Chapter 2 – I Don’t Choose Between Two Options: PHASE-NEXT.
Bonus: The Dark Matter Boy’s Impressions

It was two days later that the situation finally began to move.

“…I knew something was off.”

Murmuring to himself, Kakine stared at the monitor’s display.

Behind him, a girl encased in crystal slept soundly, tethered to a massive array of medical equipment.

“There are other promising test subjects out there. That much I can accept, irritating as it is. But—” his voice cut sharply, punctuating each syllable, “do you really think you can back off that easily, with that level of commitment—and still pick a fight with a Level 5, the Second in the entire city?”

Regarding Kihara Souji’s attack, Academy City’s upper echelon had quietly given School permission to retaliate.

Which meant Souji had launched his strike while fully aware it could escalate into an all-out war with School. Even now, Kakine—no, School—had by no means “forgiven” him.

Though Souji had since vanished underground, branches of their organization were still scouring the city, preparing to exact payback the instant he was found.

For all that risk, for him to simply say “there are other test subjects, so I’ll give this one up” and walk away—that wasn’t just unnatural for a researcher like Kihara. It was unnatural for any sane human being with a shred of crisis management.

And now, the answer to that dissonance was right before his eyes.

“…Kihara Gensei.”

The one who whispered the name was Yobou, who swallowed hard before speaking.

“We couldn’t pinpoint when the self-destruct program was embedded in Ringo Yuzuriha, even with School’s intelligence network. But there are traces showing that around the same time Souji began investing effort into the ‘Another Four,’ the code was woven in—so subtly that Souji himself probably didn’t even notice.”

“So the experiment that dragged Ringo into this mess wasn’t Souji’s personal rampage?”

“Exactly. From what we can tell, he was only meddling with the DA Arrows at the very end. About a week ago, a researcher infamous as one of Kihara Gensei’s protégés was appointed as a psychiatric counselor at the Anti-Skill retraining center. The timing strongly suggests Gensei’s hand in the self-destruct program.”

The girl in the dress pressed him further, and Yobou nodded.

“Kihara Souji used his position as counselor for DA Arrows to carry out their brainwashing. But if Gensei’s ‘color’ had already been mixed into DA Arrows beforehand, then during those very counseling sessions, that ‘color’ could’ve been passed on to Souji himself.”

So that was the reason for Souji’s strangely meek retreat.

Most likely, without ever realizing it, the priorities within him had been rewritten: the experiments involving Ringo Yuzuriha relegated to low importance, while the experiments involving Reicia = Blackguard were raised to the highest.

That would explain why he had abandoned things so easily.

And yet—despite the cascade of shocking truths being laid out, Kakine didn’t so much as twitch an eyebrow.

“…No. That’s not quite right.”

“…?”

“Kihara Gensei wasn’t the one who embedded the self-destruct program.”

Kakine said this as he glanced back at the crystalline girl sleeping behind him.

“Just before I put Ringo under, I read the electrical signals in her brain—her heart, so to speak—through a combination of light and sound. I didn’t have much time, so the info came out fragmented. But within that mess… there were traces of Kihara Gensei.”

“What…!”

“Hey, don’t take it so hard, Homura. I said it was fragmented, didn’t I? On their own, those scraps didn’t mean a damn thing. Without your intel, I couldn’t have pieced together the truth. You did good work.”

With a laugh, Kakine clapped Yobou on the shoulder.

That alone was enough to drain all the color from Homura’s face, though he had been speaking so smoothly just moments before.

“Ahhh, Homura-san, you okay there? Want me to grab a bucket~?”

“If Gensei wasn’t the mastermind, then how exactly was he involved?”

Stepping in for the crouched, stricken Homura, the girl in the dress—Gokusai—posed the question.

“He called it a ‘ticket.’”

“…?”

While Gokusai tilted her head at the cryptic word, Kakine’s mind conjured up the phantom of an old man he had glimpsed in those fragmented signals.

『Well, well. You’ve made it this far. As expected of the Number Two. As a reward, I’ll give you a “ticket.”』

『The Daihaseisai. Remember that word.』

『I’m sure you’ll get to see something interesting there, hmm?』

Recalling those words, Kakine quietly clenched his fist. The confirmation was complete.

“…Forget it. It’s a stupid story.”

Putting the pieces together—Kihara Gensei was inviting him.

He had deliberately involved himself in Souji’s rampage, left his scent behind, all for the sole purpose of luring Kakine Teitoku in.

The Daihaseisai.

Most likely, it would be painted into a hellscape where the pigment itself was a Level 5, Academy City’s Number Two.

“Heh. Fine by me. Let’s see if your pretty little painting can keep up with my Dark Matter. I’ll test it myself.”

And perhaps—beyond that—
lay the final clue that could lead him to saving a single girl.