CHAPTER 22
No One Can Reach That Ending Alone
Second Friday of October
George Kingdom broke out into a greasy, full-body sweat.
He was the actual leader (rather than the documented leader) of Stargate—the supernatural ability development enterprise a certain country had established during the Cold War. Although that enterprise had failed, he remained a powerful figure and still headed up several projects that were occasionally whispered of in rumors even in the present day. His legendary value was so high, he had free rein over the CIA.
However.
Right now, at this moment, it was all about to come crashing down.
It was strange. He was sure he’d prepared for even the most irregular possibilities, and yet the beast called reality had slipped through the cracks, carrying a terrible conclusion for him. An operation to abduct the Uncut Gems, carried out across the planet all at once. Over fifty independent organizations, each with its own funding and historical foundation, had all been crushed by someone before they’d gotten any results and the entire project had been destroyed.
The term self-defense crossed his mind.
He’d implemented this project at his own discretion, and it had not borne any fruit whatsoever—the only thing that had been accomplished was the flushing of a huge amount of resources down the drain. The Senate would not let this slide. His reputation as well as his very life were most likely forfeit.
But one thing dominated George’s mind, and it overrode his terror.
What…?
A question.
The question of who, exactly, had physically foiled this project. But that wasn’t because he hadn’t been able to see the people who had assaulted each of the organizations. He’d received the latest reports about spies having infiltrated all operational theaters.
What happened…?
But the question was still there.
This operation had the highest degree of confidentiality. Because of that, George Kingdom was the only one who could unify all that information. And thus, he was the only one who had this question out of all those who were involved.
Why?
Why had a bunch of girls, all with the same face, launched attacks across the entire world simultaneously?
Then, George heard a short static buzz by his ear. He’d only shared his radio frequency with his aides, and they’d all supposedly been defeated in the aforementioned attacks.
“Done putting your affairs in order?” came the voice of the General Board’s brain. “Conclusions without trials are underhanded. And as someone who stands in the shadows yourself, I expect you know what it means to make an entire country your enemy.”
“Kumokawa…” George was baffled. Forgetting even his anger, he asked, “Was that…? Did you…? The mass-produced…”
“Oh, yes. And about that,” confirmed the girl genius Seria Kumokawa in a lighthearted tone. “Creating humans using somatic cells is technically forbidden by international law, and we’re quite reluctant to put those girls in harm’s way for military operations like today. I figured, since you owed us, we’d at least provide you with ample amounts of aftercare.”
“……”
George Kingdom was now certain of one thing:
He’d set foot into a place he never should have ventured into.
He currently stood in a special facility that could function as a shelter if needed, but that didn’t give him any peace of mind. Ever since ancient times, those foolish enough to get involved where they shouldn’t had but one fate.
Click.
It was a soft footstep.
“Great… I finally got to make my triumphant return, and now I have to deal with this super-greasy old man who just doesn’t get how things work? Oh well, guess I’ll go see some movies after this job is over or something. Might as well make it, like, a big festival of super-obscure ones not released in Japan.”
A girl’s voice.
George Kingdom couldn’t turn around.
By the time his brain relayed the commands to his neck, it was all over.
Gunha Sogiita, number seven, lay beaten on the ground, faceup, his wound-covered body exposed.
Above him, he had an unobscured view of a wide-open starry sky.
Everything around him was a total disaster now; it was like the area itself wanted to show off the scars it had from a fierce battle. Piles of containers lay broken and scattered; chunks of asphalt had been flipped over; and in places, the very foundation of the ground had cracked, the edges swelling upward to form cliffs.
And yet, even then, he hadn’t been able to win.
The man who said during the battle that he was supposed to become a magic god had bested Sogiita.
Crazy…, he thought.
Despite having been beaten down with overwhelming power, there was a pure light in his eyes. It was hope. The world was still crawling with insane monsters, filled with things he didn’t understand. Those were Number Seven’s honest impressions. It was so obvious, but the world really was a big place.
This planet is brimming with crazy, awesome people.
This time, Number Seven was no match. That man who should have become a magic god had probably been holding back, too. He knew when he was being toyed with. He’d challenged the man with his full power; been treated as though he were a plaything; and then, to add insult to injury, had been left alive.
His opponent had been overwhelming.
Sogiita knew that much for sure. Eventually, slowly, he got to his feet.
The way he did it was like someone waking up from a short afternoon nap.
Without any hurry, he raised his hands above him and stretched. Then his lips moved, and he spoke.
“All righty, then… Gotta get my guts back in tip-top shape. Time for some new training.”
The road—if you could even call it that—seemed to go on forever in this part of the Arizonan desert.
An off-roader was parked on it, with a man sitting on the car’s hood and holding a cell phone to his ear.
Tabigake Misaka.
He made his livelihood guiding the world in a better direction without relying on violence pointing out what it was the world lacked.
“I mean, it kind of seems like a bunch of troubling stuff happened.”
“Same chaos as usual. Not the kind of thing you’d be part of.”
“I’m sure. I certainly wouldn’t use these sorts of methods. I came up with three more peaceful options over the course of the last couple sentences alone.”
“It’s a cost issue. Depends on the situation, but in this case, it was less expensive to wrap it all up with a fight.”
“Can’t get behind that.” Misaka sighed, then picked up the cup of coffee sitting on the hood. “Still, this means those slim possibilities scattered throughout the world are all being recovered and sent to Academy City at once. We already had no clues about them, but this’ll completely cut them off from any hints that would lead to successful supernatural ability development. Truly something only you could have accomplished.”
He took a sip of the bitter liquid and grinned.
“By the way, there’s something I wanted to confirm about this little quarrel.”
“What?”
“I mean, the market seems to be a mess now, too, and I’m just confirming because the people I heard from aren’t very trustworthy. That is, well, Academy City is a city of espers. It’s always possible that someone can use the shadow clone technique, and it’s possible there’s some kind of monster who can instantly teleport tens of thousands of kilometers, but still…”
“……”
“Well, I’m talking about how girls with the exact same face were spotted at those fifty or so research organizations scattered throughout the world.”
Misaka’s tone of voice shifted.
It wasn’t an extreme change, like a wave of emotion had come over him. But something had definitely changed.
“Like I said before, I can’t rely on eyewitness testimony. And Academy City is a city of espers. Something could happen that seems contradictory, but all you’d have to say is that there’s actually some special ability that can overcome that contradiction, and that would be the end of it.”
“I’ll leave that to your imagination. I will, at least, tell you that it’s not an issue you would need to be worried about.”
“I see,” said Misaka casually. And then he asked, “Then the intel that said that the traits of these girls who were seen are extremely similar to my own daughter’s isn’t a problem I need to worry about, is it?”
“…Hmm.”
“Look, Aleister, if you say so, then I don’t really mind. I can’t trust what you say to begin with. But just remember one thing. If I ever hear that you actually did anything to my wife or daughter… Well, you might want to think, at least a little, about what would happen if you made an enemy out of this worthless father.”
“How would you do it?”
The owner of the voice, called Aleister, came back with a simple question.
“How would a single freelancer attack the chairman of Academy City’s General Board?”
“Sure, maybe there’s nothing I could do to take you out in one hit with the way the world is set up.”
Misaka acknowledged that fact.
But he added anyway:
“My job is simply to show the world what it lacks. If something’s missing, it is my business. That’s why I warned you to remember that one thing.”
The adults’ conversation ended.
After their disquieting exchange, both of them slipped back into the underbelly of the world.
Sylvia was vacuuming the hallway in her apartment.
Most of the children brought here by some idiot or another had been entrusted to the Church—and from what she’d heard, many had been taken in by new foster parents to start their second lives—but several were still in the apartment. They weren’t the leftovers who couldn’t find new homes—they’d remained because they wanted to wait for the return of some idiot or another.
She sighed.
What was she still doing in a place like this? Her long-term overseas in-service training period meant to polish her skills as a bonne dame had already ended, and she’d gotten repeated orders to go back home to the United Kingdom. She wasn’t exactly drawing a proper salary to begin with, and this wasn’t one of those old traditional master-servant relationships, either. She made her own money to live off, so she hardly had any reasons to feel tied down to this apartment. Now that the idiot had set off on his own, there was no point in her staying anymore. Going back to the UK that very instant or moving to a better location would have both been better options, but for some reason, she just couldn’t bring herself to leave this apartment.
Well, all reasons tended to be silly.
It would have been utterly ridiculous to even put it into words.
When Sylvia sighed again, she spotted something outside the window. She scratched her hair in disinterest, then set the vacuum down and headed for the front door. Same as always, she opened it—and same as always, she said:
“Yo—welcome back, you massive idiot.”
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