Night had fallen, the LED lights from the building's facade casting a reddish glow on Shirai Kuroko's somewhat pale face.
She touched down with one foot, her injured right foot gingerly following suit.
She couldn't help but grit her teeth, a sharp hiss escaping them. Pulling out her phone, she confirmed the next location to investigate.
Based on the simulated escape route Uiharu had provided, if the target wanted to flee Academy City—a place dense with surveillance and satellite tracking—they'd inevitably have to use hidden paths and back alleys, the so-called blind spots, to avoid the ever-watchful cameras.
They might even need to leverage the complex urban landscape to evade satellite surveillance.
By connecting these blind spots into potential exit routes from the City, they could roughly map out several possible escape paths.
"There's no time left," Shirai muttered. "Even if that Musujime Awaki needs time to recover after each teleportation, she must be getting close to the city's border by now."
A trace of frustration flashed across her face. Pushing it aside, Shirai accelerated her own movements.
The information from Uiharu had been invaluable. She now had a firm grasp on the one who had injured her.
Musujime Awaki. Second-year at Kirigaoka Girls' Academy. A Level 4 esper. Ability: 'Move Point'.
Suspected to have psychological trauma, preventing her from teleporting herself consecutively.
The fundamental rule of spatial teleportation was this: 'the moved object' displaces 'the matter occupying the target coordinates', regardless of the material's composition.
Teleporting one's own body didn't result in a horrific fusion with other matter. Instead, it was akin to the body cleanly slicing through whatever was there. For instance, Shirai could make a piece of paper slice through a reinforced concrete pillar.
This also meant that a misstep, teleporting oneself into a solid object, could lead to being instantly buried under immense weight—a scenario guaranteeing, at the very least, critical injuries.
Shirai guessed this was likely the case for the girl named Musujime Awaki.
It wasn't an uncommon issue among spatial teleporters, but that one seemed to have it particularly bad.
Having familiarized herself with the opponent's profile, Shirai felt confident she could win—so long as she wasn't caught off-guard like last time.
If she could disable the other immediately, victory was within reach.
The most effective counter to a spatial teleporter was another spatial teleporter.
Because spatial abilities couldn't directly interact with each other, it meant Musujime couldn't simply lock onto Shirai's coordinates and teleport her away or fill her with foreign objects like she could with other espers.
Shirai Kuroko's body slipped into the eleventh dimension. Space itself crumpled and fractured like discarded paper around her.
Yet, even as she calculated her trajectory, an involuntary shudder ran through her mind.
The Level 6 Shift Project. Using clones of Misaka Mikoto to push Accelerator to Level 6.
So that's what those fake Onee-samas she'd encountered before were. And that explained why the real Onee-sama had been leaving early and returning late all those days.
The thoughts swirled, and Shirai's fists clenched tightly, her teeth sinking into her lower lip.
She'd known something was going on. The collapsed building in District 7 belonging to the Moki Construction Group, the piles of iron sand nearby, the rumors of Accelerator wielding a building and still being defeated, and that day's profoundly abnormal weather patterns.
She remembered the despair-inducing words Musujime Awaki had thrown at her during their encounter.
Whether it was just a tactic to distract her or not, those words had, for a moment, shattered Shirai's will to continue the pursuit. So that was the pain Onee-sama had been carrying.
"What Onee-sama is searching for now must be that case Musujime Awaki stole." Shirai's resolve hardened. "Kuroko will be of help."
She quickly reassessed her injuries, confirming they weren't currently hindering her ability usage. A sliver of relief eased her tension.
Approximately ten kilometers from the outer wall of Academy City, at the entrance of an abandoned nuclear research lab in District 10.
To evade the omnipresent surveillance, Musujime Awaki and her few companions had chosen District 10—the city's worst district, with the poorest facilities and security—as their breakout point.
But just as Musujime was preparing to rest, having set down herself and her companions, they encountered a unit dispatched by Academy City.
Inside the abandoned research facility, armed personnel lay strewn about, groaning in agony.
Many showed abnormal swelling on their bodies, as if foreign objects had been teleported inside them. While not fatal, it had instantly neutralized their combat effectiveness.
This was combat on a completely different scale. Even seasoned veterans couldn't readily counter it. A single, brief engagement had resulted in significant casualties.
The simplest way to avoid being turned into such a state by Move Point was to keep moving constantly, forcing the ability user to recalculate the target's coordinates each time.
But this method was like trying to put out a fire with a teacup.
Their movement speed was simply too slow compared to the esper's calculation speed; a slight adjustment was all that was needed to score a hit.
As military flashlight beams flickered erratically, the unit quickly devised a countermeasure.
A storm of flashbangs erupted, running rampant through the research facility. Everything in sight was bleached into a blinding white expanse. The commotion was visible from over a kilometer away.
Wearing gas masks, noise-canceling headphones, and specialized protective goggles, and equipped with advanced sound-detection gear, an elite squad entered the facility once more.
"Target lost. I repeat, target is lost."
Merely moments after entering, after scouring every corner, the squad reported their failure to find the team attempting to leak Academy City's secrets.
Their objective wasn't to retrieve the remains of the Tree Diagram; it was to eliminate Musujime Awaki's group, who had already communicated intelligence to the outside world.
It seemed the Tree Diagram's remnants weren't highly valued by Academy City's upper echelons after all. The pursuit seemed more like the pet project of some researchers.
"Those were the 'Hound Dog' troops from Academy City. What a pain," Musujime muttered, her stomach churning after another use of her ability.
She glanced at the wall mere inches away, her face abruptly turning a deathly pale.
Her companions, whom she had teleported in advance, stood nearby. They all looked to be around sixteen or seventeen, about Musujime's age.
Having detected the armed squad's movements, Musujime had reacted instantly. Had she waited until the flashbangs detonated, it would have been too late.
She couldn't use her ability effectively in such high-intensity light; she relied on her vision to lock onto coordinates.
"Musujime, you okay? We're not far from the rendezvous point with 'Science Association' now," one of the youths said, his eyes still streaming tears from the flashbang's glare, though it didn't seem serious.
This 'Science Association' was the external organization they had secretly contacted.
"I'm fine," Musujime replied. "We're only about a hundred meters from the previous location. We need to move again."
"Let's find a vehicle. We'll use our abilities again once we reach the next area with dense surveillance."
From a distance, Natsume Sonoko's attention was caught by a sudden, intense burst of light.
As she drew closer, the light had already faded. She found the area littered with groaning armed personnel, their abdomens unnaturally distended.
After a quick inspection of the surroundings, she concluded it was likely the work of a spatial-type esper.
Natsume wasn't here on a leisurely stroll. She was here to cause trouble for someone.
'Causing trouble' might not seem like a fitting phrase for a proper young lady from Tokiwadai, but right now, her sole desire was to deliver a certain individual straight to the Anti-Skill offices.
The person Shirai couldn't catch? She'd catch her.
And if she resisted? Well, Natsume wouldn't hold back either. It wasn't like she wasn't an esper.
With her hair in that characteristic bun, she might look utterly unremarkable—short, with a large bump on her head—but if someone really managed to piss her off? They'd have a problem on their hands.
She'd proactively asked Uiharu for information and had also received a copy of the approximate route map.
While Shirai was still diligently teleporting who-knows-where, Natsume had already gotten a head start, checking the blind spots over in District 10.
While it was almost routine for Judgment members to get injured, seeing Shirai hurt that badly had left Natsume feeling distinctly unsettled.
And there was something else nagging at her. That culprit was the same spatial-system esper from before. The issue concerning Misaka-senpai could be resolved along with this.
--+--
T/N: I have a Patreon! While it may seem empty as of now, webnovel will get 3 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
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If you guys wanna check it out.