The next morning, Rowan woke early and resumed his quiet surveillance of Misaka Mikoto.
With school out for the summer, her days were unstructured. She wandered Academy City at her own pace, stopping to play soccer with a group of newly awakened elementary-school espers, then spending hours fixated on a capsule machine because a little girl's frog-shaped charm had caught her eye. By sunset, she was still there, stubbornly turning the dial again and again.
"Yeah," Rowan muttered to himself from above. "Still a kid."
After following her all day without uncovering anything useful, he was already considering shifting his focus elsewhere. Then, just as evening settled in, something changed.
Misaka Mikoto ran into another clone.
Designation 9982.
Mikoto's reaction was immediate and intense. It was obvious she was still deeply disturbed by the fact that she'd been cloned. She questioned 9982 relentlessly, clearly hoping to trace the clones back to whoever created them. More than that, she treated the clone like a younger sister.
That single detail reshaped Rowan's thinking.
Until now, the remaining clones had been an abstract problem to him. Thousands of lives he knew existed, but hadn't planned to interfere with. But if Mikoto herself cared this much, then maybe there was another path forward.
If the clones could be brought into the open, acknowledged and allowed to live openly within Academy City, then Rowan could do the same. As Misaka 9981, he could exist publicly, develop his abilities, and search for traces of magic without constantly hiding.
Officially, he would simply be a clone who had mutated. Unusual, but not impossible.
On an overpass, 9982 spoke calmly to Mikoto.
"Misaka is scheduled for testing next. Misaka will not return to the laboratory afterward. Following Misaka is your choice, but you will not meet the people who created Misaka."
Mikoto's plan collapsed on the spot. After a bout of childish arguing and roughhousing, she was forced to let 9982 go.
Watching from the air, Rowan frowned thoughtfully.
"They're not emotionless," he realized.
He'd assumed the clones were little more than biological machines. But they weren't empty. They were blank. Knowledge forced into them without normal growth or experience. Given time, they could become no different from anyone else.
During the few hours they spent together, 9982 had clearly grown attached to Mikoto, even giving her the frog charm Mikoto had spent all day trying to win.
That mattered.
Rowan descended beneath the overpass. As Mikoto walked down the steps, he dropped his invisibility.
"Do you want to know the truth?" he asked.
Mikoto froze.
She stared at him, wide-eyed, at yet another version of herself standing in front of her.
"You're…?"
"I'm Misaka 9981," Rowan said evenly. "The one you just met was 9982. There are twenty thousand of us."
She grabbed his arm without hesitation. "Explain. Now."
"Have you heard of the Absolute Evolution Project?" Rowan asked.
He ignored her grip and calmly laid everything out. The experiment. The deaths. The purpose behind it all.
"Before me, 9,980 clones were killed," he finished. "Last night, I was supposed to die too. I survived by accident. 9982 wasn't spared. She's scheduled for execution."
Mikoto trembled, electricity crackling around her skin.
"Killing me one hundred and twenty-eight times?" she snapped. "Using copies like disposable tools? That's insane!"
She had always known Academy City had shadows. She hadn't believed they were this deep.
"If you don't believe me," Rowan said, turning away, "follow 9982. You'll have proof in ten minutes."
He headed back toward the overpass. Mikoto hesitated, then followed. She remembered the files she'd once glimpsed about mass-produced espers. By the time she caught up, her doubt was nearly gone.
They found 9982 quickly, drawn by the resonance of shared brainwaves. Rowan stopped Mikoto before she could step out.
"She's probably carrying a tracker. We stay back."
Mikoto clenched her fists. "What's your plan?"
Ahead of them, 9982 entered an empty alley, pulled out a compact assault rifle, and calmly waited.
Rowan answered without hesitation.
"There are two ways to stop this. First, convince Accelerator to quit the experiment. No participant, no executions. The problem is, if he refuses, we might not be able to beat him."
"And the second?"
"We find every lab involved and destroy all of them. But there are over twenty sites across the city. Miss even one, and they'll just relocate."
Mikoto didn't hesitate.
"Then we go with the first," she said, lightning dancing across her body. "If Accelerator won't quit, I'll make him quit."
Rowan studied her for a moment, then nodded.
"Then you should know what you're walking into."
He began explaining everything he knew about Accelerator. Every habit. Every pattern. Every detail recorded across 9,980 deaths, passed down through the network.
By the time he finished, the countdown to nine o'clock had nearly run out.