I, Kurumi Tokisaki, Am a Wanderer

Lying at the bottom of a deep pit, staring at the clear blue sky, Accelerator found his thoughts drifting to the story of the frog in the well.

Could he be that frog, trapped and ignorant? He didn't know, but a strange feeling stirred within him.

The hurried escape had left a bitter taste of dirt in his mouth, mingling with his frustration. The girl stood at the edge of the pit, her silhouette sharp against the bright sunlight. However, no glimpse of her skirt betrayed her form.

To save his life, Accelerator had punched the ground with all his might, creating a pit deep enough to shield him from harm.

But Accelerator wasn't the only one having a rough time.

On the edge of the parking lot, Kihara Amata wasn't faring much better. His quick reflexes had barely allowed him to tumble away from the collapsing ground, but his once-pristine white lab coat was now covered in dust and grime.

Looking up, Kihara saw a small group of Misaka clones huddled nearby. One was wrapping a makeshift bandage around her arm, while the others observed him with an unnerving intensity.

"What a coincidence. Misaka greets the tattoo-faced solemn man while expressing her disdain and stepping aside," one clone said, her monotone voice tinged with mockery.

...

At the edge of the pit, Kurumi crouched down like a playful girl at a carnival game, tossing green grenades into the pit one by one.

She didn't expect the grenades to harm Accelerator but found endless amusement in his frustrated expressions. Each grenade exploded around him, kicking up clouds of dirt in a chaotic display.

Her throws were haphazard at best, resembling the wild attempts of someone trying to land a prize at a fair.

By all rights, such taunts should have driven Accelerator to fury, sparking a fresh and furious confrontation. But he didn't retaliate.

Lying at the bottom of the pit, Accelerator stared at the blue sky above. The sun peeked out from behind the clouds as he shielded his face with his twisted left arm.

The dirt from the grenades mixed with the blood dripping from his mangled arm, creating a scent that was entirely unfamiliar to him.

"Heh..." He chuckled coldly.

When had he ever been this miserable? When had he ever found himself lying in the mud, desperately avoiding someone's attacks?

"Hey... this is too much," he muttered, a crooked smile spreading across his face. He raised his good right hand toward the sky.

...

Kurumi perched at the edge of the pit, tossing grenades as casually as a child playing a game. But then, she noticed Accelerator raising his right hand, his expression twisted into a demonic grin as he reached for the sun.

Kurumi frowned. She could feel it—something was about to happen.

A light breeze swept across the ground, gentle at first.

Accelerator extended his arm fully, grasping at the flow of the wind itself.

The direction of the wind, its kinetic energy—all of it was under his control.

Kurumi tilted her head upward, her eyes narrowing. Above her, the clouds began to swirl and twist, forming a massive vortex—a storm in the sky, as if an enormous eye was opening above them.

Debris from the parking lot lifted into the air, carried by the escalating winds. A storm was brewing.

Caught in the staggering force of the wind, the only sound that pierced through was Accelerator's maniacal roar.

"Die!"

Accelerator clenched his fist and swung it down with force.

A storm with wind speeds exceeding 120 meters per second descended from the heavens, like a spear thrown from the skies.

The gale, mixed with shards of rock, glass, and iron scraps, tore apart everything on the ground. The already ravaged earth, previously scarred by the space quake, was plowed anew, leaving a landscape that resembled a war-torn hell.

At the bottom of the pit, Accelerator gasped for air in heavy, ragged breaths.

His "Reflection" ensured that not a single scratch marred his body, yet the violent winds around him made breathing difficult. He resolved never to put himself in such a vulnerable position again, swearing under his breath as he nimbly leapt out of the pit.

...

"Yo~ Hello there~"

Stepping out of the shadows, Kurumi greeted him with a playful wave. Accelerator's face immediately darkened.

He couldn't fathom how she had survived, but he did know one thing—he was very pissed off.

"You little..." Accelerator growled, his crimson eyes narrowing as he raised his right hand high above his head, glaring daggers at Kurumi.

The storm obeyed his command, bending to his will.

Controlling the flow of the atmosphere, he executed chaotic calculations with the precision of a master, his near-limitless intellect aligning the winds of Academy City with his purpose.

It was as if the power to destroy an entire city rested in his grasp.

"Yes... just like that!"

The barren wasteland felt like a graveyard, the desolation amplified by his raging laughter and the roaring storm. The very wind seemed to carry the scent of death.

Facing the sun, Accelerator spread his arms wide. Above his head, a second "sun" formed, floating nearly a hundred meters in the air.

He had condensed the air currents of the city into a brilliant, plasma-like sphere that shone with the blinding intensity of a lightning strike.

This was no ordinary light.

It was plasma—a state of matter created by compressing air under extreme conditions until the atoms ionized into positively and negatively charged particles.

The temperature exceeded 10,000 degrees Celsius. Even at ground level, waves of oppressive heat radiated outward.

"Is this your strongest attack?" Kurumi asked nonchalantly, her tone dripping with mockery.

Accelerator didn't respond. But yes, this was indeed his strongest move at the moment.

The plasma sphere, burning bright and violent, would surely last long enough to outlast Kurumi's "invincibility," or so he calculated. As the searing "sun" grew ever more dazzling, Accelerator's confidence soared.

He would demonstrate the overwhelming power of the strongest esper, crushing Kurumi in one decisive blow.

That was precisely what Kurumi was aiming for.

Under countless gazes from those observing from afar, Kurumi extended her arms theatrically.

To counter Accelerator's plasma strike, she could have chosen the direct approach—crippling his body in one fell swoop. But that would have been far too mundane.

This was a performance, a spectacle on a grand stage. Kurumi intended to bring it to a close in the most spectacular way possible.

Rather than targeting Accelerator directly, she would unravel the storm he controlled.

Unlike magic, esper abilities relied on constant and exhaustive calculations. Accelerator had to compute the original direction of the wind, the altered direction after his manipulation, and the changes across the vast scope of the city.

But what would happen if all his painstaking calculations were undone in an instant?

Since the moment Kurumi had entered the fray, the shadows she left behind had been growing darker, more ominous. Now, that oppressive darkness enveloped the entire scene, blocking out the light.

She stood like a performer calling out to her audience, her right hand gracefully extended, her left hand lifting the hem of her dress. Bowing slightly, she greeted her "guest."

"Welcome... to my world."

Her playful, mocking voice sent a shiver down Accelerator's spine, a foreboding sense of doom washing over him.

The world around them was stained with a deep, unfathomable darkness, black and crimson hues spreading like ink across a canvas.

The poised figure of the girl stood at the edge of the encroaching shadows, her delicate smile brimming with an unsettling terror.

Behind her, the sprawling darkness seemed like a massive curtain on a stage, though anyone could sense the lurking monstrosity hidden within.

The compressed air above dispersed, and the plasma sphere crumbled into nothingness, leaving only the howling spirals of wind in its wake.

Accelerator slowly lowered his hand.

Even if he could reform the vortex and throw it again, what would be the point? An attack rendered ineffective once would not inexplicably succeed the second time.

Clenching his right hand into a fist, Accelerator crouched slightly, his center of gravity lowering as his body coiled like a spring before launching forward with explosive force.

His crimson eyes burned with murderous intent, their depths swirling with madness.

The playful banter and banality of their earlier exchange were utterly forgotten. In his mind's eye, he no longer saw Kurumi but rather the armored vehicles and armed forces from six years ago—enemies who, like her, sought to bring him down.

He was the apex of Academy City's 230 million residents. No one could defeat him.

His fist swung upward in a devastating uppercut.

Accelerator's body trembled faintly as his consciousness wavered. Something was draining him—his stamina, his mental state, even his very life force.

For ordinary people, moving through this oppressive domain would have been an ordeal, but he wasn't just anyone.

He was the strongest. He was Accelerator.

Like Misaka Mikoto's Railgun, which constantly adjusted its trajectory with electromagnetic force to accelerate its projectile until impact, Accelerator propelled himself like a missile through the murky space, his velocity nearing the speed of sound.

...

The world was shrouded in darkness, yet Kurumi's faint smile never faltered as Accelerator charged toward her in a frenzy.

She neither dismantled the "UNDER_LINE" nor eradicated the prying gazes trained on this place. Everything unfolding here was part of a grand performance.

Her crimson eye, gleaming like a bloody vortex, glinted with malevolent intent.

The distance between them was shrinking rapidly, the gray-and-white blur of Accelerator's form streaking toward her.

His momentum, sharp and relentless as a blade, sought to pierce through Kurumi—or something far more abstract.

To the onlookers beyond this battlefield, Kurumi and Accelerator stood as the sole focus of the duel, but it felt as though countless invisible eyes were watching from the shadows.

Girls, radiant as blood and resplendent as gold, hid behind those shadows, their laughter eerie and layered like a waking nightmare.

The gales of Accelerator's charge whipped through the air, tugging at Kurumi's hair and skirt.

Though Accelerator had never balled his fist to strike someone physically—he didn't need to. A mere touch sufficed to snuff out a life.

And yet, despite his overwhelming strength, Accelerator had rarely killed. If one excluded the sisters, his record of taking lives was nonexistent.

As he closed in, Accelerator's piercing gaze locked onto Kurumi's doll-like face, exquisitely crafted and unyielding. In her radiant golden eye, the intricate Roman-style clock face trembled with an otherworldly rhythm.

His fist was almost upon her, a strike capable of annihilating everything in its path.

Accelerator braced himself for the inevitable immunity phase, fully prepared to endure Kurumi's invulnerability. Even if it meant taking a bullet or two, he was determined to persist until her immunity ended.

But to his astonishment, the girl twisted her body mid-motion, sidestepping gracefully.

Elegant, poised, and curved like a sculpture.

Yet none of that mattered in Accelerator's eyes. What truly grabbed his attention was the devilish grin Kurumi wore as she assumed a throwing stance.

—A pitch-black chain coiled in her hand.

The rapidly retreating world around him abruptly halted, then jerked forward.

For a brief, disoriented moment, Accelerator realized something unusual: he was the one retreating.

An ordinary person would have been shattered by such sudden directional reversal, but Accelerator's abilities shielded him.

In his world, he was the axis, the core. Even inertia was just another force he manipulated at will.

Lowering his gaze, he stared blankly at his chest.

A taut black chain had pierced through it, ending in a small, wicked blade.

—Chain of Death.

Yet, remarkably, Accelerator felt no immediate harm. His chest tightened uncomfortably, but that was all.

The chain hadn't pierced his body in the literal sense. It felt as though it had skewered the concept of "Accelerator" itself.

A shiver ran down his spine. Cold, clinical, and precise.

Attempting to rip the chain free, he discovered to his horror that he was utterly immobile. His eyes, the only part of his body he could still move, darted frantically.

...

Kurumi smiled sweetly at Accelerator, lifting her right hand into the shape of a gun, her lips forming soundless syllables.

Bang.

Mimicking the act of firing, she aimed at Accelerator.

The blade anchored in his chest detonated, scattering brilliant sparks.

"It's useless... It's useless..." Accelerator muttered.

He had already deciphered her attack's structure. This kind of projectile could no longer harm him.

As his ears rang with the crackling, relentless explosions, he prepared to adjust his calculation formula to block out the maddening noise.

But then... he saw it.

Within the gunfire and smoke at his chest, a faint shimmer of purple light appeared—ephemeral, otherworldly, surreal.

In an instant, searing pain exploded from his chest, his vision dyed a bloody crimson. It felt as though an unseen giant had snapped him in two.

Kurumi stood motionless, watching as Accelerator staggered and collapsed to the ground. Blood seeped across the shadowed floor of her City of Time, staining it a dark crimson.

Removing a small insignia from her sleeve, Kurumi inspected it briefly.

It was the Source of Sin.

She had once used this artifact to nullify the abilities of another opponent, and now, it had broken through Accelerator's infamous reflection.

Though the effect lasted only a fleeting moment, it was more than enough.

Accelerator, the sheltered heir of Academy City's most destructive power, had never suffered injuries before. Always reliant on his abilities, his untrained body crumbled under the force of the single, decisive blow.

The exact moment Kurumi pulled her shadowy trigger, something stirred in the skies above Academy City.

The enormous screen aboard the hovering airship flickered, abruptly switching from weather reports—June 24th, sunny, occasional clouds, variable winds—to an ominous table of data.

Seven rows of text dominated the screen, listing the elite combatants of Academy City.

Standing beneath the sprawling display, Misaka Mikoto ignored the weight of Shirai Kuroko clinging to her, arms wrapped tightly around her neck.

She gazed skyward, transfixed by the airship's monitor as lines of data scrolled downward.

Finally, an unfamiliar entry appeared, seared into the collective memory of all who beheld it:

—NO.1 Third Horizon—

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