Volume 8, Prologue: One of Five Fingers. A_TOKIWA-DAI's_World.
Tokiwadai Middle School.
It was one of the premier schools in "Academy City", which occupied one-third of Tokyo, and a place where esper powers were developed. It was also the world’s most elite girls’ school. Conditions to enter the school were so tough that the school once rejected an imperial daughter mercilessly, creating international strife as a result.
The school shared its ground with the four other noble girls’ schools adjacent to it. It wasn’t because there wasn’t enough land; rather, it was to create a more stable security system through joint venturing.
These areas were collectively known as the "School Garden", and the area it occupied was more than fifteen times the size of an ordinary school. Even so, it didn’t give the feeling that the place was huge. Besides the experimental facilities that were required for the large number of special lessons, many crafting and shopping facilities were crammed in there as well; it was because all the ESPer development equipment was developed here and was not sold to the outside world to prevent the top-secret technology from being leaked out. The view of each facility was Western, and as a whole, the place looked like a Mediterranean town. Even the road signs and traffic light designed in the "School Garden" were different from the outside world.
“This stone road and marble building... what a waste of space.”
September 14. Though it was the end of summer, it was still extremely hot. The twin-pigtailed girl, Shirai Kuroko was wearing an athletic sleeveless shirt and shorts, looking far away, standing in the middle of the campus in this hot afternoon, and grumbling as if she couldn’t stand the weather.
The surface of the school grounds was made of stone, like that of the plaza in front the Great Britain Museum. However, the difference was that even professional surveyors wouldn’t be able to detect the slightest bump or tilt on the stone surface. Also, the material wasn’t any ordinary stone. Even though it was hard to tell with the naked eye, if one were to put this material under a microscope, they'd discover that it was specially made by Academy City.
On these smooth and flat grounds of the school campus, there was not even a speck of dust.
There was not even any of the white chalk on the ground that was normally used for drawing lines during P.E. programs.
Right now, it was lesson time, and the school was currently undergoing its esper power examinations, but the lines on the ground weren’t drawn out with chalk.
The lines were made of light. Buried underneath the school grounds were millions of microfibers. By concentrating the light released by these fiber optic points, one could create different lights. It was similar to how an electronic bulletin works.
The lights centred on Shirai, with a circle around her. With another, smaller circle inside the circle, a large fan shape was made out.
It looked like the lines used in a shot put competition, but the angle of this fan was a lot narrower.
There were many of this same shape on the ground. Beside Shirai, there was another girl clad in P.E. attire. The place felt like a batting range.
Shirai’s ability was "teleportation". Basically, she could teleport anything she touched (including herself) by ignoring the three dimensions, and send it far away. However, she could only teleport things that she could touch.
The level of "teleportation" was dependent on three factors: the "size of the object", the "distance", and the "accuracy". One of the methods of testing was similar to a shot put contest, but this test required both distance and accuracy.
In Tokiwadai Middle School, Shirai was the only teleporter. The girls standing beside her were different, as they had "firing"-type powers.
*Pow*, something landed in a far corner of Shirai’s vision.
It was the bag that she had teleported away using her ability. It was filled with sand, weighing 120 kg.
A short while later, words of light appeared beside Shirai’s feet.
“Record: 78 m, 23 cm. Error from designated distance: 54 cm. Final score: ‘5’.”
After seeing these words, the girl sighed, and slowly shook her head, her twin pigtails swinging left and right.
“Haiz... The score’s really terrible... so bad that I can’t even express it in Japanese. I’m extremely weak at shifting big and heavy stuff far away. If it’s within 50 m, the margin of error would be within millimetres.”
The limits of Shirai’s ability were "81.5 metres of distance, and a mass of 130.7 kg". However, the distance was completely unrelated to size; she couldn’t shift the item further just because it was smaller. Also, once she nearly reached her limit, no matter how light the object was, her accuracy would decrease.
Not only that, but the strength of her powers depended on her emotions as well. The conditions for the test just now required her to use the limit of her powers, and since the weather was so hot, her accuracy would drop by a lot.
Always trying to find an excuse for myself, it’s no wonder that I can’t become a Level 5, Shirai considered, mocking herself as she sighed heavily. At that moment, a laugh of ridicule came from the shot put arena beside her.
“Hohoho, Shirai-san, why be so petty about this and get your emotions carried away by the numbers on the machine? Don’t tell me you can’t set a more precise goal for yourself...? Hoho...”
Shirai turned around irritatedly.
The girl walked in front of her. She had silky yet unnatural hair, and she was wearing the same P.E. vest and shorts as Shirai, yet she was holding an ornate fan, using it to hide her mouth as she snickered. She was older than Shirai Kuroko by one year (the type of courses that the students choose wasn’t dependent on year), and her name was Kongou Mitsuko.
Kongou Mitsuko was a Level 4 "wind esper". She was capable of creating a wind "injection point" on the object, causing the object to fly out like a bullet. She was truly a terrifying shooter girl.
“...The real petty one is the one who continues to snicker at other people’s frustrations and doesn't bother enough to try to hide it.”
Shirai said as she shook her head to a side.
“Ho, as expected of someone who missed by 54 cm, your speech pattern is limited. Oh, yeah, Shirai-san, recently, I noticed that your ability has the weakness of... Oh, my, ignoring me? Shirai-san, I’m giving you some comfortable wind, so hurry and turn around.”
Kongou swung her fan at Shirai, and Shirai unhappily turned her head around. Kongou seemed to be delighted as she continued to fan. The wind seemed to carry a bit of an aroma.
“Back to the original topic; the limitation of your ability is probably that you tried to calculate the space that you didn’t have to handle in the first place. It might be better for you if you streamline your calculations.”
“...Thanks for your concern, but the manipulation of three dimensions is different from that of eleven.”
“Don’t mind it; this care I’m providing for you is only the beginning. Recently, I’ve been thinking about creating a ‘faction’, and I hope that if you have time, you would join, and if you don’t, that you would try to find some way to get it. How about it? Just treat it as some sort of literary club and come take a look? Observing how others control their powers, you might be able to get some inspiration.”
“Um...”
Shirai frowned.
A faction.
The word sounds rather scary. In reality, it was just an organisation that functioned like a club.
However, this was Tokiwadai Middle School. In this school that followed the philosophy of "creating world-class talents through education", there were numerous students who had established themselves in their areas of research during their school days.
For a group of students with similar goals to gather in school, to request for facilities and funding from the school’s board of directors, and to finally strike it big in a national event... Just by this definition alone, maybe a faction wasn’t that much different from a school’s social club.
Larger factions would get more contacts, funding, and inside information, so most of these outstanding students in their areas of specialties had a faction backing them.
Of course, there were students who firmly choose not to join a "faction" and did everything on their own, but it was much easier to borrow equipment and get financial assistance from the school if they requested it as a faction. The bigger factions in terms of numbers and grades would have more prestige and power in the school. This element of its activities made it not much different from an ordinary social club.
In other words, a larger faction would have more power. This power was also influential even outside school. Being among the largest ten factions would help a student’s qualifications. As for the creator of the faction, their name would be extremely famous.
Also, the members of the faction weren’t just powerful espers who had more firepower than pistols; they were also noble daughters from all over the world. For such a group of people to gather together, it was a much simpler and clearer "power". It was dangerous enough if one used their own power, so if it was an entire faction, one could imagine how devastating the destruction would be.
So...
“I advise you to forget about it, Kongou-san. If you’re going to establish a ‘faction’, it’ll most likely get destroyed within two minutes.”
“What...?”
“Do you not understand? Even if you are able to create a powerful ‘faction’, it would have been long destroyed by other ‘factions’. You’re still living happily, and this is the best evidence of the difference in power.”
“No... there’s no such thing! With... with the status of my Kongou family, and with my own power, no other ‘faction’ shall stand before...”
Kongou Mitsuko’s face was flushed red as she started to refute this, but her face became extremely pale.
*BOOM!*
The school buildings, sports hall, garden, and everything on the ground was shaken by the sudden explosion.
There was a swimming pool behind the school. However, it was blocked by the building itself, so it was impossible to see it from here.
The explosion had come from the swimming pool.
Wasn’t the school building supposed to be in-between? The condensed mist still landed on Kongou’s hot face. The heat was removed from her face. The terrifying explosion had actually caused the water from the swimming pool to fly over here.
“...That... What’s going on...?”
Her face littered with water droplets, Kongou was stunned, her entire body trembling, as if someone had spit on her face. She touched her face, and then turned to look at the school.
“Oh, yeah, you only transferred in during the second semester, so you might not know this. But that’s the Ace of Tokiwadai.”
Hearing this sentence, Kongou remembered.
There should be a girl standing at the swimming pool behind the school.
That girl’s power should be classified as a "long-range" type, similar to Shirai's and Kongou's. However, as the destructive power was too great, they couldn’t test it using conventional methods. So, the teachers of Tokiwadai got headaches over it.
The school prepared a specially designed course for her. If they didn’t weaken the power with the water of the swimming pool, forget about the test equipment; it was probable that the entire school could be destroyed. She was one of the only two Level 5s in Tokiwadai Middle School.
The Railgun, Misaka Mikoto.
She was not aligned to any "faction", and treated everyone as equal.
Shirai Kuroko was thinking about this onee-sama that she had admired for a long time as she said,
“Kongou-san, have you come to your realisation, and also, are you prepared to face such a terrifying attack?”
This wasn’t a statement that had any hidden meaning behind it.
Kongou Mitsuko’s face was still green with shock, as she couldn’t utter a single reply.
“As the leader of a faction, you will definitely gain quite a lot of influence in Tokiwadai Middle School. However, if the reason for you to set up your own faction is to satisfy your own pride, Onee-sama will come over and stop you, won’t she?”
The moment Shirai finished speaking, another explosion could be heard, as if everything was timed.
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