(I'm bored.)
That's what Hamazura Shiage was thinking while sitting in the driver's seat of the stolen car while it was parked on the side of the street.
He was near Kirigaoka Girls Academy in District 18. About 100 meters in front of him was a square building. It was the particle engineering lab that School was attacking while Item intercepted them. A large fight must have developed between the two organizations.
Hamazura groaned while looking towards the building.
"Wow…About half the building's been destroyed and there's some kind of beam shooting out. That must be Mugino Shizuri. She's going all out with her Level 5 powers as usual."
The reinforced concrete building was collapsing in clouds of gray dust. Hamazura could feel the ground trembling even in the stolen car.
(Level 5, huh?)
The former leader of Skill-Out, Komaba Ritoku, had truly believed that they could defeat that kind of person.
Hamazura wondered if Skill-Out was still thinking of fighting now that it had lost its leader.
"…Tch."
He lightly tapped on the steering wheel out of boredom.
At any rate, someone like him who ran from Skill-Out and was now working for espers had no right to say anything about it.
He opened the driver's side door and stepped out in irritation.
Since he was supposed to have the car ready to go for Item at all times and the supervision of no parking zones had been strengthened recently, getting out of the car wasn't the best idea. But Hamazura wanted to cheer himself up.
It was a holiday, so there weren't very many people near Kirigaoka Girls Academy. Also, there were 3 sports cars parked in the parking lot.
Hamazura was surprised when he saw one of them.
(Ohhhh!? That's an '89 model Booster, isn't it!? This was called the emperor of 4-doors!! N-no, stealing a car that stands out this much is too risky but…Screw it, we're going home in a Booster!!)
Hamazura started taking his unlocking tools from his pocket while his breathing became slightly erratic in excitement and he imagined the low exhaust of that famous car that had moved the hearts of celebrities. He approached the high grade sports car that must have belonged to some adult with excellent taste.
"Hamazura!!"
"Yes!?"
Hamazura hurriedly stuck his tools in his pocket and turned around when he heard a woman's voice from behind him.
A woman teacher wearing a green jersey was standing there.
Even in her jersey, the woman clearly had a nice figure. In fact, she was so beautiful it made you want to yell at her for wearing a jersey like that, but that wasn't what mattered to Hamazura.
She was part of Skill-Out's natural enemy, Anti-Skill.
He was pretty sure her name was Yomikawa Aiho.
"Huh? What are you doing here? I had heard you were taken in during the incident at Dangai University's database center. So that wasn't you? I'm glad to hear that."
She spoke to him sociably, but they weren't on particularly good terms and the good will only went in one direction. After all, why would he feel any good will towards the woman who had caught him on the streets at night and thrown him in jail on 14 separate occasions?
"Why the hell are you here, you old hag?"
"I would think that was obvious."
As she spoke, Yomikawa pointed towards the particle engineering laboratory.
Hamazura brought his hand up to his forehead.
Item's subordinate organization could conceal a lot of things, but it seemed not even they could perfectly hide a laboratory that was in the process of being destroyed.
Yomikawa put her hands on her hips and smiled at Hamazura.
"Y'know, I'm always hoping we'll be able to rehabilitate you."
"Hah? What are you talking abou-…?"
"Why are you bent over like you're looking into that car's keyhole? You're not going to force me to bring out my handcuffs, are you?"
Hamazura's shoulders jumped.
He couldn't let himself get arrested here, so he shook his head back and forth.
"N-no! A baby!! There's a baby trapped in the car!!"
"What!?" said Yomikawa as she hurriedly approached the car and pressed her hands against the glass as she tried to peer inside.
When she did, the car's alarm went off.
The shrill noise just made Yomikawa more frantic and Hamazura whistled pretending not to be involved. That was when a station wagon driving at a reckless speed sped away from the crumbling particle engineering lab.
"!?"
The station wagon flew past Hamazura and Yomikawa just as Mugino Shizuri came running from the laboratory. She was dragging her fellow Item member, the airheaded Takitsubo Rikou, by the nape of her neck.
They jumped into the backseat of the 4-door car Hamazura had been in before.
"Hamazura!! Quit failing at hitting on that woman and get over here! We need to follow that station wagon!!"
"I'm not fucking hitting on her!!" Hamazura yelled back and ran back to the car.
It was too bad he couldn't get the '89 Booster, but he couldn't exactly steal the thing right under Yomikawa's nose.
He had jumped into the driver's seat and started the engine when Yomikawa called out to him.
"Wait a second, Hamazura!! What's with that car!?"
"Can't you tell!? I got my license!!"
He came up with that really bad lie and stomped on the gas pedal more than was necessary because he just wanted to get away from Yomikawa as quickly as he could. The engine and the tires emitted an uncanny screech and the family car roared off leaving the jersey-wearing woman teacher behind.
After driving off, Hamazura realized something.
"H-hey. Where are Kinuhata and Frenda?"
"That isn't enough to kill them. Right now, that station wagon comes first!!" responded Mugino in an irritated voice.
The edges of her short-sleeved coat were scorched black and her cheek was swollen as if it had been punched. Seeing those things in the rear-view mirror, Hamazura tried to imagine what had happened in that lab.
"How did this happen? Aren't you #4?"
"They had a Level 5, too. This piece of shit named Kakine Teitoku. He's #2." Mugino responded sulkily. "But they didn't get out of this unscathed. We took out a member of School. Although it didn't seem like someone with any real power."
She waved around a piece of mechanical headgear that must have been her prize for defeating that person. It would wrap 360 degrees around someone's head like the rings of Saturn and had a number of plugs on it. The cords that came from the plugs were cut off partway like cut weeds. Hamazura didn't know what the device was for, but the blood splattered on it scared him.
"So what are you going to do when we catch up to that station wagon?"
"Kick the asses of the people onboard and take back their cargo."
"Their cargo?"
"The 'Tweezers'. It's an attachment-type manipulator for microscopic object interference."
"…I take it you're not going to explain what that means."
"Essentially, that's what School is after!! You don't need to understand. Just catch that station wagon!! Wait, can we even catch them with this car!?"
"Don't worry."
It wasn't Hamazura that said that; it was Takitsubo.
She was sitting in the backseat with her arms and legs sprawled limply out.
"My AIM Stalker can track down the owner of any AIM diffusion field I've recorded. Even if they leave the solar system, I can search for them and find them."
"See?" Hamazura arbitrarily added on. "With an excellent navigator like that, they won't get away. The bigger question is what you're going to do once we stop that station wa-…"
Hamazura's words were cut off.
This was due to a giant mobile crane flying out from a side street.
"!?"
He didn't have time to turn the wheel.
The monstrous mobile crane slammed into the center of the 4-door car Hamazura and the others were driving in. A terrible crushing noise rang in his brain. In response to the sensors, the airbag deployed from the steering wheel, but it wasn't much use as they had been hit from the side.
Hamazura had been driving the car straight forward, but it was now moving to the side as if it was being pushed by the mobile crane.
They broke right through the guardrail, ran onto the sidewalk, and hit the wall of a building.
The 4-door car was completely immobilized between the yellow mobile crane and the concrete.
Whoever did this didn't seem to care about causing a disturbance or damaging the area.
It seemed they were intending to kill Hamazura and the others.
"…Ow…"
"Damn it… That was School. They really want that station wagon to get away. They're trying to slow us down!!" Mugino snarled.
The mobile crane backed up about 10 meters. A girl of about 14 was sitting in the driver's seat that was surrounded by safety glass. She was short and slender and was wearing a short dress with an open back. It was the kind of dress one would expect the women at a hostess club to wear.
Hamazura thought she was planning on running into them again, but he was wrong.
The girl operated a lever and the crane arm extended. It did not have a metal hook for picking things up on the end.
It had a giant metal ball a few meters across that was used for destroying buildings.
"Shit!!" Mugino yelled and opened the back door, but the car's frame had been warped too much for the door to open.
Hamazura pulled a lever to fold down the passenger seat.
"We can get out through the windshield!! Hurry!!"
He smashed the cracked windshield and jumped out onto the hood of the car. Mugino and Takitsubo climbed over the passenger seat to get into the front seat.
That was when the wrecking ball came swinging like a pendulum.
The giant mass of metal came roaring towards them. Mugino escaped through the windshield onto the hood first and Hamazura hurriedly grabbed Takitsubo's hand and pulled her out, but the wrecking ball slammed into the side of the car.
There was a loud crash.
The shock threw the three of them down from the hood onto the ground. Hamazura tried to raise his head, but Mugino grabbed the back of his head. He was pushed to the ground and a second later the car was enveloped in fire as it exploded. It was amazing they all survived.
The mobile crane's engine emitted a disconcerting noise.
It was continuing even when a number of onlookers had gathered after hearing the explosion.
Mugino Shizuri clicked her tongue.
"Let's split up."
"You aren't going to fight, Ms. Level 5?"
"I'm after the 'Tweezers' on that station wagon. I'm not going to waste time on small fries. …And that crane girl's power is a troublesome one."
As she spoke, Mugino crossed the road and entered a small pathway.
Takitsubo ran in a different direction.
Hamazura headed into an alley between buildings and ran at full speed, but he heard wet footsteps coming from behind him.
(Oh, shit! She came after me!!)
Hamazura's throat went dry as he ran. It had just been a short girl driving the mobile crane, but she was a member of School, the group that had fought evenly with Item. He had no idea what kind of power she had, but it was something that a Level 5 like Mugino had called "troublesome".
Hamazura continued to run away, started climbing up the metal emergency staircase on the side of one the buildings, and entered the building on an arbitrary floor.
The building seemed to be a student dorm.
He ran through a straight hallway and heard a door open behind him.
(She caught up to me…!?)
He turned around by reflex.
Sure enough, the short girl had entered through the same door he had. The girl in the showy dress held a ladies' handgun in her hand. Basically, that meant it had a small grip.
(I'm dead!?)
Hamazura smacked his palm against the wall.
He had pressed a nearby button and a steel shutter fell down like a guillotine. The shutter's purpose was to protect against out-of-control psychic powers. The girl's eyes widened slightly and she fired her gun at Hamazura.
Bang bang! Two gunshots rang out.
Hamazura instinctively shut his eyes, but, when he opened them, there were no holes in the steel shutter. Looking at the monitor next to the button on the wall, he saw the girl click her tongue and look down at her own gun.
Apparently, she didn't have the firepower to destroy the shutter.
(…So she can't get through to me no matter what she does.)
Relief ran through his body.
He made the world's stupidest expression, raised his hands, and shook his ass back and forth while yelling "Ee hee hee hee hee!!".
"…"
The girl in the dress saw this on the monitor on her side of the shutter, put her handgun back on her thigh, and reached around to her back.
What she pulled out from the back of her waist was a handgun with a barrel about as thick as a can of coffee.
It was a small 40mm grenade launcher.
"O-oh, fuck. That'll kill me for sure, won't it!?"
Hamazura hurriedly ran back along the hallway, but the girl mercilessly pulled the grenade launcher's trigger.
The shutter exploded and blew off in Hamazura's direction. He was hit by a blast of fragments and flew more than 5 meters down the hallway before landing.
"Gh…Gaaah!?"
He somehow managed to get back up and ran wobbling down the hallway balancing himself with a hand on the wall.
Ahead of him was a terrace, so it was basically a dead end.
It seemed there was no stairway or elevator on that end of the hallway.
There was a 3-story drop on the other end of the railing.
However, behind him was the unknown girl from School.
He didn't have to think twice about that decision.
(I'm definitely going for the 3-story dive!! Taking a leap of will-power and guts is 100 times better than facing someone as strong as her! The weak have our own weak way of living!!)
"Ha ha!! Being a loser is the beeeeessssttt!!"
Hamazura laughed loudly while running, stepped up on the railing, and jumped off of the third floor.
He didn't even look down before jumping.
With a pursuer, he hadn't had time to check what was below and he thought he might be too afraid to jump if he actually saw what was down there.
But a 3-story drop was nothing to laugh at.
(Shit. I hope there's something to cushion my fall down there!!)
Hamazura looked down at the ground for the first time while in midair and saw a young mother happily pushing a baby carriage.
As he flew through the blue sky, Hamazura Shiage's brain yelled "no" as loudly as it could.
"Gwoooooooohhhhh!?"
He was swinging his arms and legs around trying to get some distance between him and the carriage by air walking. Whether that had any effect or not, his large body landed about 15 cm to the side of the baby carriage.
A sharp pain ran from his heels to his ankles.
The young mother put her hand to her mouth in a refined expression of shock and the baby's eyes opened so wide it forgot to cry.
"U-um…Who are you?" said the young mother.
"I'm the kind of hero that falls from the sky. It's dangerous here, so get out of here, miss."
Hamazura gave a refreshing smile as he spoke and ran down a nearby alley.