Hamazura Shiage and Takitsubo Rikou ran down the elevator hall.
He pressed the switch on the wall and the light indicating that the elevator was stopped on the 48th floor quickly lowered to the 25th floor they were on. While it did, Hamazura took the unlocking tools from his pocket.
(…The parking lot is underground. Everyone around here will have fancy cars, but I don't have the time to be indecisive. I'll go for the car nearest to the elevator.)
The elevator stopped on the 25th floor.
With a light electronic tone, the automatic metal door opened to the left and the right.
"Ah, there they are."
Hamazura heard a voice that crushed all his hope.
A certain man from School was walking from the hallway. The second Level 5 who had defeated Mugino Shizuri slowly approached them with those odd claws on his hand.
"I was looking for you. I really was. You're the search esper, right?"
As he spoke, the man took the thing he was dragging with his left hand and tossed it towards them. It flew a few meters through the air and landed at Hamazura's feet. It was the person they had split up with just a bit ago, Kinuhata Saiai.
"…!!"
"She made the right decision. The core of Item isn't the Level 5; it's you. It'd be pretty bad if you got away now, y'know?"
The implication behind Kakine Teitoku's words was that they couldn't get away now that he was there.
Each step forward he took was a countdown towards the end of Hamazura and Takitsubo's lives.
Hamazura thought of the handgun in his sleeve. He looked at the open elevator next to him and spoke to Takitsubo in as quiet a voice as he could.
"(…Get on the elevator and go down.)"
"(…But Hamazura.)"
"(….Even if could I get away from School here by abandoning you, Item would be destroyed! Fuck, I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place!!)"
Kakine Teitoku stopped walking.
He was indecisive, but not over whether to let them go. They were already within the effective range of the Level 5's attacks.
"Well, what are you going to do? How long is it going to take for you to say goodbye?"
"…!! Go!!"
Hamazura shoved Takitsubo's small body into the elevator.
However, Takitsubo reached out for Hamazura.
They spun around, reversing positions almost as if in a ballroom dance, and Takitsubo pushed Hamazura into the elevator. Hamazura was confused by the sudden action and he fell down to the floor right on his ass.
Takitsubo's hand was the only part of her in the elevator.
She hit the B1 button that would take the elevator to the underground parking lot.
"What the hell are you-…?"
"I'm sorry, Hamazura."
Takitsubo looked at him from the other side of the closing door.
"I told everyone about what you said by the furnace. I don't want you to become ash like that."
There was a slight smile in her eyes.
"Don't worry. I'm a Level 4 and you're a Level 0. So I'll protect you, Hamazura."
"…!!"
Before he could say anything, the door completely closed and the high-speed elevator started moving down. Something horrible had happened, but his body felt oddly relaxed because he had escaped the danger to himself.
As he sat on the floor with his back to the wall, Hamazura stared up at the ceiling.
(But I thought espers didn't care about the life of someone like me…) thought Hamazura as he felt the characteristic floating feeling that high-speed elevators gave.
He covered his face with a hand as he stared up at the ceiling.
(I thought we were like a bunch of disposable convenience store umbrellas. So if I died, I wouldn't just be burnt to ash in a furnace and thrown away with the kitchen trash?)
"Damn it," Hamazura muttered.
Most likely, he hadn't been the only one that underwent a shock when he was burning that black sleeping bag in the electric furnace. The girl watching from behind had felt the same shock as he had. Perhaps Takitsubo Rikou had always tried to protect the Level 0s or maybe the furnace incident had given her a change of heart.
Either way, there was only one thing that could be said.
Takitsubo Rikou had faced the man ranked 2nd in Academy City all on her own in order to save Hamazura, a Level 0.
"…Fuck that," muttered Hamazura Shiage as he slowly stood up with a hand on the wall. "Fuck thaaaattt!!"
He slammed his palm onto the button on the wall to stop the elevator.
Hamazura gritted his teeth and took a long, deep breath.
Truthfully speaking, he had no real expectation of winning. That Kakine guy was a Level 5 and he wasn't even the only enemy. At the very least, there were also a few men dressed all in black who looked like they were from the subordinate organization.
But…
"Is there a place for Level 0s? Of course there is! Is there a path for them other than preying on others? Of course there is!!"
The words of a Level 0 who was completely different from him who he had run into at the Dangai University database center naturally came to the surface of his mind.
"If you had only used the strength it took to form Skill-Out and used it to help those weaker than you, things would have changed for you!! If you had only used that strength you used to fight back against powerful espers to help those in need, the people of Academy City would have accepted you!!"
"…Yeah."
Hamazura Shiage pressed the button for the 25th floor where he had parted with Takitsubo and the elevator door closed.
"That's exactly right, you piece of shit. "
He cut off his own path of escape and returned the battlefield where a Level 5 awaited.