Here is the age old question: Do clones have souls?
To any religious person this is a hard question to tackle. Clones do not fall under the category of human beings born "naturally". Their DNA is copied from someone else, and extrapolated to create something similar, but not exactly the same, regardless of the appearance.
One could argue that the environment they grew up in matter just as much as the genes themselves. A person might turn out different with multiple backgrounds. In this case, raised in a laboratory, under the space of possibly mere months, all 20,000 of them, designed to be as close to the original as much as possible. But did that mean that they were all the same?
Were clones comparable to nephilims, beings without souls?
Did clones even have a proper place in everyday life? Would society accept them into their community?
All these thoughts and many more raced through Haru's mind as he slowly began to grasp the extremity of the situation. He had no idea why this particular clone was so talkative about something that should be so secretive, but he was not complaining.
What was the reason such a large number of clones were created for? Experimental purposes? Test to see the limit of similarity between the clone and the original? Did Mikoto even know about this? If they were freely wandering around the city, conspicuous, he highly doubted the lack of Misaka's knowledge about this situation. Did she agree to this? Haru was under the impression that he was a good judge of human beings. Now he was unsure.
Did he himself have the clone's best interests in mind? He would secretly, shamefully confess that he viewed having 20,000 of the same clones as more of a liability. Yes, he would admit it: he currently viewed clones as lower beings compared to the original.
And he hated himself for having that opinion. He really did. But that didn't change his thoughts on the situation. How will those 20,000 clones even live? Where will they go? People who advocated about equality of clones and humans didn't have answers to those important questions.
Was he himself, a bad human being?
"You are spacing out, Misaka observes. Is there something on your mind? Misaka asks."
Haru slowly turned to observe the clone sitting next to him. He really, really did not know what emotions he was feeling at that moment.
"Twenty thousand..." Haru muttered. "Well then, which number are you?"
"That information is classified, Misaka clarifies. To see if you are involved with the experiment, Misaka will verify your password. ZXC741ASD852QWE963."
If he answered that question, he could probably figure out all there was to it to this entire experiment. He did notice that the code was the repeat of the first three letters of the rows in QWERTY keyboard, and the repeat of the column of numbers on a typical number pad. Poorly written code, really. Too easy to remember. But perhaps they were relying on the logic of having complicated password in simple sequences.
But his mind was blank.
Even if he could conceivably figure out the algorithms involved with the given code in seconds he did not feel like contemplating the answer. He silently gazed at the clone.
"Since you are unable to decode the password at this time, you do not appear to be a part of this experiment, Misaka confirms." The clone stood up. "It was nice meeting a friend of Onee-sama. Now I must get back to researching, Misaka explains."
"Yes, alright." Haru replied in a small voice. "See you later..."
—What was that, really?
Was that a prank? A late April fools joke? Was he now a part of those weird Japanese TV shows where they pick a person to be tricked and filmed, for the amusement of the audience? He would be unhappy because of his pride and the insensitivity of the people responsible if that was the case, but he would be relieved at the same time. On the other hand, if there really were twenty thousand clones, then that was a different story.
The more Haru thought about it, the more possible answers that he came up with, more additional questions emerged.
The clones referred to themselves as third person. Why? It was as if someone was reading a novel out loud and spoke both the dialogue and the sentence describing it.
Wait, that was a perfect analogy. What did the sentence describe about the dialogue? Mainly emotions. They lacked emotions. As they lacked an integral part of a normal conversation, they vocalized their feelings, as they either did not have the ability to convey them or had their emotions suppressed. They were not robots, but rather clones, capable of every cognitive abilities humans were capable of themselves. Then the possibility of their emotions being suppressed was larger...
Haru began to squeeze his brain more for information. If he was a researcher who wanted to create clones in a fast and efficient way, he would grow the clones inside the laboratory inside containers, and feed them necessary nutrients. But they still lacked the mental growth. The clone in result would have a mental state of a baby, incapable of everyday life activities. Then he would invent a machine that processed all the necessary information and mental level into one's mind. The emotional part of the mind was largely suppressed, he theorized; emotions went against controversial and life-threatening experiments.
… But why? One or two or three clones he could ratiocinate reasons for creating; for example, organ replacement. 20,000 was a huge number in this context. The process of creating clones could not possibly be inexpensive. And then there is this million dollar question: What were they used for?
Right then and there his doppelganger appeared a yard away from him in a metallic whir. Haru stared at himself with questioning look. His future-self gave a slight nod.
Then he transmigrated; the spot he was in mere moments before began to glow brightly with green light, magical symbols appearing on that spot. The ground crackled as earth itself began to send out plants crawling within the boundary of the magical circle. Haru however was in a safe distance away from the trap.
Land mine. He recognized the magical structure of the plant trap. This was a signature move of a magician he knew.
"Might as well come out, Zoremos. Wherever you are."
The earth rumbled as a man began to rise out from the ground. It was the same magician as the one that held Index hostage mere days before.
"Earth is my stronghold, my area of power," he began to sing in a clear voice. "Swallow this man with dirt, Devour!"
Haru ran; holes began to form as earth collapsed, quickly following him. Forming his sword he swung at the mage, who countered with earth sprouted from the ground, forming into a hard stone. Sparks flew as the blade clashed with the granite. Haru swung and swung repeatedly trying to find a weak point in his defense. The magician drew up more and more columns of stones to counter. Haru briefly wondered about the lack of reaction from the crowd and hypothesized the influence of runic barriers.
The battle continued until packs of stones completely surrounded the magician.
"My intention is not to fight, but to deliver a punishment." The stone gradually broke down, revealing the mage inside. "As you will see, I have a hostage."
He snapped his fingers, and a large bag arose from the ground, as if the dirt was spitting it out. He ripped the bag open and grabbed the person inside by her collar and held her in front of him like some sort of a shield.
It was the Misaka clone.
Haru groaned out loud in frustration. "Seriously? Are you guys going to continuously kidnap every single girl you see me talking with? Are you guys that perverted? What do you think this is, RPG eroge dating game?"
"The identity of the person is not important if it fulfills its purpose." The mage replied in a dull voice. "You seem to care about them."
"Alright, let's get this over with. It's the same thing every single time with you. You invent something, with a weird purpose that doesn't even work, with a weird-ass name, which somehow screws up its functions in a weird way."
His inventions insulted, the mage's face grew purple. "Silence! This is a better gadget than my previous designs!"
"So you admit that your previous ones sucked, then."
Growling, Zoremos whipped out his newest contraption. "Behold! The Nerve-Wrecker 2000!"
It was a colorful gun with multiple liveries, resembling a toy a child might use. Haru laughed.
"That? That's your newest invention? That looks like something taken out from Spy Kids!" Haru grabbed his stomach, howling. "Hey, Zoremos, how much royalty did you have to pay to NERF to create that thing? Hahaha!"
Zoremos' eyes flashed in anger as his face grew more purple. "Shut your face! This invention will give you more sorrow than you can imagine! The remorse spell capacity inserted into this thing will make anyone think of themselves lower than dirt! Let's see if you can take this!" Aiming it toward Haru, he pulled the trigger. A bright laser flew from the muzzle.
Sobering up, Haru readied his sword. He began to carefully observe the approaching projectile.
Direction trajectory... Calculated.
Three dimensional Cartesian coordinates... Calculated.
Meters per second... Calculated.
Wind speed—Spell Projectile. Not Applicable.
Reflecting trajectory with an object... Calculated.
Angle of the reflection... Calculated.
Exact timing of reflection... Calculated.
In an instant Haru held his sword in front of his face in an angle; with the sound of screeching steel the spell beam bounced off of the blade, flying back toward where it came from. Gulping, Zoremos hurriedly placed the Misaka clone in front of him.
… Shit.
On the spur of the moment he forgot the hostage.
The beam hit the Misaka clone squarely on her back; her body shook before remaining still and falling to the ground.
"MISAKA!" Haru yelled loudly. The mage, seeing the anger springing forth from Haru's eyes, hurriedly began to set up defenses in panic. Stone began to arise from the ground as he tried to protect himself. Haru leapt over the boulder and jumped in front of Zoremos and clasped his hands around his neck.
"YOU—"
"Calm down!" The mage screamed. "She is not dead!"
Haru briefly relaxed before reinforcing his choke-hold. "What, does, that, spell, do?" He hissed through his teeth.
"It only amplifies the self-deprecation in people! Amplifies their flaws and their mistakes in their mind, and their remorse! Nothing harmful, I swear!"
Haru cursed; he couldn't continue to interrogate him while also taking care of the clone simultaneously. He threw the magician to the ground. "Go," he growled. Zoremos began to chant under his breath frantically while ground began to swallow him whole.
Haru began to check the clone's pulse. Contrary to his fears her pulse had a healthy beat and pattern. Slowly turning her body around he began to check for damages. Apart from burns from the rough contact with the ground she appeared to be safe. Shaking her body he attempted to wake her up with no avail.
Taking out a metal flask from his jacket, he opened the cap and fed a dark red liquid into her mouth.
Her head trembled slightly; grimacing, the clone woke up, and stared up at Haru's face.
"You just got hit by a magical laser beam from a wacky space gun." Haru began to explain as he helped her to her feet. "The devastating effect which that would have on a human mind can be quite overwhelming. Especially since you weren't exposed to spell effects before, or so I assume." He was not aware of his confusing ramble as he was worried about the clone.
"Misaka is a bit puzzled by your statement. Misaka assumes that this 'magic' you are talking about is—"
Then it happened.
Perhaps the spell took a while to kick in. Perhaps the effects of this particular spell were a bit incompatible with cloned beings. Whatever the reason was, it did not matter now; the curse became active. Her eyes changed, her grip on his arm tightened significantly.
"Hey," Haru said in worry, frown on his face. "That hurts."
Something went wrong. He knew that something was definitely wrong. Number of expressions raced past the clone's face, a face that originally was a mask. Surprise, concentration, indignation, fear, anger, horror, and finally, despair. It was overall creepy and unnerving to watch. He didn't dare to say anything, lest he break her train of thoughts.
Then he observed that she was very slightly shaking. First with her arms then with her entire body. Her palms became clammy as cold sweat ran down her back.
He should say something, he really should. But what should he say? Asking what was wrong at this point in this situation hardly seemed fitting. Or appropriate. But he couldn't stand watching this any longer. But then she spoke.
"... Please... someone, save me..."
"Save you from what?" Haru patiently asked. The clone slowly turned her head to face him.
"I'll do anything... Just to escape..."
"Escape? From what?" He hated being a broken record, but he currently had absolutely no idea what she was babbling on about.
"From this nightmare."
Was she having a hallucination? Haru began to wonder as he carefully began to observe her face. He really should have been analyzing the entire situation from ground up and come up with acceptable explanation, but his mind was jammed while watching the clone shake in front of him.
"10030." The clone spoke. "That is Misaka's serial number. 10030."
While although still referring to herself in third person, she stopped describing every dialogue she uttered. That appeared to be significant.
"The total amount of sisters produced for the experiment is 20,000." She continued. "Misaka is number 10030, and Misaka is the next experiment."
"Experiment for what?" Haru pressed.
She looked up toward him.
"Experiment of death."
She showed him all.
He saw everything.
Sometimes he wished he hadn't. But he still did.
From the first slaughter to the latest, he saw the violence, gore, and terror recorded on nearby satellite cameras, all on his blue Gekota Phone. While he did not watch them back to back, he saw enough.
Railgun Mass Production Plan. Plan to continuously manufacture clones of Number 3 of the Academy City in order to raise the level of the top esper in the city to level 6.
20,000 clones of Misaka Mikoto to act for the original 128 clones planned. As the level of the produced clones were lower than expected, they had to improvise. Somewhere back in the deep recess of his mind the cold and logical side of him thought of calculating the numerical ratio of power between the level 2-3 and level 5 using this information, but the emotional side of him quashed and completely ignored that thought. He really didn't know how he felt about this situation. He really didn't.
Standing up, he began to restlessly walk around while the clone silently watched him. He really wanted to punch something, anything. Smash, destroy. Pain would have been preferable compared to the things he just saw. But public display of violence would do only harm.
He himself had interacted with magicians in his young age; he learned magic and had heard countless tales from each mages about their dreams and ambitions. Their wishes went unanswered, and despondent, they turned toward magic for their goals. He constantly wondered as to why people's prayers were rarely answered to. Now he somewhat knew why. The evil humans were capable in their minds caused them to be abandoned.
"Why... why," Haru turned toward the clone with conflicting emotions. "Are none of you protesting about this? Do none of them have a sense of fear? Sense of self preservation? Why didn't any of you refuse?"
Misaka 10030 silently stared before replying. "Misaka views ourselves as non-human beings."
That sentence hit him harder than anything he saw today. That sentence alone adequately summed up his opinion on clones. They were not humans. They weren't, and they never will be. Did that make him just as bad as those researchers who were working on this experiment? Dehumanization led to committing crimes without any moral self repercussion. If only people realized this truth.
He observed the clone sitting in front of him. Past her facade of calmness she was probably terrified. Her pupils were dilated, and her hands still shook if one looked close enough. He admired her remarkable sense of composure.
It was now afternoon. Her experiment was due to begin soon.
What the hell was he supposed to do about this situation? Go against the strongest esper in the world on one-on-one combat? He was not even level 5, for goodness' sake. The logical side told him to run away from this as far away as possible. The thought of the despair she would feel if he ran away rooted him to his spot.
But as he stared into her eyes and as he saw numerous expressions within them, ranging from dread to anguish, he saw something else, buried far back within her mind.
He saw hope. Hope that someone could possibly save her from being killed. Hope that there still was someone left who would defend them.
It was similar to Pandora's Box, in a way. The only positive emotion lay way behind the back, waiting to be encouraged.
"..."
Tch...
He was at a crossroad. A choice, a fork of the road. He could help, or he could run away.
He walked toward the clone. "Give me every information you have on Accelerator."
The clone looked at him. "Why?"
"Might as well be prepared."