“What the fuck is it now, Kihara-kun?”
A younger Accelerator, clad in a stripped shirt given to him by that glasses-wearing egghead-chan, asked that question.
“Another super-awesome test I got in store just for you. Come on, I don’t have time to fucking drag you there myself, you stupid tit.”
It was another day at the Special Ability Holders Multiple Alteration Technologies Research Institute.
Short is Special Ability Institute.
It’s a laboratory dedicated to the research of the theoretical phenomena known as Dual Skill; where an esper manifests two separate abilities at once. It’s a place Accelerator is forced to call ‘home’ as much as it disgusts him to admit. This is a place where he has been locked-up in ever since he surrendered that day; a place where orphans of this city, Child Errors, die in the name of so-called ‘science’. It’s a place where countless scientists tried to understand his power, got too cocky and got blown to pieces. About a good two dozen or so?
Well, these is someone who got too cocky and managed to survive: Accelerator’s Power Developer, Kihara Amata. The guy is a larger-than-life figure – one heck of a large ham – somebody that casually deals with the strongest of Academy City and can openly berate and push him around without consequences, like getting his eyes gouged out.
Day after day, Accelerator is subjected to tests designed by him. These tests were designed to test his Vector Control, and his Redirection against all sorts of attacks. Kihara tried his damn best to kill Accelerator with those, but failed every time.
Today’s just gonna be another one of his prick-waving power trips, he thought.
Accelerator stood in the gigantic testing arena reinforced with state-of-the-art materials so he couldn’t escape.
Not than he needed to.
Kihara and other researchers watched from the above-ground booth separated from the arena.
“Alright, alright. Let’s start this shit. Have fun, alby kid,” Kihara disdainfully commented over the microphone amid a smirk.
He had something rather special in store for Accelerator today. Something he wouldn’t escape from. Incomprehensible was the best way to describe that Accelerator would be facing.
Something that would make it through his darned ability.
After several minutes of the test, Accelerator was a sweating mess.
There was something unknown coming at him, something he had trouble comprehending.
It was almost impossible for such a thing to exist, yet it did.
It hit Accelerator as if his Redirection was meaningless, and he had to dodge it, but he wasn’t physically fit at all and it tired him out greatly.
“What the fuck is this shit!” he shouted at the researcher.
Kihara laughed in the booth, while his subordinates were analysing the data they were getting on their monitors.
“Ahhh? Losing your touch, brat? Ever heard of Darwin, you big book nerd? Adapt or DIE you fucking pussy! HA!”
Accelerator tried his very best as his life was riding on it, but even he couldn’t properly fight back against this… indescribable matter. One hard hit landed on his face, and he started to bleed profusely from his nose and cut lips.
“KIHARA!”
The laughter continued.
“HAHA! Yeah, you thought I couldn’t do it, didn’t you? HA! You thought you could fucking mock me eh? You shitty self-important brat, I got news for you…”
Almost licking the microphone in his hands, he spelled out the next words with long awaited anticipation.
“You’re going to get torn to pieces!. Say you prayers, meatbag, and get ready to have the devil chew on your fucking balls! HAHA! Useless fuckhead! GWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
At that moment, Accelerator was hit by the unknown matter that kept on wailing at him mercilessly. He tumbled with a loud grunt of pain onto the cold metallic floor.
Then he felt an emotion he had not felt in a long, long time – genuine fear.
It finally came to him.
He was going to die.
He really was going to die here.
Another hit came, and Accelerator was propelled against a wall, some back muscles getting torn in the process.
“UWAAAAAAHHHHHH!”
His pained scream resonated through the arena, some blood came from his severed lips, and a sharp pain stabbed his abdomen.
He heard Kihara’s guffawing, and the cold indifference of the other researchers through the speakers.
That bastard had won, and controlled AND destroyed the monster that stood before him.
“Shithead…”
“Ah? STILL SPEAKING YOU BRAT? Ohhh how strong! FUCKING KILL HIM!”
All that was needed for his death to be sealed was for one of Kihara’s monkeys to press a button to unleash another attack.
It was happening.
The death of the strongest of Academy City.
“Ha…”
He accepted that as a fact.
But then, among the darkness, appeared a faint light.
“I can’t allow you to do that.”
A woman’s voice spoke against Kihara, who in turn looked at her with a quizzical look.
“Huh? Who are you, bitch?”
The dark lavender-haired woman stood in the doorway, hands in her pocket as she approached.
“I’m afraid that Accelerator isn’t under your jurisdiction anymore,” she said in a cool voice.
“Who ordered a stinkin’ hooker in here? Anyone of you?”
He paid no attention to her and asked his subordinates that, who forced chuckles.
The woman took out a single sheet of paper from her labcoat, got in Kihara’s face, and shoved it in his view for his eyes to see.
“See that signature? He’s under my care now.”
One of the researchers besides Kihara took the sheet from the woman, and read it.
“She’s… S-She’s right Kihara-san.”
“What!” he let out in disbelief.
Kihara took back the formal letter and adjusted his glasses, and once he finished, his entire face twitched in anger.
“’THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE BITCH!” he roared, tightening his fists.
He took a nearby coffee cup and dashed towards the woman, and was about to knock her head with it. She gave him a clean punch to the face – right between the eyes – then a blunt kick to the groin, sending him tumbling backwards in pain, his eyeglasses flying off from the hit, broken in half.
“Do that again and I’m suing you,” she softly spoke, looking at the floored Kihara with a scorn as she rubbed her lightly bruised knuckle.
Before he could say anything back to this cold bitch-like woman, she left and the door slammed shut.
The researchers, passing the letter around, looked floored as well, in a different way.
Not left with any choice – and with Kihara’s legal authority over them close to none now – they stopped the experiment that should’ve killed the number one level 5 esper.
Through the haze, a battered and beaten Accelerator saw the halls of the institute; it’s ceiling that is. He was pinned to a stretcher, and there were some doctors who he hadn’t seen before monitoring his vitals. Plus, that woman who’s voice he heard over the intercom – the one that had surely ruined Kihara’s day – was besides him as he was carried away.
“Wh-Who…are…you?” he mumbled weakly, nudging his head toward her.
She turned to Accelerator, and said this with a grin: “A motherly scientist perhaps?”
With that, Accelerator had found someone – an adult he could put a meager of trust into.
The self-declared motherly scientist named Yoshikawa Kikyou.
Shortly after that fateful day, the Special Ability Institute was raided and dismantled by an Anti-Skill unit after it’s commander had been tipped off by an old friend of hers.
The commander’s name was Yomikawa Aiho.