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Home of Silent Prayer
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Quote:
Originally Posted by yukirosuzuka
To clear up some issues that the anime might have simply glossed over, here's more excerpts from the original text, courtesy of the amazing Teh_Ping who translated it. If you want to make a comparison to how J.C.Staff portrayed what happened, go ahead and read them.
Awaki VS. Kuroko:
Spoiler for volume 8 break or crash:
Shirai thinks, basically, the condition now is extremely simple.
Both Shirai and Musujime are injured rather badly. Even if they stop the bleeding, they can’t possibly recover their strength so quickly. Should she attack the enemy first? Even if it’s just a gentle push, it can potentially end the battle.
(If we seriously battle…I think I can only last for 10 seconds.)
Even if she didn’t get hit, she’ll reopen her wounds if she moves her limbs with all her might. Especially now that Shirai has not much strength left. Once she loses blood, she’ll immediately lose consciousness.
Musujime’s power is terrifying. If it wasn’t for the limitation that ‘a teleporter can’t move someone else with a similar power’, she could have slammed Shirai into a wall or the floor.
Shirai and Musujime glare at each other.
There’s a 10 meters distance between them.
A loud noise can be heard outside.
A part of the steel tower that Mikoto attacked has collapsed, making a large impact sound that sounds like a bell ringing.
This sound signals the start of the battle.
Shirai raises her fist and quickly slams it onto the table that she’s sitting on. The skin on the palm cracks, and the surface of the table is broken into pieces. Shirai grabs a sharp fragment and prepares to teleport it. A teleport attack can tear anything apart from within, so it can be considered a sure kill technique. Also, as it’s a point-to-point attack, anything that’s in a direct line can’t block it.
At that moment, Musujime uses her Move Point.
She swings her military torchlight, wanting to stuff a silver tray inside Shirai’s body. Though it’s an ordinary tray, the Move Point can easily pass through a human body. Once it hits, death is inevitable.
However, Shirai’s faster by a bit.
She sidesteps. The silver tray appears in mid air like a guillotine, falling onto the ground.
Though Musujime’s power is great, maybe she needed a sense of rhythm, as she has a habit of swinging the military torchlight first.
It’s hard to grab a chance to counterattack and not cause a lose-lose situation, but it’s not so hard if it’s just dodging.
“Cheh!”
Musujime inadvertently frowns. She swings the military torchlight around in a circle, and 5–6 tables beside her vanish into thin air before appearing before Musujime. These tables are packed together, forming a huge shield and blocking Musujime’s body.
(A mistake in sending…? No! it’s a shield to block my sight…!)
Shirai has already experienced this before. As teleportation is also a point-to-point attack, as long as one slightly deviates from the original position, the person can dodge it. In order to make Shirai think that she has already teleported away, Musujime purposely creates a wall.
(If so…)
Shirai uses her teleport.
She grabs a fragment of the plate, and teleports it together with her own body.
After appearing on the other side of the restaurant table shields, Shirai raises the fragment again.
(…Then I’ll use myself to guess the location!)
Since her vision is blocked by the obstacles in front, she just needs to get to the other side of the obstacles. She won’t miss if she clearly sees where Musujime is standing before she teleports the fragment.
This is because Musujime Awaki is unable to teleport her own body instantly.
Shirai hopes to use this sharp fragment to aim at the enemy and get the victory.
Shua!
Shirai Kuroko hears the sound of air being ripped.
Musujime is standing 1 step in front of Shirai, but she’s holding that heavy luggage bag with both hands, using all the strength in her hips to smack the luggage bag at Shirai’s face. As she’s holding the luggage bag with both hands, she has the military torchlight between her teeth.
From Musujime’s expression, it seems that she didn’t really predict Shirai’s method of attack.
(From that comfortable expression, she seems to be relieved that she was prepared for that attack. It’s really working, huh…!)
The hard side of the luggage bag comes swinging at Shirai’s face, so Shirai quickly teleports the sharp fragment and cuts the ‘n’ shaped handle of the luggage bag.
The luggage bag comes flying out in a completely wrong direction.
Musujime, who’s only holding onto the handle, reveals a surprised look.
(Now…here’s the chance…!!)
Shirai infuses all her strength into her injured right hand and clenches her tiny fist.
The distance is so close. Instead of doing the calculations and using her ability, she might as well send a punch.
However,
Musujime, who was biting on her military torchlight, moves backwards slightly.
“!!”
Shirai panics. This unexpected movement of Musujime made Shirai unable to counter with her ability.
She moves back by one step. At this moment, everything in front turns white. That’s the colour of the luggage bag. After her brain processes what’s going on, Shirai can’t help but feel that her back has gone numb. What happened was that the luggage bag that flew out of Musujime hands was teleported by Musujime using the Move Point in front of Shirai’s eyes. The bag hasn’t decreased in speed as it flew, but the path got adjusted, causing it to fly towards Shirai’s face.
If Shirai didn’t take a step back just now, her brain would have been blown off by the luggage bag that appeared out of nowhere.
However, even though she dodged this fatal blow, she’s going to be hit by the heavy luggage bag.
It’s too late for her even if she wants to react.
BAM!
The luggage bag slams hard onto Shirai’s face, and the huge impact sends Shirai flying backward. Shirai is unable to maintain her balance. Her skin retracted during the process.
It seems that some hot liquid gushed out from the wounds on her shoulder and her flank, and the fist that was clenched tightly was released. Shirai tries her best to stand upright, but her feet still leave the ground.
Just as she’s about to be knocked down, Shirai teleports again.
Shirai’s body vanishes. She maintains this falling position and appears behind Musujime, facing her back with her own back.
The momentum of the fall hasn’t decreased. Shirai extends her elbow backwards and lands directly on Musujime’s back. Being hit like this, Musujime falls forward and falls into the tables that are stacked up. Before Shirai can confirm that Musujime has fallen, she lands on the ground. The impact caused by the fall causes the wounds to reopen.
(Gack…ah…!)
In order to give the final blow, Shirai squeezes out all her remaining strength and grabs an item beside her. It’s the handle that was cut off the luggage bag. Shirai’s teleport attack can be used on any item, not just a sharp one.
(It’s—my win!)
Shirai cries out in her heart as she aims at the enemy. She calculates and tries to move the handle in her hand over.
(…!?)
However, her ability couldn’t activate.
The handle in her hand didn’t move at all.
The sharp pain and strong anxiety robs her of her concentration, causing her to be unable to use her ability.
“Oh no—!!”
This predicament makes Shirai even more anxious. She carries her last ounce of hope and looks at Musujime Awaki, hoping that she would be in similar pain and unable to use her ability.
Shirai hears a light ‘shua!’ sound.
The stack of tables around Musujime has disappeared.
After that, in a manner similar to that of eating a kebab, she pulls the military torchlight that she’s biting on out.
Shirai senses a chill.
She quickly rolls on floor, wanting to get away.
But the tables are above her, and they then fall due to gravity.
“…!”
Shirai gets onto the floor, covering the back of her head with both hands. A heavy attack lands on her like a blunt weapon, increasing the depth of her wounds. She’s hurting so badly that she wants to roll on the floor, but the large number of tables have made her unable to move away.
In this narrow vision, she can only see Musujime, who’s on the floor, kicks the floor and moves her body to prevent being hit by the falling table. The needles on the limbs tear Musujime’s wounds wide open, hurting her so badly that she cries out in pain. However, she immediately uses Move Point to teleport the luggage bag that doesn’t have a handle beside her, and leans on it, looking at Shirai.
Musujime points at the chairs nearby with the military torchlight.
The movement is extremely slow.
“Shirai-san, you’ll lose your life if you don’t dodge this.”
Musujime gives a mocking smile as she slides the front tip of the military torchlight from the back of the chair to Shirai. The circular front side of the military torchlight stops in front of Shirai.
“!!”
Shirai inadvertently turns pale, but she still can’t use her instant teleportation.
Shirai can’t help but tremble, however, the chairs teleported by Move Point land beside her. The large number of tables stacked on Shirai were pushed by the chairs, causing them to collapse, like a pyramid of poker cards. However, only the shape has changed, the fact that Shirai’s being pinned down hasn’t changed.
“Oh, you still can’t escape even in this condition? Seems like you can’t do your teleportation calculations.”
Musujime’s face has no more sign of nervousness.
She laughs.
The fresh blood seeps through from the wounds, dying Musujime Awaki’s face red, but she still laughs.
Basically, Kuroko's wounds reopened and the pain was too much for her to calculate the coordinates for teleporting. The same thing happened in the first season's Sherry VS. Kuroko with the golem, where she couldn't concentrate.
The exact reason why Awaki broke down after Kuroko talked back to her:
Spoiler for volume 8 break or crash:
She has always blamed the act of hurting others on superpowers, but now, she hasn’t used the power of her Move Point. Even without powers, she still ended up hurting others. In the end, the one who has to take responsibility isn’t her powers, but herself, who controls the powers.
(In the end…it’s all…)
Musujime feels that her lips, tongue and throat and incomparably dry, so dry that she can’t hear anything.
Thus, she can only conclude silently.
The one responsible for all these.
Up till now, the reason why the people around her got hurt is…
The reason why there is red fluid in front of her is…
That weakness of hers to use powers as an excuse.
Musujime Awaki recalls,
Those ESPers with similar ideals. Those that are afraid of their own powers, suspecting the necessity of them, those who jumped into battle in search for the answer. Those people who willingly became shields in order to protect Musujime from getting hit by Misaka Mikoto’s electricity strikes in the building that’s under construction.
Musujime always thought that she’s one of them as well.
But the truth is so different.
She’s just…
A liar who stood beside them. She lied to them.
Even if they used the ‘remnant’ to repair the ‘Tree Diagram’, getting the possibility of powers that no one has thought about before, and developing according to her plan.
Musujime Awaki’s nature will not change.
Musujime Awaki—a girl who will always hurt others.
“HA…AH…GYA…AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH HHHH!!”
It's a bit similar to Index's Sheol Fear, in which Kuroko pointed out the contradiction in the line of thinking that Awaki lived by. That forced her to look at her own faults and it "broke" her.
What exactly happened when Mikoto and Touma saved Kuroko, + an extra dialogue at the end that wasn't included in the anime:
Spoiler for volume 8 break or crash:
Just as Shirai’s mocking herself, the area starts to make a cracking sound, like glass being pressed together. It’s coming…Shirai weakly thinks. Though there was no such phenomenon with instant teleportation and Move Point, Shirai is clear about this.
It seems that in 10 seconds time, a mass of 4,520kg will pass through space and hit her.
From outside the broken windows, the noises of car engines echo throughout like never before, but the room is engulfed in terrifying silence. The difference in the two sides is huge, and made Shirai want to laugh. Though she can’t hear the unsuitable light French music echoing in the background, that created a chilly feeling even more.
I don’t want to die, Shirai thought.
At the same time, she knows that Misaka Mikoto can’t hear her, yet Shirai can’t help but continue to plead inside her heart.
Being extremely expectant that the Railgun might hear this commotion and run over.
(I beg of you…)
Shirai is unable to move her body on her own.
But if someone is supporting her, she might be able to walk.
If at this moment, there’s a savior.
If someone can appear at the last minute like an old-school hero…
(I beg of you…)
The twin-pigtailed girl continues to pray.
At this final moment that will end.
(Please run away…don’t get involved in this…Onee-sama…)
Shirai Kuroko earnestly prays.
Musujime Awaki’s attack will immediately come, and she won’t be able to escape. At this moment, even if someone does come up, it’s unlikely that she’ll be saved. If Mikoto arrives at the scene and sees her lying on the floor, she’ll rush over without any hesitation. Mikoto doesn’t even know that this attack that will pass through space will arrive anytime soon, and even if she senses this attack through extremely sharp alertness, she probably won’t be able to make it if she wants to carry Shirai out of this building. The worst case scenario is that both of them would be crushed to death by the collapsing building, and the possibility of it is rather high.
Just…
Just…
(Ahh…)
Shirai hears something…
Dong dong dong…footsteps can be heard from the entrance of the level where there is no one. Maybe they felt that the lift is too slow, so they dashed up the stairs.
No, not just footsteps.
There’s also the sparks of electricity.
(AHH…NOOO!!!)
Shirai’s face instantly turns pale.
Though she wants to stop the owner of these footsteps, she can’t move.
Thus, Shirai can only shout,
“NO, DON’T COME HERE!!”
Right now, the savior who’s coming over to save her at this perfect moment touched Shirai so much that she’s about to cry. She desperately works her throat, inducing every last ounce of strength to squeeze out the voice.
“THERE’S GOING TO BE A SPATIAL ATTACK HERE! DON’T COME HERE! HURRY UP AND LEAVE! THE WHOLE BUILDING WILL COLLAPSE!!”
Shirai Kuroko continues to scream while she’s on the floor, covered in blood.
The area around her starts to give out a cackling sound. Maybe the full attack is about to arrive, or it’s just a deliberate way of hinting.
“…!”
Shirai feels extremely anxious. Since she teleported into the shop in the first place, she doesn’t know the layout and passageways of the building. However, from the sound, it seems that the owner of the footsteps will require more than ten more seconds to get there. Though the displacement is short, it’ll take a long time to get around the lifts and passages, so the person most likely won’t make it in time.
Shirai doesn’t know what Musujime would teleport over.
But a 4,520kg object—once it presses onto the ground, it’ll cause the floor and the entire building to collapse. The people inside the building will definitely meet their end.
She can’t let this happen.
She definitely can’t let this happen.
“RU…NNNNNNNN…!!!!”
Shirai’s about to break down in tears. Even until the last moment, she wants to cry out, but it’s too late. At this moment, the space inside the room starts to distort, like she’s seeing through convex lenses. Maybe the space was forced apart, changing the air pressure on the level, causing a refraction of light and creating this phenomenon.
The attack is starting.
“…!”
Shirai grits her teeth and exerts all her strength.
However, she still can’t move her limbs. Not even a finger can move. Shirai Kuroko is really upset. If she had even more power, she would have used her instant teleport easily and teleport the person who’s coming in to save her at the same time. Besides, if she could have beaten Musujime Awaki, she wouldn’t be stuck in this crisis.
But no matter how upset she may upset, her power isn’t going to increase.
The reality is cruel.
(Onee…sama…!)
Though Shirai Kuroko is just barely hanging on, she still tries to squeeze out a last ounce of strength. She knows that it’ll aggravate her injuries, and that it won’t help to change this situation one bit, she still won’t allow herself to relax and give up. At the same time, she’s making a final prayer.
She wishes that there is a miracle where that powerful yet ordinary girl would be saved.
BOOM!!
The prayer seems to have worked. An orange light passes through the floor and the ceiling.
A shot of metal at three times the speed of sound.
The slanted heated beam passes through the level like a needle, with a speed so fast that any human can’t sense it. Like a laser, neither the start nor the end can be seen, only a straight line can be seen. This terrifying speed even leaves a residual image behind.
Shirai is stunned as she sees this.
After that, there’s a rumbling sound as the entire building shakes. The orange line is like a fuse, creating an extraordinary destructive storm. A large blowhole two meters in diameter opens up as everything in the line is blown apart, away or completely destroyed. The floor seems to be tilted downwards as the sound of rubble falling can be heard.
The Railgun.
Shirai, who’s on the ground, remembers this power and the name of the person who has this power.
“We’ll make it now that we have a hole to access through.”
Shirai hears the familiar voice of the girl.
Without anxiety, without fear, without hesitation, the words are filled with confidence, as if the person’s not caring about the danger.
“Though I’m unhappy about this, I can only work up till here. After this, we can only rely on your fist to bring her back!”
On hearing this, Shirai is shocked.
She inadvertently turns around.
The blowhole created by the Railgun is like a tunnel through the concrete floor. The debris of the ceiling and the tables, chairs and umbrellas are attracted by magnetism, sticking together through the slanted blowhole to form a ladder. A boy is running up this flight of stairs.
They wouldn’t be able to make it if they ran up the original staircase.
If so, they should just ignore those stairs.
The boy who’s running up this most ridiculous shortcut ever conceived isn’t holding any weapons. He doesn’t look like he has any amazing ability. However, he continues to dash up without any fear. He clenches his right fist as hard as rock as he heads towards this obviously abnormal space.
The distortion of the space reaches its maximum less than a second later, cracking from inside.
At that moment, the boy swings his fist without any hesitation.
The abnormality seems to be some sort of illusion. Though Musujime’s attack is powerful, it doesn’t bring the sense of reality.
A mass of 4,520kg.
The boy’s fist forms a terrifying hammer as it slams at the huge mass.
BAM!! The boy’s fist hits the middle.
The boy grits his teeth. His fist ignores the change in space as it moves forward.
An amazing thing happens.
Suddenly, a sound of steel being hit can be heard. The originally distorted space seemed to be flattened by the boy’s fist. The invisible thing that refracted the light seemed like it was punched far away.
For a three-dimensional object to do a forced intervention on the eleventh-dimension spatial axis; Shirai, who mastered these calculations, understands very well that this is like driving up the wrong way on a one-way street.
This ridiculous scene stuns Shirai. The boy says,
“Ah…we’re a bit late. Sorry. I’m really clueless this time, running around like a headless chicken. Luckily, I met Mikoto on the way…WAH, OI OI, aren’t you in a terrible shape!?”
The boy only seemed to realize that Shirai is severely injured now and immediately runs over.
“Why would you…risk you life for me…?”
Shirai murmurs. The one who repaired the distortion with an amazing ability, it shouldn’t be the person in front of her.
Thus, Shirai asks,
“Don’t we have no relation? No matter how powerful you are, you shouldn’t have sold your life for me. Why would you run over without any hesitation?”
On hearing this, the boy just remained stunned for a while.
After that, he says,
“You’re asking me why? I don’t know how to reply to that. Basically, it’s easier to settle the problem head on than to run away. To be honest, if you could have been saved even if I ran away, I would have run away.”
“It isn’t…so simple, right…? Don’t tell me you…aren’t afraid at all?”
Shirai’s words didn’t change the boy’s thoughts by a bit.
The boy replies without hesitation.
“About this, I would be afraid. But this is a promise.”
“A promise?”
Shirai asks. The boy looks around, seemingly trying to confirm that no one is around. After that, he lowers his voice and whispers,
“…That’s right, it’s a promise. This promise is to protect Misaka Mikoto and the world around her. This is my agreement with a certain nameless person who fell in love with her so quickly.”
The boy bitterly laughs,
“Maybe it’s a bit too late, but I want to ask you something. Have I fulfilled the promise with that guy?”
Shirai doesn’t understand what the boy meant. After thinking for a while, she looks around.
Shirai’s eyes focuses on one point.
Misaka Mikoto. The Railgun, that ace of Tokiwadai who is running over here through the huge blowhole that she made to the thoroughly injured kouhai of hers with a teary look on her face.
Right now, the person that Shirai Kuroko wants to protect the most is right in front of her.
“…That’s right, you protected it. Halfway.”
Shirai replies.
The other half is now carrying a luggage bag and escaping through Move Point.
“Really?”
The boy seem to realize something from Shirai’s words, and doesn’t question it. He just nods his head firmly.
After that, he says,
“Then, I’ll go and finish off the other half.”
The exact reason behind Awaki's trauma of teleporting herself:
Spoiler for volume 8 break or crash:
Musujime Awaki has already arrived at the boundary of Academy City by moving through the safe escape route.
She’s covered in wounds, and she’s wearing a one-sleeved winter jacket over her naked upper body. Her jacket is buttoned wrongly, but she doesn’t know this. Overuse of her ability caused the blood vessels to appear all over her skin, hot and heavy breathing coming out of her mouth. She continues to look around, seemingly not knowing what to do next. She continues to murmur to herself as sweat flows down her face due to nervousness. Ever since she lost her military torchlight, her powers have become hard to control. The fingers that are used to holding the military torchlight are now stained in blood as they stroke on the luggage bag with a missing handle.
A terrifying memory appears in her mind.
This is the aftereffect of teleporting herself using her own power. She remembers that incident during class two years ago. At that time, the test was simple— to teleport herself to a room in town. But Musujime miscalculated the co-ordinates, and got a leg stuck inside the wall.
At first, there was no pain.
Thus, Musujime didn’t really mind it. She tugs her leg out, trying to get away from the wall. However, this is to be the greatest error.
At this moment, she hears a cracking sound.
The rough texture on the broken part of the wall is rubbing against the skin on the leg.
After that, there’s a sharp pain.
The leg pulled out of the wall has no skin at all.
Like…
Like a peeled orange. The tender flesh and the net-like blood vessels covering it are completely exposed.
(Kya…Ah…AAAAAAAAAHHH…!!)
Musujime Awaki bends her body in a ‘<’ shape. A sense of puking is rising up her abdomen as she tries to suppress it. Her back trembles irregularly, and after the sense of vomiting was felt, the feet that were stumbling about completely stopped.
And finally, a line that wasn't included in the Touma+Index conversation at the end:
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Wow, thanks a lot for this. A lot of my questions, like why Kuroko suddenly can't start teleporting anymore or why Musujima suddenly broke down is answered perfectly here, as well as some other great stuffs that seems a waste not to be animated. But oh well, time constraints and all, at least they dedicate the budget on the awesome fights with the great soundtracks. Yeah, I guess now that it's finished I'll try and find a time to read the whole volume when I can.
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