Don't try this at home, kids.
A second-story jump isn't exactly sky-high, but it's usually dangerous enough. Just look at that one guy who dreamed his way into 1997 and ended up with a broken leg for his troubles.
Natsume Sonoko pushed her hands out slightly, catching the ever-present breeze to cushion her landing as she touched down steadily on the ground.
Landing successful. Feeling good.
Jumping from the second floor didn't even register as a thrill anymore—frankly, it felt routine after spending so much time hundreds of meters in the air.
The only thing that worried Sonoko was the dorm supervisor's nightly room checks. Sure, she'd already done one round tonight, but there was no guarantee she wouldn't circle back for another.
Maybe Sonoko hadn't even noticed it herself, but as her abilities grew, even though she still asked Shirai for help now and then, she'd begun relying more on her own power to handle things.
Walking through the darkness, Sonoko gazed with fresh curiosity at the silent streets around her. It was a feeling she'd never experienced before.
It was long past curfew for every school in the city. Hardly any pedestrians lingered on the streets—just the occasional patrol bot roaming around.
The Advanced Education Bureau was located in District 13, separated from Sonoko's own District 7 by the entirety of District 15.
The reason Sonoko was headed there was simple: that was where Misaka-senpai and Kiyama Harumi had crossed paths in the story. She figured her chances of running into Dr. Kiyama there were a little higher.
The night seemed to be a paradise for certain types. Perched quietly on a white cylindrical object, Sonoko had already spotted three separate groups of people moving in a hurry.
Not only was there one fully-armed squad of adults, but also two groups of minors, moving through the streets like regulars of the night, chatting openly without a care.
Sonoko slipped past them without a sound, but sometimes accidents just happen.
"This cleaning robot's riding a bit low—like something heavy is weighing it down," a guy wearing a bizarre ring-like visor remarked. The ring was connected to a mess of cable plugs, with cords dangling all around his body. Sonoko immediately pegged him as a weirdo. He was staring intently at a cleaning robot speeding past.
"Senpai, do you really think something's off?" asked a girl in a private Shidarezakura Academy uniform, her expression curious.
The area was still quiet. Her arm lifted slightly, and a bullet shot from a sniper barrel hidden in her sleeve, striking the cleaning robot dead-on and taking out its power system in one shot.
The girl named Yumiya Rakko twitched her nose slightly, as if she could pick up clues from the faintest traces.
"The scent and traces are practically nonexistent, but my instincts tell me you're right."
Rakko had mastered the tracking skills of a hunter-gatherer people, able to pick her prey out of a dense crowd.
She was a shrewd huntress, yet she couldn't detect the other party's trail at all—it was as if they were completely isolated from the air.
Her sleeve lifted slightly again, aiming just a bit higher than the wrecked robot.
But before she could fire, both of them suddenly collapsed as if struck by some immense agony.
"It hurts… There's hot air."
Rakko clamped her hand over her nose and mouth as scorching air began flooding into her body through her respiratory tract. But if she stopped breathing, the suffocating feeling would set in immediately.
"It's an esper!"
She couldn't breathe, forced to endure the suffocating sensation. A wild look flashed in Rakko's eyes as her arm began to lift once more.
"Stop."
The weirdo in the ring visor slapped Rakko's arm down, trying to de-escalate while there was still room to do so.
He didn't say anything more, his body gradually turning transparent. But to his surprise, his situation didn't improve at all—the opponent had already locked onto him completely.
Still, he had another move.
Aside from showing goodwill, he could use his psychokinesis to launch himself away. If even that didn't take him out of the enemy's range, then all he could do was wait for backup.
The moment he realized he couldn't easily escape the suffocation, he'd used his ring visor to send a message to a certain someone.
'Do I have to abandon her?'
He glanced toward Rakko, his eyes filled with nothing but cold calculation.
Just as the two were on the verge of asphyxiation, the blistering air surrounding them vanished without a trace.
They'd rather not breathe at all than inhale that scorching air, which left Sonoko no choice but to withdraw her ability. She simply didn't have the nerve to take someone's life.
Relieved, the two gasped for air, finally recovering from near-suffocation.
"We're lucky. The other party isn't one of those Dark Side freaks."
The weirdo's expression barely changed, as if he hadn't just been close to death. Slowly rising from the ground, he wore a thoughtful look.
"Should we abort today's mission?" Rakko asked weakly as she stood up.
"Mission continues. We need to confirm the current status of the Tree Diagram. Next time, I'm bringing an oxygen tank."
The first half of his sentence was spoken normally, but the last part trailed off into a mutter.
"Wait, she's still here." This time, Rakko didn't raise her arm. Instead, she looked panicked.
Sonoko had already jumped down from the damaged cleaning robot—her first time breaking one by sitting on it, though she was the victim here.
'So this is the dark side of Academy City? All the ugly undercurrents are surfacing.'
Sonoko's heart was still racing. What shocked her most was that a girl had a gun barrel hidden in her sleeve and had fired so casually—which was also why Sonoko had let her guard down initially.
But she absolutely wouldn't let that second shot happen.
Sonoko was annoyed. Talk about an undeserved disaster.
Hiding in the shadows, she hesitated. With these clear law-breakers, the best move was probably to capture them and hand them over to Anti-Skill.
But she'd mustered her resolve to do something important tonight, and she didn't want to waste more time on them. She still had to wake up on time tomorrow—right now, she was dead tired.
"Yobou, you've encountered an enemy?"
A boy nearly 180 cm tall, wearing an expensive dark brown jacket, dropped down from the sky. His hair was similarly brown, his eyes gloomy, yet his lips often carried a faint, confident smile.
"Leader, you finally made it."
The weirdo, Yobou Banka, showed a trace of relief. Thankfully, his leader had also been in the area investigating that Accelerator guy—something about the Level 6 Shift Project.
Although Academy City's higher-ups had already issued a strict warning forbidding them from interfering. He could only hope his leader wasn't foolish enough to directly sabotage the project.
"Yeah, I was just getting bored. So, where's the opponent?"
The brown-haired boy flashed a fierce grin, like some unrestrained madman reveling in the chaos.
The moment Yobou saw that vicious smile, he immediately clutched his stomach, half-crouching as he retched—clearly, he had some kind of psychological hang-up about it.
"Not coming out, huh?"
The brown-haired boy produced a sphere of glowing matter and launched it into the air. Wherever the light touched, it reacted with the heat emitted by the human body, bursting into dazzling red flares.
"No reaction."
A flicker of surprise crossed the brown-haired boy's face. He pondered for a moment, then prepared to generate another type of glowing matter capable of detecting AIM diffusion fields.
"Could that be the #2 Level 5? And what is this light?"
Sonoko, sensing things were going south, had quietly retreated a good distance away. The light had touched her, but nothing happened.
Thanks to the constant-temperature layer enveloping her body, the heat Sonoko released into the outside world was practically zero. Even her scent was blocked by this same layer.
Originally developed to stay cool in summer and warm in winter, the ability had become the perfect concealment tool—though Sonoko herself wasn't really aware of it.
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T/N: While I am an inexperienced Translator, I have a Patreon! While it may seem empty as of now, webnovel will get 3 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
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If you guys wanna check it out.