The man finally realized that he had made a mistake—he had leaked unnecessary information to the mission target during an active operation.
By common sense, if the target had escaped from the employer's research institute, then it went without saying that the party hiring "hunters" to capture him would be that same institute. There was no need to think too deeply about it.
It was something obvious, hardly a classified secret.
That was precisely why the man hadn't considered it particularly important. Under Kobayashi's interrogation, he had instinctively tried to say something to stall for time, which was why he'd blurted out, "the research institute you used to belong to."
And yet, Kobayashi had caught the key detail—
This man knew about the institute.
Without giving him a moment to hesitate, Kobayashi snapped the man's other hand as well.
Amid his screams, the man hurriedly confessed, "It's Black Moon—the Black Moon Research Institute! On the surface, it's a fully legal, compliant research organization, but that's just a shell! Their true core project, Dark May, is a completely illegal experiment! You're someone who escaped from there!"
"A legal research institute?" Kobayashi nodded. "Good. Legal is good."
That legal facade was both their shield and their Achilles' heel.
If he couldn't find the Dark May project team, could he really fail to see the Black Moon Research Institute itself?
Of course, Kobayashi knew about the Dark May Project. It was an experiment that involved implanting Accelerator's personality data into the brains of test subjects, attempting to enhance their Personal Reality by mimicking the thought patterns of the strongest Esper—thereby raising their ability level.
To put it simply, the project's ultimate goal was to create another Accelerator.
What Kobayashi hadn't expected was that he—or rather, the former "007"—had been one of the project's victims.
His thoughts immediately turned to Kinuhata Saiai and Kuroyoru Umidori. They were survivors of the Dark May Project, the very crystallized outcome of that experiment—Level 4 espers."
He didn't know whether, at this point, they had already reached Level 4. If it were those two who had been sent to attack him…
Kobayashi honestly wasn't confident he could defeat them.
"And who are you people?" he asked. "The Dark Side?"
The kind of organization bold enough to operate so recklessly within Academy City seemed to be limited to one of the city's defining features—the so-called Dark Side organizations.
"Yes. We're Dark Side."
Kobayashi sighed. "Spare me the vague answers. I want specifics."
As he spoke, he moved to break the man's left leg.
Feeling the sudden increase in pressure on his leg, the man panicked. "Wait—wait! I'll talk! We're Hunters—"
A sudden gunshot cut him off.
Right before Kobayashi's eyes, the man who had been about to reveal organizational intelligence had his head blown apart.
Kobayashi barely had time to raise a psychic barrier, deflecting the various… things that splattered toward him.
A wave of visceral disgust surged up his spine. Instinctively, he retreated, putting distance between himself and the headless corpse.
Only then did he realize—
The sniper's position had changed.
From the original building, it shouldn't have been possible to fire at the area behind the flowerbed directly.
The sniper had taken advantage of the interrogation to relocate, or there was a second sniper entirely.
Either way, it was bad news for Kobayashi.
Just then, a dull bang echoed out.
Turning toward the sound, Kobayashi saw a cylindrical object fly out from the corner of a nearby street.
"Bullet time" didn't trigger. At the apex of its arc, the cylinder exploded, unfolding into a massive net that spread wide and dropped straight down toward him.
Kobayashi tried to push it away with psychic force, but the net was extremely elastic, dissipating the applied force through the deformation of its cords.
And it wasn't just one net.
From multiple corners all around him, identical capture nets were thrown out.
Even if Kobayashi forcibly tore through one or two with his psychic ability, it wouldn't matter—in the end, he'd still be bound tightly by the rest.
The enemy had clearly learned their lesson. None of them appeared within Kobayashi's line of sight, denying him any chance to launch a direct attack.
Non-lethal suppression was, ironically, the perfect counter to Kobayashi's "bullet time."
With no room to hesitate, Kobayashi twisted and sprang up, using psychic force to propel himself forward, almost skimming the ground as he "flew."
His target was the first person who had launched a capture net.
In that fleeting moment, he had only managed to glimpse the net's trajectory—just enough to reverse-engineer the enemy's position.
An enemy had finally come close.
There was no way Kobayashi was letting this chance slip.
When Kobayashi suddenly appeared in front of him, the man—still holding the launcher he hadn't had time to put away—stared in shock.
He never could have imagined that the prey who had been moments away from falling into an inescapable trap would now be standing right before him.
And judging by Kobayashi's agile movements and explosive speed, where was there even a hint of a "cripple" with broken limbs?
Suppressing the pain surging through his arms, legs, and chest, Kobayashi fixed the enemy with a hard glare.
Even with psychic protection—and with most of his movement driven by psychic force—this kind of reckless exertion sent waves of pain through his wounds.
The discomfort slowed his reactions by half a beat.
Fortunately, the enemy was even slower.
Kobayashi's mobility had far exceeded their expectations.
With no time to switch the launcher to a more combat-appropriate weapon, the man hurled it at Kobayashi, hoping to buy himself a moment.
In a normal fight, that tactic might have worked.
But Kobayashi was a psychic.
He didn't even look at the launcher flying toward him. He caught it with telekinesis—and flung it right back.
At the same time, multiple chunks of condensed psychic force slammed toward the enemy.
Whoosh!
"Bullet time."
From his left, at the nine o'clock direction, a bullet came screaming toward him.
That damned, persistent sniper again.
Kobayashi clicked his tongue internally and was forced to divert his focus to the lethal round, already within ten meters.
Using the bullet's trajectory, he pinpointed the sniper's position.
This time, he layered multiple psychic barriers to completely drain the bullet's kinetic energy. Then he reversed its direction, re-accelerated it, and sent it flying back along its original path.
Whether it hit the enemy or not didn't matter.
At the very least, it would curb that bastard's arrogance—he couldn't be allowed to keep attacking so brazenly.
With the danger resolved, the "bullet time" state ended, and the flow of time snapped back to normal.
The violent shift in subjective time made Kobayashi dizzy, as if his mind were splitting apart. But the fight wasn't over yet. He forced himself to endure the discomfort and snapped his attention back to the enemy in front of him.
(End of Chapter)
If you are enjoying the story and would like to read ahead Join my Patreon
https://patreon.com/Omarfome