(3rd person POV)

The morning after his encounter with the strange hooded girl, Accelerator took a walk to clear his mind, but walking wasn't exactly helping. As he was engulfed in his thoughts, a bespectacled girl with dyed green hair bumped into him, and some of the paper that she was carrying scattered on the floor.

"Ah, sor--" she bowed, knocking down half of the papers and dropping her glasses. "Eeek!"

She bent down to pick up her glasses and the pieces of paper on the floor, but she accidentally dropped the remaining pieces of paper she was holding, making them scatter across the sidewalk, and a piece flew to the middle of the street.

"Airhead." Accelerator said.

"A-ah...s-sorry..." She bowed again and felt around the floor, trying to find her glasses. "Where are they..?"

"To your right." Accelerator said, sighing at the airhead before him.

"A-ah, thank you..!" She said, finally finding her glasses thanks to Accelerator's 'help', and picked up every piece of paper and stacked them up again. "Ah, oh no...where is it? Where'd page 91 go..?"

"You mean that?" Accelerator pointed to the paper in the middle of the street, and the girl's eyes widened.

"Miss Yoshikawa is going to kill me!"

"Yoshikawa?"

"Yes, miss Yoshikawa Kikyo, the researcher and scientist. She needs that page for her research."

'So this girl is with Yoshikawa, huh?' Accelerator rubbed the back of his head. "Can't you just get it?"

"Eh..? What?! That isn't a pedestrian's lane and there's a truck coming, it's too dangerous!"

"Fine, I'll get it for you." Accelerator walked off to get the paper as the truck got closer and closer.

"H-Hey! HEY! What are you doing?! You could get seriously hurt!"

The truck was only a few feet away from him, and he turned on his choker-style electrode, about to use reflect but then...

It stopped.

Several bars of metal coming from the ground appeared out of nowhere and stabbed the truck, as someone appeared in front of Accelerator, wearing a hood that covered their clothes, eyes and hair and a black mask that covered half of their face.

"You okay?" The person said.

'Is that...? No. She never used metal. I never saw her ability in battle. All I know is that she's able to make those walls.' Accelerator thought.

"Ah, Tatsu!" The green haired girl said, running over to Accelerator.

"Haruhi Momozono, Yoshikawa has been waiting for you." Tatsu said, picking up the paper on the floor and giving it to Haruhi. "Hurry up."

Tatsu touched the metal that was piercing the truck's tires, disappearing along with it and Accelerator and Haruhi walked back to the sidewalk.
"Um...well, I guess I should properly introduce myself. I'm Haruhi Momozono, nineteen years old, a level two earth controller err, terra kinetic, and Yoshikawa's assistant. And you are..?" Haruhi said, extending a hand for Accelerator to shake.

"Tch. Accelerator, level five." Accelerator said reluctantly, not bothering to shake Haruhi's hand.

"Oh-um, sorry for not recognizing you earlier, mister Accelerator..." Haruhi said fearfully, retracting her hand. She had just now realized that she bumped into the most powerful esper in academy city. "And, uh, that was Tatsu, Yoshikawa's other assistant."

"I didn't ask about you or the other guy. I don't care about weaklings." Accelerator bluntly said.

"Oh, haha, sorry..." Haruhi awkwardly laughed, checking her wristwatch. As she saw the time, her blue eyes widened.
"Ack! Miss Yoshikawa needs these papers before six o'clock! Need to hurry! It was nice meeting you!" Haruhi speedwalked away and Accelerator walked behind her, leading him into Yoshikawa's lab. She was there with a silver haired girl that was wearing a nagatenjouki uniform and typing something in a blue laptop.

"Sorry I'm late Miss Yoshikawa!" Haruhi bowed.

"Well, it's not a surprise Ha--Accelerator?" Yoshikawa said, noticing Accelerator as she looked over to them. "What're you doing here?"

"Just felt like it." Accelerator said. "What the hell are those papers for, anyways?"

"Ah, those are hard copies of codes and residue files of the database of an experiment I worked on once, a backup just in case the files get lost." Yoshikawa said.

"I've gotten some more info on project six." A silver haired girl said boredly, spinning her chair around to face Yoshikawa.

"Good, now transfer it into the USB." Yoshikawa said.

"The hell's Project six?" Accelerator asked.

"Uh, not to be rude, but, Miss Yoshikawa and Mynnah have been researching that for over four years already...but she never even told me what it was about...I don't think she'll tell you...she'll probably say that it's just some side research again." Haruhi said, adjusting her glasses and putting the papers on the table, and Yoshikawa sighed, turning to face Accelerator.

"I didn't tell you, Haruhi, because just talking about it...feels terrible..." Yoshikawa said. "But since you're both curious...I'll tell you.

"Project six is a failed project that was conducted seven years ago, the first level 6 shift project ever to be made, it was like the level six shift project that you were in, but, unlike yours," Yoshikawa trailed off. "It was conducted on a level three gemstone esper that was only nine years old, the user of an abilty called Starburst, an ability that controls vector."

"Another vector transformation user?" Accelerator asked.

"Yes, and no." Yoshikawa said. "There are five espers that can control vectors, but none of them ever had the same ability."

"What exactly do you mean by that?" Accelerator asked.

"For example, you can control, redirect, and transform vectors. She, on the other hand," Yoshikawa moved a strand of hair from her face. "had the ability to change their state, reform them, and shift them."

"How many of us did the institute hold?" Accelerator asked.

"Four."

"Then why the hell did they pick her, then?" Accelerator clicked his tongue. "I doubt a level three could do shit for them."

"Well, the first option was Lucky, but he was too unstable. His power only activated according to his will, and nobody else could bring it out or improve it other than him. And then there was...Third..." Yoshikawa froze. "She was only considered to be one of you because her power was unexplainable...calling her powerful is an understatement... everyone who worked with her either died or was considered to be was considered to be compromised." Yoshikawa let out a shaky sigh. "I lost many co-workers because of her..."

"If she was so powerful, then why isn't she listed as a level five?" Accelerator asked. "Why hasn't she replaced me as the "number one"?"

"It's because there were possibilities she wasn't an esper at all, but a whole new different entity..." Yoshikawa said fearfully. "Anyways, she was too dangerous to work on and after three experiments, she was shipped away and isolated, which left the two of you."

"She was weaker in terms of ability, but she was better physically, and they couldn't fully get ahold of you, so she was chosen for the experiment..." Yoshikawa looked away. "An experiment that didn't only harm her, but others too."

"Haa? What, did she go berserk after the procedure?"

"They used a device that took the abilities of other children to forcefully make an ability grow stronger, as a desperate attempt to make a level six." Yoshikawa gripped her arm. "The children lost their abilities and were terminated, and she was doing fine at first but then..."

"Then, what?" Accelerator asked.

"She died the very next day due to exhaustion." Yoshikawa said. "She wasn't even given a proper burial, her body was tossed into a river to make it look like an accident and to conceal that the project ever existed."

Yoshikawa sighed.

"I've tried to report it several times, but since I didn't know the girl's full name and I didn't know where her body was, I had no solid proof. Not like anybody would file a missing persons report for a subject child error, either."

"The girl's dead and the damn project's done, what will researching about it do?" Accelerator scowled. "Stop wasting your time on pointless things."

"I know, I could let it be, but my conscience is eating me alive." Yoshikawa said, sadly. "She was a kind, intelligent and beautiful red haired girl, she could've had a bright future....she was abandoned in academy city, we didn't even know who her parents were, and the only name she gave us was Hoshi."

"Hoshi?" Haruhi asked.

"It's a nickname...a translation of her name. She refused to give us her real name, so we called her that." Yoshikawa said. "But maybe you can give us some insight, Accelerator? You two were very close, and I think you knew her real name back then, since you called her by a different nickname."

"What the hell do you mean? I never even knew that there were other vector users before now." Accelerator clicked his tongue. "And I sure as hell never gave any nicknames, especially to a person worthless enough for me to forget."

"But you did...what was it...Macchan? Nicchi? Nacchi?" Yoshikawa pondered.

"Nacchan..." Accelerator's lips moved on their own, and even he was surprised by his own words.

"I thought you didn't remember?" Yoshikawa said, puzzled.

"I don't. I don't know how I know that name, either." Accelerator said, just as confused as she was.

"As much as I'd love to stay and listen to your chat, I have to go now." Mynnah said, closing her laptop. "I have classes tomorrow and Kiyan can't be left alone for too long."

"Sure. And it's getting late, you should go too, Accelerator. Yomikawa might not be home until late at night since Anti-skill's assigned her and her team to investigate the massacre, and Last Order would probably hate to be left alone for that long...Haruhi and I still have some stuff to do." Yoshikawa said.

"See you tomorrow." Haruhi said to Mynnah.

"So that's why she started this..." Mynnah said, walking alongside Accelerator while texting. She suddenly stopped, grabbing Accelerator's arm, yanking him back. "Sorry, whitey, I need to use you for a while."

Ringing sounds filled Accelerator's ears, as his world turned black.

Mynnah took out her phone and called a foreign number, and a drowsy voice replied;

"What now?"

"Hey, Haru, there's something I need you to do."