Misaka Asas de Água

The ocean water spread around her…no, the water molecules spread around her was made of oxygen and hydrogen. If she used electrolysis, she could retrieve the oxygen and hydrogen from the water.

She did not hesitate.

Bluish-white sparks flew from her bangs and a lightning spear was fired at the ocean surface.

But…

(It’s no good. I can break them apart, but I can’t turn it into fuel…!!)

Even if she could retrieve the oxygen and hydrogen, there was simply too little of it. To get anywhere, she needed to obtain a whole lot more hydrogen all at once.

The wreckage jerked below her feet.

She only had a few minutes before it completely sank.

(…No.)

Mikoto’s head suddenly shot up.

Something was odd.

As previously stated, she was an esper that could manipulate electricity. As a side effect, she could also control things such as magnetism and the Lorentz force, but she could not interfere with any phenomenon that did not have its basis in electricity.

But for some reason, the range of what Mikoto could control spread by quite a bit. It was like she had stretched invisible sensing tentacles into the air around her. It was a very strange feeling like she could control every single thing stretching even beyond the horizon in every direction.

[…]

(Water vapor…? I see. Because such a large amount of seawater was evaporated all at once, the water molecules are floating in the air having been turned to particles!!)

And a faint force existed bridging the space between the tiny particles.

It was static electricity.

(The bonds between the tiny particles are being realized using electricity… The laws are a little different, but if I use my equations for gathering iron sand into a sword using magnetism…)

It would not have worked with mere water molecules.

Mikoto could not control water or mist.

However, the “proportions” of the water molecules drifting through the air may have been optimal or the sea wind mixing with the water vapor may have altered the electrical conductivity. Mikoto did not know the details herself, but she could probably manipulate the huge amounts of water molecules floating in the air around her.

(Once the water vapor cools, the water molecules will join together returning them to mere drops of water. And who knows how long the conductivity will remain at this perfect level. This is my only chance. But if I can acquire the output of a rocket even for a short period of time…!!)

It was an odd feeling like thinly, thinly stretching out.

Mikoto did not fight it.

“…!!”

She greatly switched out the direction her power was headed effectively “grabbing” the huge amount of water molecules drifting through the air. By taking her equations for creating the iron sand sword as a base and switching out some of the values and symbols, she newly built up equations to use static electricity to control the water molecules in the air. The water vapor in the 10 kilometer area the downpour of light had hit all compressed toward Misaka Mikoto.

That alone was not her fuel.

That aggregation of the water molecules in the air was nothing more than a catalyst connecting the electricity and seawater together.

After putting a large cushion between them, she sent her true order to the seawater spread out around her via the huge amount of water molecules. It was like creating a chain reaction from a single phenomenon.

[…]

Bluish-white wings of burner-like light appeared from Mikoto’s back.

Technically, that was inaccurate.

What rose up from near Mikoto’s back were wings that looked like blades made of water. Also, bluish-white eruptions that looked like laser blades were being emitted from the side of the wings.

At the same time as the water wings gave Mikoto lift, they also took on the heat transferred from the burner. They would normally evaporate in a few seconds due to that, but seawater was spread out over the entire area. If she constantly replenished from there, it was no problem.

[…]

Mikoto was managing to float in the sky, but her balance must have been off because she started floating to the right. She immediately modified the equations she was using, added on four smaller wings, regulated her balance in the air and the output of the burners, and managed to come to a complete stop in midair.

“Okay, that’s enough for the warm up exercises…”

Mikoto intensely stared forward and the burners erupted all at once.

A bluish-white beam of light shot out behind her.

“Wait for me! I’ll show you that this hasn’t truly started yet!!”

She seemed to be dragging along a tail of light as she headed straight for Liberal Arts City. Now that she had started to control the seawater via the water molecules floating in the air, there was nothing to be afraid of.

In order to replenish the fuel for the water wings and the burners, something like a giant human arm shot up from the distant ocean surface. With that “arm” still connected to her back, Academy City’s #3 Level 5 soared through the sky.

[…]

Even if she was flying through the sky using some kind of special power, that enemy was still a flesh and blood human.

Even so, she was fighting more than evenly with Xochitl who was piloting a weapon. She was firing something like lightning from her bangs, swinging around a giant sword made of iron sand from the beach, and even firing a tiny coin at three times the speed of sound.

She had plenty of different types of attacks and each one of them was quite strong. Also, she did not simply focus on attack. Merely getting out from in front of the girl was not enough. There had been plenty of opportunities for Xochitl to circle around behind her, but each time, the iron sand sword had bent like a whip and prevented Xochitl from hitting her with even a single attack.

As Xochitl moved from waterway to waterway, she used the hover function at full capacity to jump up a few dozen meters into the air.

At the same time, she fired multiple missiles.

Mikoto did not evade.

She charged straight toward Xochitl with much sharper angles and with a much more direct path than the missiles. The wings erupting from her back blew up the missiles that just barely passed by her without hitting.

[…]

Saten looked over to Mikoto with a look in her eyes like she was relying on her, but Mikoto shook her head.

“I can’t. In order to make those wings, I used the water molecules floating in the air, but that has reached its limit. It was crucial that they were distributed with a certain proportion, but the molecules have gathered together with time making them nothing more than drops of water. Simply put, I can’t fly. And since Kuroko is down, we can’t use her teleportation either.”