Academy City. A sovereign city state existing within a walled section of the Tokyo Metropolitan Employment area. As its name suggests, it is a city of schools, ranging from kindergartens to universities. Out of its entire population of 2.3 million people, approximately 80 percent of them are students, with staff and miscellaneous figures making up the remainder. Divided into 23 different districts with each having its own separate function, the City of Schools is also known as the Experiment City, in part due to the incredible advancements in technology such economies of scale have afforded and created – the most famous experiment, of course, being the Power Curriculum Program, said to produce ability-wielding espers. Estimated to be 30 years ahead of the rest of the world in this respect, esoteric experiments are constantly being run, both in broad daylight and behind the scenes. Right now, the situation occurring in a certain part of District 7, in a middle of an out-of-the-way park, near a certain vending machine – there was no doubt that a major, earth-shaking event was about to occur.

Four humans were standing in the middle of that out-of-the-way park, near that certain vending machine. No, I should probably correct myself – some might not even consider all of them to be truly human at this point in time. The atmosphere between them was clearly not one of joviality or camaraderie – conversely, it was like the stifling, ever-present, cloying, overhanging heat wave of summer, except if the heat was replaced by sheer hostility. The four were clearly split into two factions, albeit unequal ones. On one side, there were three such figures.

「… 」

A black-haired young man wearing a black uniform, smiling quietly but unnervingly blankly, and for some reason, was holding a large metal screw in each hand.

"…"

An indigo-haired young lady wearing a shirt-jacket combo with jeans, frowning silently, arms folded.

"?!"

And a blonde-haired young man also wearing a black uniform but with a different design, thoroughly nonplussed.

"!..."

On the other side, there was but only one person. A certain spiky-haired young man wearing a white uniform, with a lowered body stance, gritting his teeth and clenching his fists.

The tension continued for what seemed like an eternity.

「I couldn't wait an eternity, though. If you're not going to do or say anything, why don't I? 」

"… Hold on. Did you produce those screws by magic? Are you people magicians?"

「Totally! It's like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, you know. They simply pop out of my palms, just like that. It's my favourite trick! I'm lovely at parties. I could teach it to you if you wish? 」

"Stop fucking around! Are you screwing with me?"

「Oh, that's a good one. Not the first time I'veheard that though. 」

The one holding screws in his hands. Kumagawa Misogi. The white-uniformed boy with spiky hair. Kamijou Touma. Even in their dialogue, hostilities were traded. Like many others before them, they seemed to honour the tried and tested pre-battle shonen manga-style tradition of trash talk. As for the other two by the side, Kurokami Medaka and Hitoyoshi Zenkichi – they merely watched on in silence (and for one of them, confusion).

"What is your objective here?"

「Who knows? We just woke up here, in the middle of a place we have no clue about, when suddenly someone of your calibre happens to walk past. 」

"… I'm not that naïve, you know. You're clearly not normal people yourselves. You expect me to believe some kind of second-rate plot hole lifted directly from some poor excuse of a light novel? How do you even know about Imagine Breaker?"

「… Imagine Breaker? You mean to say that that overwhelming presence comes from this thing called Imagine Breaker? Well, whatever it is… I'll just have to figure it out! 」

With a swift motion, Kumagawa hurled the screw in his right hand straight at Touma. Like a guided missile, the metal screw sliced through the air, hurtling straight towards Touma's head. Gritting his teeth, the boy named Kamijou Touma clenched his right fist, gritted his teeth and swung –

*SMASH*

The sound of shattering glass reverberated throughout the park. Upon coming into contact with Kamijou Touma's right fist, the metal screw had simply – vanished into thin air.

「!」

"What?! What just happened?" Zenkichi could not believe his eyes. Neither, of course, could Medaka nor Kumagawa.

「… 」

Kumagawa, upon witnessing the fate of his unorthodox weapon, narrowed his eyes, wearing an inscrutable look on his face. Touma, on the other hand, forced a slight smirk.

"Imagine Breaker cancelled that perfectly… so it seems that that screw was definitely some form of supernatural ability. Which faction of magic do you guys belong to?"

"Magic? Factions? Really, what are you talking about, man? We really have no idea how we got here, please believe us!"

Zenkichi was attempting to defuse the situation from the side, but Medaka and Kumagawa were as solemn as ever.

"Look, I really don't want to fight if I don't have to, but your friends don't seem to agree with what you're saying."

Touma shot back at Zenkichi, but his eyes remained fixed on the black-haired boy in front of him, who still held a screw at the ready in his left hand.

「Well, I'm not the bloodthirsty adrenaline junkie type myself. I am a "born loser" after all, the "weakest person in the world", so I wouldn't want to fight someone if I could help it.」

Kumagawa shrugged as he gave his opinion on the matter.

"I have no clue what you mean by "the weakest", but if you don't want to fight, then shouldn't we just… y'know, call a truce or something?"

Ever the pacifist, Touma put forth a completely normal suggestion.

「Even if I personally don't feel like fighting… I'm far too interested. Most likely, Medaka-chan is as well. Of course, I'm talking about that [Skill] of yours, that [Imagine Breaker]. Well then, why don't I test out what exactly you can do?」

Kumagawa once again launched a screw straight at Touma. Startled, Touma had barely any time to react to the oncoming metal missile. He extended his right hand as if by reflex, protecting his face from the imminent impact. Yet again, upon contact with Touma's hand – the metal screw completely disintegrated. Relieved, Touma looked up from his hand – only to lock eyes with the grinning black haired boy, who had appeared directly in front of him.

"Wha…!"

「I'm not going to make the same mistake twice, you know. Sorry, but you're going to have to disappear for a while now, no hard feelings ~」

Kumagawa swiftly grabbed Touma's extended wrist with his left hand, and uttered:

「[All Fiction]」

…

…

…

5 seconds later, Kumagawa was still holding on to Touma's right wrist. It was obvious to all that absolutely nothing had occurred.

"… Kumagawa-senpai's [All Fiction]… didn't work?"

"That was rather anticlimactic. Even so, things have just gotten very interesting. I wonder what Kumagawa-kun will do now."

The two bystanders seemed to be providing some kind of running commentary, but to the two people involved in the fight, it proved to be entirely irrelevant.

「My [All Fiction]… failed? It actually failed to erase something…?」

"Hey hey, I have no idea what you're trying to do, but still, calling me a "thing" is pretty hurtful, you know? If you're done talking to yourself, I think it's my turn now."

「Eh?」

Kumagawa barely had time to recover from his confusion. The hand he was gripping at close range suddenly jerked towards his own body. Unable to react in time, his own arm was bent an awkward position, incapable of restraining Touma's abrupt movements. He heard the whoosh of rushing wind as a swift punch connected solidly with the left side of his head.

「Wha-sogebuuuuh!」

Kumagawa's cry of surprise was interrupted as he let out a strange sound upon fist-to-face impact. His neck twisted to the right as he crumpled to the ground, knocked out cold, his eyes comically turned into swirls.

Zenkichi sweatdropped.

"Kumagawa-senpai lost that easily? Who on earth is that and what kind of skill does he possess?"

"Isn't it obvious, Zenkichi?"

Medaka, on the other hand, wore a look on her face which somehow managed to be both solemn and amused at the same time.

"That ability – "Imagine Breaker" – appears to be a [skill that negates skills]. From what I have observed, that is the most logical explanation."

"A "skill that negates skills", huh? Sounds pretty interesting… and troublesome. Why have we never heard of this guy before, then? Surely something like that would have been pretty well-known."

"Indeed. His skill would have been most useful to the Flask Plan, so why was he not involved…ah!"

"Thought of something, Medaka-chan?"

"Yeah. We're thinking about this the wrong way round. Thinking about it normally, there is no way the initiators of the Flask Plan would have left out something this important when they formulated the initial stages of the plan. Since they were involved, they wouldn't have missed such a unique, untapped potential. That would have been a ridiculously huge oversight. Therefore, the only possibility is that "this guy" did not exist at the time when the Flask Plan was conceived. The "Flask Plan" and "this boy's existence" are inherently incompatible."

"Sorry, I lost you there."

"No matter, there is an extremely simple way to confirm my hypothesis. Hey spiky haired boy!"

Touma turned towards Medaka.

"So this guy's called Kumagawa? Weird name for a weird guy. What do you people want? If you guys promise not to attack me anymore I'll answer any questions you have."

"Very well. May I have today's date please?"

"You can't seriously be going there. That's like, the most clichéd of clichés."

Zenkichi swiftly reacted to Medaka's highly situational-specific question.

"You guys are really weird, you know? Let's see, er…"

Touma stuck his hand into his pocket and took out his phone. Flipping it open, he checked the display screen.

"It's the XXth of XXXXX."

"The year as well."

"Are you screwing with me? Obviously it's the year 21XX."

…

Stunned silence reigned.

…

"Wh-wh-wh-WHAAAAAAAT?"

"And there you have it, Zenkichi."

Medaka had a triumphant look on her face.

"It seems like we have travelled a hundred years into the future."

NEXT TIME: Time travel, how original! How did Medaka, Zenkichi, and Kumagawa end up in the era of the next protagonist, Kamijou Touma? What kind of interactions will the Medaka Box cast have with the To Aru cast? Will Mikoto have even less screen time than the original novels?