Accelerator and Kikyou race against the clock to save Last Order and prevent the virus from being spread to the Misaka Imoutos.Once again, if you are in such a hurry, then why not make use of your abilities instead of running (slowly)?Summary:After getting the data on Last Order from Kikyou, Accelerator runs back to the restaurant to find Last Order. A waitress at the restaurant informs Accelerator that a man in a white lab coat said that he was Last Order's relative and took her away, and Accelerator knows that it's Ao. Accelerator calls Kikyou and asks if there's any chance that Ao has left the city, and Kikyou reveals that the whole city has been locked down because the higher-ups found out about what happened. Kikyou further explains that Ao is out of money and doesn't have any friends, so there's no place he can really hide in. Kikyou's answers give Accelerator an idea of where to find Ao, and so he hangs up and leaves the restaurant.The crazy serial killer walks up from behind the car.Actually "crazy serial killer" might even be an understatement. Accelerator can probably be classified as a mass murderer as well.The crazy serial killer is ready to strike!In a fenced off parking lot, Ao is waiting nervously in his car. Last Order is lying unconscious besides Ao and is hooked up to a monitoring device via two electrodes to her head. Since the city has been locked down, Ao cannot escape and so the only thing he can do is nobody tampers with Last Order until his virus activates. Ao's attention is drawn to a nearby noise that turns out to be a crow, but suddenly Ao's worst fears are realized when he spots Accelerator walking towards his car from behind. Ao turns on the engine and tries to run Accelerator over with his car, but running into Accelerator is like running into a concrete barrier. With his car totaled, Ao desperately tries to escape from the vehicle but Accelerator knocks him out with the car door.Looks like Ao needs to go on a diet. He's too fat to get out of the car.Accelerator to Kikyou: It's worst than we thought. Ao is making her watch Teletubbies.With Ao temporarily incapacitated, Accelerator goes to check on Last Order and phones Kikyou. Accelerator describes the device that's hooked up to Last Order to Kikyou, and Kikyou answers the device monitors how many operations are going on in Last Order's brain. Kikyou tells Accelerator to stay put and guard Last Order while she is driving to his location with Last Order's incubation chamber in tow. Kikyou has figured out most of Ao's viral code and thinks there should be plenty of time for her to reprogram Last Order, but suddenly Last Order starts repeating "Misa" over and over again. Accelerator checks on the monitor and sees that the operations count is going up rapidly and warnings are popping up everywhere. Accelerator relays this development to Kikyou, who realizes that this is a sign of the virus activating. Since the virus is activating earlier than expected, Kikyou cannot get to Last Order in time. Kikyou informs Accelerator that it takes a few minutes for Last Order to translate the viral instructions into commands to send to the Misaka Imoutos, so Accelerator should be prepared to kill Last Order to prevent the virus from spreading.We know your name is Misaka. No need to repeat it N times.Accelerator is not ready to give up just yet and tries to think of a way to save Last Order. Accelerator has no idea how the virus works and don't know how to reprogram Last Order with the monitoring device, but he suddenly realizes that instructions are just electrons, and therefore he should be able to reprogram Last Order with his Redirection ability. Kikyou tells Accelerator not to do anything hasty but Accelerator throws away the cell phone instead. Accelerator takes out the USB key with Last Order's original programming and plugs it into the mini-PC to read the data. Accelerator uses his ability to remember the arrangement of the electrons as the data is being read back and afterwards he places his hand on Last Order's forehead and starts modifying her programming. Accelerator's plan works and the number of operations and warnings are steadily going down. Just as Accelerator is about to finish with the reprogramming, Ao gets back up and points a gun at Accelerator. Accelerator realizes he is in trouble because his natural ability to reflect attacks is off now that he is focused on reprogramming Last Order. As Ao pulls the trigger, Accelerator realizes that if he lifted his hand from Last Order then he would be able to save himself, but that could also mean that the virus will be propagated to the Misaka clones. In a split second decision, Accelerator decides to keep his hand on Last Order to finish the reprogramming, but in exchange Ao's bullet penetrates his forehead and Accelerator falls backwards with blood flowing out of his wound.It's bullet time!?Even a head shot fails to put down this crazy murderer.Ao is surprised that Accelerator didn't reflect the bullet but he doesn't really care why. Ao climbs back into the car to check on Last Order, and to his surprise Last Order states that there has been a code translation error and she is rebooting. Ao realizes that his plan has been thwarted and tries to shoot Last Order, but Accelerator gets back up and redirects the bullet back into Ao's gun which causes the weapon to explode in Ao's hand. As Ao is on the ground grimacing in pain, Accelerator walks around the car and explains that even though he killed 10,000 Misaka clones, it doesn't mean that the remaining 10,000 have to die. Accelerator then reaches for Ao, but he falls to the ground before he can grab Ao. After stepping on Accelerator's head to make sure that Redirection is not working, Ao pulls out another gun and points it at the fallen Accelerator, but before he can pull the trigger Ao is shot in the back by Kikyou. After loading Last Order into the incubation chamber in the back of her van, Kikyou starts talking with the wounded Ao. Kikyou states that Accelerator will live despite his head injury because she knows Heaven Canceller who can heal nearly any injury. Kikyou continues talking about how she actually wanted to be a teacher rather than a research scientist, and she explains that she shot Ao in a non-fatal spot because she didn't want to do anything cruel. However, Kikyou admits that shooting Ao in a non-fatal spot is probably crueler than killing him on the first shot, so she crouches down in front of Ao and points her gun at his chest. At the same time, Ao has picked up his gun and points it at Kikyou's chest, and the two simultaneously shoot each other in the heart.Heart to heart talk takes on another meaning.Heaven Canceler to Kikyou: You just had to go out and get shot, and then make me do all the work... Well, actually it's because people like you that I actually have a job, so go out and get hurt all you want.Kikyou wakes up and finds herself lying in an operation room with Heaven Canceller watching over her. The benevolent doctor informs Kikyou that she's alive mainly thanks to the efforts of Accelerator, who unconsciously used his Redirection ability to control her bleeding before help arrived. Heaven Canceller states that Last Order is also in good shape, but Accelerator has suffered damage to his frontal lobes which impact his speech and mathematical abilities. As Kikyou starts worrying about Accelerator, Heaven Canceller assures her that he will restore Accelerator's brain functions with the help of the Misaka Network. The doctor then informs Kikyou that the higher-ups have shut down the experiment and research institute because of what happens, so Kikyou is effectively out of a job. Heaven Canceller tells Kikyou that there are plenty of other things for her to do and then exits the room, leaving Kikyou to think about her future and how Accelerator isn't such a bad guy after all.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I wasn't expecting much from this episode, and this episode didn't really deliver in return. Accelerator's turn to play hero was a rather dull journey featuring an incapable villain who is already peeing his pants, very little action, and once again too many weird speeches. It was bad enough that Accelerator had to deliver a Touma-esque hero speech after blowing up Ao's gun, but Kikyou just had to follow up with a longer and even less relevant speech about how she wants to be a teacher!? I also don't understand why Kikyou had to crouch down beside Ao and let him pick his gun back up to shoot her. I guess Kikyou might have been slightly suicidal, but she could have easily shot Ao first and then do whatever she wants. Compared to Accelerator and Kikyou, Last Order remained largely silent this episode other than the part where she repeated "Misa" over and over again. That's okay with me though since the damsel in distress is not expected to do much, and the fact that Last Order was silent makes her more adorable and less annoying.As for Accelerator, he did what he could during the episode and displayed a pretty cool ability in being able to reprogram people's brains with his vector-manipulating ability. I don't think arranging electrons in a brain is the same as arranging electrons on a USB key, but this is fiction so no scientific explanation is needed. I still find it hard to believe that Accelerator would go this far to save Last Order, even risking critical injury in order to complete her reprogramming so he wouldn't have to kill her. I guess Touma must have infected Accelerator with the "hero syndrome" when they fought each other. It looks like Accelerator is going to be weaker now that has suffered brain damage, and supposedly he'll have to rely on the Misaka clones to use his abilities in the future, which is of course rather ironic. We won't see this until the next season though if there is a next season. Hopefully this little story has taught Accelerator that playing hero is not all that great.We finally have a new ED after 20 episodes. There is not much to talk about the song, and the animation sequence is similar to the first ED, so it mostly focuses on Index and Touma while some of the other characters stand around, and there's a scrolling marquee of the faces of all the case in the second half of the season.Finally, there are rumors swirling around that the series is going to have an anime-only ending, although it looks like we are moving on to the 6th novel, judging by the preview and by the info on Wikipedia. Each novel is really a stand-alone story, so I don't see why the series can't just end off with a novel arc, although an anime-only ending might provide a clearer cut-off for the series. I'm looking forward to see what will happen in the remaining episodes. That Touma vs. blond girl and her mechanical giant looks pretty cool in the OP sequence, and hopefully the actual fight will live up to that preview.
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