Misaka Mikoto vs. Kiyama Harumi

Driving along the highway, Kiyama Harumi vaguely noticed that there were fewer and fewer vehicles around her.

With no intention of stopping, Kiyama Harumi continued driving forward. Before long, a human wall formed by Anti-Skill officers appeared ahead.

Kiyama Harumi stepped on the brakes and slowly came to a stop.

A graceful figure picked up a loudspeaker and shouted at Kiyama Harumi.

"You're Kiyama Harumi, aren't you? I'm placing you under arrest as a suspect in the development of Level Upper. Give up resisting and surrender!"

"Those lines really are exactly the same." Kiyama Harumi opened the car door and stepped out.

Seeing this, the Anti-Skill officers raised their guns and slowly advanced.

"Hmph!" Kiyama Harumi snorted coldly, raising her right arm toward the Anti-Skill officers. Invisible wind pressure formed into a tornado and swept toward them.

Caught off guard, a group of Anti-Skill officers was blown away, rendered unable to move, and their formation was instantly scattered.

"So she really is an esper! This is troublesome." Yomikawa Aiho swiftly raised her shield and began firing her gun.

Wave after wave of bullets poured madly toward Kiyama Harumi, but an invisible spherical barrier perfectly blocked every shot, leaving Kiyama Harumi completely unharmed.

Kiyama Harumi then activated her telekinesis, controlling the vehicles behind the Anti-Skill officers and smashing them into the officers.

Successive roars rang out. In less than a moment, Anti-Skill had suffered severe losses and could no longer continue the interception operation.

"Cough, cough... Are you okay, Tessou?" Yomikawa Aiho coughed as she asked with concern.

"I'm fine, senpai. Let's call for reinforcements," Tessou Tsuzuri suggested shakily.

"Reinforcements are already here!" A woman's voice suddenly rang out from midair, drawing everyone's gaze upward. Shirai Kuroko had teleported onto the battlefield with Misaka Mikoto.

"Good luck, you two!" Uiharu Kazari, watching the footage on the monitors from a safe location, silently prayed.

"Railgun, one of Academy City's only seven Level 5s... Do you think you can stop me when I'm using the brains of ten thousand people?" Kiyama Harumi looked at Misaka Mikoto with a confident expression.

"How would you know if you don't try!?" Misaka Mikoto signaled for Kuroko to retreat, then blue-white arcs of electricity appeared around her body as she fired a lightning spear first.

The attack arrived in an instant, yet Kiyama Harumi's barrier easily blocked it.

An invisible shockwave spread outward from beneath her feet. The highway bridge was affected by the shockwave and began to crumble and collapse.

As she fell, Misaka Mikoto swiftly used electromagnetic force to cling to the bridge, avoiding the damage from the fall.

"This woman isn't even afraid of her own powers affecting her?" Misaka Mikoto said with a headache.

"If a Level 5 is only capable of this much, that's rather disappointing." Now standing on the ground, Kiyama Harumi raised her eyes toward Misaka Mikoto and mocked her.

A vein bulged at Misaka Mikoto's temple as she guided the current underground, drawing up clumps of black, quicksand-like matter.

"Don't think I'm out of options just because you can block electricity."

"Oh, is that so?" Kiyama Harumi replied noncommittally, but she did not slow her movements. She controlled the bridge beneath Misaka Mikoto's feet, turning it into a cylindrical chunk that crashed downward. Having lost her footing, Misaka Mikoto swung out the Iron Sand Whip, hooked a piece of debris, and landed safely.

A huge rumble of thunder erupted from beneath the bridge. Shirai Kuroko and the others silently watched; this was no longer a battle they could intervene in.

"Yo, things are getting pretty intense." A deep male voice suddenly rang out, drawing everyone's attention. Rod, who had appeared at some point, was sitting at the broken section and watching the battle with interest.

Three beautiful girls of distinctly different styles stood behind him like guards.

"Tch, wasting this much time on trash like that? Railgun's gotten weaker too," Mugino Shizuri said disdainfully.

Shirai Kuroko had originally intended to ask Rod to lend a hand, but upon hearing Mugino Shizuri's remark, she immediately retorted.

"When did my onee-sama need your evaluation!? If you're so capable, then you go fight her!"

"Hah? Brat, are you looking for a fight?" Emerald-green energy spheres appeared around Mugino Shizuri as she looked ready to start fighting at the slightest disagreement.

"Mugino." Rod's calm voice sounded, and Mugino Shizuri instantly stopped moving, becoming obedient and well-behaved as though an agitated puppy had been instantly subdued.

"Hey, mister, now that you're here, aren't you going to help?" Shirai Kuroko glanced at Mugino Shizuri with some schadenfreude before asking Rod.

"Don't worry. Your onee-sama isn't that weak."

As Rod's words fell, Misaka Mikoto, who had already wrapped her arms around Kiyama Harumi, released dazzling lightning like Pikachu, enveloping the two of them.

Kiyama Harumi's memories flowed through the electric current into Misaka Mikoto's mind, and within them, Misaka Mikoto caught a glimpse of why Kiyama Harumi had done all this.

Around two years ago, at Kihara Gensei's request, Kiyama Harumi, who held a teaching certificate, took charge of a group of abandoned children at the Advanced Education Bureau as their teacher. At first, she disliked the children intensely, believing them to be noisy little brats who loved pranks and had no logic whatsoever. But as the days passed, especially under Edasaki Banri's influence, Kiyama Harumi began to change her opinion and grew attached to them. A year later, the experiment officially began. Kiyama Harumi no longer needed to be a teacher and could return to being a researcher, so she said goodbye to the children.

When Kiyama Harumi saw Edasaki Banri again, she was moved by the girl's trust in her. In the end, the control experiment for the so-called AIM Diffusion Field concluded as Kihara Gensei had intended, with the abandoned children falling into comas in a "failed" outcome. Afterwards, Kihara Gensei bluntly told the tightly questioning Kiyama Harumi that those children were nothing more than lab rats to be discarded once they had outlived their usefulness.

Kiyama Harumi could not forgive herself. The children had trusted her, yet she had betrayed them.

She did everything she could to find a way to awaken the comatose children. But because the experiment held no value for the higher-ups, all twenty-three of her applications for Tree Diagram Designer calculations were rejected.

Kiyama Harumi was thoroughly disappointed in Academy City's upper ranks. She then resolved to create another powerful calculation system: Level Upper, which could integrate human brains into a single network.

"I hate children... They're always noisy, careless, rude, fond of pranks, and impossible to understand. But..."

Scene after scene of Kiyama Harumi's memories with her students flooded into Misaka Mikoto's mind. By the time it reached that experiment, Misaka Mikoto—who had already known of Academy City's darkness—could no longer continue speaking.

What Kiyama Harumi was doing now was no different from what she herself had done not long ago when she destroyed that laboratory. Both of them were preparing to fight all of Academy City alone.

"Ahhhhh! This is... the network... It's out of control!" Kiyama Harumi screamed and collapsed forward. A mass of energy burst out from her head, gradually taking the form of a strange fetus-like creature with a halo above its head.

"This is... a fetus!?" Misaka Mikoto's hair stood on end at the bizarre sight.

"Ahhhhhhh!!!" The strange fetus opened its crimson eyes and let out a shrill, piercing howl.

"So it's finally come out." The corners of Rod's lips curled upward as he grinned.