Cold sweat broke out across Misaka Mikoto's forehead. Looking at Takahashi Yuuya's malicious smile, she felt a sudden, instinctual sense of sheer terror.
She swallowed hard. The feeling was exactly like an ordinary, defenseless person coming face-to-face with an apex predator, like a lion or a tiger.
That's right—this guy was an apex predator who stood entirely above all other Espers. He was an anomaly who could not be measured by normal scientific standards.
The ability to perfectly copy superpowers—even the unquantifiable abilities of Gemstones—was a concept that Academy City's scientists had never even theoretically proposed.
'A person can only possess one superpower and one Personal Reality. These are the fundamental, absolute laws of Esper development taught in elementary school textbooks,' Mikoto thought frantically.
'But Takahashi Yuuya completely defies the laws of the world. The ability to copy superpowers is so absurdly exaggerated that he has apparently copied the specific abilities of all the other Level 5s!'
'Could it be that he has secretly come into contact with the other Level 5s just to copy their powers?'
'He even copied my Railgun! I saw the classified surveillance footage of him using it during his fight with Sogiita Gunha a month ago.'
"Now it's my turn to fight back. I hope you're prepared to go all out," Yuuya said with a relaxed smile as he looked at Mikoto, whose brown eyes had become visibly frightened. "I'll count to three, and then I'll begin."
Mikoto took a cautious step back, her eyes filled with panic as she watched the lethal arcs of electricity crackling around Yuuya's forehead. But instead of backing down, her fierce pride took over. She prepared to fight like a cornered warrior, lowering her stance.
"One."
Yuuya moved his lips and lazily called out the number. Of course, he didn't actually want to violently hurt Mikoto; he just wanted to tease her. Practically every time he met her, she looked like an angry cat demanding a fight.
However, even after realizing the vast, insurmountable gap in their power, her sheer unwillingness to admit defeat was truly admirable.
"Two."
"Three."
Yuuya casually extended his hand and spoke in a calm, flat tone.
"Meltdowner."
As soon as he finished speaking, eight highly unstable, glowing green orbs of electron-mass appeared hovering around his body.
BZZZZT—!
Eight blinding emerald-green rays shot toward Mikoto simultaneously, instantly scorching the oxygen out of the air in their paths. Mikoto's expression changed drastically. She reflexively released a massive wall of electromagnetism, using both hands to forcefully deflect the incoming particle beams.
Like the deafening, piercing screeches of a thousand birds, the Meltdowner beams were violently scattered by the intense magnetic field. The deflected green rays swept across the sandy beach at Mikoto's feet, and fiery red heat sources appeared instantly upon impact.
To be precise, the beach sand was instantly superheated into liquid glass, forming pools of glowing magma.
'It's actually Meltdowner... the signature superpower of the Number Four...' Mikoto gritted her teeth, unleashing even more electric current to completely distort the remaining beams.
Fortunately, Meltdowner was essentially electrons forced into a fixed state, making it an ability somewhat adjacent to her own. With extreme effort, she could theoretically deflect it.
"Haaa—!"
With a desperate shout, she unleashed her full power, instantly escaping the blast radius of the eight Meltdowner shots. Sensing the overwhelming danger behind her, she turned and sprinted away. She blindly fired a bolt of lightning over her shoulder, instantly twisting one of the incoming green rays that pursued her.
"Hey, don't run away, Misaka! You were the one who challenged me to a duel! Running away now would be incredibly spineless!"
Yuuya's face twitched in amusement as he watched the proud Railgun decisively turn tail and flee across the beach. 'She actually ran away?'
Whoosh!
His figure vanished from his spot in a microsecond and reappeared directly in Mikoto's path.
Mikoto slammed on the brakes, her shoes kicking up sand. Her eyes widened, and her breathing grew ragged as she looked at Yuuya, who now stood effortlessly blocking her escape.
'He has Spatial Movement! It's mathematically impossible to escape his attack range!' Mikoto thought, her heart pounding.
'Multiple abilities... what an incredibly unfair power! Judging from his malicious expression, it seems he really won't let this go until he brutally defeats me.'
Suddenly, the Ace of Tokiwadai felt exactly like an ordinary, helpless middle school girl who had accidentally offended a gang of violent delinquents and was now being cornered in an alleyway.
The corner of her mouth twitched slightly as she thought of the humiliating metaphor.
'There's absolutely no way I can win against this exaggerated, rule-breaking ability! What should I do? Should I just admit defeat? No! If I admit defeat, this jerk will definitely burst into laughter and mock me forever!'
She was the one who had so arrogantly demanded this fight, but in the end, she was the one being completely bullied without a single chance to fight back.
Yuuya stepped forward, appearing directly in her personal space, and casually grabbed her wrist.
'It's over...!' Mikoto's expression changed drastically. Her heart raced, and she reflexively released a massive, lethal surge of high-voltage electricity to free herself.
However, the current never even touched Yuuya. Due to his Vector Manipulation, the electricity was effortlessly redirected, shooting harmlessly up into the sky above his head.
Knowing she was completely defenseless, Mikoto squeezed her eyes shut. She desperately threw her free arm in front of her face, shrank her neck down, and waited for the devastating physical blow. Her expression turned terrified, and small tears of frustration and fear welled up in the corners of her eyes.
"Waaah..." she whimpered softly, a low humming sound of defeat escaping her throat.
"Tsk, tsk." Yuuya clicked his tongue and chuckled softly as he looked down at Mikoto's frightened, trembling expression.
No matter how strong a Level 5's abilities were, when those abilities became completely useless, they were still just vulnerable junior high school students underneath it all.
"You were the one who aggressively challenged me to a fight, but now you're trembling with fear. I almost feel bad for bullying you," Yuuya said with a shrug, thoroughly enjoying her reaction.
Feeling absolutely no pain from an expected strike, Mikoto cautiously opened one eye. She peeked at Yuuya, only to see him stroking his chin with an incredibly smug, mocking expression.
Yuuya suddenly raised his free fist. Mikoto immediately squeezed her eyes shut again, shrinking her neck and trembling violently.
"Okay, okay. I won't hit you. But since you wasted my time, I have to collect some 'compensation for emotional distress' to soothe my wounded heart."
Mikoto kept her eyes shut, awaiting whatever cruel punishment he had in mind, but felt no physical pain. Just as she was wondering what the hell he meant by those words, her entire body stiffened the very next moment.
She suddenly felt a strange, distinct pressure on her modest chest.
Mikoto felt as if her own superpower had completely short-circuited. She quickly opened her eyes and looked down.
Yuuya's hand was resting squarely against her chest.
[Ding! Hidden Treasure Chest Unlocked!]
For a split second, Mikoto completely froze. Her brown eyes instantly dilated into spinning spirals of pure shock, and her cheeks flushed a violent, nuclear red at a speed visible to the naked eye.
"AAAAAAAH—!"
A glass-shattering, high-decibel scream, accompanied by the chaotic, explosive crackling of a million volts of electricity, echoed across the entirety of Tokyo Bay.
From the nearby bushes, Shirai Kuroko witnessed this horrific scene as if she were watching the absolute end of the world. Her eyes practically popped out of their sockets, and her mouth gaped open in utter, soul-crushing despair.
It was as if a bolt of divine lightning had struck her directly from the heavens, leaving her blackened, scorched, and battered.
In an instant, a raging fire of pure, homicidal jealousy ignited within her.
"You wretched ape! What the hell do you think you're doing to my Onee-sama?! Go to hell and repent!"
Kuroko's eyes were completely bloodshot, resembling an enraged, charging bull. She instantly calculated the 11th dimension, using her teleportation to appear directly in the air above Yuuya's head, viciously driving her heel down in a lethal dropkick.
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Give me powerstones.
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