Takahashi Yuuya shook the heavy steel handcuffs on his wrists, then looked at the dejected Misaka Mikoto and the completely bewildered Sogiita Gunha.
"This is all your fault! Don't think you can get away with this so easily!" Mikoto glared at Yuuya, speaking through gritted teeth. "This grudge between us is going to get really big!"
"Haven't we already established that we're enemies?" Yuuya said calmly, completely unbothered. "There's a saying: 'When you have too many debts, you stop feeling the burden.'"
"ONEE-SAMA!"
A sudden, anxious shriek startled Mikoto. She looked awkwardly toward the edge of the crater. Shirai Kuroko was desperately trying to rush over, only to be held back by the riot shields of the Anti-Skill officers.
Mikoto felt a massive wave of guilt seeing Kuroko's tearful, panicked expression, realizing just how much she had worried her friend.
"I'm sorry, Kuroko! I made you worry!" Mikoto called out.
"Why is this happening?! Didn't you say you wouldn't get involved with Accelerator?! Why did you ignore my advice?!" Kuroko was sweating profusely, tears streaming down her face. This was disastrous. With an incident this catastrophic, Tokiwadai was definitely going to expel her sister.
'Dropping out of school means being separated from my Onee-sama... AHHHHHH! I don't want that!' Kuroko cried internally.
"Alright, let's not waste any more time," Yomikawa Aiho said seriously, gesturing to the transports.
Yuuya, Mikoto, and Gunha were loaded into the back of an armored police vehicle.
...
Soon, the three Level 5s were transported to an Anti-Skill holding facility.
Several veteran officers took turns interrogating them in separate rooms. After piecing together the cause and effect, the hierarchy of the riot came to light.
Takahashi Yuuya cheerfully confessed to being the mastermind who broadcasted the challenge and organized the gathering.
Sogiita Gunha was logged as a willing participant who engaged in unapproved combat, earning him a massive lecture on "ideological education."
Misaka Mikoto was officially acquitted, as the evidence proved she was merely a bystander caught in the crossfire of the other Level 5s.
Because of the sheer scale of the incident, Yuuya was promptly transferred to the maximum-security Juvenile Detention Center in District 10.
On the surface, the purpose of Academy City's reform schools was to detain students with dangerous psychological profiles or severe criminal records. Supposedly, they would only be released after they were rehabilitated into normal, upstanding students.
Of course, the reality of Academy City was much darker. There was a massive amount of room for manipulation in District 10.
Many horrific human experiments were conducted on these detained students. If a subject died, the researchers could easily cover it up by stamping "Suicide" or "Killed in a fight" on their file. Not all the inmates were actually dangerous criminals, either. Many were perfectly normal students who were forcibly kidnapped through underhanded legal means because they lacked powerful connections.
For example, Kinuhata Saiai—who would later join the Dark Side mercenary group ITEM—had been sent to a facility just like this to be used as a lab rat in the Dark May Project.
...
Clang.
A heavy electronic door slid shut, and Yuuya was locked in a sterile, white solitary confinement cell equipped with nothing but a basic bathroom. There was no way out, and even the ventilation grates were reinforced with high-tensile steel.
"They think this place can trap me? You must be joking," Yuuya curled his lip in disdain. "This has to be Aleister's doing."
Aleister Crowley needed a reasonable, public solution to the stadium disaster; otherwise, the illusion of law and order in Academy City would collapse. Throwing the "Mastermind" into a high-security prison was the perfect cover story.
Snap.
Yuuya snapped his fingers. His clothes instantly shifted into a crisp researcher's white lab coat. He shoved his hands into the pockets and used his Move Point to instantly teleport out of the sealed cell.
No alarms sounded. The corridor was dead quiet.
Every detention cell was constantly monitored by thermal and optical sensors. An alarm should have triggered the microsecond he vanished. The fact that it didn't meant Aleister had deliberately given him the green light to roam.
Yuuya released a pulse of electromagnetic waves, mapping the internal structure of the facility like radar. He instantly teleported into a secure server room that seemed to be a localized data hub for the researchers.
Using his Electromagnetism combined with his System-enhanced hacking skills, he effortlessly bypassed the firewalls and began pulling the files he wanted.
"As expected. Suzushina Yuriko was locked up in this exact facility to keep her out of the public eye," Yuuya smiled slightly, locating her cell block.
He then rapidly pulled up several other heavily encrypted documents.
Name: Kuroyoru Umidori
Gender: Female
Age: 12
Ability: Bomber Lance (Level 4)
Notes: Subject is an extensively modified cyborg. Possesses an uncontrollable, highly destructive personality. Extremely dangerous. Subject to maximum-security monitoring.
"Kuroyoru Umidori," Yuuya muttered. "She's slated to become an executive of the future Dark Side organization Freshman. Through the Dark May Project, the researchers transplanted the attack-pattern calculations of Accelerator's Vector Manipulation directly into her brain."
"She would make a very useful vanguard for my own faction," Yuuya touched his chin, saving her file. He continued reading.
Name: Iisu Rita (Designation: Leader)
Gender: Female
Age: 13
Ability: Predator / Bird's Eye (Level 3)
Notes: Currently under the direct custody of the General Board. Slated for specialized assassination training.
"Iisu Rita. It seems the Board is already grooming her to lead the Dark Side unit Scavenger," Yuuya thought with amusement. He could see through the General Board's tricks at a glance.
In the canon timeline, Rita was chosen by a Board Director to lead the Dark Side unit Scavenger. However, she was comically unlucky from the start, getting her entire squad wiped out by Accelerator during their very first major mission.
"I'll pull the files for the rest of her squad too. Yakumaru Itsuki and Sakuragi Naru. Let's take them all with us. They're highly efficient at covert missions, and more importantly... they're cute to look at." Yuuya grinned, unapologetic about his priorities.
As for the fourth member of Scavenger, Seike Taroumaru... Yuuya skipped his file entirely.
He was a cross-dressing boy. Based on the biological data, he was definitely a male. Yuuya had zero interest in recruiting guys.
Yuuya shut down the terminal and swaggered into the depths of the detention center. Every so often, he passed a heavily guarded blast door—the kind of door designed to withstand high-explosive grenades and trap high-level Espers.
He quickly arrived outside Yuriko's designated holding cell.
Snap.
He instantly teleported inside.
However, something unexpected greeted him. He heard the sound of running water, and thick steam was billowing out of the half-open bathroom door.
"Huh?"
Hearing his boots hit the floor, the silhouette in the shower paused.
Yuuya blinked, staring through the gap in the door. His expression gradually smoothed into a calm, deeply appreciative smile.
"Thank you for the hospitality," Yuuya said, bowing slightly with his hands clasped together in mock reverence.
"Tsk!"
Suzushina Yuriko remained completely unfazed, acting as if Yuuya didn't exist. She didn't even bother to close the bathroom door, simply continuing to scrub the foam off her slender body under the hot water.
"You're really just going to ignore me? You're surprisingly calm about this. Do you actually like it here?" Yuuya asked, leaning against the wall.
"It doesn't matter where we are. We'll be out soon anyway, and I can leave whenever I want," Yuriko said coldly over the sound of the shower.
"Aleister already spoke to me."
"Oh? When?" Yuuya asked, raising an eyebrow.
"One minute ago."
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