"Hmph! You'd better not even think about fighting Yuuya! Yuuya can take you all down with a single stomp of his foot!" Index puffed out her cheeks and put her hands on her hips proudly, declaring that Yuuya was a powerful figure who could completely alter the terrain with a mere step.
"I'm warning you for your own good!" she added.
Yuuya's level of power, and the sheer destruction he had already displayed, was in no way weaker than that of a Saint who possessed a physical constitution similar to the Son of God.
"I can't pretend I didn't hear that. You clearly haven't figured out exactly what kind of trouble you're in yet, and frankly, I'm worried about your mental capacity. Onee-sama is the third-ranked Esper in Academy City—the legendary Railgun! If you truly anger Onee-sama, your precious ape is just going to be playing house with her," Shirai Kuroko retorted, a visible tic mark throbbing on her forehead.
"Waaah..." Index gritted her teeth and glared angrily at Kuroko. "You guys have absolutely no idea how powerful Yuuya is! I think even a Saint couldn't compare to him in a direct fight!"
"Hehe... a 'Saint'? Please, don't make me laugh. What exactly do you think a Saint is? Does a Saint compare to the scientific genius of Einstein or Tesla? You're just a delusional primary school student spouting religious nonsense without a shred of scientific knowledge," Kuroko sneered, immediately amused by the Magic Side terminology she assumed was just a fairy tale.
In Kuroko's mind, even a newly established Level 5 who barely ranked eighth was still just the lowest rung of the absolute elite. He was undoubtedly strong, but certainly no match for the Number Three.
'The only reason that ape even holds a Level 5 ranking is because Onee-sama wasn't involved in his little incident. Otherwise, Onee-sama would have secured her spot as the undisputed strongest in Academy City long ago,' Kuroko rationalized to herself.
"How dare you mock Yuuya and call me ignorant?! Anyway, Yuuya will definitely beat you all to a pulp!" Index was so angry she looked like a defensive little hedgehog. She had 103,000 Grimoires perfectly memorized in her head, yet this twintailed girl had the nerve to call her ignorant.
"No way~ In the end, it will absolutely be Onee-sama who wins! A Level 5 who ranks dead last is no match for Onee-sama at all!" Kuroko glared at Index defiantly.
"Yuuya will win!" Index glared right back, gritting her teeth and clenching her small fists.
"It's Onee-sama!" Kuroko's voice rose, trying to overpower Index with sheer volume and imposing presence.
"Yes, it's Yuuya!" Index shouted back, refusing to be outdone.
"It's Onee-sama—"
"It's Yuuya—"
"It's Onee-sama! Don't be so arrogant, you little brat!"
"Anyway, Yuuya will win in the end, you wretched little twintail!"
Misaka Mikoto's lips twitched violently, her expression a mixture of profound exasperation and absolute humiliation. She sighed, rubbing her temples. 'How did things suddenly degenerate into a kindergarten shouting match?'
She quickly grabbed Kuroko's shoulder to physically restrain her before she actually got into a fistfight with a nun in the middle of a public park.
"Wait a minute, Kuroko, calm down!"
Yuuya, however, was highly entertained. He hadn't expected Index to so fiercely defend his dignity. It seemed all the expensive meals he had been feeding this gluttonous girl hadn't been in vain. Smiling, he placed his hand gently on Index's head.
"Alright, Index, that's enough. I will definitely win. As long as I don't want to lose, no one can beat me."
Mikoto's face hardened. "Hmph, what a boastful tone."
"Onee-sama..." Kuroko looked up at Mikoto with glittering, pleading eyes. "Onee-sama absolutely must beat these two arrogant bastards to a pulp! Let them know exactly how terrifying Tokiwadai's Ace and the Scientific Railgun truly are! How dare they be so presumptuous in front of the Number Three!"
Mikoto's lips twitched again as she looked at Kuroko's fierce, bloodshot eyes. "Weren't you just frantically trying to stop me from illegally leaving the city limits two minutes ago? Now you're actively cheering for me to teach him a lesson?"
"Don't worry, Kuroko. I'll make him regret looking down on me."
"Did you hear that, kid? You'd better wash your neck and wait!" Kuroko glared at Index, fully acting like a classic cartoon bully's sidekick.
"You are the ones who should be careful!" Index retorted defiantly.
Clap! Clap!
Yuuya simply clapped his hands casually.
Accompanying the sharp sound was a momentary, nauseating feeling of intense motion sickness. In a microsecond, the surrounding environment violently shifted.
Mikoto, Kuroko, and Index all stumbled slightly, stunned for a moment. They blinked rapidly and looked around in absolute bewilderment.
The concrete park and vending machines were gone. Instead, they stood on a desolate, sandy coastline, with hardly anyone in sight. The salty sea breeze in the hot summer air felt especially refreshing. The dampness of the sand made the ground yield softly underfoot, and the rhythmic sound of crashing waves, accompanied by the cries of seagulls, gradually washed over them.
"Eh...? In a single instant, we've arrived at the seaside... this is Tokyo Bay! This is at least a hundred kilometers away from Academy City!" Kuroko shrieked in absolute shock as her spatial calculations caught up to reality. Her entire scientific worldview had just instantly collapsed.
'How is that mathematically possible?!' she thought, panic rising in her chest. 'I only felt a momentary wave of dizziness, and we've already bypassed the city's quarantine wall and traveled over 100 kilometers! Is that something a human brain could even calculate?!'
She looked at Yuuya with a heavy hint of terror. Was this the true calculation capacity of a Level 5 Spatial Esper? Was the absolute chasm between a Level 4 and a Level 5 truly this vast?
Even as one of the top-tier Teleporters in Academy City, her absolute maximum distance was only 81.5 meters, and carrying extra mass severely restricted her range. Yet this ape-like creature had just instantly moved four human bodies—including himself—a hundred kilometers to their destination with utterly perfect 11th-dimensional precision, without even a microscopic margin of error.
"Wow, that's amazing. If you really decided to run away from Judgment, who could ever possibly catch you?" Mikoto said, looking around incredulously.
She frequently experienced spatial teleportation via Kuroko. Kuroko could only move her a maximum of fifty meters in a single jump while carrying her weight, and pushing any further would result in catastrophic calculation errors.
To move cleanly from District 7 all the way to the ocean... Mikoto looked at Yuuya with a twinge of genuine envy. With such an exaggerated distance limit, he could theoretically travel anywhere in the world from Academy City without any trouble.
"However, it is pretty surprising that we managed to bypass Academy City's security grid so easily," Mikoto noted.
She then looked out at the rolling blue waves, her brown eyes sparkling. She quickly kicked off her leather loafers, peeled off her loose socks, and happily ran straight into the surf, splashing in the shallow water exactly like a child who had just been given a new toy.
"Wow! The seawater is so cool and refreshing! It's such a pity I didn't think to bring a swimsuit today, otherwise I could have gone for an actual swim!" Mikoto cheered, the sea breeze whipping her brown hair.
"That's true. It's a pity we can't use Academy City's digital currency outside the city limits, otherwise we could have bought some beach supplies," Kuroko said, placing her hands on her hips and letting out a sigh, temporarily forgetting her terror.
"Wow~! Ah, it's the ocean! It's the real ocean!" Index, holding up the heavy white hem of her nun's habit, ran toward the surf with innocent excitement, wanting to splash in the water too.
"Wait, haven't you ever seen the sea before...?" Mikoto asked, pausing her splashing.
"I've never seen it before!" Index beamed, blinking curiously at the vast expanse of blue.
"That makes sense... since your memories were previously wiped, this is technically your first time," Yuuya noted quietly.
Yuuya's lips twitched slightly in amusement as he watched the feared 'Railgun' happily kicking water at the seagulls, completely abandoning the tense, combative atmosphere they had just established.
"Hey. Have you forgotten something important, Ace of Tokiwadai?" Yuuya called out dryly. "We're here to have a high-level duel, not to build sandcastles."
"Hey, Kuroko! Look over here, I found a really pretty seashell—!"
Mikoto was just eagerly turning around to show off a pink shell she had scooped up when she caught Yuuya's deadpan, speechless expression. She instantly realized how incredibly childish she was acting instead of preparing for combat.
Her cheeks flushed a deep, violent crimson. She dropped the seashell back into the surf and quickly marched back onto the dry sand, desperately putting on a straight, fierce face to hide her immense embarrassment.
"A-Ahem! Although the beach is a nice change of pace... it's best we fulfill our duel promise first!"
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Give me powerstones.
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