"Stop you? Sensei, do you really take me for the kind of guy who would do something so thankless? You should know my personality better than that."
Looking at the bloodshot, exhausted eyes of Kiyama Harumi, Yuuya shook his head and offered a confident, relaxed smile.
"I don't bother taking on tasks I can't finish, and when I do step in, I solve the problem completely in one single move."
"So... you're here to purge me?" Kiyama's expression darkened, a bitter, dejected look washing over her face as she looked at her former student. "The underground organization Harmony Society... its sole purpose is to purge the unchecked darkness and rogue researchers of Academy City. Given the scope of what I've done, I naturally fall into your target profile. Purging me is only logical. However... I have no intention of surrendering just because you're a student I watched grow up. At least not right now. I cannot afford to fall here."
Her feelings were deeply tangled. As a researcher who had peered into the abyss of Academy City, she was acutely aware of the various Dark Side factions operating under the board. When she had first learned of the Harmony Society's existence, she had been genuinely astonished that General Board Chairman Aleister Crowley had authorized an organization specifically designed to keep the other board members' twisted experiments in check.
It was rumored that even the catastrophic Level 6 Shift Project had been heavily disrupted due to the Harmony Society's sudden intervention—after all, only the Chairman held the supreme authority to unilaterally purge the General Board's classified projects.
Now, having deployed the Level Upper across more than twenty thousand students, her actions naturally fell squarely within the scope of a Dark Side purge.
Seeing the disappointment and sorrow on Kiyama's face, Yuuya smiled gently. "It must hurt having to face your own student as an enemy, Sensei. For that, I'm truly sorry."
He paused, his voice softening with sincere warmth. "However, I'm not some heartless butcher without a conscience. Of course I have no intention of purging you. When I said I would solve this completely, I meant I will dismantle the crisis you've caused, let Anti-Skill process the formal arrest for public appearances, and then use my own authority to pull you straight out of the detention facility. Once you see the solution I've prepared for your students, you'll understand everything. Who knows—you might even jump into my arms and cry tears of joy."
"I cannot allow myself to be arrested right now..." Kiyama murmured. Hearing the genuine concern in his voice lifted a heavy weight from her heart, and a faint, wry smile appeared on her lips. "Besides... even if you are officially recognized as one of the city's Level 5s, you might not necessarily be my match today, Yuuya. Right now, I have the synchronized calculation capacity and diverse abilities of over twenty thousand Espers at my command."
"Sensei, you seem remarkably confident," Yuuya's lips curled into a smirk, a sharp gleint flashing in his eyes. "A true Level 5 isn't something that can be overcome by raw numbers. No matter how many Level 4 calculations you stack together, against a qualitative leap, you will still be crushed. Furthermore... I am hardly an ordinary Level 5."
Yuuya raised his right hand casually.
'Skill Activation: Imperial Privilege.'
'Target Capability: Level 5 — Gravity Manipulation.'
In an instant, the precise mathematical formulas for multidimensional gravitational distortion flooded his Personal Reality. Gravity manipulation was a well-documented ability within Academy City, making a Level 5 output completely effortless to construct.
"Five-fold gravity."
Snap!
Yuuya snapped his fingers. Within a two-hundred-meter radius centered on the street, the local gravitational constant multiplied by five times in a fraction of a millisecond.
Thud—!
"Kh...!"
Kiyama's knees buckled instantly, slamming violently against the fractured asphalt. Her eyes widened in absolute shock as she felt the crushing weight of several heavy sandbags pressing down on every square inch of her body.
Five times Earth's gravity meant her own body weight was multiplied fivefold. For an ordinary researcher with average physical conditioning, breaking free from that kind of crushing downforce through pure muscle was physically impossible.
"Gravity manipulation?! That's impossible!" Kiyama gasped out, straining to keep her head up. "Your classified profile only listed Spatial Teleportation, Pyrokinesis, and Electromaster capabilities!"
She had thoroughly reviewed Yuuya's background files before today. The records clearly stated he possessed three distinct abilities, with only his spatial movement reaching the Level 5 threshold.
"Sensei, how outdated is your assessment of me?" Yuuya appeared directly in front of her in the blink of an eye, stepping effortlessly through the heavy gravity field. "My power originates from a natural Gemstone foundation. I can manifest practically any Esper capability I desire. It is fundamentally different from the artificial network you've cobbled together."
Yuuya reached his hand down toward her. "If you have no further strength to resist, allow me to escort you out of here."
'So that's what it was...' Kiyama suddenly recalled the classified footnote at the bottom of Yuuya's file: The theoretical possibility of acquiring additional Personal Realities cannot be fully excluded.
"Underestimating me will cost you dearly, Yuuya!"
Vvvvmm—!
A vibrant, pulsing white ring of acoustic energy erupted from Kiyama's body, expanding rapidly in all directions and causing the surrounding air to violently distort.
Yuuya remained standing with a calm smile, completely unaffected by the shockwave passing through him.
The visible halo wasn't a mystical aura—it was a high-intensity wave of directed infrasound that distorted the air density, refracting the summer sunlight.
"Infrasonic shockwaves... Are you trying to knock me unconscious without causing permanent neural damage?" Yuuya chuckled, crouching down to meet her gaze as she struggled under the gravity field. "You really are a gentle teacher at heart, Sensei."
Seeing that her acoustic attack had failed to disrupt his nervous system in the slightest, Kiyama's pupils shrank in panic. "How can you... Do you possess high-level acoustic vector control as well?!"
"Of course. I told you, I can manifest whatever I need."
Flash—!
Kiyama pushed her calculations to the limit, executing a short-range teleportation to slip out from under the gravity zone. Reappearing instantly behind Yuuya, she compressed a sphere of high-density photons between her palms and hurled it straight at his back.
Photon Detonation.
She was genuinely terrified by the sheer depth of Yuuya's abilities. If she didn't fight with absolute, lethal seriousness, she would be captured in seconds. And if she were locked away before finding a cure for the Child Errors, those children would remain trapped in their comas forever.
"A high-density photon blast? You really are getting serious, Sensei."
Yuuya didn't bother dodging or erecting a physical barrier.
The moment the concentrated sphere of light made contact with his back, his right hand twitched. Through the passive authority of World Rejecter, the volatile burst of energy didn't explode—it was cleanly excised from the coordinate plane, vanishing into thin air as if it had never existed in the physical world.
"What...?!" Kiyama froze, her mind grinding to a halt.
Her high-output attack had clearly struck its mark, yet the energy had simply ceased to exist without leaving a scorch mark. That defied every law of thermodynamics she knew, sending a cold shiver of terror through her spine.
"No matter how many abilities you juggle, as long as your calculations haven't achieved a qualitative breakthrough, you cannot overcome a true Level 5," Yuuya's voice sounded smoothly from right beside her. "The gap between Level 4 and Level 5 is a chasm that cannot be bridged by sheer quantity. Otherwise, why would a city of 2.3 million people have thousands of Level 4s, but only a handful of Level 5s?"
Before Kiyama could trigger another ability, Yuuya casually caught her wrist, twisted her arm with practiced ease, swept her legs out from under her, and pinned her firmly against the asphalt, resting his weight across her waist to completely neutralize her mobility.
"Ugh...!" Kiyama let out a sharp groan of pain. Pinned helplessly to the street, she gritted her teeth, a desperate, defiant fire igniting in her bloodshot eyes.
"A Level 5... I never realized the qualitative gap was this terrifying!" Kiyama panted heavily, her voice shaking with raw emotion. "But don't you dare write me off yet, Yuuya! You're about to witness what happens when twenty thousand minds scream as one!"
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Give me powerstones.
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