District 13 possessed the highest concentration of primary schools, kindergartens, and orphanages in all of Academy City. Many children who were abandoned within the city walls or brought in through official humanitarian programs were placed in these local institutions.
However, these facilities provided only the bare minimum: three fixed, nutritional meals a day, standard educational curriculum, and scheduled bath times. Overall, the accommodations were stark and purely functional.
Yuuya and Index stood on a high rooftop overlooking the district, feeling a faint wave of nostalgia. Although Yuuya had lived in a similar institutional setting when he first reincarnated into this world, he had been fortunate enough to be raised by a remarkably gentle and kind headmistress.
Yuuya looked down at the concrete complex below—the AIM Diffusion Field Research Lab, where Kiyama Harumi conducted her high-level research.
"Yuuya, why did we come all the way over here?" Index asked, tilting her head in confusion.
"Because I'm here to rescue someone," Yuuya replied casually, eyeing two Anti-Skill squad cars pulling up to the main entrance below as fully armed officers spilled out onto the pavement. "She's about to find herself in a world of trouble."
"Yuuya is off saving another girl again, isn't he?" Index giggled softly. "You just saved all those people from that scary Alchemist, and now you're rushing off to save someone else. There really can't be many soft-hearted fools like Yuuya in this world."
"Well, even though she's an adult, she happens to be my teacher," Yuuya said with a nonchalant shrug.
"Ah~ Heavenly Father..." Index clasped her hands over her chest in a saintly pose, looking up at the sky. "Yuuya's romantic luck has actually extended to his own schoolteachers now. This isn't Yuuya's fault... Heavenly Father, please do not punish Yuuya for his unnatural charm..."
'...' Yuuya was thoroughly speechless. 'I really need to bully this gluttonous nun whenever I get the chance.'
Inside the AIM Diffusion Field Research Lab, Kiyama Harumi rubbed her heavy, dark circles, looking like an exhausted gamer after a three-day bender. Her disheveled hair and gloomy eyes ruined her natural beauty, giving her an eerie presence that made passersby shudder.
However, she didn't care about her clothes or appearance. The moment she had spent years preparing for had finally arrived.
"It's almost ready..." Kiyama muttered, staring intently at the rapidly updating numbers on her main terminal. "The number of synchronized users has reached 21,258. Just a little more, and the network's processing output will rival the computational capacity of the Tree Diagram. That level of processing power will finally be enough to derive a complete cure for my students."
Her brain, which hadn't rested in days, was burning under the immense calculation load. Yet she couldn't afford to stop now. Even with the Tree Diagram's output, simulating a flawless neurological treatment plan would take at least an hour. She needed a guaranteed solution that would restore the Child Errors without a single margin for error.
"I need to hold out for at least another hour..." Kiyama pursed her dry lips, grabbing a cold cup of coffee and gulping it down so fast that liquid spilled down her collar.
Maintaining the network put an extraordinary strain on her mind. Moreover, ever since she linked the global array, every single user connected to the Level Upper had collapsed into a coma. She knew Anti-Skill would trace the network signature back to her server hub eventually, but having made her choice, she refused to back down.
Suddenly, every monitor in the room went pitch black, and the overhead fluorescent lights cut out.
'They're already here...!' Kiyama gritted her teeth.
Activating a bending-light calculation array through the network, her body turned completely transparent as she sprinted toward the lower parking garage.
At the garage entrance, several Anti-Skill officers stood with stun rifles raised, waiting for their breach team. Upon hearing rapid footsteps echoing down the concrete hall, they instantly raised their weapons.
"Target incoming!"
The footsteps grew closer, yet no physical figure appeared.
"Where is she?!" an officer shouted.
Before anyone could answer, a black sedan's engine roared to life inside the garage.
"What?! There was nobody in that vehicle a second ago! How did she get inside?!"
Kiyama slammed her foot onto the accelerator, smashing through the security gates and speeding out onto the main avenue. Anti-Skill officers opened fire, but the sudden escape caught them off guard, leaving only a few non-lethal bullet marks on the sedan's rear bumper.
"Immediately notify all units in District 13! Set up roadblocks on the main avenue and execute the arrest!" an officer barked into his radio. "The suspect has been confirmed as Kiyama Harumi!"
"I can't let you catch me now... not when I'm so close," Kiyama murmured, a faint, exhausted smile touching her lips as her sedan wove through traffic.
'I never expected brainwave synchronization to produce such an extraordinary side effect,' she thought, adjusting her grip on the steering wheel. 'It actually allows me to commandeer the personal abilities of every Esper linked to the network. This is undoubtedly the greatest scientific breakthrough of my career. If I submitted this data as an official paper, it would easily claim international honors...'
Meanwhile, inside an unlisted research facility in District 7, a hunched old man sat in a darkened control room, monitoring the real-time telemetry just like Yuuya was from the rooftop.
A sinister, withered smile stretched across the old man's face as he watched the network output spike.
"Hehehe... you've finally deployed it, my former student, Kiyama Harumi," the old scientist cackled softly. "Let your desperate obsession reveal the true, hidden relationship between the AIM diffusion field and a synchronized network. Show me what kind of anomaly manifests when ten thousand minds merge into one... Hehehehe..."
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Give me powerstones.
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