"How could that be?" Yuuya straightened his lab coat, looking offended. "I am a gentleman. I observed her with an appreciative attitude and a doctor's compassionate heart. I absolutely had no intention of touching her inappropriately."
He spoke nonsense with a straight face, despite having just stared intently at the naked clone in the tube.
"You've already said it yourself," Heaven Canceller shook his head, sighing. "Anyway, we need to transfer that child to a new tank immediately. The current nutrient solution is chemically incompatible with my medicine. It will neutralize the treatment."
"Okay!" Yuuya immediately looked happy, putting his hands into his white coat like a real researcher.
He looked at the innocent, sleeping face of Misaka 00000 in the jar. His conscience pricked him slightly—stealing a living being was technically kidnapping—but it quickly subsided. 'She was going to die in that lab. Now she's mine. That's a reasonable justification.'
With the Doctor's help, they moved the prototype into the new high-tech ICU tank. The Doctor used a robotic arm to insert numerous IVs and electrode tubes into her body, monitoring her unstable vitals.
"It is thanks to your Gene Repair Serum that I can stabilize her," Heaven Canceller admitted, glancing at Yuuya, who was still admiring the "view." "Without it, even my skills might have only bought her a few decades of health, not a complete cure."
"Without the Doctor, the serum would just be expensive juice," Yuuya chuckled. "Oh, right. There's one more thing."
Yuuya snapped his fingers. Zip. He vanished. One minute later. Zip. Yuuya reappeared in the office. This time, he was carrying two unconscious girls—one under each arm—with a crowd of identical girls standing behind him.
23 Misaka Sisters.
"Doctor, thank you for taking care of them too! Hehe."
"..." Heaven Canceller felt a headache coming on.
"Now I'll be busy again," the doctor sighed, injecting the serum into the prototype's IV drip. "What are your plans next?"
"Plans?"
"The Sisters," the Doctor said, looking at the crowd of clones filling his office. "My hospital cannot accommodate 20,000 clones. And if it is revealed they are clones, it will impact their future lives. You wouldn't want that."
"Doctor, it's alright." Yuuya smiled confidently. "Aleister will arrange everything. The Board Chairman owes me. Those who are cured will be placed in research institutions outside Academy City—cooperating partners in England or France. Some will remain here. My teleportation can circle the Earth in minutes; logistics isn't an issue."
"That is good," the Doctor nodded, though a sense of unease crept into his heart. 'What exactly is Aleister planning? And how many patients will this boy bring me before he is satisfied?'
...
A Certain Research Institute.
The office was decorated cleanly, but the man sitting at the desk ruined the professional atmosphere. He was tall and thin, wearing a white lab coat over a flashy shirt. A prominent tattoo covered the left side of his face. On his hands, he wore delicate, high-tech mechanical gloves. He sat with his feet propped on the desk, idly cleaning his fingernails with a piece of scrap metal.
Kihara Amata. The leader of the Dark Side unit Hound Dog. The man who developed Accelerator's personality and combat style. A genius of the Kihara Family.
SLAM! The office door burst open. A middle-aged researcher rushed in, his face pale and sweating.
"Oh?" Kihara Amata raised an eyebrow. He clicked his tongue. "Isn't this Mr. Amai Ao, the project manager? Why do you look so lost? It's really unpleasant."
Amai Ao gritted his teeth. He slammed a stack of documents onto the desk. "Stop mocking me, Kihara! Do you know what this notice is?! Over fifty Misaka Sisters were stolen from Sector 7 last night by a Spatial User! Do you know what that means?!"
"Huh? What does it mean?" Kihara picked his ear nonchalantly.
"Stop playing dumb! Since that Intruder intervened, the Level 6 Shift Project has stalled! We have no test subjects! And now the higher-ups want to increase investment?" Amai was hyperventilating.
"Precisely," Kihara yawned. "Because there are no subjects, we need more labs to produce them faster. Simple logic, Mr. Director."
"Bullshit!" Amai roared. "Spreading the production across more labs dilutes the secrecy! And shouldn't you be dealing with the intruder?! Why is the 'Guardian of Science' sitting here doing a manicure while our assets are stolen?!"
"Hehe. You're very spirited today." Kihara chuckled darkly. "But what do you want me to do? That Intruder defeated ITEM instantly. Even Mugino Shizuri fell. You want me to chase a monster like that?"
"Then deploy the Upper-Level Armed Forces!" Amai blurted out. "Call in Anti-Skill! Call in the SDF! Use the Powered Suits! We must secure the experiment!"
"Hahahaha!" Kihara Amata burst into laughter. He laughed so hard he wiped a tear from his eye. "That's the funniest joke I've heard all year."
"What's so funny?!" Amai screamed.
Kihara stood up. His expression shifted from mockery to terrifying cruelty. "Deploy the Armed Forces?" He leaned over the desk, staring into Amai's soul. "So... you want the entire world to know we are conducting illegal human cloning experiments? You want the public to know we are slaughtering 20,000 children? Anti-Skill are teachers, you moron. If they find out, we go to jail. If you want to be euthanized and thrown into an incinerator to cover up the evidence... sure. I can call the cops for you right now."
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