Suddenly being moved by Spatial Teleportation, Shokuhou Misaki panicked. Reflexively, she reached into her shoulder bag, preparing to pull out her television remote control.
"Relax, relax. We're all on the same side," Yuuya said with a smile.
"You scared me to death! You always do things that make people panic!" Shokuhou said angrily, wanting to throw her heavy bag directly at his head.
"Shokuhou... Shokuhou Misaki..." the others in the RV gasped, staring at the blonde girl in horror.
Everyone in the Dark Side knew the name of the Number Five, Mental Out. She was the one person no one wanted to cross paths with among all the Level 5s. In a world of secrets, everyone feared having their minds read and their memories altered against their will.
"What a hassle," Shokuhou grumbled. She took out her remote control and clicked a button.
Beep.
Instantly, everyone except Yuuya went blank. Even Mugino Shizuri, a fellow Level 5, looked completely dazed, with glowing golden star symbols replacing her pupils.
"That's about right. Now to erase their memories of my arrival..." Shokuhou pressed another button.
"You really are cautious," Yuuya sighed. This common paranoia among psychological Espers was really a headache.
"Luckily, the Number Four doesn't have a passive electromagnetic barrier protecting her brain like Misaka-san does, so she was easily controlled," Shokuhou said sweetly, placing one hand on her hip in a playful pose.
She then looked at Therestina, who was tied up like a mummy with only her nose exposed, and blinked in surprise.
"Speaking of which, isn't she the one you need me to read? Tied up like this, is she some kind of spy?"
The only reason the Dark Side usually requested her ability was to forcefully extract intel from enemy agents.
"Sort of. She's from the Kihara family. I need to know the location of the Initial Sample of the Ability Crystal," Yuuya said.
"The Kihara family..." Shokuhou frowned, her mood sinking instantly.
Kihara—how could she not know that cursed surname? It was deeply rooted in the darkest underbelly of Academy City, and almost everyone bearing it was a mad scientist. Ninety-nine percent of the insane, inhumane experiments in the city could be linked to them. Their defining characteristic was a total lack of humanity and moral constraints. Yet, it was an undeniable fact that over 80% of Academy City's technology—which put the city thirty years ahead of the rest of the world—originated from their twisted minds.
"Yes. The Initial Sample was forcibly extracted from the brains of more than twenty innocent Child Errors, leaving those kids comatose in a hospital to this day," Yuuya explained. "Sacrificing innocent people for their experiments... it's truly inhumane."
"Another inhumane experiment... I understand."
Shokuhou fell silent, her expression turning dead serious. Faced with such a tragic situation, she couldn't pretend she hadn't heard it. Besides, she only needed to extract one piece of information; the rest of the dirty work didn't require her intervention.
She pointed the remote at Therestina and pressed a button. Therestina, who had been continuously making muffled whimpering noises, instantly stopped writhing.
The next moment, Shokuhou's face turned deathly pale, as if she had just waded through a sewer of unbearable atrocities.
"What a damn scumbag!" Shokuhou hissed angrily.
Yuuya knew Shokuhou had just witnessed the heinous things Therestina had done in her memories. Despite her manipulative exterior, Shokuhou was kind and righteous at heart. It was completely understandable that she was disgusted by the unadulterated evil of a Kihara.
"I found it. It's locked in a secure safe at her private residence in District 13," Shokuhou said, rubbing her temples.
"Thank you very much. What are you planning to do next?" Yuuya asked.
"Need you even ask? Of course I'm going back to my dorm~" Shokuhou said warily, gripping her remote tightly. "You don't need to escort me. I'll go back by myself. Also, I've already paid back half of the favor I owed you for Dolly~"
"Don't let my appearance fool you, I'm actually a good guy," Yuuya said with a shrug, though internally he was plotting how to be a bad guy.
"Would a 'good guy' lock himself in an RV with so many Dark Side girls at night?" Shokuhou retorted, not believing him for a second.
She raised the remote, pointing it at her own head, and pressed a button.
Beep.
She actively deleted the vile memories she had just copied from Therestina's mind. If she kept them, they would make her depressed, and she refused to let a Kihara's twisted worldview pollute her own sparkling personality.
"They're just my subordinates. Well, although I do have some feelings for them, I also have feelings for you. After all, you're a super beautiful girl," Yuuya flirted smoothly with a smile.
"Please don't openly reveal your thoughts like that! It scares me! Please stay at least two meters away from me," Shokuhou quickly made a defensive 'X' gesture with her arms, then chuckled softly.
Despite his teasing words, judging from his personality, he probably wouldn't actually do anything to make her genuinely hate him. If she hadn't already read his mind in the past to know his true nature, she absolutely, positively wouldn't have come tonight.
With a final wave, Shokuhou Misaki walked away, leaving the parking garage.
Shortly after, the seven girls from the 'Harmony' division also dispersed to carry out their wrap-up orders. Therestina's personality and memories were completely wiped and restructured by Shokuhou, turning her into a harmless blank slate. Yuuya then unceremoniously dumped her onto a random park bench and teleported to her house in District 13 to retrieve the Initial Sample.
...
District 13. A Skyscraper Rooftop.
Yuuya looked at the glowing red crystal inside the small, reinforced glass vial in his hand. This was the concentrated substance extracted from the minds of over twenty Espers.
Similar to an AIM Diffusion Field, or a crystal of condensed matter... in magical terms, this thing was a crystallization of Angelic power. After all, the underlying nature of the AIM Diffusion Field paralleled the power of angels; the Science and Magic sides simply used different terminology to describe the exact same phenomenon.
'I'll give it to Kiyama Harumi after she creates the AIM Burst,' Yuuya thought to himself.
'Using the core of the AIM Burst and the Misaka Network, I can simulate reaching Level 6. That should be enough raw power for the early stages of the plot.'
However, that was only the early stage. The absolute limit of Esper superpowers was Level 6, which, in cosmological terms, was only about one-tenth the scale of a true Crusader Archangel. It wasn't even comparable to a complete, fully manifested Archangel. Relying solely on Science was ultimately too weak.
He had to learn Magic. But The Book of the Law that Aiwass had given him didn't require traditional learning at all. He could master it slowly just by driving himself with desire, but that method was far too slow for his liking.
He needed a Grimoire that he could learn actively, not passively.
With a high-tier Magic Book and his System's Snooze Clock item—which dilated time so that mere milliseconds equaled 9 minutes in the outside world—he could completely master a Grimoire in three subjective hours.
Unlimited magic power, a Snooze Clock, and Grimoires. This combination was simply invincible. Even faced with 103,000 Grimoires, he could learn them all in just a single month.
'There's still over a month until summer vacation,' Yuuya smiled, looking up at the night sky. 'By then, Index will have arrived in Academy City. If I can get my hands on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, I can become the ultimate human Magician in three months.'
.....
[AUTHOR NOTE: New fanfic Bleach: Echoes of the Soul is released today. Can you guys add it to your library if you like it and support and help in getting it to top spot in weekly collection list. You can find this fic in my profile or through search.]