Upon receiving the Class-A emergency mobilization, Judgment officers and Anti-Skill units across the district acted with practiced efficiency. Sirens blared across the avenues, prompting civilian crowds to rapidly file into subterranean blast shelters while automated riot barricades sealed off every perimeter leading toward the epicenter.
Judgment 177th Branch
"I thought this was just an isolated case of academic fraud by a rogue researcher... I never imagined it would escalate into a Class-A disaster," Shirai Kuroko sighed heavily, rubbing her temples as she stared at the central monitor.
Watching Takahashi Yuuya clash directly with the mutating monstrosity on screen, a knot of genuine anxiety formed in her chest. If even a Level 5 couldn't put the creature down permanently, the entire district was in imminent danger.
District 13 — Ground Zero
Accompanied by the wail of sirens, three armored Anti-Skill transport vans skidded to a halt at the edge of the perimeter. Dozens of officers in heavy ballistic gear poured out, securing their positions behind reinforced riot shields.
"Who the hell is engaging that thing?!" an officer shouted through his binoculars, utterly bewildered. "At a time like this, there's a lone student fighting in a dense urban corridor?! Why hasn't he evacuated?!"
"It's that kid... He's really going too far this time," Yomikawa Aiho muttered, clicking her tongue as she stepped to the front of the squad.
She recognized the high schooler instantly. He was a student in Komoe-sensei's homeroom at A Certain High School—a notorious Level 5 whom she frequently instructed in her physical education classes.
"Listen up, everyone!" Yomikawa racked the slide of her assault rifle, barking orders through the tactical comms. "Ensure the line of fire is completely clear of civilians before engaging the target! And remember—do not point your muzzles anywhere near that reckless brat!"
"Understood, Captain!"
"Advance behind ballistic shields! Secure the perimeter!"
Thirty Anti-Skill officers moved forward in tight formation, their heavy shields interlocking to brace against the incoming sonic shockwaves.
In Academy City, Anti-Skill was largely composed of volunteer teachers dedicated to protecting students and maintaining civic peace. They possessed field authority to act during emergencies without waiting for bureaucratic clearance from the Board of Directors. In contrast, Judgment was run by student volunteers strictly limited to local patrols and preliminary investigations. The two organizations operated under separate administrative chains to prevent internal corruption.
TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT—!
A concentrated hail of heavy-caliber rifle rounds erupted from the Anti-Skill line, slamming directly into the creature's torso.
The concentrated kinetic barrage blew large chunks out of the white mass, but the resulting shockwaves only agitated the entity further. Emitting an ear-splitting shriek, the destroyed tissue was instantly replenished by ambient AIM radiation. The creature absorbed the kinetic energy and swelled noticeably, expanding its volume by more than a third.
"What the hell?! Not only did it take no damage, but it's absorbing the impact to grow larger?!"
Bracing her riot shield against the violent backdraft, Yomikawa stared wide-eyed at the towering, pulsating abomination.
As more gunfire struck the entity, its contorted flesh expanded at a visible, alarming rate.
"Cease fire! Cease fire immediately!" Yomikawa shouted.
Before her orders could fully register, several massive, pale tendrils whipped out from deep within the creature's torso. Striking with the force of speeding freight trains, the tendrils swept through the Anti-Skill line like a row of falling dominoes.
Shields shattered on impact. Dozens of officers were violently thrown against the surrounding concrete walls, crying out in pain before collapsing unconscious onto the pavement.
"Everyone!" a younger officer cried in panic, rushing toward the fallen squad.
"Dammit! Standard ballistic weapons have zero effect on that thing!" another shouted, backing away.
"We cannot fall back in a densely populated sector! Evacuate the wounded immediately!" Yomikawa commanded. She then turned toward Yuuya, who was standing right in the creature's strike zone, and screamed at the top of her lungs: "Hey! Takahashi! Back off right this second and evacuate! This is adult business—not a playground for reckless students!"
In her mind, the only remaining option was for the upper echelons of Academy City to deploy specialized heavy containment units—though even specialized military assets would struggle against an entity immune to kinetic trauma.
Yuuya stood in the center of the street, thoroughly exasperated. It was natural for Anti-Skill to engage a biological anomaly, but he was a Level 5. If his reality-warping calculations were taking time to dismantle it, what could conventional firearms possibly accomplish? The creature was an artificial embryonic Angel—not a mundane biohazard.
Still, he understood the mentality of Academy City's teachers. To educators like Yomikawa, no matter how ridiculously powerful an Esper was, they were still just children who needed to be protected by adults.
"I say, Yomikawa-sensei... you're the one who should be pulling back," Yuuya called back with a relaxed grin, rolling his wrists. "I had almost finished isolating its spatial coordinates, but your squad barged in and fed it a massive burst of kinetic energy. You've essentially disrupted my rhythm and forced me to execute an extra thirty thousand calculation cycles."
He pointed toward the rear. "Do me a favor and take your squad back two hundred meters."
He had finally pinpointed the exact location of the core.
The Triangle Core of the AIM Burst didn't purely exist in physical 3D space; it was anchored within the higher-dimensional subspace of the Artificial Heaven. In original canon, Misaka Mikoto only managed to expose it after the network severed, causing the construct to lose its stabilization anchor and forcing the core to drop into physical reality.
"What kind of nonsense are you babbling?!" Yomikawa shouted back angrily. "That monster is far beyond what a student can handle!"
"If it weren't for your well-intentioned interference, Sensei, I would have wrapped this up twenty seconds ago," Yuuya laughed confidently.
Flash—!
In a fraction of a microsecond, Yuuya vanished from the street and materialized directly above the creature's grotesque, halo-crowned head. He raised his right palm, driving it down against the shifting mass of AIM energy.
BUZZZZZZ—!
'Calculation System: Vector Disruption.'
The moment his palm connected, Yuuya injected a massive, chaotic vector field directly into the creature's internal structure. The directional vectors of the compressed AIM energy began to expand and collide violently within its body. In an instant, the massive entity distorted like a piece of soft clay caught in a hydraulic press.
The AIM Burst appeared solid on the outside, but it was fundamentally a manifestation of pure, unguided psychic energy. Energy inherently had no fixed biological form; it was only shaped into a grotesque silhouette by the collective negative emotions of the connected users.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK—BOOM!
As the conflicting vectors tore through its lattice, the AIM Burst began to disintegrate from the head down. Its mournful screech echoed through the clouds as brilliant, blinding fissures of light spiderwebbed across its entire surface, resembling a fragile porcelain vase shattering under immense pressure.
With a sound like tens of thousands of glass panes breaking simultaneously, the towering monster exploded into a dazzling shower of white light particles.
Floating silently at the epicenter of the fading light was a pristine, glowing triangular prism.
Dense streams of holographic, higher-dimensional data revolved continuously around the Triangle Core—a conceptual miracle born from the intersection of cutting-edge neuroscience and esoteric phase mechanics.
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Give me powerstones.
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