Back when her family’s conglomerate was still intact and thriving, Tenshouin Yurika’s life as an ojou-sama could honestly be called the luckiest possible state of existence in just about every way.
But ever since the conglomerate went bankrupt, Yurika felt like every single thing in her life—big or small—seemed to teeter right on the edge of a mental breakdown.
Practically every awful thing, every headache-inducing stroke of bad luck, kept finding her in some new and creative form.
It got to the point where she actually started thinking:
Maybe I should go see a fortune teller or something.
A train of thought utterly out of place for the kind of city Academy City was supposed to be.
To be fair, you couldn’t really blame her for thinking that way.
Today, in the student council office at Tokiwadai, Shokuhou Misaki had clung to her for ages with a level of clinginess that had—for reasons unknown—suddenly multiplied at least several times over.
And under Shokuhou’s excessive doting, she’d been made to eat so much that her stomach was practically bulging.
Afterward she went back to class, and after school she went looking for Misaka Mikoto to ask what she’d wanted with her earlier that day—only to be told by Mikoto’s classmate that Mikoto had gone out on some errand.
She ended up waiting in Mikoto’s classroom for three whole hours, and Mikoto never came back.
When she finally gave up and left, Yurika made the tragic discovery that she’d already missed mealtime…
If only it had ended there.
Since the dining hall inside Tokiwadai had long since closed by that point, Yurika had no choice but to rush out before the School Garden curfew to find somewhere to eat and deal with her hunger.
But as she dragged her somewhat starved body gloomily down the night streets in search of a restaurant, she ran into something in an alley that made her want to drop dead on the spot.
“Oh…? What’s an outsider doing here…?”
In the eerie, gloomy alley—on what was supposed to be a shortcut near Yurika’s school—a figure clad entirely in white stood ramrod straight directly in front of her.
The frail-looking, delicate silhouette had originally been facing away, but upon noticing Yurika’s arrival, the head suddenly twisted around.
In the darkness, a pair of eyes as deep crimson as fresh blood fixed on her with an unblinking, dead-on stare, there in that spine-chilling atmosphere.
The moment those blood-red pupils locked onto her, Yurika instantly felt an extraordinary presence clamp down on her in a flash.
Her Telekinesis was itself mutated to a degree—beyond the most basic abilities of Telekinesis, it came with a considerable boost on the perception and mental levels.
It was a bizarre mutation that, since each esper only has one type of AIM Diffusion Field, would otherwise have gotten her mistaken for a Multi-Skill esper.
So the instant those crimson pupils caught her, an indescribable chill shot from her heels straight up to the crown of her head. The source of this chapter is g.com.
What’s the deal with this guy…?
Even when facing Shokuhou.
Yurika had never felt this kind of strange sensation.
True, Shokuhou had never really seemed that threatening to her, but she was still a Level 5—in other words, the threat level of the person standing before her now was definitely far beyond Shokuhou’s tier.
Shokuhou’s ability had relatively little effect on her, but with any other esper, Yurika had no confidence she could hold her own.
Keeping her usual unchanging expression and her calm, unreadable eyes, Yurika let almost nothing of her internal screaming show on her face.
She slowly looked over the white figure standing before her, and then she lowered her gaze to the figure’s feet.
At that, her heart clenched, and the expression she’d kept perfectly placid wavered slightly from sheer shock—a mangled body whose condition she couldn’t quite make out, and an alarming amount of dark red blood, lay carelessly splattered around the white figure’s feet.
Just a single glance was enough for even a layperson like Yurika to know: that body collapsed on the ground was definitely beyond saving.
“Hey, someone’s here. What do we do?”
Asking the question offhandedly, the white figure bowed its head to look at the barely-still-human-shaped body at its feet, then gave it a seemingly casual kick with the tip of one toe.
And then—to Yurika’s astonished inner reaction—the body, which had only been lightly tapped, suddenly went flying as if it had been slammed by some terrifying immense force, launching off the ground with a—
BAM
—and landing in a corner not far off, motionless.
It looked completely, utterly dead.
Doesn’t seem like Telekinesis.
Wind manipulation?
No, there’s no sense of wind.
So probably an ability related to force.
A physical-enhancement esper wouldn’t look so unsteady on his feet just standing there.
Even though she figured she’d stumbled onto a murder scene, Yurika still had to rapidly analyze what kind of ability this white figure might have—because judging by the look of this guy, the odds of getting silenced were pretty high.
It was already very late, so calling for help was naturally out of the question.
The more she understood about her opponent’s ability, the better her chances of escape.
“No answer, huh. Looks like it’s already dead.”
Seeing the body it had kicked away, the white figure let out what sounded like a scornful little laugh, then turned around. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Taking small steps, the white figure walked toward Yurika, a hint of playful amusement in its voice.
“Well then—wouldn’t hurt to kill you too while I’m at it, right?”
It was only once the figure drew close that Yurika finally realized why it had looked so completely white—it wasn’t naturally white hair or dyed hair.
It was short hair that looked like its original color had been forcibly drained out of it, skin that wasn’t naturally fair but sickly pale, paired with a white-based T-shirt.
The only impression this person gave was—
“White”!
Clean him up a bit and he’d probably pass for some pretty-boy kept man.
But of course, under these circumstances, Yurika wasn’t about to care about that.
As she watched the white figure stride toward her, her expression didn’t change, but an inexplicable glint flashed through her eyes—not a physical-enhancement type!
Slow speed!
I can get away!
She might be an ojou-sama, but Tokiwadai, as one of the prestigious schools, naturally wouldn’t let its students get lopsided in their education, and athletics—an important subject—was no exception.
So against a frail build like this white figure’s and those little steps, he probably couldn’t outrun her.
Thinking that, Yurika hesitated no longer.
She spun around and bolted straight for the alley’s exit at full speed!
“Ha…”
Seeing Yurika’s move, a trace of mockery surfaced in the red pupils of the white figure.
Then, in a voice brimming with laughter, it slowly said,
“You think you can run?”
As it spoke, the white figure stamped one foot down—and in an instant, the ground exploded!
Bang!
A white phantom carved a heart-stopping white streak through the darkness, and then—under Yurika’s utterly stunned gaze—it rushed in front of her in an instant.
With a faint vicious grin, the white figure faced Yurika, who had almost no chance to brake, and reached out its right hand!