OVA - Because Misaka is the Center of Attention Right Now
Wearing her Judgement armband, Kuroko pursues a group of thieves into a public park, only to find that Mikoto is there and has already dealt with them. A large crowd of bystanders is watching admiringly; Kuroko tries to lead her friend away quietly, especially once she notices Anti-Skill arriving. However, just as the two are starting to walk away, Mikoto suddenly freezes in shock.
Meeting with her friends later, Mikoto tells them she had an uncanny feeling that someone was watching her. Kuroko points out that Mikoto's been in the spotlight more than usual due to rumours surrounding the recent Level Upper incident, so she's bound to draw some stares. However, Mikoto insists this felt more sinister, almost like electricity flowing backwards through her body. Saten, excited, says it sounds like the "Someone Is Watching" urban legend that's going around — about people being driven paranoid by the feeling that some unseen person is watching them. Kuroko, unconvinced, tells Mikoto she's worrying too much.
Mikoto spends the rest of the day on edge, trying to calm herself down. As she stops by the vending machine on the way home, she turns around and sees Touma walking past. She demands to know if it's been him doing it; he has no idea what she's talking about. As she starts emitting angry sparks, a pair of Anti-Skill officers approach and tell them to stop quarreling and go home.
The next day, outside Seventh Mist, Mikoto asks Kuroko if she's just being self-conscious. Kuroko starts to tease her, but then suddenly Mikoto freezes and says she can feel it again, right behind her. Kuroko says there's nobody looking their way, but Mikoto is clearly rattled.
Worried, Kuroko asks Uiharu and Saten to help her dig up some information on this "Someone Is Watching" rumour. Uiharu finds an online message board for Tokiwadai students who have experienced the phenomenon. Looking through the messages, they notice a member called "MK" who is easily identifiable as Mitsuko Kongou. The three decide to quietly investigate the matter on their own.
Some time later, Saten drops into the Judgement office to find a tired-looking Mikoto has taken refuge there. Suggesting they all need to relax, Konori takes them to a public bathhouse. At the same time, Kuroko and Uiharu meet with Kongou, along with Wannai and Awatsuki, to ask about her post on the message board. It turns out Kongou wasn't the actual victim; she was posting in support of one of Wannai and Awatsuki's friends. Kuroko asks if she can meet this victim, but it seems she's holed up in her room and not seeing anybody. Wannai says her friend described the feeling as like electricity flowing backwards through her, causing to Kuroko recall Mikoto's earlier remark. She asks Wannai what her friend's ability is.
Meanwhile, Mikoto tries to go about her daily routines, but is increasingly haunted by the feeling of someone watching her wherever she goes. It even seeps into her dreams, where she has nightmares of being surrounded by locked doors, with staring eyes watching her through the peepholes.
Continuing their investigation, Kuroko and Uiharu haven't identified any potential espers or abilities which might be responsible for the phenomenon. Kuroko wonders if it might be someone other than an esper causing it, and asks Uiharu to search for something.
Next Sunday, Mikoto gets up early and leaves the dorm, telling Kuroko she's going shopping. As soon as she leaves, Kuroko calls Saten and Uiharu and tells them to get into position. Saten reports that she's currently tracking the "target", while Uiharu says her research is almost complete. Kuroko says they'll have to deal with the final pieces as they come, and heads out herself.
Mikoto walks openly through downtown, then heads into an alleyway, mentally daring the person behind "Someone Is Watching" to make a move. Sure enough, a few moments later, she feels the now-familiar sensation. Instead of turning to look behind her, she runs deeper into the alley, using her magnetic powers to accelerate herself. This particular alleyway loops back to the main street near where it starts, allowing Mikoto to circle around and come up on whoever is behind her. However, she is surprised to run into a pair of Anti-Skill officers — the same ones she met previously by the vending machine.
When Mikoto tries to explain what she's doing, one of the officers asks why she's so worked up about some urban legend. At that moment, Kuroko materializes and tells them that "Someone Is Watching" is no urban legend — and that the culprit is the officer herself, whom she addresses as Asako Jounan, former director of power development at Nagatenjouki Academy.
Kuroko says that all the victims of "Someone Is Watching" were electric-type espers, who can (at least subconsciously) sense electromagnetic fields — and the phenomenon works by manipulating a particular wavelength which triggers their fight-or-flight instinct. She holds up her smartphone to display a research paper on the subject — with Asako Jounan listed as the author. Then Kuroko teleports up close to Jounan, reaches inside her jacket, and pulls out a suspicious-looking electronic device.
Jounan throws a flash-bang grenade into the air and uses it as cover to flee. Realizing the streets are monitored by cameras, she heads to the nearby river and commandeers a boat using her Anti-Skill badge. She is just congratulating herself on her quick thinking when she looks up and sees Mikoto waiting on a bridge up ahead. It seems that Saten has been monitoring Jounan all this time, and told Mikoto where she was headed. Jounan is quickly apprehended — courtesy of a well-applied railgun — and the "Someone Is Watching" incident is brought to an end.
The girls relax at the Judgement office later, where Kuroko shares her theory about Jounan's motives. As power development director at Nagatenjouki, she must have come under intense pressure for failing to produce a single Level 5 for the school, in spite of its reputation as Academy City's most prestigious institution. After losing her job there, she may have decided to target Mikoto out of resentment of Tokiwadai, which has two Level 5s.
Uiharu congratulates Kuroko on her hard work in solving this case, and also for spending so much of her time watching over Mikoto... trailing her wherever she went and secretly keeping an eye on her. Hearing this, it occurs to Mikoto that maybe Jounan wasn't responsible for every time she felt like someone was watching her...
As sparks begin to fly, Kuroko nonetheless resolves never to falter in her devotion to Mikoto.
Tropes
- Chekhov's Gun: The one-way alley mentioned offhandedly by Saten ends up playing a major role in the climax.
- Chekhov's Skill: Early on, Mikoto notices that Uiharu has left her GPS switched on, explaining that she can sense active electrical fields. As it turns out, the "Someone Is Watching" phenomenon works by hijacking this ability.
- Corrupt Cop: Asako Jounan uses her position in Anti-Skill as cover to perpetrate the "Someone Is Watching" incidents.
- Furo Scene: A lengthy one featuring Mikoto, Saten and Konori.
- Gaslighting: Jounan's entire scheme is designed to do this to Mikoto, who is questioning her own sanity in very short order. Several other people (apparently used as trial runs) have been turned into paranoid wrecks by it already.
- Interquel: The events of this OVA occur midway through season 1, shortly after the Level Upper incident. It clearly takes place after episode 13 note , but before episode 17 note . Chronologically, the most likely place for it is between episodes 14 and 15.
- Non-Action Big Bad: While she presumably has standard Anti-Skill training, Jounan clearly knows she's no match for Mikoto, and relies entirely on stealth and deception to carry out her scheme. As soon as she's exposed, she runs like hell.
- The Resenter: Implied to be Jounan's motivation. She's bitter over losing her job for failing to develop a single Level 5 esper, and has decided to take her revenge by Gaslighting the famous and popular Railgun. There's no indication she has any real objective beyond driving Mikoto crazy and (by extension) hurting Tokiwadai.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: There's an extended sequence in which a scene from Mikoto's life devolves into a creepy hallucination, from which she suddenly wakes up in totally different ordinary situation... which then segues into another hallucination, and the whole process repeats. While some parts of the sequence clearly are taking place, it's unclear where the transitions between reality and hallucination are, or how time is actually passing during all this. It's quite an effective illustration of just what all this is doing to Mikoto both mentally and emotionally. Somewhat subverted at the end, though, when it turns out at least some of Mikoto's paranoia was actually triggered by Kuroko spying on her.
