Episode 06 - The Battle Begins
Saten carries Kongou and the cat to safety while Wannai and Awatsuki block pursuit. Baba is annoyed but not overly concerned, as his mosquito drone is still hidden on Kongou and emitting a homing signal. Since neither Wannai nor Awatsuki were competitors in the earlier event, he has no intelligence on them, so he attempts to analyze them while they fight his robotic Great Dane drones.
Quickly realizing that Wannai's Hydro Hand ability requires water, Baba retreats away from the nearby reservoir. Then he tells the two girls that Kongou was injected with a nanodevice, and that if they want to help her they'll need another one for analysis. He takes out a pair of small cases and says that one of them contains his last mosquito drone. He gives one to a Great Dane to carry away, while he retreats with the other. Awatsuki follows the robot dog; Wannai, pulling several clumps of water from the reservoir through the air with her, pursues Baba.
Mikoto, meanwhile, has been unable to elude Shokuhou's two minions. As they're heading back to rejoin the other students, they see Saten emerge from an ambulance that has just arrived at an adjacent hospital. Mikoto goes over to ask what's happened, and is shocked to see Kongou, unconscious and badly injured, being unloaded on a stretcher.
Awatsuki eventually catches the fleeing robot and makes short work of it with her Float Dial ability. Meanwhile, Baba uses his other Great Danes to wear Wannai down, forcing her to use up her liquid ammunition in disabling them. He gloats that he's figured out her power's weakness: she can only control about 300 litres of water, and only in three separate streams. However, Wannai reveals that she can actually control four streams — she's brought another one along, out of sight, through a nearby storm sewer. Bringing it out, she uses it to envelop Baba's head. Panicked, he has his remaining Great Danes remove the water by absorbing it, which causes them to short out.
Baba tries to send his final mosquito drone to attack Wannai, but Awatsuki arrives and uses her power to neutralize it. Wannai gives the now-helpless Baba a slap, followed by a stern lecture; he flees in fright. The two girls retrieve the mosquito drone before heading off to find the others.
At the hospital, Saten tells Mikoto what happened to Kongou. Mikoto, sensing an electrical signal, finds the other mosquito drone hiding in Kongou's hair and takes it. Now utterly furious, she marches out of the hospital past Shokuhou's minions, bluntly telling them they'll have to kill her to stop her.
Making his way back to a high-tech van full of surveillance equipment, Baba swears revenge on Wannai and Awatsuki, and releases his final robot: a giant mantis. Moments later, he notices a signal appear on his monitors. He looks through the mantis's camera, and sees Mikoto marching slowly but determinedly towards him. Thinking it's one of the Sisters, he sends the mantis to attack — and realizes his mistake when she promptly tears it apart.
Grabbing the smashed robot's communications system, Mikoto reveals she traced the mosquito drone's homing signal back to him. At that moment, Baba discovers that he's lost control of all his electronic systems, and is trapped inside the van. Mikoto tells him she'd like to do the same to him as she did to the mantis... but she's not 100% certain he isn't being controlled by Shokuhou, so she gives him a warning: if she ever sees one of his robots again, she will crush him.
A short while later, the skull-pendant girl receives a message that Baba has failed to capture the Sister or Mikoto. The girl, who is wearing a outfit resembling a purple nurse's uniform and carrying a riding crop, says she'll have to get involved herself. With her is the brown-haired girl Saten met the previous day, who warns her that Mikoto is a formidable opponent. The girl in purple says she shouldn't need to fight her, and adds that they'll be fine if they can settle things today.
Tropes
- A Day in the Limelight: They've been little more than background characters until now — and fairly interchangeable ones — but this episode could easily be called "Wannai and Awatsuki's Finest Hour".
- Awesomeness by Analysis: Subverted — Baba is supremely confident in his ability to do this, but reality proves somewhat different.
- Continuity Nod: Xochitl mentions having seen Mikoto fight up close before, which is another reference to the Liberal Arts City side story novel.
- Dirty Coward: Along with his actions in the previous episode, Baba proves himself to be this the moment he has his back to the wall. Once all of his Great Dane robots are destroyed and Awatsuki foils his attempt to attack Wannai with his last mosquito drone, he shamelessly begs the two girls for mercy, despite having kicked the defenseless Kongou when she defends Misaka's name and smugly taunted Wannai when he thought he had the upper hand. When Misaka easily destroys his mantis and tells him she knows where he is hiding, Baba panics and futilely tries to escape his van, leaving him a crying, quivering mess.
- Foreshadowing:
- Baba is nearly drowned by Wannai, which leaves him seriously freaked out. This may explain his terror of drowning during the Index Battle Royale arc, which chronologically takes place a few weeks later.
- Wannai also tells Baba he'll never be able to expect help from others if he only treats people with contempt. Sure enough, in the aforementioned Battle Royale arc, he ends up being abandoned by the only other person who could have helped him.
- Humiliation Conga: The last ten minutes or so are one of these for Yoshio Baba. He gets zero sympathy from anyone (including, most likely, the viewer).
- I Am Not Left-Handed: Both Wannai and Awatsuki pull this on Baba. Wannai openly uses three separate water streams during her battle against his robots, leading him to believe that's her limit — but she secretly keeps a fourth in reserve, moving it out of sight through a storm sewer until the critical moment. In Awatsuki's case, she only uses her ability in limited ways at first, causing Baba to misidentify it as telekinesis — but it's actually buoyancy manipulation, which lets her alter the effect of gravity on an object or in an area. She uses this to neutralize his last mosquito drone, decisively ending the battle.
- Rage Breaking Point: Mikoto was already furious at Shokuhou for tampering with her friends' memories, on top of suspecting her of kidnapping Misaka 10032. However, she's kept it largely in check up to now because she figured the alternative, a running war against Shokuhou's entire clique, would cause more problems than it solved. Then she sees what Baba did to Kongou for having tried to help her. Shokuhou's two minions briefly move to intercept her as she marches out of the hospital... until they see her face — and it is not a pleasant sight.Mikoto: Unless you're prepared to kill me to stop me... then move.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Wannai gives Baba a pretty epic one (see Foreshadowing example above) after she and Awatsuki defeat him.
- The Slow Walk: Mikoto does this to Baba when she tracks him to his hideout. He does not react well.
- Villainous Breakdown: Baba's starts when Wannai and Awatsuki humiliate him. It gets much worse when an enraged Railgun tracks him down, casually rips his ultimate weapon to pieces, then threatens to do the same to him. By the end, he's reduced to a sobbing, quivering ball on the floor.
