Episode 12 - Exterior
Recalling Shokuhou's message, Touma tells Gunha there's someone else out there trying to stop what's happening to Mikoto. In the meantime, it seems all they can do is try to slow her down. Even as they watch, though, her form starts changing into something less human; she surrounds herself with some kind of barrier and levitates into the air.
Fighting Kouzaku's metal puppet, Kuroko realizes the skull choker around its neck is actually a hidden camera. She uses one of her metal darts to destroy it, cutting off Kouzaku's video link. From the information she found in the ability bank, the puppet itself uses echolocation to sense its surroundings, so she temporarily 'blinds' it with an ultrasonic anti-eavesdropping device before retreating to continue her hunt for Kouzaku.
Watching Gensei as he walks through the Exterior facility, Shokuhou concludes that he must still need something else for his plan — and the obvious answer is Exterior's limiter release code. She tries to hinder him by activating various traps and security measures throughout the building, but he evades them using multiple high-level esper powers. Shokuhou realizes he's set up his own Level Upper network to give himself access to carefully selected abilities.
Shokuhou uses the building intercom to ask Gensei why he's doing this to Mikoto, noting that Accelerator is supposedly the only esper capable of reaching Level 6. Gensei says Accelerator is the only one capable of reaching a stable Level 6 through ability development. Mikoto's powers are being forced to run out of control and expand past their limits, which can theoretically push her up to Level 6 by brute force. However, there is one snag: her consciousness will start to shift into another dimension once the transition passes the halfway point. He needs Exterior's limiter release code to keep her mind tethered to the real world. Even so, the moment she reaches Level 6, her mind and body will be destroyed... but in the final moment of her existance, she will witness the infinite power of the divine. In that brief instant, Gensei will be able observe what happens whan a human achieves 'SYSTEM'. The fact that Academy City will almost certainly be obliterated immediately afterwards is a mere detail. When Shokuhou points out that would include him, he just laughs and says that scientific progress requires sacrifice.
Gensei suddenly breaks through the wall to corner Shokuhou in person, courtesy of his stolen abilities. He cuts off the flow of air to her lungs, noting that if she's unconscious or in extreme pain, she'll lose the ability to stop him from reading her mind. As he does so, however, he glances outside to check on Mikoto's progress, and notices Touma and Gunha fighting her. Briefly distracted by the fascinating sight of Imagine Breaker and Number 7 working together, he inadvertently gives Shokuhou a chance to escape. Fleeing to another part of the building, Shokuhou tries to figure out how to take Gensei down in spite of his collected powers.
Saten and Uiharu find a brief image of Kouzaku on an outside surveillance camera, and tell Kuroko there's only one building she could have gone into. As Kuroko heads that way, Kouzaku sends her puppet in pursuit. When she reaches the building in question, which has a large multi-level atrium, Kuroko only has a moment to look around before the puppet attacks. She blinds it with another ultrasonic device, but the puppet seems to track her movement regardless, and lands a hit on her. With the puppet itself blinded, Kuroko figures Kouzaku herself must be watching from one of the upper floors, and heads upstairs to check.
Back inside the Exterior building, Gensei is surprised when Shokuhou steps in front of him and offers him the limiter release code in exchange for being allowed to escape. In reality, she is attempting to bait him into a set of traps; Gensei, however, sees through the ruse and easily foils it. As he moves towards her, Shokuhou reveals one last trap: graviton panels materialize around his wrist, trapping him. Gensei simply laughs — and detaches his hand, revealing it as a prosthetic. He notes that he's injured himself in dangerous experiments so often, much of his body is now synthetic.
He uses his powers to start choking Shokuhou, who collapses helplessly to her knees. Gloating that she's run out of tricks, Gensei reaches into her mind and tells her the limiter release code is now his.
Tropes
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: When distracted the sight of Gunha and Touma interacting with Mikoto shifting to Level 6, Gensei completely forgets what he's doing and starts gushing about the research possibilities. Shokuhou quickly escapes while he isn't paying attention, causing him to sheepishly admit it's a bad habit of his.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: What Gensei says will happen to Mikoto's consciousness once her shift to Level 6 reaches 53%, unless he uses Exterior to prevent it.
- Clothing Damage: Shokuhou escapes Gensei's first trap by ripping off the part of her gym shirt that's pinned to the wall.
- Crazy-Prepared: Gensei vs Shokuhou:
- Gensei has arranged to obtain a set of esper powers specifically chosen to deal with anything Shokuhou throws at him.
- For her part, Shokuhou has set up a lot of traps and contingencies-within-contingencies inside the Exterior building. By episode's end it seems to have been subverted, as Gensei manages to outwit or counter almost all of her ploys. The key word being almost.
- Defensive Feint Trap: Shokuhou uses at least three of these on Gensei. When he avoids one, it turns out to be hiding another... until she eventually runs out of tricks. Or so he — and she — thinks.
- For Science!: When Shokuhou points out that if Mikoto reaching Level 6 is going to destroy Academy City, that would include Gensei as well. He brushes it off, saying that no sacrifice is too great for scientific progress.
- Sherlock Scan: Gensei notes that someone who is pretending to flee or surrender but has a hidden contingency plan always shows "telltale signs", and says he knows how to spot them.
- Super Power Lottery: Gensei has kidnapped specific espers and connected them to his own miniature Level Upper network. This causes him to gain their abilities, which allows him to overcome Shokuhou's security measures.
