Aiwass Power Source

In that instant, an entire city pulsated.

“Uuh…!?”

Still back in District 11, Shokuhou Misaki groaned at the eerie throbbing below her feet. Biological disgust ran down her back like the ground was covered in slugs, but the ground remained hard asphalt. If anything had changed, it was the girl herself.

Her muscles relaxed, she could not gather any strength, and her feet grew unsteady.

An unpleasant feeling different from pain rubbed at the organs inside her stomach like an invisible hand, so she doubled over and rubbed her inner thighs together.

She held her head and worked to maintain her thoughts.

(What…? My…power…)

Some juvenile halls had systems installed that prevented espers from using their powers by obstructing their concentration with the stimuli of lights, sounds, and smells, but this was different. She could only describe it in an extremely abstract way.

(…It’s being…sucked out of me…???)

Shokuhou Misaki did have a guess about this.

Not counting the chairman, the Board of Directors had only 12 members. One of those was Yakumi Hisako. When she had enacted her Agitate Halation Project, she had been served by Rensa, an esper cyborg who could use any of the Level 5s’ powers. What kind of technology had she used?

Yes, she had not created the powers herself.

Hadn’t she made her physical features match those of the existing Level 5s so she could remotely draw out their powers?

(So did the Board Chairman use his authority to place artificial nerves and blood vessels across the entirety of Academy City? Does that let him forcibly link to every esper raised here and gather their powers in a single place???)

It was quite the trick, but it had to be an extreme gamble on Aleister’s part. After all, the heat wave that had recently attacked Academy City had been caused by a largescale microwave attack. He had won out in the end, but if things had gone just a little differently, the city’s network of nerves might have been torn apart and failed to work.

And.

It was obvious where the “powers” of 80% of the city’s 2.3 million people were being gathered.

“The Windowless…Building.”

Shokuhou felt incredible disgust as if she were being forced into a giant biological abdominal cavity.

“But…what for…?”

To Aru Majutsu no Index NT Vol 18 Chapter 4 Part 3