Kyougoku Ryouta

Kyougoku Ryouta (橋国 亮太) is the director of a private juvenile hall in Academy City.

Appearance
Kyougoku has dark hair in a slicked back, with a moustache and exposed forehead. He wears square framed glasses and a dark-colored uniform.

Personality
He has a high opinion of not only himself but also the facility he directs, and it is his arrogance that had him start the Jailbreak competition, believing that no esper, not even a Level 5, can complete the trial. He is also vain, designing robots that have his face stuck on them. However, he has shown that he does cares for children in the facility by refusing an offer from an unknown company for money in exchange for high level espers for experimentation.

Jailbreaker Arc
During an interview about the soon-to-be-opened private juvenile hall, Kyougoku announced a jailbreak trial where espers could challenge the facility in order to search out vulnerabilities. He bragged that the company built defenses to hold even a Level 5 and that even if the likes of Tokiwadai Middle School gathered all of their students, he doubted they'd even breach the first wall.

When the challengers attempted to break through the outer wall and his assistant Aohoshi suggested using the long-range jammer, Kyougoku decided that it wouldn't be necessary and not enough of a spectacle, instead decided to let them try and show that how even high-level espers couldn't break it, but soon regretted it after coming back from getting a drink to find that the wall had been breached through a combined effort spearheaded by Misaka Mikoto. Not long afterwards, he was dismayed to see the competitors attacking the guide robots with his face on them and ordered Aohoshi to deploy the other robots to stop them.

When Mikoto's group were apparently cornered by robots in the prison building, Kyougoku gloated that this was as far as the Level 5 would go. Aohoshi interrupted him by pointing out that the war armadillos were supposed to be stationed at the outer wall. He was then shocked when the war armadillos attacked the other robots, having been reprogrammed by Mikoto before she went through the wall.

As Mikoto's group proceeded towards the cells, escorted by the war armadillos, Kyougoku grew increasingly upset and angry. Losing his temper, he declared he'd let them take the prisoner but crush them on the way out. He ordered barriers lowered and gas to be used to incapacitate them, though Aohoshi pointed out that this would harm the jailer acting as the prisoner. Kyougoku ordered a pseudo-vacuum created instead, but Aohoshi pointed out this would have the same result. He then ordered for all of the robots to be gathered at the wall to intercept the group.

In the middle of a defiant declaration, Kyougoku was surprised as the others to learn that the prisoner's cell was already empty. Following a check of the security cameras, Aohoshi told him that someone had replaced the footage with dummy footage and was likely on their way out. Immediately after she had told him this, the trial ended as Uiharu Kazari exited the facility with the prisoner. Kyougoku was left in utter dismay and disbelief that a middle school student could have hacked their security system.

Putting on a smile at the subsequent press conference, Kyougoku attempted to save face by saying that as this was a test of their anti-esper capabilities they weren't focused on a pure cyber-attack, assuring reporters that this would never happen normally. He also said they had a means of fully preventing attacks on the outer wall but didn't use it to make the event more exciting.

Kyougoku walks through the juvenile hall while berates Aohoshi for failing to stop the jailbreak. Aohoshi points out that he was the one who said that human guards would no longer be needed and she simply followed his order. Kyougoku senses someone present in a supposedly-empty storage room and finds Iizuka, the jailer who was supposed to act as the prisoner being broken out, unconscious in a locker. After Iizuka is taken away by medics, Kyougoku realises that Aohoshi is a traitor as she was the only one who could have switched the prisoners. Aohoshi uses a magic charm borrowed from someone else to control two guards to restrain Kyougoku, then she incapacitates him.

Following the events surrounding Shundan Kimi's jailbreak and takeover and recalling a discussion with Aohoshi Suzuran about her past and motives, he rejects an offer of a loan from a company who were after Shundan Kimi and other high level espers for their own purposes in exchange for increasing the payment.