Toaru Kagaku no Railgun Manga Chapter 065

"Defeat" (敗北) is the 65th chapter of the Toaru Kagaku no Railgun manga series. The chapter involves Shokuhou Misaki's attempt to escape from Kihara Gensei and Kuroko's attempt to locate and defeat Kouzaku Mitori.

The chapter was released in 3 parts when serialized in Dengeki Daioh and combined together when compiled for the tankōbon version.

Part 1: Surrounded (包囲 Hōi)
With Misaki trapped like a rat, Gensei rambles on regarding Clairvoyance, he states that by incapacitating her he can bypass the mental blocks she placed on herself to prevent Mental Out being used on her. While doing this he becomes distracted with his Clairvoyance power not only noticing the arrival of Touma, but also the fact that Sogiita Gunha has shown up as well. As he is caught up in thinking about the effect the combination of the two will have on the experiment and recording the latest development, Misaki manages to escape.

As she escapes she comments to herself that with Gunha now interfering as well Academy City should survive, but still believes that Mikoto will perish. As she escapes using the Graviton Panels, she stops and contemplates something. She later uses her powers on herself. Misaki makes a gamble with this. Misaki considered that she would unlikely be able to trap Gensei with the facility's defenses, whether or not she still needs Exterior, the need to heal the Sisters of the virus and that it is likely her last chance to capture Gensei. Thus, Misaki makes a small gamble that will turn the tide of battle to her, though even she doesn't know it.

Back with Kuroko, she finds out where Mitori puts the camera on her Liquid Shadow puppets so she can see, which is on her neck. She attacks it with her darts, disabling Mitori's secondary senses, and forcing her to use echolocation to grasp the situation, Mitori's primary sense for her puppet. She then uses a small device to deafen her ability to echolocate. Kuroko then teleports away as the puppet is preoccupied, trying to search for Mitori. However, the facility is so vast, she requires the aid of a clue. Back in Judgment 177 Branch Office, Saten manages to find Mitori in one of the cameras. Uiharu contacts Kuroko, telling her of Mitori's moving into an alleyway three minutes ago, though she can't tell what building she's in as she hasn't been seen in the other cameras. Kuroko then rushes toward the likely location of Mitori. Kuroko asks if they're sure Mitori hasn't been seen in any other camera, to which Saten confirms. Kuroko notes that Mitori would show up in the cameras if she moved into another building. Seeing this, Kuroko manages to pinpoint the building where Mitori is likely hiding in. She orders Uiharu and Saten to turn all nearby movable cameras toward the building as she teleports in.

Back with the puppet, Mitori is able to pierce the device, but then realizes that the security cameras likely gave her location away. She then has her puppet slice and enter a sewer pipe to head to where Kuroko is going. Uiharu notices this as well, and reports it to Kuroko, confirming to her that the place where Kuroko is in is where Mitori is hiding. Mitori, turns her attention to Kuroko, and uses the cameras of the Homing Cameras that is used for Daihaseisai events to target her. Mitori observers the battle directly during the puppet's confrontation with Kuroko in the building. After Kuroko uses the anti-listening device on her puppet again, Mitori uses the puppet to attack her, and seemingly gets a clean hit.

Part 2: Preparations (仕込 Shikomi)
As the skies darken above, Kuroko continues her struggle against Mitori. Injured, she retreats into an abandoned place to treat her wounds. While doing so, she believes that Mitori is in the building based on the puppet's actions and that she is in the upper floors as she thinks Mitori could only spread her attack as she could not tell how high up Kuroko is during their battle where Kuroko was injured. After treating her wounds, Kuroko pursues Mitori from below, though notes that she may be overlooking something.

Meanwhile, back in Judgment 177 Branch Office, Saten and Uiharu becomes worried of Kuroko's injuries. Uiharu, as she watches the cameras, later catches the Daihaseisai Homing Cameras surrounding the building where Kuroko is in despite being no events. Uiharu researches that Anti-Skill apparently used them to see if anyone has yet to be evacuated but notes on how the powerful electromagnetic waves there are too powerful for the cameras to approach. Saten then gets the idea in having them use the cameras to aid Kuroko, leading Uiharu to eureka moment. She asks Saten how long the cameras were there, to which she says that they have been there since Kuroko entered the building. Uiharu then reports this to Kuroko, giving to her the possibility that Mitori is not inside the building but somewhere else.

Not being aware of her own ruse, Misaki confronts Gensei in a hallway. The game of cat and mouse continues as Misaki makes a bluff against Gensei, who sees right through it. However, Misaki tricks him, though using his Multi-Skill ability, specifically the Aero Shooter, allows him to escape the pit that Misaki hidden through the Exterior building's Graviton Panels. After being hit by and downed by Gensei, it is seemingly over for Misaki. However, she once again uses the Graviton Panels to inexplicably appear at the hole Gensei was going through, trapping his hand.

Part 3: Seeing Through (看破 Kanpa)
Gensei is trapped by the Graviton Panels. Believing that she has achieved victory, Misaki gloats at the trapped Gensei. However, her relief only lasts for only a moment as Gensei reveals to her that his hand is merely a prosthetic from one of the times he nearly died when to focused on something else. Gensei says that it is due to his experiments that lead to this state. Moreover, Misaki cannot fool him, for he knew that she still had hope when she was running away and had relied too much on her power to read peoples motives. With that Gensei used his Multi-Skill to choke Misaki, making her pass out. At last, now the limiter release code is in Gensei's hands.

Meanwhile, Kuroko continues her pursuit of Mitori inside the building. Kuroko finds the last blindspot of the building, only to find that she isn't there. Kuroko goes over thoughts once more, and discovers that Mitori may be hiding in the sewers and that she was led into a trap by Mitori. Mitori's puppet later catches up to Kuroko through a ventilation duct. As Kuroko uses another anti-listening device to seal her echolocation, Mitori turns one of the Homing Cameras she has hacked toward the blind spot. Considering the lag when Kuroko teleports and the locations where she is likely to jump to, Mitori has her puppet fire a knife hidden inside it towards Kuroko. However, unbeknownst to her, Uiharu has hacked that particular camera to display dummy footage, allowing Kuroko to escape. With this, Mitori then sees Kuroko teleport behind her puppet, the only safe spot for her to teleport to, as she predicted. She then sees Kuroko hit by it through the camera, and later has her Homing Camera roll to see Kuroko's body on the floor below. In the sewers, she laughs madly. Mitori apologizes, saying she wouldn't have killed her if she didn't interfere, though she added that she'd still meet the same fate when the city gets destroyed.

Left alone with Gunha unconscious, Touma witnesses another of Mikoto's transformation. Mitori then senses that the time is ripe for her to use Mikoto again. Mitori then guides Mikoto into creating a black sphere aimed at the Windowless Building. She mentions that though Mikoto could destroy the city she had to make sure that that person would definitely be eliminated. Mitori tells them to apologize to "her" in the afterlife, yelling for Mikoto to blow them away. Back with Gensei, after retrieving his hand, he also sense Mikoto's tranformation, something he claims as her "Opening Stage" and then uses the release code to fully open Exterior.

Characters
By order of appearance:
 * Kihara Gensei
 * Shokuhou Misaki
 * Shirai Kuroko
 * Kouzaku Mitori
 * Saten Ruiko
 * Uiharu Kazari
 * Sogiita Gunha
 * Kamijou Touma

New Characters
No new characters were introduced during this chapter.

Abilities

 * Multi-Skill - Kihara Gensei
 * Aero Shooter
 * Clairvoyance
 * Unknown circular holes creation through steel walls ability
 * Teleport - Shirai Kuroko, Level 4
 * Liquid Shadow - Kouzaku Mitori, Level 4
 * Railgun (ability) with Misaka Network - Misaka Mikoto, Level 5
 * Mental Out with Exterior - Kihara Gensei, Level 5

Locations

 * Academy City
 * Exterior
 * Judgment 177 Branch Office

Tankobon version
As stated above, the contents of this chapter are combined from chapters 65, 66 and 67 of the original magazine numbering to form a single chapter in the tankōbon version. However, there is no major change to the content of this chapter other than the numbering.