Author's Note: I know what you're thinking. I'm thinking it, too. I can explain myself, though! The last time I tried to write a new piece, it was really a poor time to do so. Life snagged me in a trap and dragged me off into the woods. I knew it would, and I tried to defy it. Lesson learned. Life is greater than my ability to write… Moreover, my computer ended up proverbially defecating the bed, and I haven't gotten it running since. Embarrassing, since getting computers running is my job…
Alas! I do promise that I will do everything in my power to keep this piece alive and kicking, despite the fact that I should probably just resign myself to the fact that I will be forever busy. Updates might be infrequent, but they will come, now that things are finally balanced and settled.
Anyways!
I own nothing, you know the drill. Please don't sue me, Kamachi-sensei and affiliates. This piece is a labour of love and I receive no monetary compensation in writing it.
The "stronghold", though much more of a shithole if it were being judged by appearances, had once been a place of semi-lively activity. The unfortunate "defective" level 0s who had rallied to Komaba Ritoku's banner, whether out of fear, or for vengeance against their perceived oppressors had once bustled through this makeshift community, planning, skulking, and sometimes actually managing to have a little bit of fun, finding temporary enjoyment in the cursed lives they'd lead.
All of that was over. It was done, and there was no way to bring it back. What once was had been shattered eternally. As Komaba Ritoku perished, lifeblood fleeing from the grotesque, disfigured form that'd been left to rot by the monstrosity only known as "Accelerator", so too did the dream held by those level 0s who'd followed him perish.
All was not lost, however. Something was abuzz in the ruins of the stronghold. Those that had re-grouped following the hostile encroachment of espers upon their territory found themselves huddled, awkwardly, afraid and unsure, around the bombed-out, charred and partially-collapsing living quarters of what must have been an apartment within a complex of some three stories, at some point in time. In the present, it was little more than a broken, graffiti-covered wreck.
Still, it was as close to "home" as any of those within were going to get.
"Did they say who they were?"
"Notta. They offered the work n' hung up just like that. Fishy."
Hamazura Shiage, a hapless, only semi-witting and altogether self-proclaimed "useless" member of the crew spoke with another, one of a lower rank than that which he held.
Despite the traits that seemed to haunt his life and render him even less fortunate than the average level 0 that struggled in Academy City's oppressive clique climate, he was one of few who, by Ritoku's last words, could potentially come to take his place as the de-facto leader of Skill-Out.
Running his sweat-caked hand through his equally sweat-drenched, unkempt dirty blonde hair, Shiage tried his absolute best not to make himself noticeable. Looking down at himself, he saw his dirty clothing, consisting of little more than an old, ragged, partially-torn hooded sweater and a pair of equally old, ragged and partially-torn denims. His trainers weren't in any better condition. In fact, they were probably the most in need of a replacement.
A shame that level 0s had no real means of making, and were not provided with more Yen than that which covered very basic necessities.
Shiage dearly hoped that he wouldn't be chosen to fill the emptied shoes of his former leader. Anything but that. A knife in the gut would've been preferable. Shiage swallowed, hard, feeling his entire throat seizing up. There was an awkward twist in his gut, and, for a moment, he thought he might suddenly upchuck.
"What the Hell did they say, then? Could be what we need to get ourselves together again."
A glimmer of hope! This was something. It was good, that much was certain. The other one there, Shiage had never quite gotten to know his name, was one of Ritoku's favoured, as well. If Shiage could minimize his presence as much as possible, and allow this other person to take centre stage, he could very well avoid having some hellish burden thrust upon his shoulders.
He looked little better than Shiage himself did. He wasn't even dressed seasonally; a simple, short-sleeved shirt and a set of sweatpants, along with some ancient-looking trainers that seemed to barely fit. The whole outfit looked like it'd been taken straight from the trash. His hair was just as grease-laden and unkempt as Shiage's own, though it was several shades darker.
Shiage looked him up and down, curious.
"Way too skinny… Times out here are tough, and they're gonna get tougher."
He eyed Hamazura Shiage with a close, attentive eye.
"What are you hiding? What are you trying to keep from us? Maybe you'd like to share with the class."
Yamasaki Kosuke felt a vein throb in the side of his forehead. He considered speaking his peace, but soon deemed it detrimental to do so, for any number of reasons that might or might not have been potential future realities, if Kosuke didn't quickly check himself.
"How long are you intending on leaving me out of this conversation? If there's work, I want in."
The boy rose up, awkwardly. His skinny frame seemed to nearly buckle beneath the effort required for him to even stand on his legs, which looked more like branches that'd been ripped from a tree's trunk than proper human limbs, so bony and without significant flesh were they.
"Well? Why am I getting the cold shoulder?"
Hamazura Shiage and the other Skill-Out "operative", whose name Kosuke had never actually bothered to get to know exchanged glances.
"Buddy, buddy, are we? Get a room and go bang your nuts together if you're so tightly-knit…"
The aggressive thought passed by without further incident.
"There're a lot of unknowns here," the other "operative" remarked. Large, brawny, a stereotypical beefcake that would've looked perfectly at home lifting hunks of metal in a gym somewhere. Kosuke mentally spat on the lower life form. A tank top which was far, far and away too small for his enormous chest and gym shorts which clung to his meaty, powerful legs were all that he wore, along with a pair of shin-high, steel-toed work boots. The "operative's" black hair was slicked back, and looked to have actually been washed.
"Don't rightly know how they got my number, or his, but they did, and they want someone knocked off. Didn't go into specifics, man. They're a "problem" and part of some bullshit they called the "Recovery Movement", never heard of it in my life," the "operative" finished, before spitting a wad of saliva mixed with yellowish-green phlegm upon the torn-up, dust-covered tiled floor.
Kosuke opened his mouth to press the issue further, but, no words came out, at first.
"They're? As in someone? A person? Some other player wrapped up in this shithole of a city's business?"
"What's the offer on this clown's head, then?"
"Let me be wrong. You dunderheads wouldn't actually KILL a regular, non-esper flesh and blood person for a quick buck… Would you? C'mon, goddamn, for once just let me be wrong."
Seemingly less enthusiastic, than he'd been some moments before, the "operative" retorted, quickly, and with a slightly laboured exhalation, "250,000 Yen for a kill. 100,000 if the place the mark's at gets all banged up. Target is some woman, "Misaka Misuzu", at some joint called the… Dangai University Database Centre… Nothing I ever heard of."
"Misaka? THAT Misaka? As in… MISAKA? As in, related to…"
The question in the boy's mind seemed nothing short of the natural response.
"What are we waiting for, goddamn? Let's get some money. Pockets are empty and the stomach's emptier. If I don't get something to eat soon I'll cut a Tokiwadai princess's purse. Free room and board in a Reformatory is lookin' good from here."
For once in his miserable life, Shiage actually took the stand, addressing all of those downtrodden souls in the room.
"Guy's right… Don't think we have a choice. I'd rather it not come to this, but a kickstart is a kickstart. N-Natural selection, right? One thing dies to keep another going? R-Right? S-So you'll lead us, then… Guy? Sorry, don't know your name…"
Their eyes' collective gazes turned to him as he spoke, causing Shiage to stutter.
"That just backfired really fucking BAD!"
Kosuke was unwilling to wait another moment. With uneasy steps, the boy made his way to his compatriot, in name only, and stood before his towering, muscular form, his hands stuffed into his pockets. At least, when he gripped the fabric tightly enough, the hunger pangs seemed to subside, just a bit. To his surprise, he felt the familiar crinkling of paper bills.
"I'm not waiting another goddamn second. Give me directions. Tell me where it's going down and I'll hit the place up myself, if you and your boys would rather stand around and stare at the floor."
Shiage's moment had come, finally. The pieces had fallen perfectly into place.
"If you're so eager, why don't you step up and take Kobama's place? IF, and I do mean IF, we're doing anything at all, we'll need someone to put it all together and make it work."
There was no protest, and so Yamasaki Kosuke shrugged his underdeveloped, scrunched-together shoulders and nodded in affirmation.
"Without me, you cunts will wind up scattered all over the place, riddled with bullets. You know it. Follow me, yeah? Follow me and we'll stop sittin' around, starin' at the floor. Komaba's dead. He died and he lost the game. It's the nature of this thing, some people win and some people lose. If you want to start winning, you'll follow me."
As if to accuse them of some unknown crime, Kosuke pointed his finger directly at Shiage, and then at the "operative" whose name he didn't know nor care to know. "If you want to lose and wind up as target practice, or, better yet, some sack of shit special snowflake esper's art project, you'll follow people like them. Do I seem unsure of myself?"
"Maybe not," Shiage retorted, huffing, the rate at which his chest rose and fell quickening. "But we can't all get pissed off and summon up some… Evil power, now can we? Nobody here is looking to be the villain of some story. It's survival."
The boy kicked some debris away, lips curling upward, into a knowing, grotesque grin that allowed small glimpses of poorly-maintained teeth to peer through the crack that'd formed between his slightly-parted lips.
"You stay behind. You'll just get in the way. Whatever the payout is, I will see where it's spent, and how it's best put to use."
"Nobody said you're leading anything yet," came Shiage, rising up from his seat upon the crumbling, unstable bar stool he'd previously been resting his rear upon.
"Are you really going to try and fuck with me? Push off. Don't push me. I'll let this go right now, if you shove off."
Hamazura Shiage was not one to back down from a fight. His perpetually-reddened knuckles were living proof of the fact that he was not one to shy away from conflict, when it arose.
But there was something wrong with that boy's eyes. Looking into them, Shiage felt as if he was staring into a damp, dark well, whose bottom he couldn't even begin to see.
"There's no devils and no Hell… But this kid is… Wrong."
His very thoughts were uneasy. Perhaps it was some psychological sucker punch, and there was really nothing separating Kosuke, the skinny, unkempt mouthpiece who stood before him from the average "throwaway" defective level 0.
Kosuke took a step back, diffusing the situation.
"Good, I thought so. You're a reasonable guy. If you weren't you wouldn't be here. Woulda stuffed yourself in some desk in a shithole school where they get paid to brainwash idiots."
Kosuke took a moment to look over his dysfunctional little flock. His eyes rolled from one side and then to the other in their sockets.
"What a merry band of weirdos, freaks and misfits we got here. I'm not waitin' around any goddamn more."
Without another word to those around him, and with some effort, that which was required to be expended in order to walk properly, without an odd half-limp, Yamasaki Kosuke hobbled away, departing from the living quarters, and disappearing through a charred, bombed-out doorway, which had lost the door that'd once been bound within it ages ago.
The rumbling of the bus beneath Yamasaki Kosuke would've normally soothed the inbred cross-breed of excitement and nervousness that welled up within him, threatening to burst out at any moment. The boy fiddled with his hands; he'd had just enough Yen stashed away in his pocket to board the public transportation vehicle.
Not helping the intensity that swirled inside of him was the inane babbling of some uppity couple near the back of the bus. Kosuke would've looked back at them, shooting a hateful glare that screamed "shaddup, you're getting' on my goddamn nerves," but, Kosuke knew very well that doing so was a potentially hazardous decision; and so he left it be.
"I really don't get why these sorts of things are always happening to us!" The male of the duo, clad in some high school's uniform outfit complained. The uniform consisted of a long-sleeved, dark blue-black sweater, with its collar popped, and pants of the same colouration to match, with white, red-trimmed trainers that really, speaking truthfully, clashed terribly, especially with his black, spiked hair. He looked painfully average. "This is… Really just part of why I'm always trying to keep people away from me. Do you get it, now?"
On the other hand, the female of the duo, whose arms were wrapped around the male's own, could only be described as regal. Long, flowing blonde hair rolled down her back, splitting off into two elegant endings which dangled just past her posterior. Her hair's fluffy, delicate-looking fringe adorned her forehead, and her bangs danced along the sides of her immaculate face. Her eyes were unlike those of any other human; they were, quite literally, starry. She was clad in Tokiwadai Middle School's winter uniform, which hugged her curvy form quite nicely. Up to her elbows, her arms were adorned with laced, snow-white gloves. Her legs, similarly, up to her thighs, were adorned with equally lacy snow-white stockings.
"I do, my Prince," she remarked softly in response, "but it doesn't change my mind. I'll be at your side, always."
"Prince"? For cryin' out loud. Never fallin' in love. Never. 'Least time in the Reformatory ends, sometime. Ain't no life sentence like this."
Kosuke could've vomited in his mouth. He nearly wretched as he began to hum a quiet tune to himself, in order to drown that nonsense out.
Finally, after what'd seemed like several long eternities, the vehicle reached his stop. He had no cellular phone, but, instead, Kosuke referred to an aged, crinkled, and dirtied map of Academy City, with districts and streets of important highlighted, likely for the reference of visitors. Given that some sort of "bullshit festival" as the boy had referred to it had only recently come and passed, the map likely originated from the festival's grounds. He'd found the discarded thing on his way to the nearest bus stop, closest to the Skill-Out stronghold. The boy felt something of a connection to the inanimate thing. They were both throwaways.
Not bothering to thank the bus's driver, Kosuke stepped out.
The couple wasn't far behind.
He bit down on his lip. Kosuke felt his forehead throb, without warning, as he was suddenly awash in white-hot anger. Something primal, something hot and ferocious was inexplicably burning up inside of him. It suddenly felt as if every drop of blood throughout every individual vein in his body was becoming superheated.
Through his reddening vision, Kosuke witnessed the very pigment of his skin beginning to warp, as his flesh awkwardly gurgled. It was turning dark grey.
He breathed, in and out, as quickly as he could, struggling to get a grip on the force that threatened to tear him apart from the inside out.
"Who cares? Who really, honestly gives a shit? It's… It's all goin' to be A-OK. They's not… doin' anything wrong. Just bein' nasty… Not worth gettin' all worked up over. What? You jealous? Is that it? Don't be such a kid… At least some peoples can get a girl to look at 'em. Unlike you, you got damn freak… They ain't followin' us. Not followin' us…"
The bout of self-loathing seemed to work, as it always had, and likely always would. The force subsided, and left Kosuke with a feeling of intense emptiness. For a time, Kosuke occupied his mind with the compulsive mantra, "not followin' us…"
He followed several streets outlined on the map, whose names were printed in large, bold letters, with the University Data Centre being one of these marked locations.
They followed behind, keeping a distance and whispering under their breath to one another. Perhaps they worked at the University Data Centre? Or perhaps, they'd make a turn somewhere, and disappear into the darkening evening.
Or, perhaps, they simply really, really wanted to die.
Sooner than later, the Dangai University Data Centre was within sight.
They still hadn't abandoned their path. They continued to follow, continued to keep a respectable distance between themselves and Kosuke, who had returned to silently fuming. His fingernails dug into the palms of his hands, and he used the pain as a means of grounding himself.
He could let it out soon. Soon, soon, soon. The story of his goddamn life. The goddamn waiting was all that seemed to be a constant anymore…
There it was. As if it was some kind of rubber suit monster from a '50's kaiju film, the Dangai University Data Centre almost popped up from behind an artificial hill of smaller, rectangular structures. An enormous dome of interwound steel and glass, the thing loomed over all within its vicinity, as if this particular structure was the overseer of its lesser chattel servants.
Not too far away, parked half-crooked, front wheels turned to the right, blinding, bright headlights still blazing out into nothing, was an unmarked SUV.
"So, Komaba Ritoku's band of merry men are 'ere. Alright, let's look alive and kill us a Misaka."