AN: To those of you reading my works for the first time: well met. To those of you who have returned to read more: welcome back. To the latter, I am sorry for the inconvinience, it must seem like I am not getting anywhere with my stories. Let me reasure you, however, that I already have the plots for the current arcs, incl. this one, completely planned out. I just need to get it written down. So without further ado, I present to you (yet) another fanfiction of mine: To Aru Kagaku no Maou, or, A certain scientific Demon king.

Prologue

"Gah!" Saten Ruiko exclaimed as the wannabe robber kicked her, unable to make her let go of his former hostage, a young boy. She heard him get into the white car with his and his companions loot, preparing to drive off. Opening her eyes, she looked past the car and saw Misaka Mikoto, whom she'd just met today, deliberately standing in the vehicle's way.

To her right, on the opposite side of the street, the other two thugs finally seem to realize who they were up against: Judgment's Shirai Kuroko, level 4 teleporter, and her close friend, Misaka 'Railgun' Mikoto, ranked third amongst the seven level 5's and the most powerful electrokinetic of Academy city. As Ruiko watched her new friend preparing her attack, something behind the electromaster caught the level 0's attention.

It looked like a person, a boy, or a young man, she couldn't tell. But Ruiko saw him adopting a similar pose to Mikoto, except that his empty palm was facing the girl in front of him. Ruiko was then blinded momentarily by what should have been Mikoto's signature move. Should have been.

After a sound that suggested the car getting blown to pieces, Ruiko opened her eyes again, finding something virtually impossible: Aside from the driver, the loot and the combustible engine, the whole car had been reduced to millions of burnt, black scrap metal bits.

The reactions were varied, though Ruiko didn't catch them all. The robbers were intimidated by the powerful esper, Uiharu Kazari, Kuroko and Ruiko's mutual friend, was in awe of said person, was were the bystanders. Only Kuroko was shocked, and bothered to discern her roommate's reaction, which disturbed her even more; Mikoto's face was a conglomeration of confusion, shock and fear.

Ruiko saw her face too, and tried to find the person who was standing behind her friend – but he had long since disappeared.


"You mean to tell me that your attack, which was supposed to just stop the oncoming car, destroyed it instead?" The P.E. teacher/Anti-Skill officer Yomikawa Aiho was interrogating the four girls about the incident at her office. "Are you suggesting that Onee-sama lost control of her powers?" Kuroko asked with a hint of uncertainty. It certainly had looked that way. However, Yomikawa shook her head: "On the contrary, it was too controlled." "How so?" Kazari tilted her head, still not understanding the problem.

"The driver, the loot and the engine, in specifically, were all completely unaffected, not a single scratch. That level of precision is not impossible for a level 5, but given the situation, it is highly unlikely," explained the officer.

Ruiko, who until then had been silent, spoke up: "It wasn't Misaka-san." Seeing the curious looks directed at her, she stumbled to explain: "T-there was a guy behind her when she fired! A-and the way he was standing, well... it certainly looked like he, I don't know, manipulated the attack or something!" Yomikawa narrowed her eyes: "What did he look like?"

"Uh... dunno, I think he was a foreigner, he could've been in high school, or university. Ah, but his hair was weird. Half of it was way lighter than the rest." She didn't notice, but Yomikawa clenched her teeth. 'Is it true? Could that boy really have come back?'

"Anything else?" she asked rather urgently, "Maybe heterochromatic eyes?" "Hetero-what now?" Ruiko wasn't familiar with the term. Mikoto explained: "She means eyes with two different colors."

"Oh, yeah! He had these, dunno, green and red glowing eyes!" Mikoto stiffened at that, though the others didn't notice. Neither did Yomikawa: "Rather than red, could it have been magenta?"

"I dunno, maybe, is it really that different? Wait," Ruiko realized something, "Do you know this guy, sensei?"

"...maybe..." was the reply. Kuroko meanwhile turned to notice Mikoto clutching her head in suppressed fear. 'It's not him, there's no way it's him, it's – ' "Onee-sama? Is something wrong?" "Eh!? Ah, no, n-nothing, everything's fine. Haha." Kuroko narrowed her eyes in suspicion, but dropped the subject.

Instead, she asked Yomikawa: "Should we be wary of this male? To enhance Onee-sama's attack at all would require a minimum level of 3, this extent would be befitting of a level 4 esper." She never even considered that he might be higher than that.

The officer stayed silent for a few more moments. The girls could all tell that she was conflicted, though the exact subject of that conflict was unknown to them. Finally, she replied, carefully, but honestly: "I would rather you approached him peacefully. If he is who I think he is... then let's just say, he does not respond well to provocations or hostilities – of any sort."

The girls nodded, the most enthusiastic being Ruiko, who could smell an urban legend 10 km against the wind. Kazari was a little intimidated by what Yomikawa said at the end, and Kuroko was worried about the same thing. Mikoto just wished she wouldn't have the misfourtune of ever meeting that guy.