This work is based (mostly) on the work of Kazuma Kamachi and other writers. A translation from Baka Tsuki was used in its creation and I claim no ownership over their work. Please Read, Review, and Enjoy.
"Hey… Hey! Tomo-chan! Could we please leave now?! I don't know about you, but I really don't want to die today to some crazy esper!"
Tomohisa sighed as he was elbowed in his side with every 'Hey' that Saten spouted at him, and tried his best to put on what he hoped was a pleasant smile for the company he was with.
Tomohisa and Saten were both sitting on one side of a booth inside of a family restaurant, both reacting to the dire air surrounding the scene in entirely different ways. Sitting across from the two friends was Misaka Makoto, who was staring out the window with a bored expression on his face.
Outside of the window, on the other side of the road from the restaurant, Kuroko was talking with a person from Anti-Skill, a tall man who was taking down notes on his tablet, presumably about the events that had occurred earlier.
Tomohisa sighed to himself and desperately racked his brain looking for something to say in the situation.
Come on, Come on! There has to be something I can say here to get a conversation going. I wouldn't want to anger him and have a repeat of earlier, but… I probably won't get this chance again. I should really just say-…!?
Tomohisa keeled over in pain as Saten's elbow collided with the side of his stomach, sending a shock throughout the student's unprepared body. With tears in his eyes, Tomohisa looked up at his friend with a venomous glare.
"Saten-san… Why in the world did you do that? Did I happen to do something to offend you?"
Saten timidly looked over at Makoto, who was still looking out of the window with no interest in what was going on around him, before he sighed and looked back at Tomohisa, returning his friend's venomous glare with one of his very own.
"Oh! I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to elbow you like that, but I couldn't get your attention because you were so busy nerding out over the crazy psychopath sitting across from us!"
Tomohisa regained his composure somewhat after several deep breaths, before elbowing Saten in his stomach, though much rougher and in a more vulnerable spot than where he himself had been hit. Saten keeled over in a much more animated manner than Tomohisa, his head laying against the table as he gripped his stomach.
After a few moments of shallow breathing from him, Saten looked up at his friend and began to talk in a pained tone.
"Ok… I'm sorry… I kind of deserved that… but could we please get out of here before the crazy esper decides to kill us? I really, really don't want to die today, not on the day when Luka-chan's CD is going out."
Tomohisa sighed and waved away Saten's concerns.
"Come on now Saten-san. I'm certain that won't happen. If we just talked to him I'm certain that we'll find that he is a most pleasant individual."
Saten clearly did not believe in anything that Tomohisa said, but Tomohisa ignored that and turned to face Makoto, who was still looking out the window, as if the two friends weren't even there.
Tomohisa cleared his throat and opened his mouth to speak. The second he was about to start, Makoto turned his head to look at Tomohisa. The second the two boys locked eyes, Tomohisa felt all the breath freeze in place out of some sort of innate fear of the person in front of him. It wasn't that Makoto was doing anything that caused Tomohisa to be afraid, since all they were doing was staring at him. But there was still something causing Tomohisa to shiver in fear under the gaze of Makoto.
Makoto continued to glare at Tomohisa for a few moments more before turning his gaze away, looking back out of the window with a bored expression on his face.
Once the Level 5's gaze was off of him, Tomohisa let out a sigh of relief, as if a gigantic weight had been lifted off of his shoulders.
The moment after Tomohisa let out this sigh, he felt his left foot get crushed by an intense pressure. He managed to stifle the cry of pain and anger that crept up his throat before glaring over at Saten, the person whose foot was on Tomohisa's.
Saten glared at Tomohisa while covertly gesturing at the Level 5 sitting across the table from them.
"You see now? You practically pissed your pants just having that crazy bastard looking at you, so imagine what will happen when he gets pissed off. Let's get out of here now so we won't die!"
Tomohisa did his best to regain his composure, dragging his foot out from underneath Saten's.
"Saten-san… Would you please just calm down for a few moments? I'll agree that Misaka-san is a bit… Unstable, but I'm still certain that we can reason with him."
Saten again covertly gestured at Makoto, his eyes glaring at Tomohisa with a look that was dripping with pure venom.
"A bit unstable? If he were any more unstable he'd be falling over all the time! Face it Tomo-chan! Just admit that one of your Level 5 idols is a short, unsociable bastard, and we have no reason to-…!?"
"You know… I'm usually not one to eavesdrop on other people's conversations… but I can't help but listen in to the very interesting one you two are having."
Both Tomohisa and Saten both stopped whispering to each other instantly and, as one, turned to look across the table, where the face of a maliciously smiling Makoto was greeting them.
"So… I wasn't really paying attention to the first bit, but… Could you please tell me who is a 'short, unsociable bastard?' I feel like I would really like to know."
Accompanying his question was a short spark of bluish white electricity that arched onto the table between the students, causing both Tomohisa and Saten to jump in surprise. Tomohisa dryly swallowed as his mind raced.
Shit, Shit, Shit, Shit! This is bad! At this rate we really will die! Come on… I've got to think up a way out of the situation before-…?!
"You know… It's because of this bullshit that I think you are not only a short, unsociable bastard, but a short, unsociable psychopathic bastard."
Tomohisa felt all the blood drain from his face as he turned to look at Saten, his mouth hanging open in an expression of wordless shock. Makoto also turned to look at Saten, with a vein in his forehead bulging out in his rage.
"Oh… so that's what you think of me huh? I'm just curious, but could you kindly fill me in as to what you are referring to as bullshit?"
Saten laughed directly at Makoto before making a gesture as if he was explaining something basic to a preschooler.
"Isn't it obvious to you shorty? Let me lay it out for you then. The way you are throwing your power around like it was some sort of tool to scare us gives me the idea that you don't care even one tiny bit for the people around you. Really now… you are almost the perfect case study of a psychopathic bastard dwarf."
A second bulging vein had appeared on Makoto's forehead over the course of Saten's explanation, and Makoto's face was now extremely red despite the calm tone of his voice.
"I see… So tell me… Why are you calling me names synonymous with short? Are you perhaps insinuating something?"
Again Saten chuckled in the face of Makoto before repeating his lecturing gesture.
"What? Do you have a problem with that pip squeak? If you ask me I'm just calling it as I see it… Chibi."
There was an audible arc of electricity that made everyone in the restaurant jump in surprise. Saten dove under the table to escape the lance of bluish energy that launched itself for the spot where his head had been a few moments earlier. The lance of energy collided with the seat and left a blackened spot on the originally pristine surface.
Makoto was standing up his hands placed firmly on the table as he glared over at the two students' across from him, small sparks of electricity arching off of him as he raged.
"Listen here… I know I might be a bit short for my age… and I haven't really grown much since last year… but… but…"
Makoto raised a clenched fist up into the air before slamming it back down onto the table with a resounding crash.
"Just so you know I'm definitely going through a growth spurt soon! How the fuck does that give you the reason to insult me about my size!?"
"… Yes, Yes. We all know how 'big' and scary you are, so how about you chill out for a few seconds?"
The next moment, a glass full of iced tea was poured out onto Makoto's head, causing the raging esper to go instantly quiet as fumes of steam literally began to flow off of his head.
With a sigh Shirai Kuroko placed his now empty glass onto the table as he sat down, looking up at the still standing Makoto with an annoyed glare.
"Really now Aneki… I have to pay for that now just because you were getting angry, and I didn't even get to take a sip of it. I mean really now… Don't you have a limit to how many times you go crazy during the day? You just tire me out with your idiocy sometimes…"
Makoto remained in a glowering silence for a few more moments as the tea soaked its way into his clothes as more and more steam began to form around his head. Makoto then turned to look at Kuroko with a look of pure rage in his eyes and a growl in his tone.
"Kuroko!"
Kuroko sighed in the face of Makoto's rage and looked up at him with an entirely apathetic look.
"Aneki… Why don't you sit down for a bit and calm down?"
Following Kuroko's question, there was a clear sign of a large amount of force applied to one of Makoto's body parts, causing him to keel over in pain. With a sigh and a shake of his head, Kuroko turned to look at Tomohisa, who was shivering in some feeling of fear, and Saten, who was peeking up above the table to check if everything was okay. Kuroko looked between the two people in front of him, and grinned at both rubbing the back of his head in a sheepish way.
"Well now… I had really hoped that this meeting would go some semblance of well… but I guess a big part of life us being disappointed. So… Tomohisa… How have you been today? You seemed a little down earlier… Is your day better now?"
Tomohisa looked between Kuroko, who was smiling patiently as if he wasn't aware of the stares he was getting from his side and from other worried looking customers in the restaurant, to Saten, who was slowly pulling himself out from his hiding place from underneath the table, and finally to Makoto, who was slowly trying to regain his composure from when Kuroko attacked him.
After taking in the full scope of his current company, Tomohisa sighed and opened his mouth to respond to Kuroko.
"Well-…?!"
Tomohisa was knocked out of the way by Saten, both figuratively as his friend cut into the conversation, and literally as Tomohisa was shoved out of the way, nearly falling away from the table due to the force of Saten's shoving.
"Sorry to butt into your conversation here… But I must ask. Judgement guy… Aren't you going to do anything about that crazy bastard sitting next to you? Like… I don't know… Bring him to the Anti-Skill agent you were talking to?"
Kuroko looked at Saten with a curious gaze, clearly born from the fact that Kuroko didn't know who it was that was talking to him. After a few seconds of silence Kuroko rubbed the back of his head sheepishly and smiled at Saten.
"Ah… Sorry but… you'll have to forgive me. I didn't really understand the question you were asking… Mister…?"
Saten looked at Kuroko for a moment in an expression of silent confusion, before realizing what the trailing off of the Judgement agent's question meant.
"Oh… Sorry about that. My name is Saten. Ruriko Saten. I'm Tomo-chan's friend and classmate… And I'm going to have to guess that you are the much talked about Shirai Kuroko."
Kuroko nodded in appreciation and gestured towards himself.
"Yes that would be me. As Tomohisa has probably told you I'm his partner in Judgement and I've known him from before we started middle school. Now… As to your original question…"
Kuroko wrapped his arm around Makoto's neck and dragged his friends head close to his suddenly.
"I am sorry to say to you that despite Aneki's… 'explosive' personality, Anti-Skill isn't that concerned about taking him in. The agent from earlier was just taking down my side of what had happened and scheduling a time for Aneki to come in and tell his."
Makoto pulled away roughly from Kuroko, an angry glare directed at his friend.
"Kuroko… Why are you so quick to schedule stuff for me to do without consoling me? Shouldn't I have a say in what I have to do?"
Saten, completely ignoring the fact that Makoto had asked a question, began to question Kuroko in a loud and angry tone of voice.
"What do you mean that Anti-Skill doesn't care about taking him in?! Did you not see how close he came to shocking me, both earlier and just now?! This bastard is a menace to society!"
Makoto turned to look at Saten with a clearly annoyed glare, and opened his mouth with the clear intention of talking back to Saten. Kuroko instantly stepped in between the two by addressing Saten's question first.
"Well… It's not that Anti-Skill isn't worried about Aneki's… temper. It's just that it would be more trouble to bring in a level 5 than it would be worth, even if they cooperated with Anti-Skill. Tokiwodai wouldn't take to kindly to the fact that one of their prized espers to what they would consider pointless charges."
Saten looked as if he had been insulted by what Kuroko had said, throwing his arms up in a gesture of giving up.
"This is the problem with this fucking city! People are so infatuated with high level espers that they are willing to let idiots like this one walk around and keep causing problems. This is so stupid!"
Tomohisa sighed at his friend's outburst and decided not to comment on it at all. Instead he chose to look over at Kuroko, who was still smiling despite the tense feeling in the air.
"So Shirai-san… What are we going to do about the report you wanted us to do? I can still do that if you want, but right now I would think that you don't have the energy to do that."
Kuroko sighed and placed a hand over his face in an attempt to calm down.
"Yeah… We do still need to do that don't we? Well I would like to do that, but unfortunately the rest of my day is going to be dictated by what Aneki wants to do."
Makoto looked over at Kuroko in a clear expression of surprised rage.
"What do you mean I'm dictating what you're going to be doing for the rest of the day?! Are you going to be following me for the rest of the day?"
Kuroko looked at Makoto as if he had said something that was completely unbelievable.
"You have to be joking Aneki. After all the problems you've caused today, do you really think that I'm just going to let you walk around unsupervised?"
Makoto looked at Kuroko with an almost indignant expression on his face.
"What do you mean all the problems I've caused today? All I did was beat up a few lowlifes. I couldn't have done that much damage."
Kuroko shook his head while sighing before looking into Makoto's eyes with a dead serious look.
"Aneki… All those 'lowlifes', besides the one that ran off, aren't going to be sent to the detention center. The agent from earlier said that the length of their hospital stays are going to be longer than any detention center sentence worthy of their crimes."
Makoto opened his mouth with a clear intention to say something, but he stopped short and shut his mouth, a look on his face saying that he was pondering something. He opened his mouth, again with an intention to say something, but again he shut it and began to ponder. A third time he opened his mouth, and a third time he closed it, and after his third ponder, he sighed in a melancholic way.
"Well then… It seems that we are going to be in for it once we get back to the dorms for the night. Maybe we should try and hide out somewhere and hope that the heat dies down before we get back."
Kuroko cast an annoyed look over at Makoto with a sigh.
"What do you mean 'we' are going to be in for it? Sure, they'll be peeved at you for doing it, but at this point they don't expect anything else from you. The person who they are going to be mad at is me because I allowed this to happen."
Makoto looked like he was pondering Kuroko's response before nodding in agreement.
"You are right about that Kuroko, but still, it's best not to deal with that until the latest possible moment. Now then… What in the world are we going to do until curfew?"
Kuroko sighed and looked over at Makoto with a look of informed annoyance.
"Knowing you there are only two possible places for you to choose. One being that manga café over by the third district, and the other being-…"
Kuroko's guesses were cut off when Makoto nodded his head in a mind made up sort of manner.
"Alright then I've decided. I'm going to head over to that arcade in the commercial district."
Kuroko sighed yet again and made a small gesture of mocking celebration.
"Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner. Well… with that settled I have to ask you Tomohisa, do you really want to come along and try to do this report? I won't lie to you at all and say that we'll be able to get it done, so come along knowing that it most likely will not be happening."
Tomohisa sighed and nodded towards his partner in a depressed sort of gesture.
"I'm guessing that equates to a panicked rush to finish this thing later, but I'll still come along in the hope that we can do it."
Kuroko nodded at Tomohisa in a somewhat appreciative way, before looking over at Saten, who was glowering over at an unaware Makoto.
"What about you Ruriko-san? Would you care to come along as well?"
Saten continued to shift his annoyed glare between the unaware Makoto and smiling Kuroko, before sighing and rubbing the back of his head.
"No… I don't think I would like to come along with you at all. You see… I have a CD that I have to pick up from a shop over in the commercial district, so-…"
Kuroko tilted his head in confusion at Saten's explanation.
"Well… If you are going over the commercial district anyway, why don't you come with us? If it's the music shop I'm thinking about, then it's only a few doors down from arcade we are going to."
Saten cast an annoyed glare to the still unaware Makoto, before opening his mouth with the clear intention of again turning down Kuroko's request. Before he could speak, however, Tomohisa nudged him in the side.
"Come on now Saten-san. It can't really be so hard for you to just walk with us for a few minutes over to the commercial district? Are you really that anti-social?"
Saten glared at Tomohisa for a few moments before sighing and raising both of his hands up in a gesture of complete surrender.
"Fine, Fine. I'll come along. If someone has to keep you from getting killed by these crazy people, might as well be me."
Tomohisa looked at Saten in an angry way, but Makoto chimed in before the two could even start fighting.
"So… Are we done now, or are we going to just sit around and do nothing all day?"
Saten turned his angry glare from Tomohisa directly towards Makoto as an annoyed smile crossed his face.
"Huh? Do you have a problem with me taking my time Chibi? I guess your stature isn't the only thing that is short."
A vein began to bulge on Makoto's forehead, and the level 5 opened his mouth to respond. Kuroko nudged Makoto before the level 5 could speak, gesturing outside.
"Come on now Aneki. You were just so impatient to get out of here, and now you're planning on delaying us even more? Please try and have a tiny bit of self-control."
Makoto continued his annoyed glare towards Saten, which his target returned with an equal amount of annoyance. After a few moments of this, Makoto clicked his tongue and began to move towards leaving.
After settling the situation with the restaurant about the damages done by Makoto, the group walked out of the restaurant and started heading towards the commercial district.
As the group walked down the street, Tomohisa could not help but notice the increase in the number of delinquents in the area. They were mostly walking around in disconnected groups of two to three people, and they clearly didn't have any apparent intention to cause trouble, but the sight of them made Tomohisa uneasy all the same.
Saten also seemed to notice the large number of delinquents, because he sighed in a tired manner before looking over at Tomohisa.
"Really now… you would think that in a world where the internet is available, the word would get out pretty fast that some crazy tiny esper was beating up people."
Makoto glared angrily over at Saten, but didn't say anything due to a glare from Kuroko. Kuroko then sighed and gestured to some of the delinquents roaming the streets.
"Well Ruriko-san… You do have to remember that one of the most common things in the world is stupidity. Heck maybe some of these poor fools are here because they want to get revenge for the ones Aneki beat up earlier."
Makoto sighed in response to what Kuroko said, though he did not say anything. Kuroko in the meantime, clicked his tongue and turned to look at Makoto.
"Speaking of stupidity… Aneki. What exactly are we going to do at the arcade? I have an idea already, but I would like for you to say that you are going to try and win one of those idiotic things to add to your collection."
Makoto again glared over at Kuroko, a grimace plastered on his face as he gazed daggers at his friend.
"Why in the world did you connect stupidity with me? Anyway what does it matter what I'm going to the arcade for? You agreed to it, so it's kind of late to be voicing your problems with it."
Kuroko sighed and shook his head, looking over at Makoto with a pitying gaze.
"Really now Aneki. You must learn to give up this weird obsession of yours. Not only does it cause me to worry about you every time you indulge in it, but it also makes you extremely child-…?"
Kuroko was cut off by the sound of arching electricity, causing him to look over at a red faced Makoto. The level 5 began to growl over at Kuroko in a low rumbling tone, as the electricity began to spark more and more off of his head.
"Kuroko!"
As Makoto's and Kuroko's conversation collapsed into a mere argument between the two, both Saten and Tomohisa dropped behind the two friends to what she hoped to be a safe distance. Saten leaned in to whisper in Tomohisa's ear, the boy keeping a wary eye on the two espers in front of them.
"Oi… Tomo-chan. Don't you think now would be a good time to get out of here. You know… while their distracted?"
Tomohisa sighed as he looked over at his friend with an annoyed glare.
"Are we seriously starting with this again Saten-san? Could you at least try and deal with this in a normal way like a decent human being?"
Saten glared at Tomohisa with a look of shocked rage.
"What do you mean 'deal with it in a normal way'? I'm sorry, but in case you haven't noticed, this isn't the sort of situation that a normal person should be in! If I were to deal with this in a normal way I would run!"
Tomohisa sighed and gestured at Saten in a way that said that Tomohisa cared little for his argument.
"Listen Saten-san. As much as you are my friend, I must tell you that-…?"
Tomohisa stopped in his tracks and turned his back to the group, his eyes scanning the scenery that they had just walked through.
The group was at the very edge of the commercial district, so all around them were various small shops and restaurants. The people walking the streets with them were going in and out of all the shops on the street, except for…
"Hey Tomohisa! What's up with you?"
Tomohisa turned around to see Kuroko looking back at him, his argument with Makoto on hold due to the fact that Kuroko was not looking directly at Makoto. Makoto was further on, looking back at Kuroko with an annoyed glare. Saten was also looking at Tomohisa with a concerned look, looking like he had been about to say something to Tomohisa in Kuroko's place.
Tomohisa reached up and begun to rub the back of his head in embarrassment, before gesturing towards the object that held his attention.
"Well… It's just a bit of an itching feeling I'm getting… but…"
Tomohisa looked back at the object that held his attention, a bank that had its shutters pulled down signaling that it was closed. Tomohisa sighed yet again, turning back to look at the group that was behind him.
"Don't you think it's a bit strange that a bank-…!?"
Before Tomohisa could finish speaking, the shutters of the bank blew off in an explosion of fire and steel, sending a resounding shockwave through the building and the surrounding area.
