Kuroko

This was not normal. That was the only thought that could come to Kuroko's mind as she rushed from the rattling window to the thrashing Mikoto, whose very nightmares had conjured forth an enormous thunderstorm overhead. The pounding thunder that seemed to shake the entire building was intimidating, and Kuroko had great doubts she had much time to do anything before lightning began striking everything.

Kuroko's long hair whipped behind her, not yet in her normal ribbons, and only her nightgown and rubber gloves for protection as she grabbed at her Onee-sama's arm tightly, expecting electric discharge to hit her even with the gloves, but needing to wake her up before something horrible happened. She knew that if anyone was hurt, who Mikoto would blame, and that need to take responsibility is part of what made Mikoto as wonderful as she was. As Kuroko grabbed onto the arm and fixed her grip hard, she was unable to finish the romantic praising thought of her Onee-sama before electricity hit her the likes of which she'd never felt.

Her entire body went rigid as her muscles filled with electricity, and the numbing pain was agony. Somewhere in the distance she faintly noted the sound of the dorm's windows shattering in unison. That soon faded however, as it seemed like the very electric power coursing through her nerves went right to her brain, and rather than passing out, she began to see… things. Flashes of pain, flashes of death, her entire vision was overwritten as she saw Mikoto die over and over again, heard an insane, cold laughter at the mutilated bodies of Mikoto that were killed in so many gruesome ways, and flashes of… herself. Flashes of her own body killed in horrifying ways, and of the sorrow filled screams of horror that filled Mikoto's mind as she saw her best friend dead at her feet.

She didn't have long to dwell on the horrible images or the terrible pain that she was suffering through. Rather suddenly, she felt like she'd been lifted right off her feet, a feeling of weightlessness before she was sent hurtling through the air and into a wall, breaking her contact with Mikoto who had been sent similarly flying into the wall. The last thing Kuroko saw was the blurry figures of people running into the room toward her before everything went black.

Kuroko groaned a little as she came to, blinking the drowsiness out of her eyes, though they remained heavy and difficult to open. She heard a gasp next to her and a familiar voice call out.

"Shirai-san!" Came the concerned and compassionate voice of her Judgement partner- Uriharu Kazari. Uriharu was dressed in her school's uniform, with her trademark synthetic flowers adorning her neck-length dark hair. Her concern and empathy was painfully clear to Kuroko even in her drowsy state.

"Hey… Uriharu…" She said with difficult, her mouth feeling like it was filled with cotton. She took a second to glance around the room, to see where exactly it was she wound up. Unsurprisingly, a quick weary glance around told her that she was in a hospital room, laying in a hospital bed. What was actually surprising was how little pain she felt. She knew that what she'd just endured must have been damaging to her body with how painful it was. Those thoughts were derailed as the images she saw when she touched Mikoto that night began to filter into her mind again, but she was pulled away by the voice of Uriharu.

"I'm so glad you're awake! You've been asleep for three days." She says, Kuroko blinking at her.

"Three days?" Kuroko echoed, blinking. "I feel fine…" She mumbled. Uriharu nodded and winced a little.

"W-well, yes, that's… probably because of the morphine." She explained, pointing up at the IV stand that had several fluids dripping from it, one of which was most definitely morphine. It definitely explained why it felt like she was floating around in the bed and everything felt kind of amazing.

"Oh. That… makes sense. Wait. Onee-sama…" Kuroko started to push herself off of the bed, given a sudden resurgence of energy as her mind moved to Mikoto. Uriharu quickly jumped up to hold her down.

"Misaka-san is OK! She's here too! You have to stay in bed, you haven't healed yet!" She objected quickly, pushing down. Ordinarily, Kuroko was much stronger, but she felt like a wet noodle so she fell back onto the bed with hardly any ability to resist. Uriharu stared her intensely, the cute expression she typically wore somewhat marred by the slight dabbling of tears that she struggled to hold back.

"We almost lost both of you. Please… please rest." Uriharu said in an almost begging tone. Kuroko felt a pang of guilt for being the cause, and sank down into the bed again, returning to her ongoing battle against morphine-induced sleepiness.

A long silence filled the room, with Uiharu uncertain as to what to say, and Kuroko trying to process everything. After several long minutes of nothing but the heart monitor, Kuroko turned a drowsy eye to Uiharu again.

"What happened?" She asked softly, seeking to fill in the blanks in her memory. Uiharu shifted in her seat to sit up straighter, but opened her mouth without a sound, as if uncertain how to reply. In the end, she did not have to, as the door to the room opened up shortly after, and a voice that Kuroko dreaded to hear filled the room.

"I believe that I can assist in answering that question." Came the somewhat uncharacteristically quiet voice of Kongou Mitsuko, her classmate, fellow Level 4 Esper, and frustrating self-appointed rival. She stepped into the room, holding on to her trademark green traditional Japanese fan, fidgeting with it in a nervous manner that Kuroko had never seen. As much as it pained Kuroko to admit it, even in her head, Kongou was very beautiful, with long dark hair that reached down to her lower back, parted in a fringe to flank her forehead, with dark eyes that matched her locks.

"You see…" Kongou began, looking away from Kuroko and concealing her face behind her fan, less in her usual haughty annoying manner, and more like the fan was a shield. "I was staying at your dormitory with a friend, with permission of course, and I heard this dreadful sound, and then the storm began to appear out of nowhere and…" She continued on for quite some time, adding in unnecessary and pointless details nervously, and she had to restart more than once, as her droning on combined with the morphine caused Kuroko to drift off to sleep several times and had to be reawakened with a slight shake. Eventually, Kuroko cut her off.

"Just skip to the point, Kongou…" She muttered tiredly, sighing a little, her eyelids feeling like bricks were attached to them. Kongou gulped and nodded.

"Well, I ran to your room with several others, and at the sound of screaming, we forced our way in and saw… you and her, in such horrible looking pain, with wind and glass everywhere. You were nearly frozen in place from it all, and looked so terrible, and Misaka-san was so, so troubled looking and…" She began to ramble again, but a stern glare from Kuroko got her to get back on track.

"I acted in the moment and used my power to detach you two from one another, but I fear in my haste to assist that I may have… exasperated your injuries or added new ones." She said, before, with no small amount of wounded pride, bowing to Kuroko. "Your injuries are partly my fault. Please forgive me." She said, not meeting Kuroko's eyes.

Kuroko stared at her a little blankly, and part of her suspected that she… should have been angry. But really, she wasn't at all. Not even a little. She glanced up at her IV again and then back at Kongou.

"I'm… somewhat confident this is the morphine talking, but I do, in fact, forgive you. Maybe." She said, her words coming out slightly slurred. Kongou stood up straight, hiding behind her fan still.

"A-ah! Well, very good then. I… shall leave you to rest." She said before making a hasty retreat out of the room and down the hall. Kuroko stared at the door as Uiharu, who had been sitting quietly and awkwardly through it all, just blinked and turned back to Kuroko.

"Well, that was, uh… Is there anything I can get you-" She began to say as she turned to Kuroko, seeing that she'd dozed off again.

"Wow, that stuff really is strong…" She marveled at the painkiller.

The next several days passed in a bit of a blur. Kuroko had to stay on painkillers for several days, so she was constantly drowsy and hard to talk to, since she'd often forget the subject or just doze off, though that did not stop classmates from coming to visit her, nor a few Judgement colleagues. It was nice to be cared about by people, even if none of them were who she truly wanted to see. The frog-faced doctor came to see her, explaining the extent of her injuries.

"You are quite fortunate. Your blood work came back fine, but you have several fractures and a very severe concussion, along with some internal damage from electricity. You've gotten over the worst of it all, but you'll need to take it easy for awhile." The doctor explained to her, Kuroko slightly cranky having started to wean off of the painkillers, which made her ache, and made her far more alert and prone to annoyance. She nonetheless remained polite, nodding silently, and shaking her head when he asked if she had any questions.

Ultimately, her thoughts were filled with only one thing- how was Mikoto? She needed to know, needed to talk to her, see her, let her know she wasn't angry at her, apologize for not being able to help her more competently. She sat in her bed quietly as the doctor left, fretting and fidgeting.

She was forced to endure a few more days of rest off of any painkiller before she was discharged.

"What about Onee-sama?" She asked the hospital staff, who could only give her a somewhat patronizing smile. "She will be along soon enough behind you. Do you need us to call a driver to take you to the School Garden?" They asked, with all the patronizing attitude that an adult could have to someone younger. She scowled and shook her head, storming off and deciding to just blow off steam by walking, even if her bones still ached.

She was sent to the School Garden dormitory, since her and Mikoto's dorm was… severely damaged.

When she arrived, she was greeted with a fairly bare bones room, just the essentials and basics, and she could hardly be surprised. The weight of the walk there, which had been farther than she'd thought, began to push down on her, and with some effort, she managed to get her uniform off and her nightgown on, shuffling over to the bed and lying down, taking the medication they'd pushed on her and laying her head against the pillow.

She was asleep in an instant.