Author's note: Here's the new chapter! Let's see if I can fulfill my goal to get two out this month :)
I wasn't really sure what to do with Shokuhou Misaki, because her arc in Railgun isn't done yet but I think I found a good enough solution. Also I had Accelerator give some info about AC's director's brains that I just made up.
Enjoy the chapter
Begin Chapter 4
"This is so exciting!" Uiharu yelled. "I never imagined I would be able to visit both of the Tokiwadai dorms!"
"Keep your voice down." Kuroko whispered to her. She Uiharu and Saten were currently sneaking over to the queen's room, even though this was after curfew for Tokiwadai students such as herself. There might be a different dorm manager here but she was willing to guess that the one here would be just as dangerous, and just as strict about the rules as hers was. To tell the truth Kuroko really didn't want to help the queen especially after what happened at the Daihaseisai, but she was willing to do whatever it took to help her Onee-sama.
They walked the rest of the way in silence until they got to the room of Tokiwadai's queen, Shokuhou Misaki. Even though she was known as the queen, she was still in a shared room just like all the other students. Kuroko knocked on the door, and after a moment Shokuhou's roommate answered.
"You are disturbing the queen's rest." She said. Kuroko almost facepalmed. She should have known that Shokuhou would have a roommate who was one of her followers. Heck, knowing Shokuhou, she had probably manipulated the school's administration using her power into assigning her one of them.
"This is judgment." Kuroko said displaying her armband.
The girl frowned and said, "Very well how may I assist you?"
"We are here to speak to miss Shokuhou." Kuroko said, noticing the way the girl's face tightened at her using Shokuhou's name instead of her title.
"I've heard of you." The girl said. "You're the Railgun's pet. You're obviously here to attack the queen for her, I'm not going to endanger my queen by having her stand in your presence."
"This is important judgment business!" Uiharu yelled jumping to Kuroko's defense. "Please don't accuse Shirai-san of abusing her judgment powers, and call her just a pet. Right Shirai-san?"
"Onee-sama's pet... Onee-sama's pet... Onee-sama's pet." Kuroko said with a wide grin on her face, and drool coming out of her mouth. Her fantasies were treating her to a scene of her Onee-sama petting her, and telling her how much she loved her.
"Snap out of it Shirai-san!" Yelled Saten, who grabbed Kuroko and started to shake her.
"Onee-sama's pet... Onee-sama's pet... Onee-sama's pet."
"What kind of comedy routine is this?" The girl guarding Shokuhou's room said.
"Pl-please ignore what just happened." Uiharu sputtered. "We are actually here on judgment work! We believe that Shokuhou is going to be the target of a kidnapping!"
"Are you kidding? The queen lives in one of the most secure places in Academy City. Not to mention my personal protection as a level four, and the strongest of the queen's followers. Absolutely nothing can happen to her."
"Don't say that!" Saten yelled. "The villains always show up at a line like that!"
"... What do you think this is some kind of cheesy manga? Leave now. You are disturbing the queen's rest."
"Actually shouldn't she have woken up by now?" Uiharu asked. "Is she an unnaturally deep sleeper?"
"...No" The girl said with a dark expression on her face. She walked back into the room and said "Queen? Queen?" She frowned when nothing happened. Worry obvious on her face, she walked up and shook Shokuhou a few times. Nothing happened. "What's wrong! Wake up queen!"
Kuroko put off her fantasy for a moment and ran up to the queen to check on her pulse. She was still alive. "She's just asleep."
Shokuhou's roommate was completely terrified by now. "Wh-what happened!" She yelled and turned to Kuroko. "What have you done to my queen!"
"She was probably drugged." Uiharu said. "I doubt the kidnappers wanted to take on a level five so they probably had her drugged in order to get her without fear."
"We have to get her out of here now!" The roommate yelled. She ran to her queen's side and yelled "You're a teleporter right! Can you get her out of-"
With a giant crash the window burst in, cutting her off. People covered all in black poured into the room guns aimed at the girls. The kidnapping of Shokuhou Misaki, queen of Tokiwadai had begun.
X X X * * * X X X
"That was completely unnecessary."
"Shut up. Would you have preferred to be arrested as terrorists?"
"There had to have been another way to get out of there!" Touma exclaimed, as he brushed some more dirt off of himself. They had just escaped from the military base, and by escape he meant Accelerator had blasted a large hole in the ceiling and flown the two of them out. "What would have happened if you had touched my right hand while we were flying up? We would have fallen to our deaths."
"I'm not an idiot, I knew to avoid it. Besides all I would have had to have done was leave you behind and fly up by myself if you couldn't come."
"...Such misfortune."
Accelerator grinned at him for a second and almost laughed, but then as if catching himself changed his expression back to a scowl. That was something that had happened a few times now. Whenever Accelerator started to loosen up around Touma he would stop himself forcibly and start scowling and stop talking for a while. It was an obvious tsundere reaction.
So they walked about ten more minutes in silence before Accelerator asked, "How do you know this Kumokawa Seria? When Kawakami said her name you looked shocked."
Touma glad to be talking about something said, "Well she's a senior at my school. I had no idea she was something like a brain for one of Academy City's directors."
"Being the brain of a director isn't something that you can become easily, usually they are people with a ton of experience and skill but who couldn't get promoted because of politics. It would have been weird if you had figured out she was one." Accelerator said. "Well if you know her do you know if this is really the right address? It's common for people high up in the administration to have dummy addresses."
"I've never been to her house before. I did hear that she doesn't live in the dorms though. A lot of the other students like to wonder why, and try to convince her to tell them so they can try and get into apartments too."
"Tch, guess we just have to find out."
They got on a nearby bus on their way to Kumokawa's, and Touma decided to use the time to ask something hat had been bugging him for a while. "So why are you doing this?" He asked hesitantly. "Who do you know that was kidnapped?" It wasn't that he doubted that Accelerator was trying to save somebody; Touma had always been a firm believer that people were good. It was just such a sudden change from not even two months ago that he was having trouble thinking of the Accelerator who had been gleefully slaughtering clones and the one in front of him as the same person.
Accelerator scowled again but said "Last Order."
"Last Order?"
"Misaka number 20001, the control tower of the sisters." Accelerator said. From there he proceeded to tell Touma all about what had happened to him since their fight. The increased attacks by people trying to become the number one, meeting Last Order, getting shot to save her and the other sisters, and how he was trying to live with her. It was a really long story and by the time he was done they were already at their stop.
Touma didn't say anything right away; he merely got off the bus with Accelerator, pondering what he had heard. Finally he nodded. "Alright then. Let's save her." He said. Accelerator seemed to lose some of his tension when Touma said that, and the two of them let the subject drop.
They walked the rest of the way to Kumokawa's apartment in a companionable silence. When they got to her building they had to wait for somebody to leave to get in, because they didn't have a key. As they waited Touma started to wonder if Kumokawa really could be a brain for a director. Yes she had always been seen as mysterious by his fellow classmates, and people commonly talked about how mature she looked, and there had been that incident with a love letter she had never explained, but this just seemed to come out of nowhere. Although, he was just as surprised when Tsuchimikado revealed he was a magician so he supposed anything was possible. "Damn it next Aogami was going to turn out to be a level five or something." He muttered to himself.
"What?" Accelerator asked.
"Nothing." Touma said.
Accelerator clicked his teeth in annoyance and said. "Nobody's coming. Hold on a sec." Checking to make sure no one was watching he put his hand on his collar and flicked the switch. Then he placed his other hand on the door, and pulled it open, turning off the switch on his collar at the same time so that he only used a second or two of battery.
"...That power is ridiculously convenient." Touma said. He stepped in behind Accelerator and the two of them headed up the elevator to Kumokawa's room. When they got to the room he knocked quickly and saw Accelerator holding his hand over his collar in case something happened.
"Yes, wait one minute." Kumokawa said from the other side of the door. He could hear the sound of her moving around the room, but it was a full ten minutes before she opened the door. "Hello Kamijou-san. Nice to meet you Accelerator. Come on in." She said, and stepped back into her apartment, letting them follow her.
Kamijou looked around the apartment. It was much larger than the dorms a normal student like him lived in. Hell it was larger than the Tokiwadai dorms. "We're here to-"
"Looking into the kidnappings." Kumokawa cut him off. "I know."
"Huh- how?"
"The military officer you attacked reported the incident, which had Accelerator's name and your description."
"What- you mean that I'm doomed to be a criminal!"
"Relax. Academy City isn't the kind of place where they care about their employees. If you use this information to capture the kidnappers you'll be off the hook."
"Wait but if you knew Anti-Skill would be searching for us why did you make us wait so long before you let us into the room?"
Kumokawa reddened a bit at this and said. "I was tidying up."
Accelerator sighed in annoyance and said "Anyways, how far has your investigation into the kidnapping gotten?"
Kumokawa nodded at him and said "Not very far. Let me show you what I have." She walked over to a computer and sat down in the chair, Accelerator and Touma looking at the screen from either side of her. She pulled up a list of names, some of them scratched out. It was almost the exact same list Touma and Accelerator had, except for a few names. "I've been investigating people who know about magic and have enough resources to pull a large operation like this off."
"You haven't found anything either have you?" Accelerator asked
"No." Kumokawa admitted bluntly. "I've been looking at all of them as close as I can but I just can't find anything out of place. At least nothing big enough that it would draw suspicion to them. Normally an organization pulling something like this would have a ton of suspicious things going on that I could hone in on, but I haven't found anything like that."
Touma frowned and said, "So there's something going on that we're missing. Something that would explain all of this."
Kumokawa nodded. "Yes, and I have no idea what it is."
Touma didn't even have to look over to know Accelerator was scowling. "Maybe it's none of them." Accelerator said. "There has to be some people who know about magic but keep it a secret. Academy City isn't the kind of place where people share all of their secrets with each other."
"I can't just search everybody in the entire city." Kumokawa told him "There has to be something. Something to narrow it down. Or else we'll just have to keep searching for months, or even years."
X X X * * * X X X
Kuroko reacted to the attack with the reflexes trained into her through years of judgment training for just such an event.
Shokuhou's roommate did not. One of the kidnappers shot her without giving her time to react. Kuroko on the other hand had quickly teleported back to Uiharu and Saten and then teleported them out of the room. From there she teleported back in to get the roommate and teleport her to Uhiaru and Saten, yelling at them to give first aid to the girl.
Now that everyone was safe Kuroko began her attack. She teleported behind the men as they secured Shokuhou and reached out to touch two of them, teleporting them into the air outside. They would fall far enough to break one or both of their legs but they would survive. Then her hands fell to the nails wrapped around her thighs. Those went into the guns of the kidnappers, disabling them. Then she quickly teleported to the other side of the kidnappers just before they shot at where she was.
Again her hands fell to her thighs, and again more of the kidnapper's guns were disabled. Then again she teleported away before they could shoot her, preparing to use the last of the spikes. This time though when she arrived at the new location a bullet grazed her left shoulder. Instead of stupidly shooting at where she was, they had enacted a very effective strategy against a teleporter. They had grouped into a circle with their backs to each other and fired, with the kidnappers without guns getting into the center to avoid getting hit. If she hadn't already taken those guns out she would have more than likely be killed.
The kidnappers fired again and this time instead of trying to get lucky by teleporting randomly she teleported so that she was laying on the floor right in front of the kidnappers so they shot over her head. From the floor she grabbed the feet of some of the kidnappers near here, and before they could just point their guns down and hit her she teleported them outside like she had the others earlier. It wasn't the most heroic looking thing she had ever done but it saved her life.
Kuroko teleported again, this time above the heads of the kidnappers, and once again teleported more of them outside. Now that the kidnappers were scattered and unable to use their strategy she took the time to use almost all of the rest of her spikes taking out the guns of the other kidnappers.
Once she had disabled the last of the guns the fight was hers. The rest of it was just going through the motions. Grab kidnapper, teleport him outside to fall, dodge punch, and teleport another person out. She was so confident she had won and excited to have a lead on finding her Onee-sama she was caught completely off guard when suddenly one of the desks in the room appeared before her and slammed into her, making her cry out in pain and fall to the ground.
Cursing her own obliviousness Kuroko noticed the other teleporter in the room, standing where the desk was. He was a teenager, high school aged, with dark hair, and plain clothes. Kuroko rolled to the side and got up in one smooth motion and grabbed one of her few remaining nails. She tried to teleport it into the man but as she should have guessed he teleported away.
Suddenly Kuroko was grabbed from both sides by two kidnappers who pinned her to the ground, being sure only to touch her clothing so that she could not teleport them outside like she had the others.
"Well done." Said the other teleporter. "I always love meeting other teleporters. Although you aren't nearly as strong as me of course." There was a predatory look in his eyes, a menace that she could hardly believe. He walked forward and touched Shokuhou, teleporting her outside, presumably not to fall like Kuroko had done to the guards but to be secured by his men. So, he still had to touch people to teleport them. At least he wasn't as strong as Musujime then.
"Sorry." He said and gave an insane laugh and smiled, bringing the menace out from his eyes and onto his face. "I'm going to have to kill you now." He pulled out a pistol from his pocket and aimed at her.
Fortunately Kuroko had started moving the second he pulled it out. Thankful for the short skirt on her uniform she stuck out her legs and as they brushed against the men holding her she teleported them directly in front of her, shielding her from the bullet. She teleported herself to the side and grabbed a violin case that was stood up against the wall. From there she teleported behind the man and ran at him, pulling back the case to hit him with.
Instead of trying to teleport away from her the man merely reached forward and tapped one of the men in front of him. Kuroko paused for half a second preparing to dodge the man when he appeared. She saw the man appear horizontally in the air above her and prepared to jump over him, when suddenly instead of falling to the ground the man slammed into her. Hard.
This time Kuroko didn't fall to the ground, and she quickly recovered sending the third last of her nails into the gun of the man. Her mind was thinking furiously about what has just happened. The man had teleported the kidnapper in front of her and instead of him falling he had somehow gone crashing into her. "You..." She said "You can give he things you teleport motion?"
The man smiled his insane smile again and said, "Yes."
"How?" She asked. She hadn't heard of any power like that before. Even Musujime hadn't been able to do that. It was very dangerous, but she assumed he was limited in how much force he could put into it. Otherwise he would have knocked her out with the desk or kidnapper, or else he could have shot out a few nails like bullets and killed her.
"The Dark May Project." He said. Kuroko's face went white with shock and fear. The Dark May Project was an experiment where the thought patterns of the strongest esper Accelerator were implanted into other lesser espers. The espers had gotten a huge burst in power and in return had lost a good chunk of their sanity. There was no way that Kuroko would be able to defeat him in time to save Shokuhou - if at all.
With that thought Kuroko realized that he was stalling her. By now they could have easily gotten Shokuhou away. She cursed her own stupidity, and ignoring the man she turned and teleported out the window.
When she arrived outside she realized she was right. The men had just finished putting Shokuhou into the van and were about to drive away. Thinking quickly Kuroko teleported onto the van. Then just as the van started moving forward she jumped at the hood, teleporting it away, and grabbed what she thought was the engine teleporting it away, thus disabling the car.
"This is judgment!" She yelled as she turned around to face the drivers, balancing herself very delicately on what was left under the hood of the car. She teleported again, this time above the van so she could see the men leave and grab them before they got too far away.
And just barely avoided being killed by the huge fireball that burst out of the windshield where she had been an instant earlier.
The two side doors burst open as well as the back doors and four people came out. Four people not dressed up like the kidnappers but wearing casual clothing. Which so far in this organization meant that they were espers, and strong ones at that.
She didn't want to attack any of them before discovering their abilities but one of them had fire in his hands so she could tell what he was, and thanks to exiting out the side door he was isolated just for a second. She teleported behind him and grabbed at him preparing to teleport him a story up, when suddenly the teleporter reappeared. Right in front of her.
She was getting surprised by these people way too much.
Kuroko teleported to the other side of the van, trying to grab at least one of them while they were split up. She didn't have the bird's eye view though this time and she ended up a good four meters away from the man. He noticed her and waved his hand. From that simple motion Kuroko was hit in the gut by what felt like an invisible hammer. It hadn't been wind he had sent out, she would have noticed that. Instead it had just been a ball of pure force.
Kuroko coughed up blood. The teleporter reappeared along the pyromaster right in front of her, as the other two espers ran over from behind the van. She was surrounded.
X X X * * * X X X
Mikoto was starting to lose hope. So far she had "interviewed" two other suspects after attacking the esper mercenary base. Both of them had no idea what she was talking about. The other suspects were also looking unlikely as her Sisters have been looking into them and told her that so far they have not found anything suspicious. There had to be a more efficient way to find out who was doing this.
Her cellphone ringing pulled her from her thoughts. The screen showed it was one of her Sisters. "Have you found something?" She asked. She had been about to attack another suspect but she didn't have high hopes he would know anything.
"A kidnapping is happening, reports Misaka urgently." Her sister said over the phone.
"What! Where!" Mikoto yelled. This was her chance. If she could manage to defeat that 'Saint' - as he called himself - this time she would be able to find out where her Sister was being held and rescue her. Then this would all be over.
"The other Tokiwadai dorm, Misaka reports."
"Alright I'm on my way." Mikoto said. The other Tokiwadai dorm wasn't far from here and if she used her powers she would be able to get there in five minutes.
"Another thing, Misaka says, Onee-sama's roommate code named [perverted stalker] is currently fighting as well."
"Kuroko!"
X X X * * * X X X
This was a bad situation. Kuroko was willing to bet she could have taken down the pyromaster, or the telekinesis user if she had fought either of them on their own but she was not only surrounded by them but also by a teleporter stronger than she was, and by two other espers she was willing to bet were level fours like the others. Fighting them head on would be suicide. So she didn't.
Kuroko teleported into the van and grabbed Shokuhou, then teleported the two of them away. Right now she needed to buy time until Anti-skill could arrive and she couldn't do that if she had to make sure the teleporter didn't just grab Shokuhou and run. She unceremoniously dumped Shokuhou in some bushes; staying only to make sure that she was out of sight before teleporting back to the espers. If she left them alone they might give up Shokuhou for lost and leave, making her lose her only lead. That wasn't to say that she had to fight them head on though.
When she teleported to a rooftop and looked at them she could see they had started to spread out and the teleporter was nowhere to be seen. He had probably gone off to search for Shokuhou. Good, him not being here would make this easier.
From her vantage place on the roof she could easily see all the espers as they spread out, searching efficiently for her. Kuroko waited until one of them, the one who had shot out the fireball to get near a streetlight, and repeated a trick she had used once before, although on a much smaller scale this time. She teleported a plane of metal from the nearby air conditioner diagonally into the streetlight, causing it to fall over.
The pyro esper reacted exactly as she had expected him to. He jumped to the side and shot out a fireball at the same time with the reflexes of a veteran fighter. This drew the attention of the other three espers. They were trained enough, and likely heartless enough, that they didn't run over immediately to aid their comrade but when something like that happens humans naturally look over at it if only for a split second. That was all the she needed.
Kuroko teleported behind the telekinesis user during that split second and grabbed onto him, teleporting him up to fall. He caught himself almost immediately with his power but Kuroko hadn't expected him to fall anyways. By the time he had caught himself she was already gone, teleported back to the van. Since she had removed what she thought was the engine, gas was pooling into the front of the car.
She didn't have a lighter so she simply teleported on top of it and waited for the pyromaster to shoot a fireball at her. Then she teleported right before the fireball hit and the van went up in an explosion.
Kuroko smirked. That was a much more effective distraction than the fireball had been. All four of the espers involuntarily flinched back at the explosion and Kuroko took advantage of that. She teleported to one of the two whose powers she did not know. Now was the best time to take them out while they were unable to surprise her with whatever their powers were. She grabbed one of the two and sent him up into the air, then quickly teleported to the other. Preparing to teleport away from him before the pyromaster and the telekinesis user could hit her, she grabbed the man's arm and-
And froze. She couldn't move. She couldn't teleport. She couldn't do anything, not even breathe.
The man grinned at her. "I was wondering when you were going to get to me. We even had our teleporter leave to draw you out."
Kuroko couldn't respond.
"Sorry." He said, and pulled out a gun. He aimed it at her causally. "But this is what happens when children like you try to interfere with Academy City's dark side."
I'm so sorry Onee-sama Kuroko thought, as she saw him slowly pull the trigger. She couldn't even close her eyes.
He pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
"What the hell!" The man yelled. He pulled the trigger again. Nothing happened. "What's going on!" He said. "How in the-"
A ball of iron sand hit him in the chest sending him flying. "Kuroko! Are you okay!"
"Onee-sama!" Kuroko yelled. She turned around and sure enough her Onee-sama was running over to her.
Her Onee-sama smiled at her "Kuroko." She said in relief.
Kuroko wanted to ask what was going on, but before she could say anything a fireball came flying out at them. She grabbed her Onee-sama and teleported them over about ten meters. Her Onee-sama raised her hand and a bolt of lightning went flying at the man, hitting him dead on and knocking him out.
The telekinetic user also tried to fight back, just as uselessly. He grabbed the remains of the van, which were still on fire and threw it at them. At the same time a lash of force hit both of them in the chest. It didn't matter. Even while distracted from the hit of force her Onee-sama was easily able to snatch the car out of the air with her magnetism. Another bolt of lightning shot out from her fingers and another level four esper went down.
"Are there any more of them? The one from last time isn't here." Her Onee-sama asked. With the three her Onee-sama had taken out, and the one with the unknown power that Kuroko had taken out all the enemies in sight were defeated.
"There's a teleporter still." Kuroko informed her. "He's stronger than me. He was searching for-" The thought made her remember what was going on, tearing her away from her joy at having reunited with her Onee-sama. She grabbed her Onee-sama and teleported them over to Shokuhou. She was still there. Kuroko pulled out her phone.
"Yes Shirai-san?" Uiharu asked. She sounded concerned.
"Are you looking at the camera's?" She asked
"Yes." Uiharu replied. Uiharu might be useless in combat but she was very good with computers.
"Can you see the teleporter?"
"No." Uiharu told her. "I was watching him but he got a phone call and left."
Kuroko sighed. Likely whoever was behind the kidnappings had been watching security cameras around the area and had warned him that her Onee-sama was coming.
Preparing herself Kuroko hung up and turned to Onee-sama. "Onee-sama what's going on?" She asked, desperation plain in her voice. The thought that her Onee-sama didn't trust her enough to let her in to help was literally hurting her.
"I-" Her Onee-sama began "I'm sorry Kuroko, I can't tell you that."
"Why Onee-sama? Don't you trust me! I love you Onee-sama!" Kuroko yelled. She was beginning to cry now.
Her Onee-sama looked uncomfortable. "I can't ask you to do this Kuroko. If you get involved in this darkness your life will never be the same."
Kuroko sniffled and wiped the tears from her eyes. "I don't care, Onee-sama." She said. "I'm not giving you a choice." She tackled her Onee-sama, feeling her warmth against herself. "I'll follow you Onee-sama. I'll follow you even if you try to stop me. There's nothing you can do about it. I'm going to be with you forever.
"Kuroko..." Her Onee-sama said. "Al...All right. Let me tell you about... about my Sister's."
End Chapter 4Author's Note Continued: What did you think? Please leave a review :)