The battle raged on and Saten just hid behind a car throughout the whole thing. Who was she kidding going into something like this? She had seen the battle in the hotel room and how intense that was. Why did she think she could help? She would take peaks and see flashes of fire striking priest robes. Water spouts being launched at Kanzaki who was using her sword to cut things that were impossibly far away. Then there was Kamijou who was just running around punching people. Did he actually have any power at all? Saten had never heard about a power in her investigation, yet here he was fighting against people as powerful as Misaka and he had no fear. No that's not right. He had fear that she could see, but it wasn't for himself. He was there to save Misaka and he was afraid he wouldn't be able to.

That's the same reason Saten was there. Saten decided that if he can dive in there and fight she could do something too. She wasn't going to fight those guys but she could use one thing to her advantage, no one was looking at her. She got out from behind the car and snuck around the perimeter of the battlefield. She could see that even though it was a 5 v. 3 battle it was evenly matched and there was nothing she could do besides get in their way.

She got behind the enemy and went into the tunnel without anyone seeing her. She ran down the tunnel as fast as she could trying to catch up to the man that had taken Misaka in hopes to stop him, or at least slow him down so the others would have time to catch up.

She spotted the man in the robe carrying Misaka. She was catching up because of the burden he was carrying. The tunnel she was running down was wet and dark. She stepped in a puddle in an effort to catch up and the priest heard the noise and turned around. He dropped Misaka on the ground roughly which looked like it jostled her enough to wake up. Saten was hopeful that she would have help with this but when Misaka struggled against the bonds around her hands, feet, and mouth they started glowing red and burned her effectively stopping her.

The bindings were magic and there was no way Misaka was going to be able to help Saten. The enemy started walking toward Saten and magically produced a sword of Ice in his hand and ran after her.

There had only been a distance of 30 feet between them but it quickly shortened as the priest had been using magic to increase his speed. Saten picked up a metal pipe she saw by her feet to try to protect herself but the ice sword the enemy had brought down cut through it like butter.

She was left with a small piece of metal with a jagged end.

"You don't have any powers do you? Ha! This is great. Why would you get involved in something you have no comprehension over? The world is bigger than you can imagine and you want to take it on with no power?" The priest was laughing at her futility to win this battle.

He came after again swiping after her but she kept barely getting out of the way. She received a few small cuts on some of the slashes that got a little closer than she was comfortable with. The man was not taking her seriously, in fact he was enjoying beating on the girl.

"It's time for you to see what power actually looks like little girl." He stepped back now standing ten feet in front of Misaka with an injured Saten another 20 feet away from him. The room was getting cold and she could see all the moisture in the tunnel freezing. The whole tunnel was becoming frozen. The power he held was too much Saten to be able to handle.

Once again watching this display from the arrogant priest she found herself wondering what she was doing here. She had no right to think this was something she could do. Maybe if Kuroko was here she would be able to win but not her.

Saten felt true fear for her life for the first time since the level upper incident. She had caused so much trouble for her friends and was unable to do anything. Misaka had to save her, and now it was her turn to save her friend and she couldn't do anything.

Saten looked to Misaka who had been watching the whole battle. She had tears on her face. The bonds were still glowing because Misaka never stopped struggling. She was being burned so she could try to break free. This brought tears to Saten's eyes too. Misaka only wanted to save her again.

Saten made up her mind what to do. There was no way she could beat the priest, but she was not going to run away.

The priest seemed to be happy with the display he had shown her and formed a second sword in his left hand and got ready to attack. Only he noticed the girl he was facing didn't look scared. She looked back to his hostage and gave her a sad smile and charged.


Misaka's POV

Misaka had been freaking out throughout the whole battle. When she had been dropped on the floor she didn't know where she was. The last thing she remembered was getting attacked after saving Saten at the warehouse. She looked up and could tell she was in a tunnel but she saw Saten squaring off against a magician who was holding what looked like a sword of ice. She struggled against her bonds but they burned her hands and legs. She tried to tell Saten to run away and get help but the made the gag in her mouth burn. She could only sit and watch the priest go after her friend and try to kill her.

Misaka tried to escape to stop the horror that was happening in front of her eyes. It was like watching Kamijou at the train yard all over again. Seeing someone take a beating and being so close to death for her, there was no way she wasn't going to struggle with all her might to get free. The bindings also prevented her from using her lightning.

She could only look on wide eyed with tears falling down her cheek as she saw the tunnel turn to ice as the magician got ready for his final attack. There was no way Saten could win this. She tried to use her eyes to plead with her friend to run, but when she met with her eyes and saw the resolve. It was like his on that day on the bridge.

Please no. Run Saten. I don't want anyone else to die for me.

Misaka only stared dumbstruck as all the fear dropped from Saten's face and a smile appeared behind the bruises and cuts.

The magician charged at Saten, but she took a hold of the small piece of metal still in her hand and charged at him too. The distance closed rapidly and when they were close enough the magician launched an attack that took up the whole space of the tunnel so Saten couldn't dodge left or right. Saten fell to the ground and Misaka paled in fear for her friend. But when Saten fell to the ground she hadn't stopped moving.

Misaka looked again and saw that Saten hadn't been hit by the attack but instead went to the ground on purpose and was sliding on her stomach across the icy ground past her opponent and was still going until she had slid all the way to Misaka and their bodies collided with an 'oomph'. Saten met her eyes and flashed a dazzling smile and held up the metal and quickly cut the bonds that had been on Misaka's hands.

A stunned priest looked behind him to see that it was the girls plan all along to free his prisoner. The problem was that he was only good at close quarters combat and his momentum was still carrying him away from the two girls on the ice he had so foolishly made to show off and could not regain his footing as he stared in horror as the girls hands became free and a large ball of lighting immediately filled the tunnel and hit him.

Saten got to work freeing Misaka's legs and mouth. Once she was done Misaka tackled her immediately.

"You idiot! What were you thinking? You could have died." Misaka was on top of Saten who was pinned to the ground. Tears were falling from Misakas face onto Saten's and Saten just started laughing.

"Well I thought about all the times you saved me and I wanted to help and foolishly ran in and tried to be the hero, but that didn't work out. I figured out I couldn't beat him and he wasn't going to let me run away so the only thing I could think of doing was freeing you since you are the one always saving me when I am in trouble."

Misaka stared down at her idiotic rescuer. (Why are all her hero's idiots?) They both broke into laughter and laid on the ground since both had been too injured to get up.


Kamijou POV

"I don't care! No one goes after my friends!" Kamijou through one final punch and knocked out Gabriel. He turned around to see his two companions sitting on the ground too tired to move.

"Idiot! Hurry after the girl before they get away!" Kamijou came to his senses and ran down the tunnel. He needed to save Misaka and he could have sworn he saw Saten run down the tunnel by herself. What was she thinking!

Wait, is the tunnel getting colder?

He was hurrying down the tunnel as fast as he could only to reach the ice, which he couldn't see in the dark, and flew through the air in comedic style and landed on his back hard only to look to his side and see the charred body of an unconscious priest. He recognized those burns and almost felt sorry for him as Kamijou relived certain memories of receiving similar injuries on a certain bridge a while ago.

Then her heard laughing and looked up from the flat of his back to see two injured girls 10 feet away sitting against the wall laughing at his late entrance. They were bent over from the pain of laughing so hard at seeing his fall.

"Such misfortune."

A/N: I am going to do one more chapter to wrap up the aftermath of the final battle but I thank you for sticking with the story and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.

Leave reviews of what you think and any criticisms that I could use when writing in the future. I do plan on writing another Certain Magical Index story at some point. I do not know when or what it will be about, but I love the world it exists in and I hope you will all come back and read that too.