とある他人の依存

Toaru Tanin no Izon

A Certain Reliance of Others

September 26th, 12:49PM

Judgment Branch 177 Headquarters

"Kuroko?!" Misaka almost shouted into the phone, extremely worried by what the teleporter had just told her.

"What's going on?" Konori said, just as concerned.

"Kuroko was attacked. She says it was the culprits of the assault case. She's at some abandoned lab that they probably are using as a hideout. She doesn't know where it is but she said something about it being the lab of the leader's father. She said you could probably figure out where it is Uiharu," Misaka explained to her friends as she went to the teleporter's desk to get the clothes she requested, "the leader is named Seiiku or something."

Uiharu simply nodded, understanding what she needed to do. She typed on her computer, trying desperately to find what she was looking for. "Ah here we are... Seiiku... he's the son of the researcher of those papers... Then the lab should be... Got it!" She said as she read off the address and area.

"Let's go then," Konori said as she grabbed her jacket, cursing the fact that her bike was in the shop for a tune up, "Uiharu stay here and provide support."

"No, I want to come and help," the girl demanded.

"We don't have time to argue," Misaka shouted as she ran out the door followed by the others, "I knew I shouldn't have let her go on her own..." she said, her voice full of guilt.

"It's not your fault," Konori comforted the electro master as they ran towards their destination.

Misaka was about to reply when she was hit by a high pressure jet of water. Even though it was only water, the stream was going fast enough that it felt a bit like a truck had collided right into her. It propelled her sideways into a building and kept pushing against her head, keeping her pinned and preventing her from breathing. It felt like she was drowning on land while a heavyweight boxer was punching her repeatedly in the head.

Hachi grinned as he leaned on the fire hydrant that was the source of this water, "bulls eye! Direct hit! Who said water type was weak against electric?"

"Misaka-san!" Uiharu cried out, concerned for her friend as she and Saten rushed to try and help her while Konori turned to Hachi and the large group of delinquents that surrounded him, "Cease and desist immediately."

"Let's see... ummm... No,' Hachi responded mockingly, "After all, doing this is so much more fun than not doing it. I think I'll keep doing it until she dies, then I'll drain you all dry. I think that sounds like a much better plan than yours."

"I don't think so," Konori said, springing into action and charging towards the red headed teen. She slid to a stop when the other delinquents surrounded her. She inhaled and put her glasses in her pocket.

Kuroko was, by far, one of the best fighters currently in Judgment. So it spoke volumes about Konori's own fighting prowess that she was one of the few people Kuroko had ever met who could defeat her in a fight. Similar to Kuroko Konori had begun training in martial arts from a very young age, her father did run a dojo after all. While she did not train as rigorously as Kuroko had she had had several years longer to train as well as more developed muscles. The teleporter was faster and more agile than her but Konori had a big advantage: her ability.

Her ability of clairvoyance that prevented her from being surprised by most things gave her no blind spots. With her reflexes, which were even more impressive than Kuroko's, this allowed her to block any attack and then counterattack using the opponent's own momentum.

A good example of this was demonstrated when one of the thugs behind her stepped forward to throw a punch. Konori, of course, saw it coming and spun on her heel, ducking low to increase the speed of the rotation as well as dodge the blow. As could be expected of a low-skill street brawler he left himself wide open with this attack.

Unlike Kuroko's fluid style that revolved around quick motions, throws, and kicks which allowed her to compensate for her small size, or Kuro's solid style that revolved around grapples, locks, and punches which took advantage of the alternate personality's raw strength and brutality, Konori's style involved stance, take downs, and open palmed attacks which had less power but were better for unbalancing an opponent to leave him vulnerable for the next attack.

And keeping to her style she delivered a powerful hit with the hilt of her palm into his side before following it up with an attack on the head. Now unbalanced and disoriented it was an easy matter to floor him with a simple throw.

This throw also served the purpose of interrupting the attack of a couple of people in front of her, allowing her to focus on the people attacking her from behind. She got a pair of cuffs from her belt and clamped one set around the oncoming wrist while she blocked a kick from behind with her leg. She yanked the cuffs towards her and clamped the other cuff around the other person's ankle. Then she pulled the cuffs downward, sending both of the delinquents to the ground.

More of them now began attacking her all at once. For most people that would be a bad thing, but just like Kuroko and Kuro's styles, hers was more effective when she was up against multiple people. She weaved between the punches and under the kicks, keeping low to the ground and moving constantly and attacking with quick but powerful palm strikes which left her open for far too short a period of time for anyone to get an attack in. With all the people around many of their own attacks also went astray, hitting their own comrades.

Though effective the style did have one downside. The constant turning and moving burned far more energy than Kuroko's conservatory style. She soon became tired enough for one of the delinquents to take advantage, grabbing onto Konori from behind and rooting her in place as another ran up carrying a baseball bat and winding up to hit her.

A sudden burst of deja vu ran through her as she saw the bat coming towards her and shut her eyes tight, despite somehow knowing that the bat wouldn't hit her.

She was right. She didn't feel the blunt weapon impact with her skull, all she heard was the sound of metal on metal as Saten ran up and blocked his baseball bat with her own. She angled her bat so that the downswing was deflected to the side. Then she swung her bat at his hands. He swore loudly as he dropped the bat in pain.

She quickly turned back to Konori who looked at her and suddenly ducked her head. Saten understood and swung her bat, not too hard, into the head of the person who was holding her. There was a thunk and he crumpled to the ground. swearing and holding his head.

"Thanks," Konori said as she took on the last few.

Saten thought about going back now but she saw another person who was carrying a two-by-four and was about to use it. Saten again stepped it and swung at the weapon, breaking the plank in two, one half of which hit the guy on the head.

Konori took care of the last three in a similar manner to what she had done before, getting out a pair of cuffs before cuffing two of them together. Another pair of cuffs secured the third to the free arm of one of the other. A third pair locked the remaining free arms together, disabling them entirely.

While this was happening Misaka was still pinned to the wall by the stream of water. Uiharu tried to pull her out but the stream was too strong. Then an idea struck her. She took a deep breath and braced herself against the wall before moving into the stream in front of Misaka. The powerful jet pounded her back with the same force as it had Misaka's and her arms were almost immediately shaking with the force of holding her off the wall. She wouldn't be able to hold for long, she was far too weak, had one of her friends not been in danger she wouldn't have been able to do it for even a millisecond. But as it was she managed to hold off until Misaka slid down and out of the stream, coughing and holding her pounding head.

It was now Uiharu who was pinned to the wall, her back being relentlessly pounded like Misaka before her. However she could at least breathe so she was in a better state than the electro master had been.

The chestnut haired girl stood up slowly, still heaving for breathe as she glared at the guy. Sparks shot from her wet hair as she began forming a lightning bolt. Then, suddenly, the previously stationary layer of water on the ground from the hydrant's jet suddenly flowed quickly towards her, pushing her already shaky balance and causing her to discharge the electricity into the water. She heard Uiharu cry out in pain as electricity flowed through her.

"Tut tut level five... electricity in water is a serious health hazard. You don't want to hurt your friend do you?"

Misaka glared at him again as she got up and began to run towards him only for the water under her feet to flow again, even faster, and push her down and backwards.

"Haven't you got it yet you idiot, I can control the pressure of liquids. With such a bountiful supply of water as this thing," he said gesturing towards the hydrant, "Even you can't beat me." Blood was hard to control, especially the thick blood that the kid had told him to extract Hachi needed to practically be touching in order to control it. But water was easy, he could do it from a distance even.

Misaka quickly thought about her options. With all this water around she couldn't use her lightning. With the constant jerking provided by the water flowing constantly in all directions she couldn't use her magnetism on any nearby metal objects. She could just...

Suddenly it hit her. It didn't need to be metal...

She focused for just a second and suddenly all the water around her was shunted away as her magnetism pushed the molecules' dipoles away

Misaka stood up and, now free from the risk of electrocuting her friend by accident, shot a lightning bolt at Hachi.

The red haired teen simply grabbed an underling who was close by and yanked the poor soul out in front of him, intercepting the lightning with his body.

"I'm impressed," Hachi said, "I guess you might be a worthy fight after all. Or then again perhaps not." he grinned as he opened his trench coat to reveal a large needle full of blood (it was strangely more empty than he had thought considering it had been filled with his most recent hunt just half an hour ago). "This is the blood from every ESPer that I've drained thus far. All of their powers are in these little vials. And once I inject them into myself, they'll be all mine." He laughed as he stabbed himself with the needle and injected the blood, "All of their powers are mine!" He grinned as he thought of all the things he could do with his new found powers. Teleportation, telepathy, telekinesis. With all these abilities he would be invincible.

Misaka was hardly perturbed. She had fought someone with thousands of abilities all at once before. This would be easy. She launched another lightning bolt at him.

He held up his hand, remembering that shimmering force field that one of his targets had had as an ability. However no force field appeared. The lightning bolt was diverted but it was not the same as when she had done it. Hachi tried the telepathy or teleportation or telekinesis but none of them worked. Yet somehow it felt like his ability had gotten stronger. He could now control the pressure of the air itself, which science did count as a fluid despite being gaseous.

It wasn't what he had been planning on but it was good enough. The increased resistance from the high pressure air in front of him and the decreased resistance from the low pressure that the barrier created diverted the lightning from its path as it traveled along the path of least resistance.

Hachi smiled as he shot burst of air at the electro master much as he had done with the water. Each blast felt like a punch to the gut, reminding Misaka a bit of Hayami and her thunder hand ability. It knocked her back and off balance. Not only that but every bolt of lightning she shot proved completely useless against his barrier of air.

"Honestly," Hachi sighed, "I thought the Railgun would be tougher than this."

"You really want to see my full power," Misaka spat as she stood up once again, her body covered in minor scrapes and bruises.

"You don't have the balls," Hachi dared, grinning at her, "you're too much of a goody-two-shoes to shoot me with your railgun and take my life. I'm going to defeat you, drain you of that little power of yours, kill that loser Seiiku, and then maybe I'll bring you back so you can keep that friend of yours company when we do all sorts of things to the two of you."

Misaka took several steps backwards and got an arcade coin out of her pocket, "This," she began as she flipped it up in the air, "is for Kuroko..." she said as the coin fell back to her and, with a flick of her thumb, shot it at over one thousand meters per second. Hachi hardly had time to widen his eyes before the projectile came straight for him.

Hachi had been right in the sense that Misaka would not kill him, but she had no problem shooting him with the railgun. She had taken the steps backwards to place herself just a little more than 50 meters away then shot him. The air friction destroyed the coin before it touched him but it managed to do something very important. It burned up the air in between her and him, leaving a small line leading straight towards Hachi where the air pressure was very low. She followed this up with a powerful bolt of lightning straight along this line, hitting Hachi and knocking him down.

The fire hydrant stopped gushing water as Misaka and Uiharu recovered their breaths as Saten and Konori rushed over. Saten to Uiharu and Konori to Misaka.

"Are you ok," the level zero asked her friend.

"I'm fine," the flower headed girl gasped, "let's just go and find Kuroko..."

"Yeah," Misaka agreed, "let's-"

"Don't think you've won just yet!" They heard an angry yell as Hachi began to stand back up, his eyes aflame as all of the water that the fire hydrant had spilled onto the ground collected around him as a giant wave, "I'll crush you, every bone in your bodies!"

Misaka quickly picked up some nearby cars with her magnetism, hoping they'd be a strong enough wall to block the water, hoping they wouldn't simply fly back and crush them instead.

Suddenly Misaka lost control of the cars as something stronger than her magnetism pulled them to the side and sent them flying away.

Hachi grinned at his good luck as he started to launch the wall of water right at them. Then something passed in front of the eyes and he felt a powerful wave of heat which turned the entire wave into steam. He was about to swear when a sudden, gale force wind blew right at him.

The gust of wind was powerful enough to knock Hachi off of his feet and sent him tumbling to the side where he rolled a few times until reaching a fairly small figure in a long black robe which completely covered their body, with a hood that obscured their face with shadow.

The figure crouched down and grabbed Hachi's collar, lifting him up with ease despite the teenager's size and weight. The hand that grabbed him was very pale and seemed quite dainty and weak despite the strength of the grip.

"So..." the figure said, in a voice that echoed with at least ten different pitches, as if a chorus was all speaking at once in perfect harmony, "you are the so called vampire eh? The one who has been draining ESPers? Don't try and deny it... the answer is written all over your face. You've caused quite a stir... but I'm afraid that that ends now."

Hachi's eyes widened for a second before closing as the person who held him hit him on the side of the head, knocking him unconscious.

"I do not appreciate this extra work you know," the robed figure said as they turned to leave, Hachi's collar still clutched in their hand and the unconscious teen dragging along behind them.

"Who are you?" Saten asked the robed figure.

The figure looked back at them. At this angle they could barely see the person's chin and mouth peeking out from beneath their cloak. The four girls saw as the edges curled up in a smile which revealed her shiny white teeth, more specifically the smile revealed the fangs jutting down from the top row, "I am someone who does not appreciate the reputation of bloodsuckers being besmirched." They said as they suddenly disappeared.

For a second the four girls were frozen in place by what they had just seen. Then they realized that there were more important things to do than stand around here gawking as they continued towards the lab, still a long way off.

September 26th, 1:17

Abandoned laboratory

Kuro had only two rules when fighting. The first was simply "No Killing". This rule was not for her own sake but rather to appease Shiro who would be extremely displeased with Kuro if she were to ever kill someone.

The second rule was Kuro's own and it was "Finish every fight as quickly as possible". Kuro was not like Misaka, who prolonged fights because she liked fighting. Nor was she like Shiro who always held back for fear of hurting her opponent too badly. Kuro was ruthlessly efficient. Her style centered around disabling an opponent as quickly and permanently as possible, hence her predilection for attacks to the joints and head and her tendency to inflict grievous wounds.

It was a rule Kuro rarely ever broke, yet she realized that in this case she would need to. The moment of this realization came in two separate instances. The first was just as the fight had started, just after she had used the micro-blades on the suit and her own strength to rip Seiiku's arm off at the shoulder. The realization came when a new arm took it's place within a few seconds, sucking up a significant amount of nutrient rich ooze in the process. Kuro figured this would be a war of attrition. If she could exhaust the ooze in an area by ripping his limbs off repeatedly and forcing him to use more and more to heal it, then eventually he wouldn't have any left.

The second realization came a little over half an hour later when she realized that the repeated mutilations and subsequent regenerations were barely making a dent in the level of the ooze. Seiiku knew to keep moving throughout the lab, keeping his supply fresh and avoiding being in one area long enough to exhaust it's supply. Of course this was only necessary for a little while before their positions flipped and it was Kuro who found herself avoiding him.

She had minorly underestimated his ability. Much like Kuro he wasn't quite a regenerater, such a moniker implies that the body regrows any lost tissue exactly how it was before. Kuro didn't regrow anything. Any blood or flesh that was lost was pulled drop by drop back into it's place by her mana. She could be torn apart in the most hideous of fashions, but if she was alive and had enough mana to regenerate not a single drop of blood would remain behind to show that she had ever been hurt at all, unlike Seiiku whose blood stained the walls and whose flesh was strewn about in massive chunks, sometimes in whole limbs.

However, unlike what one would consider a normal regenerater, the flesh that was regrown was not the same as the flesh it replaced. It was improved. His claim of constant evolution was true... his body adapted every time Kuro hurt him. Every limb lost ensured that they'd be harder to pull off the next time..

'Dammit,' Kuro thought, 'If only I had my axe...' Unfortunately for the girl however she had left the horn which contained all of her weapons at home. While the each horn could theoretically store an infinite amount of mass, Kuroko parceled her equipment out between many different horns. She did this because, though storing things was an easy feat, retrieval was much harder, especially for Kuro. While Shiro could unwrap the matter from the horn all Kuro could do was stop the spell and dump everything contained within it out onto the ground. This would obviously be a problem if she stored everything in one horn thus causing everything she had gathered to pour out all at once. So she had many, many of the rune papers that contained the spell and with it her belongings, plastered over her body under her armor before each mission. However she did not know that this would happen so the only rune paper she had today was her armor and her clothes, which she kept embedded in her skin ever since her fight with Awaki proved how necessary it was to be able to have a bullet-proof vest handy, and in this fight it had proved a very, very good idea. Though it could not protect perfectly against blunt trauma it did protect against the claws he grew partway through the fight as well as his acid touch which he had evolved long ago as a means of external digestion which prevented him from needing to stuff his face with food every time he got hurt. Instead he could simply touch a nearby person, dissolving and absorbing their flesh to feed him.

Of course the armor was not just a bullet-proof vest. It was specially constructed to be able to handle a huge variety of tasks and had many offensive features built in. Kuro found that she could prevent his adaption from hindering her too much by varying her methods. Cutting with blades, tearing with strength, burning with the wrist laser, using explosives and stealth. Every time she tried something new until she could repeat the easier methods with less difficulty than before, since his body had adopted different protection methods.

However none of the methods kept him down for long and his strength and speed was easily equal to the greatest of athletes despite his young age. It was not an easy fight.

In addition to all of that another threat loomed. Much like his healing was dependent upon the ooze, hers was dependent upon her mana. Luckily her missions as of late had hardly been taxing at all and her supply of mana was considerably higher than usual. Unfortunately for her, her usual level was far far lower than most any other magician's, especially Lammington. Though void magicians could not produce mana of their own they could have a limitless amount stored within themselves if only they ingested enough mercury. Lammington was a perfect example of this. He had been ingesting mercury every day for the past 700 years and currently had more raw mana at his disposal than any other magician on the earth, even Aleister paled in comparison. Lammington had gathered enough mana over the years to cast, by himself, 5 grand magic spells. Though he had already cast one so the current total was more like 4.

Kuro's mana was almost exclusively used for healing and the most basic of shield and disguise spells. She didn't have enough to risk casting the more complex spells. And, while Lammington had enough mana to heal his entire body of the most grievous of injuries every second for several years, Kuro had to use hers sparingly, especially when she realized just how long this battle would drag on for.

Kuro's extensive experience with the regeneration aspect of her magic allowed her to control which parts of her body healed at what rate, so she decided to prioritize some while ignoring others all together.

A kick to her side broke five ribs, sending one fragment into her lung, piercing it.

She healed the lung but left the ribs broken. She didn't need them to fight.

He threw her against a wall and broke her upper arm.

She healed the radius but not the ulna. Without the pelt on such a decision would have caused her own punches to be weak and risk breaking the radius again, but since she had the pelt on as usual (she was so glad it could appear to be even tiny articles of clothing and yet have the same effect so she could get away with wearing it constantly) no punch she threw could break her own body.

Her femur was shattered when he had ripped a piece of lab equipment out of the wall and smashed it against her.

She healed the sinews and tendons but left the femur broken. Her leg muscles were so tensed that they kept the shattered bone in roughly one piece.

She did not need to be whole or unbroken, she just needed to function. A car with a flat tire could still move after all. Under that same logic Kuro figured that things like doors, windows, airbags, even brakes were not necessary. She would fix them later, right now all she needed to do was keep the engine in good enough repair to make the car move. It was not a strategy for victory, only survival.

Unfortunately Seiiku was making it far harder than it needed to be.

Kuro was brutal. No arguments existed to protest such a claim. A glance around would reveal that information in a heartbeat. She was as covered in blood and bits of gore as were the walls. Kuro liked brutality. It was simple and effective. It would ensure that those fighting could no longer fight and discouraged anyone else from trying to fight, lest they suffer the same fate.

Yet even in her most brutal her method still had elegance and precision. She struck exactly where her hits would cause the most damage and struck them just hard enough for her purposes. Her fists were comparable to her axe, easily capable of horrific destruction and mutilation, but with a blade precise enough to ensure you only cut what you wished to cut. The arms that could be seen scattered about were cut so cleanly, as if a surgeon can preformed the amputation.

Seiiku's was brutal as well. No arguments existed to protest that claim either. While his opponent's ability made it harder to tell from the surroundings, it was easy enough to learn from his history. He had not gotten Hachi, that dangerous, psychopathic madman to follow him because of any sort of charisma or bribe, but out of respect for his destructive ability which allowed him to eliminate Hachi's entire gang when they had first met.

However Seiiku's brutality was different. He did not have the precision or elegance of a blade, he was more like the claws of a beast. His strikes would rake across any part of the opponent they could hit and leave horrible jagged wounds and bones shattered at random, unclean angles. When his strikes missed he would gouge out parts of the wall. Such a wound was far harder to heal.

By the time their fight had stretched on for a little more than an hour they entire lab had begun to fall apart. Many of the lights were destroyed and the the walls and floors appeared to have been ravaged by the most ferocious animal imaginable. Arguably they were.

A quick look at her visor told Kuro that her friends were close. The trackers that she had placed on Uiharu, Saten, and Konori were all converging on her location. While planting a tracker on the pereskia had proved pointless in the past, she knew that Misaka would either be with them or ahead of them.

'Oneeni would have been here 45 minutes ago,' she found herself thinking. But calling the pereskia had been the best move. Not only did she need to be warned about Hachi, whom Shiro guessed she had encountered based on the five or so minute period where the trackers of the rest of them had been relatively motionless, but Kuro admitted that the level five's power was far greater than Oneeni's and thus could hold Seiiku off for longer than the clone could.

She saw Seiiku move, swinging a left hook with his left and only arm considering that she had ripped the other one off again just a few seconds ago.

She blocked the attack but as she did so she felt something strike her chin. he hadn't waited for his arm to regenerate the whole way like he had before, making due with just the basic muscles and bones for fingers, so he had struck her when she had not expected it.

Because he had not let it regenerate the entire way the blow which normally would have broken her neck or jaw simply ripped her helmet (which had always been ever so slightly too big to begin with) off of her head.

She backed off immediately and went for it, knowing a hit to the head would kill her. Seiiku was too fast though and hit her with a nearby glassware cabinet. Glass embedded itself in her now exposed face and eyes and the force of the blow sent her back into the wall where she felt her shoulder break.

Her arm was broken one of her legs was twisted and nigh unusable, she was blind with an exposed head. She did not have enough mana left to fix any of this either. Even if Seiiku stopped she might not survive.

We're not going to die. You fought until your strength was exhausted but as Onee-sama said, your strength is not all I have to rely on.

A chill ran down Konori's spine as she ran towards the laboratory, the nearest wall of which was now in sight, hardly 20 meters away. "No time to search for a door," She told the others who knew to respect a clairvoyant's intuition, "Misaka, there's nobody behind that wall."

Misaka nodded as she fished a coin out of her pocket, "one door coming up," she said as she tossed it a short distance into the air, not bothering to stop running as she threw it or as it came down. She punched it as she ran propelling it into the wall and making a big enough hole for them to run through.

When they entered the place they almost vomited at the sight. Uiharu did puke, though that was partially from running for almost an hour straight as well.

The walls were covered in crimson streaks, limbs and body parts were scattered all over. Entire panels of the welded metal wall had been ripped out or scratched by small but powerful claws. The lights overhead had been shattered by a long, spear-like piece of lab equipment which was still embedded there pinning another detached arm.

"Th-this way!" Konori yelled as she ran away from the carnage through a door to the hall. It was not the path that Kuroko had taken but was the shortest route available which Konori sensed was not blocked off.

They soon reached the room that Kuroko was currently in, however the path they had taken placed them on an observation deck rather than the room itself. They saw as the cabinet hit her and she flew against the wall. They saw as the kid began approaching her.

They saw as Misaka ripped apart the wall behind them and sent it crashing through the window and making a bridge down to the floor. They saw as the electro master sent an extremely powerful bolt of lightning at the kid, knocking him back and onto the floor. They saw as she ran down the bridge before they followed her.

"Kuroko!" Misaka yelled as she ran to her. She was still alive, clearly, they could hear the labored breathing from here.

I knew it...

Kuro held up her hand slightly, "hold" she said shortly, not having the breath in her to say anything more than that. She still wasn't sure if she would make it. Her mana was dwindled down to almost nothing, and even though her current injuries would not kill her if she didn't heal them. Her body would heal itself until it killed her.

And yet... despite having so little mana, so little life force, she did not feel as if she was particularly drained. She should be close to death right now but all she felt was exhaustion from the fight. Then she remembered what Lammington had said to her a couple of nights ago during one of her lessons.

September 23rd, 11:23

Fleur de Temps Apartments

"You're doing well with your magic training," Lammington said as he helped Kuro through her nightly exercises.

"Thank you," The girl replied.

"While it was a compliment there is also an air of curiosity behind it. By all means you should be completely unable to do this well or even to do it at all really. You have such a small supply of mana compared to everyone else. Normally magicians have far more than a normal person but you have about the same amount, albeit yours is far more powerful and you are able to wield it with greater control. I noted the mana levels you possessed before you became a magician and they were even lower."

"I'm confused as to what exactly you are getting at. Is this a problem." Kuro asked.

"Well since you are alive and able to do magic it is clearly not a problem, but it is an odd thing, since by all means you shouldn't be either of those things."

"I shouldn't be alive?"

"No, by all logic you shouldn't. You see, all people -disregarding ESPers- have mana, even non magicians. They use this mana -or in the case of ESPers AIM- to live. Once it is gets below a certain level the person becomes weak, sickly. At an even lower level the person dies. Since the source of mana is the soul a person with a one word soul name shouldn't have been able to get enough mana to survive. You should have died at a young age and been sickly up until that point. Certainly, even with the split and boost in mana, it should be nearly impossible for you to be able to utilize mana like a magician does. Yet you are here, able to use magic, and one of the healthiest young people I have ever seen."

"I see. Well do you have any theories on why this is?" Kuro wondered, curious as to why what he had told her might be.

"Yes if you're willing to hear me out. You see the only other thing that could possibly explain it would be if you were kept alive by someone else who was infusing you with energy. Since it is impossible to infuse someone with mana we can discount that. Only ESPers can be infused with AIM and you would have likely been dead or at least far too sick to be in the Power Development Curriculum by that age for that to be a possibility. The only thing left would be telesma, the energy of heaven and angels. The problem with that is that if you were infused with telesma your mana would not only react poorly to it but also be aligned to the same element as the angel from which the telesma was given off. Since your mana is aligned with Samael this would imply that the telesma came from the former archangel. However the problem is that when Samael fell all of his energy was trapped in limbo and became aligned with hell, turning the telesma into mana. As such there is no telesma that can come from Samael."

"I don't believe there was an actual theory there." Kuro pointed out.

"Ah, yes," Lammington said, "well my only theory is that you have had someone smarter and more powerful than I looking after you for a long time."

September 26th, 2:20

Abandoned laboratory

Kuro thanked whoever it was that kept her alive right now as she heaved for breath and her body expended the last of its mana yet continued to heal, at an even faster rate than before, as if the energy she was burning was better, purer.

However she found she could not control it. It resembled mana but it seemed too powerful. It was as if it was a wild stallion to mana's tame mare, faster and stronger but impossible to hold onto the reins of.

Still it was enough to alleviate the worries of dying. So she moved onto the next most immediate issue. The others were gathered around her, still a short distance away at Kuro's behest. "the... helmet... need..." she wheezed out to her friends, sounding even more tired than Uiharu whose attention was divided between doing that same activity, her concern for Kuroko, and disgust about the surroundings.

Misaka glanced at it and bent the floor upwards to roll the helmet towards them. Kuro reached out to where she heard it roll and intercepted it. She took the mouthpiece and began to fumble around with it as she swallowed non existent saliva to try and coat her throat only to find her throat wetted by blood instead. Her lungs ached, her heart thundered faster than a human heart should be capable of, her chest hurt.

Ba-b-ba-bum-b-bum-ba-ba-bum-bum. It beat with horrible syncopation.

Suddenly she felt the pereskia's hands on her exposed neck and a small piece of skin at her waist where the armor had been previously damage enough that Seiiku had torn through it. A powerful shock tore through her and she felt her heart stop. It began to beat again the next second, this time in a far more normal rhythm, for her at least. B-ba-bum.

"We really need to get you to a hospital Kuroko," the electro master said as she reached to pick the smaller girl up. Kuro used her good leg to push her away.

"We're not done... here yet..." she explained as she found what she as looking for , 'that kid... can regenerate... Saten come here... i need you."

Saten walked up, concerned and curious. Kuro flipped the switch on the mouthpiece, activating its playback feature, playing an old file. It was one of the horns of Jericho, a capacity Down.

The others immediately fell down covering their ears. "Put it near him and turned away."

Saten quickly did so, despite her first instinct to throw it away. Moving it away from her friends was enough to free them from it's power though.

"Kuroko... that... was that capacity down? How did you get that... how..." Misaka stammered then her attention was drawn to something even stranger, "Kuroko... are you bleeding black?"

"her wounds are healing... how..." Konori said looking closer.

'This is going to be tough to explain,' she thought as she opened her mouth.

However her explanation was cut short before it could even begin by another voice, the slightly accented voice of a slightly older girl which said, "I'm afraid there won't be an answer to those questions."

They turned to see a 15 year old girl in a long sleeved dress with long blond hair that matched the similarly tinted hair of the girl beside her. The other girl was more familiar to them.

"Shuk-" began Misaka.

"Queen," Avon addressed the other girl, who was glowing with a golden aura[1]. Instantly all four girls were asleep. With that sorted the polish girl turned to Kuroko, "Aleister sent us here for clean up." She explained.

Kuroko nodded as she reached up to pop her left arm back into its socket, it was for the best that they forgot.

Avon walked up to the kid, seemingly ignoring the capacity down altogether as she walked up to the still unconscious Seiiku. However she was just a level one, so it was not too amazing a thing. The higher the level the more it hurts, so a level one shouldn't feel much and Avon was not as fragile as Uiharu was.

When she reached the kid, Avon picked him up. Though she was descended from a hearty stock of people she was still quite frail so it was lucky it was only a child she was picking up. She hefted him over her shoulder and walked to the waiting Queen who looked a bit queasy from the surroundings, which did not seem to bother Avon who had been brought up with firsthand tales of the horror of the holocaust.

"We'll stay until you heal, then we'll wipe their memories of finding you like that as well as of seeing him. Tell them he escaped. We'll wake them up before wiping so they won't wonder what they were doing asleep, to them they will have just entered the room to find you. Oh yeah, and we have a cleanup crew who are taking care of the halls so it won't look like a battlefield in this place. You'll need to wipe their memories of that too Queen."

"Y-yes Avon," she said, the confidence in her voice a bit shaky with nausea.

Kuroko nodded as she stood up and wrenched her leg back to its normal position so it could heal. Then she yanked the shards of glass out of her face before ripping out her eyeballs and crushing them in her hand. She knew from before with the sand that the eyeball couldn't heal with things embedded in it, it needed to be destroyed and rebuilt from scratch.

She heard the Queen puke at the sight.

As she did this the cleanup crew came into the room. They were two girls of about 17 years, identical twins of middle eastern descent, one of whom used quite powerful telekinesis to rip out and flip the panels onto their non bloody side while the other used far more precise telekinesis to close up any damaged panels to make them look like new.

They left the room without a word after they had finished, which they had done with remarkable speed. "Aleister's been using them for years, I've worked with them quite a lot. They're remarkably hard workers for a pair of gentile gemstones." She remarked.

Kuro nodded indifferently as her body finished healing itself, now all she had to do was change out of the armor and into the clothes Misaka had brought to her.

She did so, kissing the pereskia to switch back and teleporting the armor off of herself to be replaced instantly by her normal school outfit. "Ready," she said.

Avon and the Queen left the room as the four began to wake up. Confusion filled their eyes for a second before it was gone and they looked to Kuroko again. Concern and relief both twinkling in their eyes.

Kuroko took a breath and began her explanation.

Between the Lines: 11

"Hello Kuroko what can I do for you tonight?" Heaven Canceler asked as the teleporter appeared in his office along with the clone that was her usual companion.

"I need my mana recharged before tonight's lesson. I really drained it today. I had some of the tea earlier but that's not enough for anything," she explained, switching to Kuro to do the procedure.

Heaven Canceler sighed and got out the appropriate machine, "you never learn do you?"

"On the contrary... I think I learned my lesson quite well today."

"What lesson is that."

"I'm almost powerless on my own. I always rely on people and objects to help me and I'm completely useless without them. Without Aleister to point me in the right direction, without you to help keep me healthy, without the support of the pereskia, and Uiharu, and Saten, and Konori, and Oneeni. Every time I tried to do anything alone I messed up. Even when I fell into the answer to the case by chance I screwed it up. I only managed to take out a few small fry who woke up and escaped while I was fighting the boss. If the pereskia hadn't shown up when she did during that fight I probably would have died. I definitely would have anyway had there not been someone I don't even know supporting me and keeping me alive with whatever sort of energy this is..."

"Samael, that's who's keeping you alive," Heaven Canceler told her, "the energy you were burning was the telesma of Samael."

"Lammington said something like that, but he said Samael's energy became mana, that he didn't have telesma."

"That's not quite true. Only 2% of Samael's power became mana. He was powerful enough that it only takes one fiftieth of his power to fuel almost all magic that has ever been cast and serve as the energy source of every magician in the world. A considerable amount of his power was absorbed by a mortal, the one who killed him and brought magic to this world."

"That was four thousand years ago, surely he's dead by now..."

"No... he is not..." The old doctor said.

Kuro looked at Heaven Canceler, eyes wide, "Who exactly are you..."

"Who do you think I am?" Was all the response she got.

[1]:Just to make sure you understand, the golden aura means that she is under the effects of David's Blessing which boosts her ability and allows her to control even Misaka.

Author's Note: Since this chapter was so long I decided to make it another one rather than tack it onto the end of the previous one.

Anyway, the next two chapters are big ones. I've written part of each and I'll probably finish them both at around the same time, so next chapter might be slightly delayed because of the split focus. However I might release them both at the same time.

We'll see...

Anyway, it's true what Kuroko said in the between the lines bit. Her power is in people and objects more than in self. She has one thing that makes her special, her soul. Because of that people take interest in her and use her for their own purposes. If they hadn't taken an interest she would just be an ordinary girl or she'd be dead.