Hello, everyone! Last time, Mikoto and Touma had a cute and productive study date. In this chapter, Mikoto will let her friends in on another big secret.
GG Vegito: Yeah, those volumes had some very nice KaMikoto moments, as did NT10 and NT22R, and they've had a lot of shorter interactions in other volumes that I'm planning to expand on.
Nightfang123: I'm not sure if they'll become best friends, but they will probably become more friendly with each other, and that will certainly be awkward for Mikoto. I'm also looking forward to writing Mikoto's interactions with Misaka Worst. Worst will probably still enjoy trolling Mikoto, but Mikoto might be able to take it a bit more in stride.
Toa Solaric: I'm glad you found drunk Touma funny. Mikoto will meet Misaka Worst in Hawaii, and that'll definitely be a fun scene to write.
Aminadab Brulle: Yes, unfortunately, she was cut out of that scene.
Clearwing Yuta: Thanks, I'm glad you liked it!
Blankow: You're probably right about the danger of being drunk together, they're definitely not ready to have a child. Hamazura did find a role model, though he may have a harder time getting his own harem. Accelerator is probably not interested in having one. Index is slowly coming around, but you're probably right that a one-on-one conversation between them would be very helpful.
tython055: I'm glad you enjoyed the history lesson! That is a big risk of the two of them both getting drunk together, though if she was okay with doing so, Mikoto might be able to use her ability to prevent a pregnancy. They're definitely not ready to raise a kid right now.
Guest10032: There is indeed quite a bit of time until they go to Hawaii. I'm glad you enjoyed the scene with the Sisters, I felt that was the best way to sort of keep the spirit of the scene but not just have a congregation of random girls. Hamazura does appear more in NT, so Mikoto will run into him again in the future, including in Hawaii. Yeah, I originally thought about having her teach him about electromagnetism for physics, but that probably would've required explaining the math, which is hard to format properly in normal text. Since I've studied molecular biology, I decided to have her teach him about action potentials, especially since it ties in to how she can overcome paralysis. As for the history lesson, I'm actually a WW2 buff, so I knew most of the information already, though I did check to make sure everything was correct. I also thought about having Mikoto teach him something for his math class, but I couldn't quite think of a good topic, and the chapter was already pretty long anyway, so instead I put a small amount of math in the scene with the Sisters. I definitely wanted to show off her intelligence, and hopefully I'll be able to continue doing so in later arcs. You pointed out an interesting difference between Index and Kuroko. Another difference is that Kuroko now knows about how Touma helped Mikoto save her sisters, while Index hasn't really heard anything similar about Mikoto. I am planning to have Touma's class's reaction, though it'll probably be after Hawaii, since the tests may not get graded in 2-3 days. As for the Railgun manga, I liked seeing how Mikoto learned her signature move, and it looks like there'll be a lot of intrigue happening soon. There will be a couple more chapters before they go to Hawaii, including this one, so I hope you'll continue enjoying them.
AnimeMaster24: Yeah, Shokuhou's interactions with Mikoto are always fun, and it'll be interesting to write about how that'll change now that Mikoto is dating Touma.
xellos540: The Freshman arc was already complete before the chapter, so Fremea has already been saved. I'm glad you enjoyed drunk Touma. The 625 figure is indeed correct. There are 5 odd digits, and all living Misakas have 5 digits. The first digit must be 1, and there are 5 choices for each of the other 4 digits, so the total number of living Misakas with all odd digits is 5^4 = 625. The dead 5-digit Misakas, 10000-10031, all have 0's as digits, so none of them have the desired property. For counting all the Misakas with this property, including the dead ones, there are also 5^4 = 625 4-digit Misakas, 5^3 = 125 3-digit ones, 5^2 = 25 2-digit ones, and 5 1-digit ones, for a total of 625 + 625 + 125 + 25 + 5 = 1405. The others besides Touma haven't drunk as much alcohol, so they aren't drunk. Drunk Touma was good at defusing tensions, though he sort of started it in the first place by revealing what Hamazura had done. Yeah, Index is there for the study date, but Mikoto was able to afford enough food to satisfy her. Mikoto can indeed boost her muscles with her ability, and she's a pretty good student. Retreating from China wasn't an option because it would imply weakness, I guess. A war over Touma would be pretty strange indeed. I'm definitely looking forward to writing Othinus's and Shokuhou's interactions with the couple, when they appear in the story.
MarauderPrime12: Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter and liked the ending.
Stryper88: I'm glad you enjoyed drunk Touma. He was a little flirty at the beginning, and he will continue having moments where he's flirty and a little perverted with her. I'm also happy you enjoyed the Sisters scene, they were indeed a bit dumbfounded, but mostly took it in stride. Yeah, when I saw that small scene with Hamazura and Takitsubo in the light novel, I knew I had to adapt it here too. I was a bit worried that the study date would be a bit boring because of all the information, so it's good that you still liked it, even if you didn't understand much of it. It would be nice for them to have even more study dates when they get the chance, though it might get boring reading more of these kinds of chapters. Yeah, Mikoto spoiled him a lot in that chapter, but he will have plenty of chances to return the favor in the future.
tommthecommie: Well, this is a KaMikoto story, and it does focus more on Mikoto, so if you're not into that, you probably won't enjoy this fanfic much.
YoLO1992: Nekoto will show up soon, I promise! I'm glad you enjoyed the history lesson, I'm really into WW2 history, so it was pretty cool to write that part, and Mikoto is a really good teacher.
HotaruTKM: Wow, it's great that it was useful for your test! As for what will happen at the end of the Hawaii arc, you'll have to wait and see, but it's only a couple of chapters away. I'm glad you enjoyed them saying "I love you" to each other.
DBZLEGEND154: I'm glad you enjoyed the biology lesson, and congratulations on your test score! Yes, Hamazura finally appeared, and he and Accelerator will be involved in Hawaii and some later arcs. I haven't fully decided on how I'll change the Hawaii arc from canon, but I do plan on making some changes, since Mikoto and Touma are now a couple. I'm also looking forward to writing about Othinus and Shokuhou when they eventually appear in the story.
PageTurnTheorem: Thanks, I'm glad you've been enjoying this fic since almost the beginning! Yeah, I felt like that phrase would be something a drunk Touma would say, and quite a few people seemed to like it. I'm happy you'll be continuing reading this story, and I'll look forward to any feedback and suggestions you have in the future.
Bigboy101: Thanks! Yeah, the Neko Maid costume will appear soon.
The One who saw All: I'm glad you enjoyed drunk Touma and his self-awareness, and that you found the study date adorable. I do plan on covering the Othinus arc, though, like with all the light novels, I won't rewrite every single canon scene.
Mikoto and her friends were currently at the Judgement office. Kuroko and Uiharu were taking a break, so they were sitting with Mikoto and Saten on the couches. Mikoto had told the others that Touma was willing to tell them about the dragon that the four of them had recently faced, so now they were waiting for him to arrive.
Since this was the first time they were all together since the end of World War 3, Saten turned to Mikoto and asked, "So Misaka-san, you went to Russia a couple of days ago, right? Shirai-san said you went to rescue Kamijou-san from danger."
Mikoto had known that question would come up, so she replied, "Yeah, that's right. I found out that Academy City was worried about him defecting, and there was a mercenary group ordered to retrieve him from Russia. They even had plans of what they'd do to him after they captured him, so I stopped them and went to find him myself."
Uiharu slyly smiled at Mikoto as she realized, "You hacked into the city's database, didn't you? And how did you get to Russia after you took care of the mercenary group?"
Mikoto nervously rubbed her head and answered, "Well, I sort of hijacked their plane and forced the pilot to fly me to Russia."
Kuroko sighed, "You told me this already, onee-sama, but perhaps you should refrain from blatantly confessing to crimes in a Judgement office." Mikoto had told her some of the details when she'd returned home a few days earlier. Kuroko was troubled that Academy City had ordered the mercenary group to capture Touma, but after learning about the Level 6 Shift Experiment, she knew that the higher-ups of Academy City weren't above doing something like that.
Mikoto crossed her arms and scoffed, "If anything, they were the ones who were about to commit a crime, and I just stopped them."
Saten then wondered, "What was Kamijou-san doing in Russia in the first place? He was only in danger because he was there in the middle of the war, right?"
Mikoto was not quite sure how to answer this without bringing up magic. She eventually responded, "Well, basically, he went after someone in order to rescue a friend on his."
Kuroko looked skeptically at Mikoto and said, "So someone kidnapped his friend and took them to Russia? Did this have anything to do with the war, or was it just a coincidence?"
Mikoto tensed up as her friend interrogated her. She couldn't think of a good way to answer, so she just said, "Honestly, I don't know the full details, but it was related to the war. You can ask him about it if you want, though I don't know how much he'll want to tell you."
Uiharu nodded and said, "Okay, it's probably a sensitive topic for him and his friend, so maybe we shouldn't pry too much. You met up with him in Russia, right, Misaka-san? Shirai-san said you two came back to Academy City in the same flight."
Mikoto let out a sigh of relief, glad that she wouldn't have to tell them about Index or Fiamma. She replied, "Yeah, when I landed, I actually met up with one of my sisters, 10777-chan, who was stationed in the area. We soon met up with Touma, but then we got separated because of the guy who had put his friend in danger. Touma was pulled up onto some sort of giant flying fortress which went up about 10 kilometers into the sky."
Saten's eyes widened, "A flying fortress? How exactly was it flying?"
Mikoto shrugged, "I couldn't see any wings or engines on it, so I don't really know. Maybe it was hollow inside, but it was made of rock and was tens of kilometers across."
Saten was amazed to hear this, since she couldn't think of any way to explain it scientifically. She jokingly replied, "Wow, was it being held up by magic or something?"
Mikoto nervously laughed, "Maybe, who knows?" She wasn't sure whether to tell her friend just how close her offhand guess was to the real truth.
Kuroko scoffed, "Come on, Saten-san, don't be silly. There must have been some perfectly reasonable explanation for it."
Mikoto wanted to steer the conversation away from magic, so she continued her account, "Anyway, apparently Touma beat that guy up, but then he had to crash the fortress into the Arctic Ocean." She looked down and trembled a bit before continuing, "My sister and I arrived at the spot later, and I found his Gekota strap in the water. There was no other sign of him, so I thought he had died."
All three of the others were shocked to hear this. They had no idea that the boy had almost died, and even though he had obviously survived, they could see the effect it still had on Mikoto. Kuroko looked at her sadly and softly said, "Onee-sama…"
Uiharu tried reassuring Mikoto, "Well, he did make it out alive, right?"
Mikoto looked back up and smiled, "Yeah, he was rescued by an icebreaker ship, and we met back up in Vologda a couple days later, after the war ended. We dropped 10777-chan back in St. Petersburg, and Touma and I then flew home from there."
Uiharu marveled, "Wow, so you guys got to travel all over Russia! I haven't ever been outside of Japan!"
Mikoto replied, "Well, it's not like I was there on vacation! And for a lot of that time, I thought my boyfriend was dead, so I wasn't able to function at all." She now had a good idea of how her friends would've felt if she'd sacrificed herself against Accelerator. When she glanced at her friends, she noticed that they were all looking at her with sad expressions, so she put her hands up and smiled, "It's okay guys, I'm fine now!"
Saten figured that it would be a good time to change the subject, "Oh, I came across an interesting urban legend. Apparently, two nights ago, there was some sort of giant object floating in the sky over Academy City. It's said to have been about the size of a cumulonimbus cloud."
Kuroko rolled her eyes, annoyed at her friend for continuing to buy into such things, "Really, Saten-san, this again? Did you just come up with that because of onee-sama's story about that flying fortress?"
Saten furiously shook her head, "No, I swear, a lot of people are talking about it online! Though now that you mention it, it's pretty weird that this apparently happened a second time so soon after the first."
Mikoto nervously replied, "Y-yeah, that's pretty strange." Once again, Saten was actually onto the truth, even if she didn't recognize it.
Fortunately for her, this is when Touma finally arrived at the office. He waved and greeted them, "Hey, guys!" He then sat down on the couch next to Mikoto and quickly gave her a kiss, before saying, "Hey, Biri-Biri!"
Mikoto blushed a little, but smiled at him and replied, "Hey, Touma! How were your tests?" After their long study session the previous night, she was eager to learn if he did well on them.
Touma grinned at her and answered, "I think they went relatively well! They were still a bit tricky, but I did a lot better with your tutoring than I would've done otherwise!"
Saten was a bit confused and asked, "Wait, Misaka-san tutored you? But aren't you in high school?"
Kuroko smirked and boasted, "Saten-san, you know that Tokiwadai is no ordinary middle school, right? Our classes are at the university level, so it's no surprise that onee-sama would be able to tutor Kamijou-san, who goes to an ordinary high school."
Touma felt she was insulting his high school a bit, but nonetheless replied, "Yeah, Mikoto already knew a lot about the subjects I was studying, and she didn't even have to skim the textbooks to refresh her memory!" He ruffled her hair and continued, "She really is amazing!"
Saten looked at Mikoto with an amazed expression and said, "Wow, I guess that's Tokiwadai's Ace for you!" After a pause, she then smirked at her friend and continued, "So, how was that study session? Did you reward him with a kiss every time he got a question right?"
Mikoto blushed and protested, "N-no, don't be silly! Our study session was completely serious!" She then tried waving off their praise, "Anyway, it's not that big a deal! Honestly, he'd probably be doing fine if he didn't skip class so often. He was gone from school from the beginning of the war!"
Uiharu then looked at the boy and said, "That's right, Misaka-san said you were in Russia rescuing a friend."
Touma glanced at his girlfriend and raised an eyebrow, replying, "Oh, I didn't know she told you that I was in Russia."
Mikoto winced and explained, "Sorry, I didn't know if you wanted to keep it a secret, but I didn't want to go to Russia without telling my friends why I was going."
The boy could see that she felt a bit guilty, so he gave her a reassuring smile and said, "It's okay, I don't mind." It would be a bit inconvenient to explain, but he knew that Mikoto didn't want to leave her friends in the dark while going halfway around the world into an active war zone.
Mikoto smiled back at him, relieved that he wasn't mad at her.
Uiharu then asked Touma, "Did you really fight a guy on top of a flying fortress?"
The boy was surprised that Mikoto mentioned that part as well, but he nodded, "Yeah, it was really crazy. But you know something else crazy? A rogue Russian unit was going to fire a nuclear missile at the fortress, but Mikoto and one of her sisters completely defeated the entire unit by themselves!"
Saten looked at Mikoto with awe and exclaimed, "Wow, that's amazing! You actually stopped nuclear armageddon!"
Kuroko smirked and said, "That's not surprising. She's the 3rd Ranked Level 5 and the strongest Electromaster in Academy City. Of course foreign military forces are no match for her!"
Mikoto sighed at her friends' reactions. She knew that Touma wanted to divert attention from his fight against Fiamma, but she was a little annoyed that her boyfriend was praising her actions during the war, while she was unable to tell her friends about him bringing an end to the entire war.
Uiharu then brought up the reason they were all gathered together, "Kamijou-san, Misaka-san told you about our fight against the girl with the dragon in her arm, right? She said that she once saw that dragon before in an incident you were involved in."
Touma realized it was time to reveal the truth. He nodded, "Yeah, so this incident actually happened during the Daihasei Festival."
Kuroko tilted her head and recalled, "Do you mean the terrorists who were trying to attack the festival? You were involved in that too?"
Mikoto tensed up, knowing that it was finally time for her to come clean to her friends. After a pause, she finally said, "Actually, there was no terrorist attack, at least not in the way you think. I'm really sorry, but there's something else I've been keeping a secret from you guys. Your memories were actually altered by Shokuhou Misaki, partly because she was a big part in what happened. And I didn't tell you until now because both I and my sisters were involved too."
Her friends were all shocked to hear that their memories of the Daihasei Festival were completely wrong. All of them had met Shokuhou and knew that she was the strongest mental esper, so it was not too surprising that she'd altered their memories to hide her own involvement. But they found it a little harder to understand why their friend would let them keep believing a lie.
Kuroko looked at her best friend and asked, "So what really happened then, onee-sama?" She felt really conflicted, but she hoped that Mikoto would explain why she had gone along with Shokuhou to keep them in the dark.
Mikoto could tell that her friends were a bit disappointed in her. She answered, "You were all involved in stopping the incident, so it's probably easiest if Touma just restores your memories. That way you'll have all that information without me having to explain every detail."
Kuroko, Saten, and Uiharu all agreed that this would be that best option. Touma stood up and placed his right hand on each of the girls' heads in turn. After restoring Saten and Uiharu's memories, he approached Kuroko and said, "Sorry, Shirai-san, you probably don't like me touching your head."
She sharply replied, "You're right about that, Kamijou-san, but I can endure it to find out the truth." He then quickly touched her head and restored her memories as well, before returning to his seat next to his girlfriend.
The three girls held their heads in pain as a bunch of memories suddenly rushed into their heads. Mikoto looked on grimly as they learned what had actually happened during the festival. To their shock, they learned that all of them had been forced to lose all memories of Mikoto, which had clearly been distressing to their friend. They remembered that Mikoto had been targeted by Kouzaku Mitori, who had taken Uiharu and Mikoto's mother as hostages. But perhaps most importantly of all, they remembered that it wasn't terrorists who'd been behind the disturbances to the festival, but Mikoto herself. They remembered helping Kuroko take down Kouzaku, and that Mikoto had finally been freed in the end, but they still had a lot of questions.
Kuroko was the first to speak up, asking, "What happened to you, onee-sama?" Shoukuhou had apparently told her that Kouzaku had been in the process of manipulating Mikoto to attack the city, but she didn't know the full details.
Mikoto guiltily looked down at her lap and answered, "So the man behind the whole thing was Kihara Gensei, and he was trying to forcibly shift me to Level 6."
Kuroko's eyes widened in shock, and she replied, "L-level 6? He was trying to shift you to Level 6?" She tried to imagine what that would entail. At that level, Mikoto would probably be able to control the electromagnetic force down to the atomic or even subatomic level, and she might even be able to instantly wipe out entire cities.
Mikoto replied, "Yeah, though apparently I'm not able to achieve a stable Level 6 form, so I would've instantly died and taken the whole city out with me when I reached it. Thankfully, it was stopped before I made it all the way."
Her friends all felt chills running down their spine as they imagined the terrifying scene that could have happened. They were relieved that Mikoto had gotten out okay.
Saten then tensed up as she recalled where she'd heard that scientist's name before, "You said his name was Kihara Gensei, right? Isn't that the grandfather of Therestina Kihara Lifeline, and the one who was in charge of those experiments on Kiyama Harumi's students?"
Mikoto nodded, "Yeah, he's had a long career of despicable experiments." It was ultimately because of his twisted experiments that the Level Upper and Poltergeist incidents took place.
Uiharu then asked, "How was he able to do that to you against your will? When they were trying to shift Accelerator to Level 6, he was going along with it."
Mikoto frowned and answered, "He got access to a giant brain that Shokuhou helped develop to boost her ability, called Exterior. He used Exterior to infect 10032-chan and the entire Misaka Network with a virus, and forced the Network's power into me. Mental Out doesn't work on me directly, but when I was in that state, I couldn't really think for myself, and Kouzaku was apparently able to manipulate me to attack the city."
Kuroko then questioned, "Shokuhou-san developed a giant clone of her brain to boost her Mental Out powers?
Mikoto nodded, "Yeah, I saw it in person, and it was incredible! But it was really dangerous if it got into the wrong hands, like it did here. Fortunately, Shokuhou somehow manipulated Kihara Gensei to destroy it and himself, so we won't have to worry about them anymore."
Saten was still a bit confused, and asked, "Wait, how did he get access to 10032-san? Did he have someone kidnap her?"
Mikoto gritted her teeth, recalling all the trouble she'd gone through because of a misunderstanding. She answered, "He sent a dark side group, including Kouzaku, to kidnap one of my sisters. During the festival, 10032-chan took my place in one of the events because my classmates thought she was me. But after the event, she went missing. I frantically looked for her, and I eventually found that it was Shokuhou who had kidnapped her."
This revelation absolutely stunned all of her friends, as well as her boyfriend. Although Touma didn't know who Shokuhou was, it seemed like Mikoto had been working with that person, and she might have been the person who'd told him what had been happening to Mikoto, so he didn't understand why she would kidnap 10032-chan.
Uiharu was the one to ask, "Why did she kidnap your sister? That doesn't make any sense. And why did she erase our memories of you, Misaka-san?" She had admired Shokuhou as a refined, high-class lady when she'd first met her, but Uiharu was now feeling very disillusioned.
Mikoto replied, "She took 10032-chan to protect her from the people who were actually trying to kidnap her. The problem is that she decided not to tell me about it. And when I tried to find my sister, Shokuhou sent her clique to watch over me, and she erased all your memories so I couldn't ask you for help."
Touma's eyes widened, "Wait, this person erased your friends' memories of you, Mikoto? Are you serious?" This was completely new information to him. Mikoto had told him that her friends' memories had been changed at the end of the incident, but he had no idea that they'd been altered during the incident as well.
Saten nodded as she recalled, "Yeah, and Misaka-san seemed so calm about it! She didn't seem panicked or anything, even though it must have hurt a lot."
Kuroko placed her face over her hands as she remembered how she'd treated Mikoto. "I can't believe I acted so disgracefully towards onee-sama!" She cringed at all the times she'd acted in a tsundere manner when Mikoto had praised her or made physical contact with her.
Mikoto patted her best friend's shoulder and said, "It's okay, Kuroko, you all helped me out anyway, and I'm really grateful for that." After a pause, she frowned and continued, "Anyway, I was eventually able to confront Shokuhou, which is when she told me she was trying to protect my sister. When I asked her why she didn't tell me, she said she couldn't trust me because she can't read my mind. She also pointed out what happened when I trusted those scientists with my DNA map."
Touma clenched his fists and angrily questioned, "Am I hearing this right, Mikoto? This person decided that you couldn't be trusted to know what was happening to your own sister, she completely isolated you from your friends, and when you confronted her about it, she threw a mistake you made as a child back in your face?" Hearing just how horribly this person had treated his girlfriend made him pretty infuriated.
Mikoto sharply turned towards him and replied, "I know, right? And even after all that, I had no choice but to swallow my pride and work with her!" But her frustration soon died down, and she sadly looked down at her lap, before continuing, "But maybe she was right not to trust me. After all, when I went charging in to fight Gensei, I ended up being taken over and controlled, and had to rely on her and all you guys to save me."
The boy scooted closer to Mikoto and wrapped his arm around her. He began rubbing her shoulder and said, "Hey, don't put all that blame on yourself. Maybe if this person had let you work with her from the beginning, things would've ended differently."
Kuroko also turned to Mikoto and added, "Kamijou-san is right, it was very cruel of her to her to leave you in the dark and cut you off from us." She was really upset that Shokuhou had caused her onee-sama so much distress because of her own trust issues.
Mikoto was touched by their reassuring words, "Thanks, guys. You know, the thing I was the most mad about is that I ended up asking Kongou-san for help in finding 10032-chan, and she ended up getting hurt. I know it was my decision to ask her for help, but I felt I had no other choice, since I couldn't look for my sister without Shokuhou's clique watching my every move."
Saten remembered visiting Kongou in the hospital and seeing just how injured she'd gotten. She replied, "Yeah, Kongou-san did go all out to help you, but she had no regrets about that, right? So you shouldn't blame yourself for that either, Misaka-san."
Mikoto looked around at all her friends and said, "Thank you, all of you. I'm really sorry I didn't tell you about all of this until now, even though you all did so much to help me back then." She was at least glad that she'd finally told her friends about both of the major incidents she'd been keeping a secret from them. Ironically, both of them had involved a Level 6 shift attempt.
Kuroko closed her eyes and sighed, "I am a little upset that you didn't tell me that my memories were false, onee-sama. But I understand why you and Shokuhou-san wanted to keep it a secret, and it was probably to be expected when dealing with the strongest mental esper. I'll have to be more careful around her in the future." Kuroko was at least glad that Mikoto was at least starting to tell them about the events she'd gotten involved in, including what she had been doing in Russia.
Uiharu smiled at Mikoto and replied, "Yeah, at least we know the truth now. So Misaka-san, I guess you weren't stuck in the bathroom all day, right?"
Mikoto crossed her arms and looked away with an embarrassed face, "No, that was just some stupid cover story that Shokuhou made up to screw with me."
Saten chuckled, "You two don't really get along, do you? I would've thought the two Level 5's of Tokiwadai would relate to each other, but I guess it's more of a rivalry?"
Mikoto sighed, "Yeah, sort of. I mean, she's not totally a bad person. She did mess with me a lot, but she did help save me and my sisters in the end. And I did work with her against the Doppelganger, so there is some room for us to get along, but I don't know if we'll ever be good friends or anything."
Uiharu then turned to the boy and asked, "So anyway, Kamijou-san, you were involved in saving her, right?"
Touma nodded and elaborated, "Yeah, I and a guy named Sogiita Gunha fought to stop Mikoto when she was in her transformed states."
Mikoto then explained, "Oh yeah, he's the 7th Ranked Level 5. I knew that someone was helping you, but I didn't get to see who it was, since he'd left by the time I was freed."
Touma brought his hand up to his face and mused, "Huh, no wonder he was so strong, then." After all, he'd been able to recover from all that damage he'd taken from the transformed Mikoto.
Saten then asked, "Kamijou-san, you just said that Misaka-san had multiple transformed states, right? What did they look like?" She was really curious to learn this, since he was one of the few people to have witnessed her friend's transformed forms.
The boy glanced at Mikoto to see if she was okay with it, and she nodded, "Go ahead, I'm actually curious about that too, since I wasn't able to see what I looked like from the outside."
Touma then replied, "Okay, so she went through three stages as she powered up, from what I could tell. In her first stage, she was close to normal, but her eyes had turned into blue lightning, and she had these ribbons coming out of her hair and floating around her. In her second state, those ribbons expanded into something like a net, and she got a halo with a third eye above her head. And in her third stage, her body turned completely white, her arms and legs turned into these weird claws, and her head looked like outer space, mostly black but with some stars."
Her friends each tried to visualize what Mikoto had looked like based on the boy's descriptions. Uiharu exclaimed, "She must have looked so cool! I wish I could've seen it in person!"
Touma looked at his girlfriend with an admiring gaze and replied, "Yeah, she actually sort of looked like an angel!" Now that he thought about it, Mikoto's transformation had been sort of similar to that of that of Kazakiri, especially since both of those transformations had involved the Misaka Network.
Mikoto blushed and looked away, protesting, "Come on, don't say something like that! I don't think that angels are supposed to indiscriminately destroy an entire city." She felt pretty embarrassed that they were marvelling at her forced transformations, which had ultimately been the result of a big and dangerous mistake on her part. However, she was a little intrigued by his description of her third transformation, "I know I dreamed about creating a sky full of stars, but that isn't quite what I meant."
Kuroko then chimed in, "Perhaps not, but that wasn't your fault, onee-sama. However, despite how cool your transformed forms seemed to have been, it's good that you were able to return to your normal self instead of self-destructing."
Kuroko's statement caused Saten to wonder, "So how were you returned back to normal? Did it happen when Shokuhou-san defeated Kihara Gensei and Shirai-san defeated Kouzaku? Or did Kamijou-san have to use his ability to release you?"
Touma then recalled, "Sogiita and I still had to fight against her. By the time she was in her third transformed state, there was this giant ball of energy around her, and he said that this energy seemed like it was from another world. I jumped in to negate it, but it was too strong for me to do so quickly enough, so I actually got my arm cut off."
Mikoto's friends were all absolutely stunned. They hadn't really realized that Touma's Imagine Breaker had such a limitation, and they didn't know how to react to the boy casually saying he got his arm amputated.
Before any of her friends could say anything, Mikoto rolled her eyes and continued, "Yeah, by that time, I had been partially freed, so I could see what was actually happening. I couldn't control that giant ball of energy, and I saw this idiot running towards me. I yelled at him to not do something so reckless, but of course, he didn't listen to me. I was so scared when I saw him lose his right arm, but then a white dragon emerged from it!"
Saten's eyes widened, and she excitedly replied, "A white dragon? Was it the one that that girl had? It was originally Kamijou-san's dragon?" She recalled the urban legend about that dragon escaping from its previous owner, realizing that it may be true after all.
Mikoto slightly shook her head, "No, it was a different one. But right after that one appeared, seven more dragons came out of his arm! There was a red one, a yellow one, a green one, a blue one, a black one, and two more white ones, one of which was the dragon that Shundan Kimi had in her arm. These dragons easily destroyed the ball of energy and finally freed me."
Kuroko looked at Touma and exclaimed, "Wait, you have multiple dragons inside your arm? How is that even possible? And does that mean that one of them escaped somehow?" Even though she had witnessed the one dragon in Kimi's arm, it was still astounding to learn that the boy had had eight dragons in his arm.
Touma looked down at his right hand and answered, "Yeah, I guess so. I don't know a lot about my dragons, but I think my Imagine Breaker acts as some kind of seal for them, so when my arm gets cut off, they can get unleashed. There was this one other time I got my arm cut off, but only one dragon came out. Maybe more dragons came out this time because I needed that many."
Uiharu then mused, "Hmm, we thought that that one dragon was attracted to Kimi because of the energy of the black hole her esper power created. If that's true, then does your Imagine Breaker have some sort of energy source?"
Saten thought for a bit and came up with a suggestion, "Maybe the dragons absorb the energy of all the esper powers he negates? I don't know if that compares with all the energy from a black hole, though."
Touma shrugged, "Yeah, perhaps." He wasn't really sure what to believe about his dragons, and he wished he could somehow get more information about them.
Kuroko then asked the boy, "So how did you get your arm reattached after all that? Shouldn't it have been completely destroyed?"
Mikoto chuckled and answered, "He somehow regrew his arm right on the spot! It was totally crazy, though not as crazy as the dragons themselves."
Saten then mused, "So even though you have these dragons which can easily defeat an esper on her way to Level 6, you've only used them twice? I guess you wouldn't want to deliberately cut off your arm all the time."
Touma replied, "Yeah, plus, I'm not sure how well I can control their power, so I don't want to risk causing too much destruction unless it's absolutely necessary." Indeed, during his fight against Fiamma, he had refused to use the power of that invisible thing, since he trusted that his restored Imagine Breaker would be sufficient.
Kuroko chuckled and said, "That's actually pretty conscientious of you, Kamijou-san. And thank you for saving onee-sama again."
The boy smiled and replied, "You're welcome, Shirai-san." He wasn't used to getting compliments from Kuroko, so he was grateful to hear her say that.
Overall Kuroko, Saten, and Uiharu had just learned a lot more about their friend and her boyfriend. They gained a greater appreciation of just how strong Touma actually was, and of just how dangerous both his and Mikoto's lives were. They were happy to have the two of them safe and sound for now, though they wondered what kind of troubles Mikoto and Touma would face in the future.
Meanwhile, Mikoto was glad that she'd finally told her friends about what had really happened during the Daihasei Festival. In addition to them now also knowing about her sisters, Mikoto now felt that she could be much more open with her friends in the future.