"T-Touma!"

Kuroko's eyes widened as she crawled to the limp body of the boy beside her. She put his head on her lap, and tried to hear if he was breathing.

Silence…

Kuroko, was shaking uncontrollably, staring down at the boy who had tried to change the mind of her roommate. She felt tears brimming her eyes, and she didn't care, she started crying while cradling Kamijou Touma's head, in her lap. Kuroko suddenly heard a pair of footsteps walking towards her. She looked up to Misaka Mikoto staring, wide eyed, at the scene in front of her.

"K-Kuroko… I'm so sorry-"

"This is all your fault!" Kuroko yelled at her roommate.

She didn't even attempt to hide her anger. Misaka had never seen this side of her roommate, she could feel the anger radiating off Kuroko. The pigtailed girl was staring at the boy, desperately trying to cling to the hope that he was alive.

"P-Please… wake up, Touma… please…" She begged, tears falling from her eyes onto his face.

"K-Kuroko-" Misaka started, but was interrupted immediately.

"Why would you attack him?! He was defenseless!"

Misaka didn't have an answer for her. Normally, the boy would nullify her attacks, but this time, he hadn't. She felt tears in her eyes. She had no idea why this boy had killed himself trying to stop her. She was devastated, this boy was a friend to her, and she had attacked him even when he said that he wasn't going to fight her.

"W-Why…"

Kamijou Touma slowly awakened, not knowing where he was at the moment. Although his vision was blurry, he made out someone's head that was looking down at him. He realized that his head was elevated, although he didn't know what on.

Then the pain hit…

He winced at a searing pain that was coming from the area from around his heart. He all of a sudden started breathing fast.

The wince was enough to make Kuroko widen her eyes, a moment ago, he wasn't even breathing.

"T-Touma?!"

The boy opened his mouth to talk, but found that he was having trouble breathing. He couldn't move, it felt like all of his cells had been fried many times. He had to get his pills, so he could stabilize his breathing. He moved his arm towards his pocket, but he quickly realized that he had no control over his arm movements.

Kuroko quickly caught on to what he was trying to do, and reached into his pocket for him; inside she found his pills. She quickly opened the lid and fed one to Touma, who was struggling to breathe. Once he had it, his breathing started to calm down, although he still looked to be in immense pain.

Touma, whose eyes were unbluring, finally saw that it was Kuroko who was looking down on him from above. He saw that she was crying, he also saw Misaka on her knees at his side, also crying.

"She didn't leave… good…" Touma breathed a sigh of relief, seeing that Misaka hadn't followed through with her plan.

"Y-You idiot, why didn't you move? You could have died?" He heard Kuroko whisper.

He thought about it for a minute, then he just smiled.

"How can you smile in a situation like this?!" This came from Misaka, who was wiping back her tears.

"I'm just glad you guys are worried about me, don't worry, I'm fine." Said Touma, looking content, despite the pain.

Touma then realized what his head was laid on, it was on Kuroko's lap. His eyes widened, he realized that this must be embarrassing for her.

"O-Oh, Kuroko, I'm so sorry this must be uncomfortable for you-" He tried to get up but he winced and she stopped him.

"I-It's fine… I don't really mind..." She muttered, a light blush on her face.

Misaka stared at the two in shock. She had no idea that Kuroko knew Kamijou Touma, and they seemed really close. She was about to ask about it, but then Kamijou Touma spoke.

"I've got a way that we can stop the experiments…"

Misaka and Kuroko's eyes widened. The boy was injured, but he had still found a way to help. Touma slowly sat up, with the help of Kuroko.

"The experiment is being run off the fact that Accelerator is the strongest esper…

He paused and looked at Misaka.

"So what if he was actually incredibly weak? What if he got beat by a puny level zero, Academy Cities weakest?"

Both girls' eyes widened at what Kamijou Touma was saying. He wanted to fight Accelerator, the strongest esper in Academy City, and quite possibly, the world. They instantly fought back against his idea.

"Y-You can't! He is on a completely different level than me! He wouldn't care at all if the world's armies turned against him!"

"T-Touma, you are in no condition to fight!" Kuroko said, looking at how beat up the boy was.

Misaka felt tears brimming her eyes, she closed them and shouted, "Please! I can't drag someone else into my own sin!"

Her mothers words rang in her head, while she fought back tears.

"Mama won't always be here to fix everything…"

"I-I have to fix this all by myself! So please-!" She was interrupted by Touma.

"Ok then, work with me."

Her eyes widened and she looked up to see Kamijou Touma, staring right at her.

He smiled, " I want everyone to come back smiling, help me achieve that, it's a much better alternative for suicide."

Misaka stared at him with wide eyes. There was no way that he could beat Academy City's best, but here he was… being a hero, for her. She allowed herself to believe in him.

"O-Ok…" She stuttered, quietly.

Kamijou smiled, "Great! Now, you said that you know where the experiment is taking place, please tell me."

"The abandoned train yard…"

Touma remembered where that was, they had passed it on the way to this bridge. He was in extreme pain but he managed to stand alone, without the rail that he had been leaning against.

"Ok, you have to stay here, if you help me fight him, then the fight won't be fair and the experiment might not be discontinued."

Misaka's eyes widened in shock, she stared at Touma from the ground, but after a while she let out a little nod. With that Touma, stared running towards the train yard, but he heard footsteps running behind him and a hand tugging his sleeve. He turned around to see Kuroko with tears in her eyes.

"T-Touma… please don't go. I have never met the first ranked, but he must be very strong in order to be ranked above Misaka." She paused here to control herself. " You can't beat him… please, we can find another way…"

Touma stayed quiet for awhile, he wasn't sure how he knew Kuroko before, but she seemed to worry about him. He smiled at this thought.

"There is no time, if we wait longer, another clone will die-"

"Then let me help you! I-I can-"

She was interrupted by a warm embrace from Kamijou.

"I'm glad you are worried for my sake, but don't worry about me. As I said, everyone will come home smiling." He broke the embrace and put his hands on her shoulders, "… I promise."

Kuroko opened her mouth, but no words came out, she just stood there with tears in her eyes as Kamijou Touma ran away with a limp.

"Please be safe, Kamijou…"

There was a silence between the two girls, as they quietly stood on the bridge. Kuroko was hugging her knees on the ground and Misaka was standing up and trying to come up with a way to apologize to Kuroko.

"Kuroko-"

"Don't… do you realize what he is doing for you…" She said, a hint of anger in her voice.

"Y-Yes…" Misaka stammered, quietly.

"He could die! Touma could die!" Kuroko shouted at her roommate. " You fought him and now he is at an even bigger disadvantage! Why?! Why did you fight him?! He was defenseless!"

Misaka took a step back, she had never seen her roommate this enraged, the air around the situation was tense.

"H-He usually cancels out my attacks whenever I fight him…"

"You have fought him more than once?!"

"…"

"And what do you mean 'cancels out'?"

"His right hand, it stops my attacks from hitting him."

"But Touma is a level zero…"

"He is stronger than me, Kuroko." She paused, "If you don't mind me asking, what makes you care about him so much?"

Kuroko stayed silent, she was shocked to hear that Touma was secretly stronger than Misaka. She had heard Misaka's question, but didn't want to answer it

"H-He… saved me…"

There was silence for a while. Misaka waited for her friend to elaborate.

"Do you remember the bank attack that I was involved with, a few years back?"

"Yeah, you were praised as a hero and it propelled your career in Judgement."

Kuroko just stared at the ground, "During my fight with the robber, the robber had me in a bad position and I could have died, but Touma fought and saved me. I was able to take down the robber, but I immediately went to check on my mentor, I let my guard down and the robber woke up…"

She paused here and looked at Misaka. Her eyes were wide and tears were streaming down her face.

"Touma, pushed me out of the way and got stabbed in his chest… I knocked the robber out, but the damage was already done…"

Misaka's eyes widened, whenever she fought the boy he always popped a pill in his mouth after they finished, apparently it slowed his breathing and quelled his chest pains.

"Could the pills be a result of his injuries from back then?"

Misaka stared at her best friend, tears brimming her eyes.

"I lost contact with him after that, I thought that he was dead, until recently when I caught him at the scene of an electrical discharge…"

Misaka's eyes widened at this.

"He had collapsed in an alleyway and I found him. I recognized him instantly and he recognized me. We made plans to talk the next day, but he never showed up."

"He was the guy you were going out to meet?!" Misaka couldn't believe this, Kamijou Touma was a kind person and he would never stand someone up. He must have had a reason for not going.

"Apparently he had lost his memories, that's what he said, at least." Kuroko said, looking at the ground.

Thinking back on her last meeting with Kamijou at the vending machine, Misaka remembered that he was asking a lot of questions that he should have known the answers to.

"…How… how did he lose his memories?" Misaka stammered.

"He doesn't know, the doctors don't know either… it just happened…"

Misaka looked at her friend who was no longer trying to fight back tears, she was crying and she fell to her knees. Misaka could see that Kuroko deeply cared for Touma, and she was very worried about Touma fighting Accelerator. Misaka knelt next to her best friend and hugged her. Kuroko was there for her whenever she was hurting, so she wanted to return the favor.

"Misaka… I-I think that I love him…"

Misaka's eyes widened, but she soon smiled. She opened her mouth to reply but was interrupted by an explosion that came from… the abandoned train yard.

Author's Note:

The most inconsistent updater is back, yay! Sorry for the wait, but I have five other stories from various fandoms to update, so I think the burden of writer's block finally got to me. I totally lost the motivation to write. But I'm back now, and hopefully I'll be able to update more. Let me tell you, as an author, your reviews are what keeps me going. The stories that get more reviews are usually the ones I update more, that's why this one is one of my most updated. Thanks to everyone who writes reviews for this story and I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

See you next chapter-Gabriel