A/N: Violence and gore warning.
Along the dark, damp valley, a group of five guys is enjoying the night like any other one, chilling at the calm time when nobody else is around. The leader, the tallest and most muscular of all, takes the lead while resting his hand behind the head.
'What a wonderful meal we've just had!' he exclaims, zapping his mouth in recollection of the lingering tastes from the dinner.
'Ya! I loved the fried rice especially!' shouts a guy with hair dyed in fiery red, which seems to be shining even brighter with excitement.
'Did you seriously love it?' a short and stout guy looks at the former in disagreement, 'the fried rice wasn't really as good as I expected.'
'What do you mean? Are you saying I've not tasted enough fried rice to make a judgement call?'
Although the other guy is much shorter, he doesn't seem at all intimidated by his more imposing peer. 'How good do you think you are, disagreeing with me on the subject of food?' he says provocatively. 'Don't forget who's standing in front of you - a Master Chef with fifteen years of cooking experience!'
The red-head guy steps back a little, knowing that he's lost the argument. 'B - But then...' he says, pretending like he can come up with a rebuttal.
'Putting that aside, don't y'all find the girl sitting at the next table in the restaurant quick pretty?' A bald man, sensing the awkwardness arising between the two, walks up and changes the topic to his favourite kinky interests.
'Ew, not again, brother?' That's a quiet voice coming from a nerdy, bespectacled guy walking at the corner. He's usually quiet, but every time he speaks he can get all the other guys laughing. His strange sense of humour is probably why the other four took him as a friend, considering they look and are so different in all other aspects.
Just like always, the gang broke into laughter, except for the bald man whose face has reddened slightly from embarrassment.
'But you've got to admit, that girl has the perfect physique!' he says as if more pervertedness can get the guys to stop laughing at him.
'Ya, ya,' the leader says, a smile lingering on his face, 'whatever you say then.'
Just when the laughter starts to die away, a huge explosion sounds off in the distance, causing everyone to pause and turn to where the loud sound came from.
'What the heck was that?' the short guy exclaims, covering his ears ringing due to the loud noise.
'Let's go check it out!' says the red-haired worriedly, looking at the leader for advice.
'Sure, let's get going now!' The leader is surprisingly calm, for his voice hasn't changed much. But the fast pace he is taking suggests his understanding of the urgency of the situation.
As they move, they start to notice black char marks appearing on the walls, constantly darkening the further they go. The good thing about this is that they have a clear direction to follow to find the scene of the explosion, but the flipside is what these marks suggest about what they will encounter.
And not everybody is on board with an adventure this thrilling.
'Let's not... go any further,' the nerdy guy says, his body shivering as he looks around himself nervously.
'H- Haha. You are so easily scared as, as always,' the bald man laughs and says, trying to act confident to conceal the fear consuming his mind.
The other two remain silent. Neither of them wants to be viewed as cowards, but neither can claim there isn't a chill creeping along his spine.
Only the leader seems determined. 'There's no room for fear! Judging from the situation, there must have been serious damage done, and if there are people injured, we should do our best to help them!' No wonder he's the leader, being so clear about his righteous aims and so unwavering about achieving them.
'But whatever that has happened... will be other people's business, not ours, right?' the red-haired doesn't seem quite confident as he speaks. 'Since we have always been excluded from the honours of society, why should we care about those people who don't really care about us?'
'Have you perhaps forgotten?' the leader turns around, looks ahead and says with a faint smile. 'It's basic morality to help other human beings, right?'
His words seem to have revitalised the frightened souls of his fellow men instantly, as they seem to have momentarily put their fear to the side and begun to follow the leader's quickened pace much more closely.
The alley brightens up rapidly, indicating they are fast approaching the main street.
The leader is the first to emerge out of the alley, but he immediately slows down as his eyes widen - which is strange, for doing so stings his eyes that have yet to adapt to the brightness. But as much as he anticipated the damage to be enormous, he didn't expect it to be this enormous - the metal protective barrier separating the tiled pedestrian path and the asphalt road is completely blown away for as far down the street as they can see, the lamps around are all barely hanging on to life, flickering the weak bits of light they struggle to emit, and the ground is covered in a shade of black that even the darkness of the night cannot seem to match. The only part of the ground that has retained its original colour is immediately next to a girl, who is holding something in her arms and facing the ground motionlessly.
Quietly, the other guys come out one after another, and none isn't looking around in shock before focusing on the girl, who they reasonably assume is the perpetrator of all the ravages. Their mouths are agape and don't seem like they can be closed back up, and their legs are shaking uncontrollably.
Once again, only the leader has managed to keep his cool. Recovering from the initial shock, he takes just a step closer towards the adolescent, and with a voice he has barely managed to stablised, he voices out his worried concern.
'Hello, may I know what's wrong?'
An awkward silence ensues, and unease builds in the air. While the leader stares blankly yet intently, a light-hearted bitter laughter comes off the side.
'You wanna come home with us, little girl?'
The red-haired guy shouts jokingly, with a nonchalant smile that he seems to always have on his face. Though obnoxious, this sort of sick humour that the other guys have grown used to hearing from him seems even funnier right now Every other guy except the leader has broken into an endless burst of laughter, covering their mouths with hands that cannot block the sounds from spilling out.
'Hey!'
The leader turns around to look at the guys, shouting them down with a stern voice. With full understanding of just how inappropriate joking or laughing is at this very moment and the uncanny fear that is creeping into his heart, he tries to stop whatever his fellows are doing before looking back in front, warily looking at the frozen adolescent. In fact, he cannot even understand how this girl is so good at remaining still like a statue. Is she even breathing at all? If not, how can it be that even her back isn't heaving like an ordinary living thing?
Just when the leader is thinking of approaching the girl, a creepy trail of laughter that sends a surge of horrid chill down his spine caused him to pause his movement. Looking ahead while pressing down the fear in his heart, he notices that the girl's breathing heavily, though the amount of sound she's making with her mouth doesn't at all match the magnitude of motion he can see. It feels less like the girl he's looking at is crazy enough to be making strange noises, but more so that he is getting so insane that his ears are detecting non-existent sounds.
But belief can be nothing more than belief, having little impact on reality. As the laughter turns into concrete sentences that, though barely audible, seem capable of piercing their quivering eardrums.
'Laughing at me, huh?'
Frightened and confused by the question, the men looked at each other as if the answer is written on those empty faces. But they don't have to worry, for they can be sure they won't be punished for not offering the right answer, unlike students at teachers' tyrannical mercy.
Not for that reason, at the very least.
'So- Sorry about that, miss! We won't laugh at you anymore!'
After a few seconds of the other guys pressuring him into apology with some quick exchange of sight, the guy that first cracked the joke apologised in what appears like a very sincere tone - though it isn't clear if his words sound genuine because he honestly thinks he's wrong, or because he is too terrified to admit otherwise.
For a few moments, the girl doesn't reply. Instead, she stands up from the ground and places down the thing she's been holding on to all this while, and what the men see comes at their horror.
Another girl.
To be precise, a short, slim and motionless girl. Her long, pink hair is too dazzling to look straight at, too obnoxious to be present in the dark night. In contrast, the bone-like white on her face seems just right, for death is the perfect theme for a never-ending night where light goes into permanent hiding in the face of darkness.
Is she dead? Why is that girl holding a dead person?
'Too late.'
Another creepy mutter yanks the men out of their thought, as they notice the girl they now dread looking straight at approaching them one step at a time. The hair that covers her eyes, is it symbolistic of her dark nature? Is she the person that has robbed the pink-haired girl of her life, by consuming it with the evil that is spilling out of her blood-shot, bestial eyes?
'It's way too late now...'
There are simply too many questions to be asked, yet nobody dares to even make a single bit of sound. It is so important to get to the bottom of everything that is happening as soon as possible, yet these people are too mentally unprepared to tackle the monstrosity that now faces them.
'There's nothing I can do... to undo... what is already done...'
For some strange reason, her words make perfect sense. But that reason is unclear. The men feel like they know what it is, yet they cannot point at it and elaborate. It is as if their soul is deceptive enough to know the answer, yet they have not managed to respond to their souls' calling. For way too long logic has guided their action, but now they no longer know how to act on instinct.
Like domesticated dogs don't know how to hunt.
That is fine as long as they are kept in the comfortable captivity human beings offer, living with artificial constructs that shield them from the environment they should have lived in: the dense forests, the vast savanna and the dangerous predators.
But what can they do if they face real danger?
'So maybe, as of now, I can only take revenge?'
The girl stops just steps away from the leader, and the eerie string of laughter succeeds the equally senseless statement.
Finally, someone has had enough. The nerdy guy, without saying a word, turns to his back and sprints at a speed none of his companions has seen him go at before. Usually, the nerdy guy makes the smartest decision, probably owing to the amount of formal education he has received. He also is always the first to make a decision, so it should be the best thing to do to simply follow what he has done.
That's what the other men thought.
The moment the girl notices the running guy, a smirk climbs up to her mouth, returning to its natural habitat.
Her right arm, stuck out like a sniper rifle aiming at its mortal target, seems to reflect just a glimmer of light in the darkest of nights - though, whether 'reflect' or 'emanate' is the correct word, no one can be sure. There certainly doesn't seem to be any bit of light that can be made use of, but is it even possible that a human's body can produce light where there isn't any in the environment. Most probably, it is the men's hallucinations causing them to see what isn't there. Maybe the overwhelming fear in their hearts has caused their eyes to be so wide they have begun magnifying and overestimating the amount of light actually present.
But how does either of those guesses explain the fact that that glimmer on her arm seems to be intensifying, a fact which the leader is worriedly witnessing with his plain eyes? It cannot be that they are getting increasingly deranged, right? The change is also too consistent to be a natural coincidence, like the cooling down inside a fridge cannot be due to the rainy weather outside the house.
In that case, what else can the light stand for? Can it be an omen, an indication of what is about to happen? Maybe... electricity?
A normal human body cannot produce electricity, so if the light is in fact electricity, it must be produced by an esper ability. Electrical espers are very common, and they can range from level 1 all the way to level 4.
What about level 5s? The leader does know of the top-ranking esper who apparently can do everything in the world, but since attention is often paid only to those who attain the greatest achievements, he has hardly ever heard of anything about the remaining six. Under normal circumstances, nobody ever needs to know who they are anyways, but the present moment is no normal condition. Although level 5s and level 4s are set apart by just a rank, the real gap in their powers, even if the comparison is between abilities that are fundamentally the same, is astronomical. Since the group of guys is made up of level 3 espers, that difference is all that matters in determining whether, if a fight does take place, they can get out with barely functioning bodies.
Those thoughts, though difficult, were made in only a second. He is surprised he can think that fast, but he probably shouldn't be. Every muscle of his is tense, preparing to fight or flee at any moment, and his brain, a giant overloading CPU, swells and aches as his body mobilises every single nerve ending to transmit electrical signals at lightning speed.
Even a sheep can possess tremendous strength when faced with life-threatening danger, and while an over-exerted sheep cannot escape a healthy wolf, doing that can at least prolong the suffering of seeing danger approaching, grasping with all its horror while helplessly watching events unfold.
As a surge of electricity blinds his eyes, he can hear a man screaming his lungs out and smell a piece of meat being instantly converted into charcoal. Vision slowly but surely returns, and the first sight he regained doesn't seem to suggest much change, only except that sparks of electricity are leaping around the brunette's body like tiny jubilant devils and her eyes now contain a raging inferno. Of the other things he cannot be sure, especially whether there is really a joyful look on her face as she looks ahead, facing slightly downwards.
Humans grow their eyes ahead of themself, and that turns out to be a major disadvantage for the leader. When looking behind would have helped him understand what has happened to his fleeing friend and why he just heard a deep gasp from his fellows, valuable time has passed, vanquishing the last hope of escape.
Before he was able to turn his head behind, he sees a flash of brown dashing right beside him towards his blue-haired friend who has just begun running. Only the endpoint of that assault is clear: his friend flies a few metres off the ground before hitting a wall and landing with a thud, blood seeping from behind his head and dripping down the concrete surface.
The remaining three, horrified by the brunette, can do nothing besides trying in vain to stop their weak legs from shivering. They are literally frightful sheep looking into a wolf's eye.
'What now, huh? Why don't you laugh even more?'
Eyes widened, they are listening intently to their death sentence.
'Why don't you keep laughing at me making the biggest mistake, ever?'
With more and more intonation she puts into her voice, the less and less the men dare to draw in a breath. No efforts are made to comprehend what she's trying to say, for the more useful assessment to make is not whether they will die, but rather when they will die.
'Laughing at... Kuroko's suffering... that I solely caused? Laughing because her heart keeps weakening, and I cannot get it to beat strong again? Laughing because she is struggling to get air into her lungs, as I sit by her side seeing her getting pale and her movements weaken every, single, second?'
For once, the guys see the side of her that isn't going to kill someone at any moment. Instead, they can hear the tone softening into a desperate whimper, and they can even see her eyes welling up with tears.
Maybe all is not lost. Maybe humanity hasn't died off in the girl's heart, and there is still a chance to appeal to it to rein in her most brutal tendencies.
Maybe what has happened to her friend will stop her from killing more people.
'We are sorry to hear that...'
The short guy says, holding on to that vestige of hope, but as he sees tears stop coming up in the girl's eyes and a smirk appear again on her face, he feels his heart sink into the depths of an ice-cold ocean.
'He... Hehe... "Sorry," you say? But that's so insufficient, don't you feel?'
As she says that, she walks right into the short guy, who instinctively steps back but cannot get out of the devil's dance. He's backed up against the wall, and the girl looks down at him, perversely interested in his shaky eyes.
'So, tell me, why not pay back with what you can afford? HUH?!'
As soon as the last sound is made, she launches her hands into his neck and presses them into the wall, her knuckles turning white as blood drains from her forceful fingers. The man, choking on the sudden lack of air, uses his weak arms to try and separate her hands. The girl, watching nonchalantly and laughing enjoyably, having the time of her life viewing the display of human suffering.
Hhis body is gradually deprived of oxygen, and he falls into a coma, at which point the girl is finally satisfied enough to let him go, falling right onto the ground.
Three down, two to go. The bald man is shitting himself - literally, as his overwhelmed mind can no longer control his bowel. And when he sees the leader taking firm steps towards the girl, he wants to stop his most respected friend just so that he won't have to die so fast. But the determined man ignores the tug at his sleeve, as the bald man stands frozen to see what fate bodes for him.
'What are you doing to my friends? Why are you harming them in such a way?'
Pausing a little bit but seeing no observable response from the brunette, he continues saying.
'Aren't you a human being? Don't you know how to sympathise with the pain of others? No wonder you killed your friend; you care too much about yourself to understand what is happening to other people!'
As he finally runs out of adrenaline and pants in exhaustion, fear once again kicks in and he horribly regrets what has just come out of his mouth. Upon hearing those words, the girl is silent but shaking. The sounds of her gritting her teeth shake the ground, and the whisper coming out of her mouth strikes human souls.
'Shut up.'
Silence ensues, but only for a short while, for a scream that almost pierces the men's eardrums disrupts it.
'SHUT UP ALREADY!'
The scream lasts for a few decade-like seconds, and electricity flies around her body in frenzy.
'YOU KNOW ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOTHING! YOU HAVE ZERO FUCKING RIGHT TO SAY THAT!'
She seems to have morphed into a monster, as the static discharge causes her hair to float in all directions like the tentacles of an octopus and electricity covers her eyes in a deadly white. That's too horrifying a sight to take, as the bald man decides that running away now is better than doing nothing in fear.
He hasn't learned a lesson from his friend. No predators like their prey running away like that.
With incredible speed, the girl runs towards him and grabs his shoulder and right arm in each hand, and with a force her adolescent body doesn't seem to possess, she rips the arm from the body, causing blood to explode out of his body.
'AAAAH.'
Immediately the bald man falls onto the ground, his left hand covering the place where his right arm should have been attached to. Before long, a thick puddle of crimson red forms on the ground, and the enormous amounts of blood loss cause him to faint.
At the same time, the girl covers her mouth with the broken arm as fresh blood gushes down her throat and clothes, coating the brown and white of her uniform with splashes of red.
'... Delicious.'
Throwing the now dry limb onto the ground, she turns around and stares at the last person, the leader, who is sitting on the ground with no strength in his limbs. Kneeling down and holding the chin that barely has any moustache, she whispers into his ear.
'Now, it's your turn. Are you ready?' she says, placing her palm on his temple.
'What... What are you gonna do?'
'Hehe...' she laughs devilishly, 'there's long been a thing I want to try out, you know? I've always wondered how much electricity can someone take before the brain shuts down, you know?'
Watching realisation hit the man, the girl laughs like a madman. Electricity crushes into her brain, causing bioelectric signals to go haywire and cells to shut down in defence. The body confuses the intruder currents as the original, and tissues in his body follows the signal and contracts violently.
'Now what, NOW WHAT, HUH?! NOW YOU WANT TO LECTURE ME MORE? AH!'
She has no intention of stopping even as his organs start to fail, as the voltage endlessly approaches the life-threatening level, for she doesn't actually cares if she does end up killing someone.
But suddenly, something cold wraps around her calf, and for some reason, the chill from it goes straight to her brain, in a horrifying way.
She feels compelled to stop what she's doing, and the place falls into a deadly silence. Pain spreads from her heart and shakes her mind from within.
Now that there's no more ambient sound, she can hear the sound behind herself, on the floor.
'Onee... sama...'
That voice, though weak, goes straight to her soul, shutting down the erratic evil that used to occupy it, and awakening its original form.
'She' is gone. Mikoto is back.
'What... have I been doing?' Mikoto looks around blankly before holding her head in a massive headache. Finally able to feel the blood she just drank, she barely presses down the urge to vomit. She looks around trying to recall what has happened, but a scream almost escapes her mouth when she sees the blood on her shirt.
'Onee-sama...'
The chill on her calf moves a bit while the sound becomes a little louder. And only that is something Mikoto is immediately able to respond to, as her eyes widen like an egg in realisation.
'KUROKO!'
Turning around anxiously, she sees Kuroko. Her eyes are barely open, but they are looking at her with burning hope. Her shirt is torn and, to Mikoto's horror, what follows her body on the ground is long, hideous trails of red. Blood is still oozing out and collecting under her body, as seen by the growing red on the side of her shirt.
'Kuroko! You... you're hurt...'
'It's all good, Onee-sama. You finally, stopped doing that...'
As she says that after giving a relieved sigh, she pools all her strength to collect a smile on her face.
'But, Kuroko, you're bleeding so much! What can I do?'
Worried and desperate, tears start torrenting down her cheeks, but a pair of thumbs gently wipe them away, and Mikoto's eyes meet a pair of auburn crystals.
'Don't cry, Onee-sama. Trust me, all will be good.'
As Mikoto looks at Kuroko's newly energised eyes, she is confused at what the younger girl means.
But a soft kiss lands on her cheek helps her understand.
Just like the sun will rise after a dark night, hope always follows protracted despair.
'I love you, Onee-sama.'
Mikoto doesn't know how to respond, but as long as she has faith in life, nothing is impossible. With faith, they are always ready to embark on the road to recovery, to heal the wound that evil has wrought and search for what life truly has in stock for her.
FIN
A/N: Hi guys, this is author Yuning :)
Personally, it has been really fun to write this story, which started from pure lemon fantasy but later evolved into something I didn't at all expect at first. It is also my first attempt at trying to write a darker side of Mikoto, and whether I have done a good job at it really depends on your judgement call!
As you can probably tell, I am a HUGE fan of Mikoto x Kuroko pairing. I just feel like they are so cute when put together!
Currently, I am planning to embark on something called a 'Mikokuro Chronicle', where the two will have a lot of fun falling in love with each other, and I will detail their love-filled journey, thus the name 'chronicle'.
Can't wait to write about it!
But sadly given my heavy academic workload, it will likely take months for me to publish. :(
Though, since I'm really excited for it, maybe I will manage to find enough time just to make sure it happens asap!
If you are also excited about it, please make sure you follow me to get timely updates on future articles, and if you've enjoyed this story, don't forget leave a favourite!
Till the next time!