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X.

Harum scarum

"His name was Kakine Teitoku"

"What?"
Mikoto blinked, staring out at the wide street expansion. The cars and people were passing by in blurs, but the only thing she noticed was the curled fist around the boy's crutch.

"The boy in your memory?"

"Yeah," Accelerator muttered, kicking a rock down the road. "Those fuckers used to put us in the same research building. Something about the Error Kids. I used to see him getting strapped to a metal bed while they stuck tubes to him and he would just stay there and happily follow their lead. Sick freaks."

If they really were receiving the same treatment, this really didn't make any sense. Mikoto frowned. "But…why? It's torture. It's…wrong."

"For most people," he scoffed, rounding at a corner.

"And the others?"

They stopped at a red light, swiftly blending to the strands of people in the streets. The sun was coming down from afar, casting shadows on the ground, disfigured and morphed. Accelerator stared after them, and remembered the last day of his life then, when a black substance rose up behind the door and drew blood after its trail.

"It's everything they had."

x

x

x

Uiharu's instincts were running wild, and trying to sort out the barrage of impulses and intuition was like trying to categorize a hurricane – like trying to differentiate wind from rain and rain from flailing debris. It's not just one thing; it's too many little things.

But more painful were the twitches and sparks of electricity running through her veins. She gasped, scratched around, trying to crawl away from the source of pain as much as possible and yet his hands and feet never stopped pinning her down.

Above her, there was laughter. Sick, mechanical laughter that bubbled up every time he twisted a limb in his grip. The guy was talking, warning her for something but she couldn't, wouldn't hear. He's asking for the little girl.

And Uiharu would die before she opened her mouth.

x

x

x

It had to be half an hour of them standing here and waiting for the blonde, and Accelerator was having serious trouble with keeping his patience in line.

"This is a fucking scam."

He said, to no one in particular but the girl in his head had a different thing in mind.

"Maybe her room is just too messy so she has to dig around a bit?" she shrugged. "Overgroomed girls are usually pigs at home anyways."

"I don't care, and that was unnecessary as fuck." She's been giving him more details about girls more than he could ever be comfortable with. It was annoying.

"You're more than welcome to come in and look for her."

She was definitely having a good time pissing him off. Accelerator was in no mood to have that.

"I'm giving her five minutes." He finally muttered.

"Ah, so generous."

"Shut it."

Even if he did say so, there really was something odd hung in the air. Accelerator usually relied on his instincts, and most of the time they weren't wrong. They couldn't be standing here and waiting forever if something bad was about to happen.

The street they stood at was getting emptier by the minute.

"It's only past six a bit…Where is everybody?"

Accelerator didn't answer, which made the girl huff. But Mikoto frowned, looking around them and making a quick scan of the area. They must have been thinking of the same thing, because in just a few seconds Accelerator already picked up his cane and pushed himself off the wall. He was definitely seeing something she was either, she wasn't about to object against looking for what it was.

As soon as he left the alley, Kuroko's voice boomed through the campus.

"The fuck is it now?"

Accelerator grumbled, but it didn't seem to stop the girl that was running towards them. He readied the switch of his choker, ignoring the yells in his head, and turned to the brunette. In just a few seconds, she's already managed to appear right before him.

"Wait, I'm not here to fight."

Kuroko said, breathless from her run. Her eyes were a tanned color of hazel, with pupils huge and dilated. She's seen something, Accelerator frowned.

"What?"

"It's…It's about my friend. Not Misaka. But our friend…Someone, I don't know who, but he has her and he keeps talking about a little girl but Uiharu wouldn't tell him where she is…"

Uiharu?

Inside, Accelerator could feel the girl piercing everything together through the strings of words the Judgement brat was trying to say, and as soon as the name came up, it felt like something fractured inside her.

Accelerator couldn't blame the girl, if the little girl Kuroko was talking about was who he was thinking of.

"Where is it?"

Judgement stopped on her tracks, and for a second there, the loud-mouthed brat had the nerve to look nervous. Accelerator was almost impressed.

"I'll take you there, but please, help her."

He nodded, but if the fretting girl in his head was any indication, he had a feeling there would be more than one person that's going to need saving tonight.

x

x

x

"She's...wary of you."

Accelerator had to mentally pause at the words. "She threatened to stab me with the needles under her skirt."

"Yeah, because she's wary of you," Mikoto said in defiance. "What did you do? Did you guys ever meet?"

"No, and why the hell would I ever come in contact with a crazy brat like that?" but then there was Kamijou, and Last Order, and the Railgun, who smirked at his trail of thoughts. "Ah, fuck it."

"I called her a couple of times but no response."

Kuroko called out, interrupting their little mental chat. The girl frowned when she noticed him looking up, but made no indication to address it. Her posture was tense and rigid, and Accelerator had to wonder if they had ever really met. He was certain only Shokuhou knew of his identity in that hellion of a school.

"Got a tracker?" he nodded to the badge on her arm, and the girl made a small flinch, subtly shielding her Judgement arm away from his view. Accelerator's brows rose.

"Y – yes. Give me a minute."

"Seriously, what did you do?"

"I didn't do shit. She's just scared." He muttered back in annoyance. It wasn't an unwelcoming notion, the fact that his presence alone could send people on edge, but there was something odd in the girl's stand.

"She's your best friend?"

There was a pause. "Yeah, why?"

"Does she know about Kamijou?"

"Not much, but yeah. What's the problem?"

"Nothing," he stifled a scoff. "She's just worried about what I can do to your friend."

"That's not a surprise."

If the Railgun ever got back into her body, he swore, but she wasn't the matter right now. The skies were getting heinously darker, and if his senses were right, he knew this thickening tang of force in the air.

"Accelerator – "

Mikoto whispered, grasping the atmosphere through his skin.

"Oi, your friend," he called out, stifling another sneer when the girl carefully turned back to face him. "She's in trouble, and if you want my help, forget whatever beef you have with me for meddling with Railgun for now. Just find the location and take me there."

For a moment, the girl – Kuroko looked lost, the hand that was hovering over her skirt dropped, and she nodded swiftly, holding up her tracker for him to see.

"Her name is Uiharu."

Accelerator frowned at the location, peeking over just to see a hand opening up in front of him.

"I – I'll take you there."

There was a small thank you in her trembling words, and Accelerator didn't take time to bore through it. Her only acknowledgement was a firm grip on her wrist, and Kuroko nodded grimly, closing her eyes.

x

x

x

For Kakine Teitoku, there was ever only one thing that mattered.

Not the blood they pulled out of him, or the serums they injected in him, the words and whispers and reports scattered on lab desks, because it never really mattered as much as a scrawny little kid in a caged cell, who did absolutely nothing and still owned the world in his hands – the only kind of power Kakine had ever needed.

"We really didn't have to do this the hard way," he muttered, staring down at the writhing figure under his feet. "I know I'm a scumbag, but I have my limits, and they don't include people like you if you'd just cooperated with me, girl."

The girl's limbs are bent at all awkward angles, her face tortured in pain and her lips are breaking out in little breathless gasps. The sight brought no pleasure to him, but Kakine wasn't in the blinds. He saw the little girl run away, saw his only chance of reclaiming his stance disappear in the crowds, and it is long past the time when he could still forgive. In a quick glance, he looked up at the people again.

No one dared to look at them.

"But, you've been of no help despite my generosity today," he sighed, putting away the Tweezers again. "Guess your time is over, girl."

The only response he received was a harsh whimper, the girl's crooked limp shaking in his grip. He twisted her arm back and watched with manic glee as she screamed. Her end was coming near, and he would be the one to deliver the final blow.

A crash, and Kakine felt it before seeing it come. The object swung by with a loud gush of wind that sent him reeling back, detaching the grip he had on his victim. Metals and glass shards from the ATM machine broke out on the pavement, and he whipped his head back to see a pale, crutching figure approaching. A glaring, sneering shadow.

Kakine smiled.

"Well, if it hasn't been a while…"

x

x

x

It was ridiculous, Mikoto thought, because he shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be leaning against the wall opposite from her in their little cave-mind, staring at her like he didn't just pluck an ATM machine out of the ground and chuck it down the street to the second strongest of their kind. From her spot, she could still see the other boy outside from afar, tall, brooding with a manic glee that was less than foreign to her. She wanted to grab his arms and shake him, slap him back to the reality facing them out there, but there wasn't any time. For once, she could not waste her breath with him on circling around the subject, so she'd just have to do what needed to be done, and say what needed to be said.

"You know I can help. You've felt it."

"Tough luck," Accelerator shook his head, the pale strands gleaming in the dark. It was almost surreal sometimes, the way he looked, unlike anything she's ever seen. Like glass shards under water – translucent yet always arcane.

"And why not?" she asked, holding her head high, and she realized that she might have to banter back and forth a little bit first before her courage was intact enough. It wasn't all bad, so long as it was only a little.

"You don't need an explanation," his eyes narrowed. "You just want to do good and get revenge. That's not how it's gonna be today."

He was my business, was the implication, but Mikoto couldn't help it. Uiharu's arm was broken and stepped on. The fury was fresh and burning inside her, and she knew he could feel it too, licking up every nook and crane like fire inside their shared space.

"Fucking hell, look."

There wasn't an 'at me', but his growl must have been enough, because the girl turned back to him again with a blink, small, slender hands were still clutching tight at her sides. Huge, hazel eyes were wide and dilated with inane anger.

"Pull your head out of your ass and think for a sec. If you want me to stop him, you need to get a better grip of your emotions." From the corner of his eyes, he could see Kakine turning around and preparing to strive towards them. Kuroko had already whipped out of thin air and dematerialized next to the unconscious girl, and in a flash they were both gone.

"I – I can't…She's hurt. So many of them have been hurt. You know perfectly well! So why don't you…"

But he only looked at her. Her heart was beating against her chest like a furious bird trying to break out of her rib cage. It felt awful. She needed to do something about it. Why wouldn't he understand this? She tried to make herself spread the fingers of her clutched fists, but all she succeeded in doing was pulling them back and giving him an intent stare of her own. At least, she wanted it to be an intent stare, but it probably came off as embarrassed and quizzical instead. It's been days since she stayed with the guy, and she still could barely hold herself together around him.

"Fine, look at it like this then," he eventually said, and propped himself off the wall. "If you fuck up, I'll fuck up. And we'll both be dead." He stepped back, and they were finally face to face, their eyes leveled. "Can you do it now, kid?"

"I'm not…," she said instinctively, before recognizing her mistake and mentally batted it away. "And if something happens?"

She'd already made the calculations in mind before they even came here, all the ways he could go wrong and they could be actually, royally fucked and dead. She didn't deliberately say it, although Mikoto thought he got the message, judging from the grimace she could feel him making.

Kakine was grinning at them.

"Protecting the weak wouldn't just magically make you a good guy, One."

"Maybe."

Accelerator's voice was thick and hardened, and Mikoto could feel it rumble through her like crackles of electricity. His power was denting the air, and she reeled herself back. This wasn't a battle, but a war, and she would have to stay and watch the destruction unfold. His steeled blood eyes the only thing she saw before he disappeared from their void.

"But even villains can have standards."

(TBC)

A/N: So I'm still alive, hopefully it'll stay that way after this upcoming final too.

Short chapter I know haha. I had this finished half-way since friggin March and it only got done today it's so sad. I'm gonna have a week off before a crammed 3-week summer course I have to take in June but after that I'll be flying home again which means free time which means lazying around and writing more eheheee. Wish me luck people!

Thank you for all the reading, following, favorites and reviews. They're great motivators. Keep them coming if you may~